Vulnerable, still

Published : Dec 20, 2002 00:00 IST

The death of 16 women and children in the fire in a match factory in Tamil Nadu brings to the fore issues such as child labour and inadequate safety measures in the match and fireworks industries.

SIXTEEN-year-old Sudalai of Paneerkulam village in Tamil Nadu's Toothukudi district is battling for life, along with 34 others at the Kovilpatty Government Hospital, after suffering severe burn injuries on September 24 in a fire that engulfed Star Match Works in Muddukkumeendampatti village. Sixteen women and girls died in the accident. Many of those who survived are disabled and disfigured for life. Only a few managed to escape with minor injuries.

The Muddukkumeendampatti incident is yet another example of accidents that have been happening in Tamil Nadu's match and fireworks units with alarming regularity, exposing the lax safety norms prevalent in the industries. These match and fireworks factories also operate with an utter disregard for the law, including the Child Labour Act (1986) and the Factories Act (1950).

A striking feature of this accident is that all the victims are women, aged between 13 and 42. The unit, like several others in the area, mechanised a part of its production four years ago, displacing men workers. For every three men who work on the machines, 100 girls pack the finished sticks into boxes.

A 24-member team from the Campaign Against Child Labour (CACL), a national coalition of 1,200 organisations working towards eradicating child labour, probed the accident and released a report on November 22. They found that women comprised over 90 per cent of the labour force in the match units and most of these workers were girls between the ages of 14 and 18 years. A household sample survey by CACL showed that while 70 per cent of the boys in the area attended school, 80 per cent of the girls worked full-time in match units. More striking is the CACL finding that children, particularly girls, are employed in large numbers in these units.

A review of the school records of the children working in these units corroborated the CACL finding that most of them were too young by law to work. Most girls had joined the factory after completing Standard V and several of the 110 girls who were working in the match unit on the day of the accident were between the ages of 13 and 16 and had been working there since they were 10. Thangavel, the father of 15-year-old Mariammal, of Villicherry village who has been working in the unit for two years, says: "All girls in this area stop studying after Standard V as the middle school is away, in Kayatharu. We consider it safer for girls to go as a group to the factory than to the middle school, which is 8 km away."

All the girls who work in Star Match Works and other units in the area live in the villages of Paneerkulam, Pudukottai, Villicherry, Idaiseval, Karisalkulam and Sathirapatti, which lie in a 35 to 40 km radius, and are picked up from their homes between 3.30 a.m. and 4 a.m. by the factory bus. The girls carry their breakfast and lunch with them. The 12-hour work-day starts at 6.30 a.m. and the workers are given two 10-minute breaks. Most girls get back home at 8.30 p.m. They are paid on a piece-rate basis and, usually a 12-hour work-day earns them Rs.30.

Little wonder that R. Navaneetham, one of the four brothers who own Star Match Works (one of the nine units under Rose Matches Private Limited, which manufactures the popular brand of `Rose' match boxes), says: "The children are ours during daytime and their parents' only off work."

Yet, Toothukudi District Collector R. Thiagarajan says: "There is no question of employing child labour in these units. The persons who were working there were all above 16 years." According to V. Ramarajan, Inspector of Police, Nalatinputtur, who inspected the site immediately after the accident and filed the First Information Report (FIR), two children under the age of 14 were severely burnt in the accident.

Deputy Chief Inspector of Factories (Palayamkottai) S.R. Chandramohan says: "I visit the factory once every six months. During my last visit all safety measures were found to be adequate and there were no children working there. The fact that there were no persons below the age of 14 working in the factory was certified by medical officers.'' But the age certificates that the employers exhibit provide no significant evidence. Ganapathy of Kayatharu, whose 15-year-old sister Radhika has been working in the factory for two years, says: "Two years ago, when Radhika was 13, the employers got her age certified as 16 by a medical officer."

Cases have been registered against the owners of Star Match Works under Sections 286, 337, 304 (A) of the IPC and 25 (1)(a) of the Arms Act, but they are now free, having obtained anticipatory bail.

