Panipat, Haryana is one of the prominent textile recycling hubs in India. Due to a demand for cheap labour, children are sometimes employed in the factories as labourers.

Since 2018, Humana People to People India (HPPI) has been implementing the Action Against Child Labour (AACL) Project in three wards of Panipat district, covering the areas of Jyoti Colony, Wadhava Ram Colony, Vikas Nagar and Noorwala with an aim to develop Child Labour Free Zones (CLFZ).

The second phase of the Project called Child Labour Free Supply Chain (CLFSC) is funded by Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO.nl), Government of Netherland, Ffact (Dutch consultancy company), Humana People to People Baltic, Naath (Indian Import/export company), Jindal ( large textile factory in Panipat) and Netherlands-based organisation Sympany.

The Project aims to make a Child Labour free supply chain by following the supply chain of Naath and Jindal. It will follow the donated textiles collected in Holland to their recycling in India which are shipped from the Netherlands to Baltic for sorting. From Baltic, some of the recycling material enters India via Gujarat and from there it goes to Panipat for recycling and production of yarn for blankets. The main task for the Project is to make a child labour free supply chain, starting in the Sympany clothes collection in Holland to the recycling factories in India.

To ensure that no child is employed as a labour in the supply chain, the project team will work closely with the community, local district and state authorities such as the Child welfare committee/board; District Child Protection Unit, Childline, factories and the Child Rights Protection Force – a cadre of community-level volunteers.

Between October 27- November 17, 2020, the Project team will assess about nine Textile factories and both Jindal factories and suppliers to Jindal and buyers from Naath. At present, we have completed one survey with factory workers in which they inquired if there were any child labour activity in their supply chain and also if their own children are enrolled in a school, are out of school or working in any other that textile industry.

So far, in the first 9 days of the survey, the Project team has spoken to 452 workers, out of which 150 workers participated in the survey. The team have found 59 children who are currently out-of-school children (OOSC).

The next phase of the project will be to invite the children to be enrolled into a formal school or one of HPPI-run Sambhavana schools or Kadam centres, where their academic and social competencies are built up so that after 1-2 years, they can continue with further education.