News - #SolidarityWorks! © SAVE 06 October 2020 The consequences of the coronavirus crisis are increasingly affecting minors Mahdu and her little daughter were lucky. In the difficult days of the lockdown, our partner SAVE helped the young family to survive the greatest hardship. But the reopening of textile factories reveals further maladministration, such as the increase in child labour. According to the export association Tiruppur in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the export of textile factories and spinning mills fell by half in the months of April to July 2020. The closure of many factories and the immediate unemployment caused by it hit particularly hard migrant workers such as Madhu and her family. Madhu and her husband Kumar came to Tiruppur with their little daughter Sweta a year ago. In the nearby Blue Blossom factory, Maduh's man works shiftwork as a seamstress. Since Madhu hasn't found care for her daughter, she can't go to work. Her husband is therefore the sole earner in the family. With the outbreak of COVID 19 and the subsequent lockdown, the factory was temporarily closed. The family had little reserves at that time, could no longer cover their running costs for food, rent and other basic necessities and did not have enough to eat. The food aid of the regional authorities was denied to them as immigrants from another state. Our partner organisation SAVE has supported women like Madhu directly and directly with food packages, made possible by donations from the Corona Emergency Fund of FEMNET. Many production companies have now resumed work, but there is now a shortage of workers. After all, many migrant workers in need of livelihood have returned to their home provinces in the course of the lockdown. The shortage of labour on the one hand, the plight of families on the other, who depend on any income, has fatal consequences: In August 2020, with the help of local authorities, SAVE had to ‘liberate’ 133 underage girls from a spinning mill, who had to work there against their will. Reducing the increase in child labour is another challenge facing our partners as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
