Bimala Batra (19) from Nabarangpur district of Odisha has come to work at a brick kiln on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar city. She, along with her husband and another group of migrant workers from the village Kanakot, has come to work in this brick kiln since last December.
“We work here to lift loads the bricks on head to chimney to arrange them for firing and every day each migrant worker has to lift more than 1,000 bricks. Per 1,000 bricks, we get a meagre of Rs 100, which is very nominal. We are landless and have no work at our village. At least this amount helps to support the family,” she said, adding, “When I came here, I was two months pregnant. After a few weeks I could not continue working hard. My husband approached the owner of the brick kiln to withdraw my name from unit and he agreed,” said Bimala.
The brick kiln owner withdrew her name, but Bimala due to lack of information about nearby Anganwadi centres at destination place and the Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) hardly visited to these worksites. She is unsure about her partial wage compensation benefit under “Mamata” and the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme.
Pratima Nag (35) of Belpada village of Patnagarh in Bolangir district has a different story to tell. She along with her 5-member family has come to work in a brick kiln to refund the loan they have taken from the moneylender. Her daily work starts from 3 am to 12 noon and then again from 3pm till midnight. “We have come here as “Pathuria” and the entire family is engaged in making bricks. While my husband helps to smooth the clay, my daughters lift bricks to put in lines to dry. My job is making bricks; so I stand at a stretch 8-9 hours in the 3-feet dug whole to make bricks. For 1,000 bricks we get Rs 500. During summer season, though we get 2-3 hours leave, in winter apart from one-hour lunch break there is no breathing time for us,” said Pratima.
Here they come to work for 6-8 months and have to contribute maximum hours for production of bricks. Each unit prepares between 4 lakh to 6 lakh bricks during the season. So, brick kiln workers work for 15-16 hours a day in the open spending the entire time either making bricks, putting bricks in lines to dry, sharpening and cleaning the edges, lift, breaking coal and arranging them for firing. “Men help us to bring clay, smoothen it to make bricks and fire the furnace (chimney). Because women do all the work at kiln work site, including, cooking, cleaning house and taking care of kids, we never get breathing space for ourselves,” expressed another migrant worker Sonia Singh.
A visit to these brick kilns gives a detail idea how migrant women workers are suffering from various health hazards. Most of the pregnant women at worksite do not get proper health check up as they do not have information about nearby health centres and also no ASHA visits worksites. “Brick kilns situated far away from locality and the working women being outsiders they do not get access to Anganwadi centres. The work in kilns is hard labour. long working hours, poor working conditions and absence of basic facilities like toilets, safe drinking water and no crèche or rest room for them, their condition is more vulnerable. In our project areas we try to provide facilities and convince the owners to understand their issues,” said Saroj Barik, Programme Officer, MiRC, Aide et Action, the organisation working on migration issues in four States including Odisha.
Migrant workers come to work as a unit (man, woman and a child); so among them, the number of women migrant workers is nearly 50 per cent. “In brick kilns, women migrant workers are the most vulnerable in all aspects, be it health, nutrition or sanitation,” said State Resource Centre for Women project advisor Dr Amrita Patel, adding the employer or owner has to provide all facilities.
Women migrant workers, mostly the expectant mothers, are malnourished. Because migrant workers do not have access to subsidised ration under PDS in destination areas, they buy rice from local market rate. “We buy rice at Rs 20-30 per kg and some low priced vegetables. Fish and pulses are dream for us. Sometimes we bring for our children but the womenfolk sustain with water rice and pickle, even though they are pregnant,” said Rama Deep, another migrant woman.
The migrant women face multiple marginalisation as members of different socio economic class and caste and finally as migrant workers. The marginalisation starts from food distribution within the family which affects their health immensely. “Almost all families take advance from the moneylenders for which they get very minimum cash amount for a week for their expenses. As a result, they buy low quality ration which contains rice and minimum other items. The quantity being less, the men and children in the family are served food first with not much left for the women,” said Odisha consultant for Aajeevika Bureau Rukmini Panda. “If the pregnant and lactating women and children will be served with cooked food it will help to improve their health condition,” she suggested.
Because the work at brick kiln is hard labour, most of the time women workers complain about various occupational health hazards like problem in head, shoulder, spine, waist and cramps in legs. “Whenever we complain about any injury the manager takes us to nearby hospital and the medical expenses initially paid by them. But in most of the cases it is later adjusted from our wages,” said Tara Gouda, a migrant worker.
In the outskirts of Bhubaneswar city, there are more than 100 brick kilns operating and a huge number of migrant workers working in them from neighbouring States like Telengana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The sample data collected by Civil Society Organisation, Aide et Action, reveals that every year more than 2.5-3 lakh migrant workers from Odisha go to neighbouring States on distress migration to work at brick kilns. This year due to drought-hit situation in 11 migration prone districts, the number of migrant workers may add 30-40 thousand more. “To include these invisible groups in various schemes and policies; tracking of people and particularly women and children at both source and destination areas is crucial. Currently, our organisation is doing the tracking in some villages in western Odisha and planning to come up with a web-based tracking of internally migrant workers in Odisha. The tracking will provide better understanding of the mobility of people and try to include them into various welfare services and social security programmes,” said Umi Daniel, Regional Head, Aide et Action, MiRC.
For the first-time in the country, Odisha has been chosen as a model State for data collection on migrant workers and in the first phase four migration prone districts like Bolangir, Bargarh, Kalahandi and Nuapada have been selected for the voluntary registration of Inter-state migrant workers at panchayat level. “The National Informatics Centre (NIC) and Idcol Software limited are developing a software “Migrant labour information monitoring system”, which will be a digitized format to keep detail data of migrant workers from panchayat level to block to district level and include them in social security schemes. Data of women migrant workers will be kept in separate group to ensure their safety, security and welfare schemes,” explained Dr BB Acharya, technical consultant, Inter-state migrant worker cell, State labour Department.
Daniel continued, “Despite of the government regulations to have a crèche at worksite, you cannot find a single crèche, rather it is a regular site that new born babies are lying under tree sheds and other small kids playing under scorching heat. We did a study in 400 work-sites including Bhubaneswar where the difficulties of children in brick kilns, construction and stone crusher units were narrated. However, there is no attempt by the Government to reach out the informal worksite to enrol children and women under ICDS programmes and make access to other social welfare and security programmes”
Understanding the plight of migrant workers, steps have been taken to enter into an agreement through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the association of Odia persons in destination States to collaborate on pro-active measures for the safety and welfare of the interstate migrant workers from Odisha. In first phase, MoU with Utkal Association of Madras in Chennai, Tamil Nadu and Orissa Cultural
Association, Bengaluru, Karnataka have been signed. “Volunteers of these associations will visit all brick kiln worksites and see the conditions provided to the migrant workers. In case of any negligence they can bring it to the notice of the labour Departments of both the States and steps will be taken accordingly,” informed labour Commissioner Roopa Mishra.
She also stated, “In source areas while children are enrolled in seasonal hostels, in destination areas 100 of schools have been supplied with Odia text books to enroll and educate Odia migrant children in their language”.
It is definitely a good sign that both Government and civil society organisations are taking steps to prepare a data of migrant workers and ensure their safety and enrol them in welfare schemes. It is a way forward to minimise their vulnerability both at source and destination areas, and provide them a better environment to work.
(This article is a part of GAATW Media Fellowship-2016 on Women Migrant Worker)