India has distinction of having the largest area under cotton cultivation in the world and has been a pioneer in developing hybrid cotton seeds for commercial use. The Indian cottonseed industry is also marked by the highest proportion of child labour in its workforce.

The local seed farmer justifies the continued and increasing employment of children, particularly girls.

'Cross- pollination work [with reference to cottonseed cultivation in India] is very labour intensive and a large number of labourers [are] required to do this work. It is also delicate work and needs to be handled carefully. We prefer young girl children for this task because with their delicate fingers (nimble fingers) they can handle this work better than adults. They also work more intensively than adults. We can control them easily. They listen to us and do what ever we ask them to do.

‘The most important thing is labour costs. Nearly half of our investment goes towards payment of labour charges. The wage rates for children are far lower than adult wages. We can reduce our labour costs considerably if we hire girl children. If we want to hire adult labour we have to pay higher wages. With current the procurement price we get from the seed companies we can not afford to pay higher wages to the labourers.'

- Sivaramakrishna, (Seed Farmer), Mahaboobnagar District, Andhra Pradesh

Full Story: http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/154549/1/5339