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From Our Own Correspondent: India and UK

India and UK

09/01/2014

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, India and UK

Brickmakers' rights abused in Indian kilns, and Britain's battle with coastal erosion

The terrible working conditions of brickmakers in Indian kilns, and the ongoing battle to protect the seafront in the UK.

India's economic growth involves the building of new factories and office blocks, which requires bricks. But how are those bricks made? Labour commissioners insist that conditions are good, with minimum wages paid and deny there are problems with child labour or bonded labour. But when Humphrey Hawksley visited kilns with a labour rights activist, he found people living and working in terrible conditions. And now new UN guidelines say that multinationals have to remedy abuses in their supply chains, including at the kilns that make the bricks for those companies' new buildings in India. 

Britain's coastlines have been battered by some of the worst storms of the last 50 years in recent weeks, worsening coastal erosion, and heightening the risk of flooding. A flood defence project along a shingle beach in Christine Finn's native Kent in south-eastern England, is meant to protect 1400 homes from rising waters. But as Christine remembers, battling the sea is nothing new.
Presenter: Pascale Harter
Producer: Arlene Gregorius
Photo: A woman carrying freshly-baked bricks in a kiln near Hyderabad, India

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