Navaneetham says: "We are deeply disturbed. We are one of the largest manufacturers of matchsticks in the area and have been in this business since 1974. We own nine such units and have over 1,000 people working for us. This kind of an accident has never happened before." The owners of Star Match Works have made a commitment to compensate the families of the deceased with Rs.2 lakhs (Rs.50,000 now and the rest in the form of a seven-year bank deposit) and have also agreed to give Rs.25,000 to Rs.30,000 to the injured. The owners promise to strengthen further the safety measures in the factory, which, they say, were already adequate.

According to the FIR, there were four fire extinguishers in the factory. But, no one knew how to use them. Also, other mandatory requirements of factories using hazardous substances, such as stocking buckets filled with sand in the premises and making provision for water, were not met. Nor was any employee trained in precautionary measures or told of safety norms.

Mariammal of Pudukottai village, who escaped with minor burns, says: "None of us knew what we had to do when we saw the fire." Previously, when a fire occured, men workers put it out using wet gunny bags. This time there was no male worker on the premises.

The situation was compounded by the absence of an exit on the eastern side. Also, the mobility of the girls was curtailed by trays of match sticks and empty match boxes, which were piled on the floor.

According to Rule 95 of the Factories Rules (1950), close platforms, passages, and gangways should be free of all obstructions, even temporary ones. Further, Rule 7 states that the department in which finished matches are stored should be separated from all other departments by fireproof walls, and doors and other adequate means should be provided to escape in case of fire.

The flooring of the factories is also important. According to Rule 3(f) of Schedule XXIV of Rule 95 of the Factories Rules 1950, the floors of all work rooms should be covered completely by rubber sheets of 3 mm thickness and with a smooth surface.

These rules were not followed in the unit. Nor were the girls provided mandatory fire-resistant aprons.

The fact that none of the safety measures required by the Factory Act and Rules and Explosives Act and Rules were followed in the unit only shows up the poor enforcement on the part of the authorities. B. Sundaram, Inspector of Factories, Kovilpatty, says that there is a dearth of staff to monitor the factories and also mentions that three posts of Assistant Factory Inspector and one of Factory Inspector have been lying vacant for a long time. Chandramohan said: "There are 700 to 800 factories under `C' sector [those that manufacture over 120 million match sticks a year] and over 1,000 units under `D' sector [manufacturing less than 120 million match sticks a year] in the area."

According to the reconstruction of the accident at the Star Match Works by CACL, on the morning of September 24, 110 girls, mostly between the ages of 14 and 18, were settling down, after their first 10-minute break, to continue with the drudgery of packing matchsticks in boxes. All the male workers had taken a break for tea. At that time, Muthuraj, the watchman, tried to drag a polythene bag full of chemical-dipped match sticks from the mechanised unit to the godown, which was the area where the girls filled the boxes. A spark caused by the dragging of the polythene bag set off a fire, which almost instantaneously spread to some 70 bags of matchsticks and 100 bags of inflammable materials stored in the godown. Those seated in the northeastern corner of the room managed to run out of the only doorway. The fire spread rapidly across the 2,400 sq ft premises, charring to death instantly six girls, who were a few seconds late in reaching the western wall, and severely injuring 57 girls, who remained inside the room, unable to run out because they were overcome by the heat and smoke. Ten of these girls died in hospital, and 35 are being treated for 10 to 36 degree burns. The fire was brought under control after three hours by fire force personnel who came from Kovilpatty and Kazhugumalai, and was put out only by 5-30 p.m.

Apart from indicting the match units for poor safety norms, the CACL report refutes official claims that there was no child worker employed in these units. There are several laws against the employment of children in hazardous units, and there is also no dearth of safety norms required by the law. There are numerous reports Harbans Singh Report (1976), Gurupadaswamy Report (1979), Tamil Nadu Sub-Committee Report on the Elimination of Child Labour in the Match and Fireworks Industries (1993), UNICEF Report on the Elimination of Child Labour in the Match and Fireworks Industries in Tamil Nadu (1992) and Tamil Nadu Government's Child Labour Eradication Action Plan (1993) pointing to the wide prevalence of child labour in Tamil Nadu and the importance of compulsory primary education. But none of these reports seems to have made any difference to the situation. Children continue to be employed in large numbers in hazardous units and safety norms are observed more in the breach. It is high time that the State government took serious note of the problem, and vigorously implemented the various laws banning child labour, enforced safety norms in these units and fulfilled its promise of compulsory education for all children up to the age of 14.

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