image
epa01205675 A picture dated 06 April 2007 shows Nafis smiling as work was delayed due to the rain at a brick kilns near Meerut city, India. The migrant worker involves his whole family because production time is limited and the more bricks they make, the more money they get. In India there has always been a continuous migration of workers, especially from villages to industrial centres, in search of better standards of living and at times due to the sheer need to survive. The Indian brick industry is the second largest in the world after China. Brick kilns and factories are mainly operational in rural and semi urban areas of northern Indian states like Uttar Pradesh. Seventy-five per cent of Indias population lives in the countryside and most migrant workers belong to rural areas with the poorest economic indicators. The children of these workers have no access to education, nor can their parents afford it. Many of them work along with their parents at the kilns, while others, some as young as 8 or 9 look after infant siblings. EPA/HARISH TYAGI