The Indian carpet industry, with a large and lucrative overseas market, is witnessing a decline in the use of child labour, primarily because of “social labelling” and non-tariff barriers imposed on them, says a recent study commissioned by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).The study has found, at least in the case of India the social labelling has worked by forcing the manufactures to cut down the use of child labour to avoid their produce being rejected or labelled adversely. The total value of carpet exports for 2002-03 is provisionally placed at $ 532.96 million as per carpet export promotion council. Apart from this the industry employed about 1,30,000 children in 2003 according to an ilo figure and not to mention a very large section of population of artisans, weavers, manufactures and traders. Social labelling was introduced in the 1990s for eliminating the use of exploitative child labour and improving the working condition for the weaving community by exerting pressure on the exporters/ suppliers to enforce fair conditions in the industry. A significant conclusion that can be drawn from the findings of the study is that an intervention at the economic level, linking trade with prohibition of child labour has yielded results, which simple legal safeguards like the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulations) Act, 1986 had failed to achieve. The industrial units, particularly those relying heavily on exports to american and european markets, will definitely welcome the study as in the recent years the exports had slumped following legislative measures as well as severe international and domestic criticism of the use of child labour. The study, released recently as a book Child Labour in Carpet Industry: Impact of Social Labelling in India by the Delhi based Institute for Human Development, was commissioned by ILO as part of a global study on impact of social labelling on child labour. When the issue of restrictions and labelling of carpets first surfaced in a big way in early 1990s it sparked off a high pitched debate. The arguments ranged from nationalistic overtures against the imperial trade laws of the West to calls for weighing options between sustenance and blindly pursuing the demand by civil right groups. But the success, as it appears in the decline in numbers in the study, cannot be taken at the face value and any sweeping judgment would be premature. The study for instance, points out though there appears to be a decline in the incidence of child labour, the divergent techniques adopted for the estimation of child labour renders it difficult to come to a definite conclusion on this decline. It adds, there is thus a controversy surrounding the reliability of statistics and the divergent estimates on child labour in carpet industry.” There has also been a decline in the Indian carpet exports as it has been replaced by Iran and Pakistan as the major exporters of carpets. [Source: Navhind Times, India]