Pain in Beauty
by Ashley Pernini
March 2010
Beauty, glamour, looks: these are all things that society and the public are telling women of all ages to be. The make up and cosmetic industry is growing rapidly each and every year. Young women especially use whatever products are available to them to look a certain way. Unfortunately, there are tens of thousands of children suffering in child slave labor to help produce the make up on these peoples faces. Young children search for mica, work unbearable laborious hours, and don’t get paid well enough to survive.
In the jungle of Jharkhand, which lies in eastern India, young children work unimaginable hours almost everyday of their lives to dig for mica. Mica is a shiny material used to add a sparkle or gloss to eye shadows and lip stick. Mica is also used for cosmetic pigments, paints, and electrical goods. Children dig in rocks and dirt to try to find this material. They often sit in open mines that are about fifteen by ten feet long. Loose gravel and rocks often fall on the children and some have even been buried alive and died. It is reported that children as young as six years old are digging for mica in the hot jungle. Many activists groups are perplexed by this idea. "It is most disturbing that six-year-old girls are involved in mines to beautify ladies all over the world," said Bhuwan Ribhu, from the child rights group Bachpan Bachao Andolan.
A report from The Sunday Times estimated that there could be tens of thousands of children working in this one region. According to the report, the mica passes through the hands of local exporters who then sell it on to international companies. While this investigation and report was going on, The Sunday Times also reported that two German based companies were aware of the labor done by children in the mines. One of the companies, Mahlwerk Neubauer-Friedrich Geffers was quoted in the newspaper as acknowledging the problem while saying “children worked playfully in a family setting”. Another German company, Merck, is aware of child labor. A few of the mines for Merck's mica are in Jharkhand's Koderma and Giridih provinces.
The working conditions in the jungle are very poor. Children have to work in the beating sun all day, especially during the hottest times of the day. Many children say they fear disease and even death. Malaria is a huge fear in this region, especially in the middle of the jungle. BBA has stated “People are beginning to understand that poverty can not be seen as a reason for children’s exploitation and exposing the children to health and safety hazards like skin and respiratory diseases”. The jungle is also the home of guerrillas which pose a fear for the children.
Many of the children that work in these mines don’t get a fair chance for an education. Because of the amount of time they spend in the mines, school and education tend to fall short. With the great amount of poverty in this area, many parents and families have no choice but to labor in these mines as well. BBA also stated that, “When we opened schools in the area, a lot of children took up education and an increasing number of children are going to school now. But still a lot of effort is required from the Govt. as NGOs can only play a small role for a limited time in providing the fundamental right of education”. Although the focus for laborers in the mica mines are on children, many of the young children’s grandmothers also labor in these conditions.
These young children often work twelve hour days. If the girls spotted enough mica, they might earn 63p each for a 12-hour day. If they found none, they would probably go hungry. These children work arduous days for as little as a single meal of rice. People in these places are so poor that in order to survive here, the children have no alternative but to work in a hazardous that produce these effect pigments. The mica that is found by these children go to the Far-east, America, Europe and mostly Germany. India is targeted by big companies because of the cheap labor it has to offer.
Mica can be hard to track, though. It is especially hard to detect when there are many other ingredients in a product. Even products that are marked “100% natural” can contain mica, such as Burt’s Bees Lip Shimmer. The main use for mica is body care such as nail, lotions, and makeup.
Child slave labor is not only a corporate issue or a problem in society. It is a morale issue. Hundreds of thousands of innocent children are working unimaginable laborious hours in horrible conditions. These innocent children do not have the chance or ability to make a better life for themselves. They are too poverty stricken to decide to go to school or to get an education because if they did there is a very large chance that they would die of hunger. Many of these children don’t get paid well enough to support themselves, and a lot of them are trying to support their family members who can’t work.
Both importers and exporters need to play a bigger role in ending child labor. One person can not end child slave labor alone, but many people joining the fight to end child slave labor can help raise awareness about this horrible moral issue. Big companies and organizations need to be aware of where their products are coming from and who they are being produced by. Companies should also have laws an regulations concerning child slave labor. Products that contain ingredients such as mica that are dug up by children involved in slave labor should not be sold in the United States. Even if companies sell their products in the United States that involve child slave labor, individuals should not purchase these products. People should also be aware of all the ingredients present in the merchandise.
Sources Used:
I. http://www.globalmarch.org
II. http://humantrafficking.change.org
III. http://www.cosmeticsdesign-europe.com
IV. http://newsx.com/story/58567