India’s tobacco girls

Five-year-old Aliya thinks it is some kind of a game she must soon master to be a winner. From the time she wakes up till she goes to bed, Aliya watches her mother and all girls and women in her neighborhood consumed in a frantic race. They all make beedis—the traditional hand-rolled Indian cigarettes.

For each beedi, the roller painstakingly places tobacco inside a dried leaf taken from a local ebony tree, tightly rolls and secures it with a thread, and then closes the tips using a sharp knife. For anything between 10 and 14 hours, regardless of how long it takes, Aliya’s mother and others must all roll at least 1,000 beedis to earn a paltry sum of less than $2 paid by the middleman. The beedi manufacturers, however, make billions of dollars.

The cigarettes are taken to warehouses of large manufacturers, packaged and sold in the market for a much higher price. The beedis are so popular that they make for nearly half of India’s entire tobacco market. But behind the country’s unorganized domestic tobacco sector lie invisible millions who are trapped in modern-day economic slavery.

In Aliya’s town of Kadiri in Andhra Pradesh alone, hundreds of families have for generations relied on beedi rolling as their only means of survival. The labyrinthine, congested lanes of Kadiri slums are home to an assembly line of humans functioning like robots. Young girls and women alike roll cigarettes in groups out in the open. Some sway and some rock back and forth, appearing entranced as they push their work speed to the edge of human limits. For most, if they do not roll enough beedis every day, there simply will not be food on the plate. “The pressure to meet the target is so intense that many skip their meals and avoid drinking water so they do not have to go to toilet,” says Shanu, a community volunteer.

Almost all beedi workers in Kadiri, like the other beedi manufacturing pockets in India, are female, and a large number of them are young girls. The home-based process is preferred by men over sending women and girls outside for work. Aliya has already started her lessons early and is practicing rolling beedis using cuttings of plain paper. “I want to roll beedis and give money to my mother,” she says.

A study released nearly three years ago estimated a scandalous number of over 1.7 million children working in India’s beedi rolling industry. Children are knowingly engaged by manufacturers as their nimble hands are considered more adept at rolling cigarettes. Under the Indian law, beedi rolling is defined as hazardous work, but a legal loophole exempts children who assist their parents in their work.

“Formally, it is the women who take on the orders from the contractors. However, behind the scenes, given the pressures these women face in terms of delivering on huge volumes, invariably children, mainly girls, get pulled into this to support their families in beedi rolling,” says Anita Kumar of Plan India. As part of its global campaign “Because I am a Girl,” the child rights organization has started a program focused on girl child labor in Andhra Pradesh, including girls involved in beedi making. The project will collectively impact on 1,500 girls over three years of age. Children trapped in beedi work will, however, need a rescue effort on a much larger scale.

From unhealthy living conditions to exploitative wages, slave-like working conditions and severe health consequences, the situation of beedi workers involves violation of their fundamental rights and freedoms on many levels.

The health impact on beedi workers is visible on all age groups. Tuberculosis, asthma, body pain and postural problems are most common. Continuous beedi rolling leads to absorption of high doses of nicotine through skin contact. Children’s fingertips begin to thin progressively, and by the time they reach their 40s they can no longer roll cigarettes. Mahboobjaan, 35, is already losing sensation in her hands. ”My hands often swell up. I don’t know what I will do if I can’t roll beedi anymore,” she says.

The worst thing for beedi workers is the feeling that there is no protection, no welfare, no state support. For all development indicators, they remain at the bottom of the ladder all their lives. Even among them, girls suffer the most. Throughout their lives, their basic rights are violated—as children, as child brides, as young mothers—and they fight for survival through extreme labor and slavery.

In summer, as the temperatures reach 45 degrees Celsius, streets in Kadiri are engulfed in a stifling cloud of tobacco dust. Covered in sweat, young girls roll beedis with their eyes transfixed on their tobacco tray. Older women, who cannot roll any more, help with trimming the ebony leaves. The work continues till late in the night just to secure the next day’s meal and to keep a roof above their heads.

Next morning—and, for most, every single morning for the rest of their lives—it is exactly the same story. The breathless race to 1,000 starts with 1 all over again. (The names of children have been changed to protect their identity.)

Davinder Kumar is an award-winning development journalist and global press officer for the child rights organization Plan International. He is also a Chevening human rights scholar.