Hazardous working conditions in Indian leather tanneries and leather workshops

The pollution and hazardous working conditions inherent to tanning leather are only amplified in India.

The Thomson Reuters Foundation reported, citing a 2017 report by human rights organisation India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN), "About 2.5 million Indian workers work long hours with toxic chemicals for poverty wages in the country's leather industry, making shoes and clothes for Western brands."

"Workers often suffer from fever, skin diseases and cancer as they work with toxic chemicals and rarely have any safety training or protection".

"Accidents regularly occur with machine operators getting trapped, workers cleaning underground waste tanks suffocating from toxic fumes, or workers drowning in toxic sludge at the tannery premises".

"In December 2015, three leather workers died and two were hospitalised after inhaling toxic gases from leather effluent in a complex in Kolkata, [India]".

"Researchers spoke to Ramu, a low caste Dalit, who worked as a leather handler for a tanning unit where he lost both his eyes when acid splashed in his face. He told researchers his 13-year-old daughter now works in a footwear factory."

Arisa (Advocating Rights in South Asia) also found, citing the same ICN report, "Female homeworkers, responsible for a highly labour-intensive part of shoe production... face insecure and unprotected work, receive poverty wages and work under unsafe conditions. Moreover, children are often involved in leather production in India, mostly in the unorganized part of the sector, working in smaller tanneries and workshops." 

Child labour in Indian leather workshops

The United States Department of Labor released a report titled '2024 List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor', flagging 'leather goods/ accessories', 'footwear', and 'garments' for child labour in India.

A research study from the Fair Labor Association confirmed "the substantial prevalence of child labor in footwear production in the city of Agra [India]." Fair Labor reported "only 55 percent of children were enrolled in school. Of the working children...  half had never attended school at all, with many working at home, or in informal, small production units making shoes."

Pollution from Indian leather tanneries

Kanpur is commonly referred to as the "Leather city of the world", and is home to hundreds of leather tanneries.

A 2026 peer-reviewed study published in 'Sustainability Analytics and Modeling' found that during the leather tanning process, "large quantities of toxic chemicals such as chromium, sulfides, and arsenic are used", and that the resulting wastewater "is often either insufficiently treated or not treated at all and dumped into the Ganges River, leading to acute contamination of the river water." 

The Ganges River is a critical drinking and irrigation water source for communities across India, yet the study found it greatly polluted by partially treated or untreated wastewater from leather tanneries, with contamination so severe that "[fish] cannot survive in such polluted conditions".

Regulations requiring tanneries to treat their wastewater before discharge exist. However, the study reports that these laws are routinely undermined by "cheating, bribery, and non-compliance". In November 2019, India's National Green Tribunal fined 22 leather tanneries approximately USD 32 million "for dumping toxic chromium-laden wastewater into the Ganges." The researchers attribute this to a "chronic gap between stringent environmental laws on paper and their weak enforcement due to political protectionism, corruption, and the economic primacy of the leather export industry."

Slaughterhouses in India: Hazardous working conditions

India's slaughterhouses are severely lacking in basic protective equipment for workers.

A 2025 peer-reviewed scoping review found that "in India, 88.3% of [slaughterhouse] workers did not use gloves or masks".

The IUF (an international workers union) documented conditions at the Municipal Abattoir in Mumbai, India, where 700 casual workers worked "full time for 364 days a year" and were "denied the same rights and benefits of permanent workers."

The IUF reported that "the abattoir provides no boots, aprons, masks, or gloves or any other equipment. The workers work with bare hands and in sandals or barefoot" and that "in the 'privatized' zone there are no washing facilities or even drinking water" and that workers were "denied social security, medical insurance and paid sick leave". 

The IUF also found, "The compulsion of low piece-rate wages means long working hours, with most workers finishing at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning. Carrying their own knives used for slaughtering and cutting (since no tools are provided at the Municipal abattoir), workers are regularly harassed by the police when returning home."

Slaughterhouses in India: Child labour

In May 2024, 57 minors, including 31 girls and 26 boys (some of whom were disabled), were rescued from the International Agro Foods slaughterhouse in Ghaziabad, India, in a joint raid by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and Uttar Pradesh Police. NCPCR chief Priyank Kanoongo stated, "all of them were being made to slaughter animals there". The Times of India reported that the youngest children were only eight years old. 

Raids like this case are rare. Most slaughterhouses that engage in illegal activity like child labour don't get raided, and the children inside stay hidden. Generational poverty combined with sustained demand for meat, dairy and leather means this will keep happening.