xtreme heat that could instantly burn them critically without any safety precautions. Sailkot is also home to one of the largest soccer ball industries in the world with 80 percent of 36m balls that are sold worldwide annually being produced in this town. One in five of the 30,000 stitchers in the town of 300,000 inhabitants are children paid an average of 75 cents per day. We have laws (prohibiting child labour), but the government has found its not always possible to enforce them in a country as large as India, stated Indias Finance Minister. With the growing publicity that this subject has been getting internationally in recent years, some steps are being taken to help end this practice. In 1996 FIFA, the world governing body for the sport of soccer, discovered that soccer balls branded with the FIFA approval stamp and being used in championship games were being partially made with the aide of child labour, they decided to take action. Children as young as nine were making these balls in Sialkot, India, making 75 cents to stitch balls that retailed for $75 dollars. FIFA, with the help of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions drafted an agreement that all producers of officially licensed FIFA soccer balls must follow to maintain their FIFA licensed status. Under this agreement, workers must be provided with fair wages and working conditions with workers under the age of 15 forbidden. Under pressure from the West, the Indian government has developed a new plan thats goal is to free 2 million children from work by the year 2000. Under this new plan pays parents a monthly allowance of food and currency if they send their children to school instead of work. The Rug mark program in India and Nepal is also an example of an effective plan to help notify consumers of the labour practices that go into the products they buy. This program provides a label that assures no child labour went in to the creation of the rug and is paid ...
