Tag Archive for: CLC

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DR Congo: Hoping for a Brighter Future

By Christian Kilundu [from World Vision—A CLC member]

He was in primary school when he first met the rebels. They arrived and promised big salaries. The poverty and insecurity the children lived in could be escaped, they swore.

Of course, once inside the rebel group, life wasn’t as it was promised.

In the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), rebels continue to recruit children into their fighting parties as a war continues to unfold against the country’s army. In the 15 years of fighting, an estimated 5 million people have been killed, and more than 1.7 million have fled the area.

Boys who are not yet teenagers have been lured into the rebel groups and are used to carry ammunition, food and other supplies before graduating to other activities.

Below, one child recounts his experience inside the rebel armies and his attempt to return to a normal childhood.

“I am Dragon Mike*, I am 17 years old and a former child soldier. Read more

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Child Labor Coalition Announces Top 10 Child Labor Stories of 2011

List Points to Some of 2012’s Child Labor Priorities

Washington, DC—Advocates from the Child Labor Coalition (CLC), a group representing more than two dozen organizations concerned with protecting working youth, has released a list of the top ten child labor stories from 2011. The list represents international and American issues in child labor that received considerable attention in 2011 and what advocates hope is an increase in attention to exploitation faced by vulnerable child workers that has previously gone unnoticed by mainstream media.

“The year brought some much needed attention to serious child labor problems in the supply chains of some of the world’s largest companies,” said Reid Maki, Coordinator of the Child Labor Coalition and the Director of Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards for the National Consumers League (NCL). “However, we also saw a disturbing move in a few states to roll back long-standing child labor protections and a much-publicized attack on child labor laws by a presidential candidate.

The year’s 10 biggest stories, according to the CLC, included (in no particular order):

Apple acknowledges that child labor contributed to the making of iPhones and other electronic gadgets in its Chinese factories. In February, Apple announced that it had found 91 children worked at its suppliers in 2010—a nine-fold increase from the previous year. The company also acknowledged that 137 workers had been poisoned by the chemical, n-hexane, at a supplier’s manufacturing facility and that less than a third of the facilities it audited were complying with Apple’s code on working hours. In the year prior to December 2010, Apple had sales of over $65 billion.

Victoria’s hidden “secret”: children help harvest the cotton that goes into garments. Bloomberg Markets Magazine revealed in December that some of the cotton retail giant Victoria’s Secret uses is harvested by young children in the West African nation of Burkina Faso. The piece profiled 13-year-old Clarisse Kambire, who works on a cotton farm, where she said she is routinely beaten by the owner. By hand, Clarisse performs work that many farmers use a plow and oxen to perform and often works in 100-plus degree heat and eats just one meal a day. Some days she gets no food. Many of the children like Clarisse are considered “foster children” and receive no wages— most do not attend school. Limited Brand, the parent company of Victoria’s Secret, has annual sales in excess of $5 billion.

Read more

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Rick Montgomery Kansas City Star Response

Rick Montgomery’s January 2nd  piece, “Proposed Changes to Child Labor Law Could Affect Life on the Farm,” fails to note that the proposed Department of Labor (DOL) protections could save 50-100 kids from dying on farms over the next decade, according to the estimates of the Child Labor Coalition.  Agriculture is the most dangerous industry in which large numbers of kids work, and the proposed regulations are long overdue, representing the first significant update of child labor safeguards for agriculture in 40 years. The protections are necessary because of widespread exemptions to child labor laws that agriculture enjoys and will continue to enjoy. The “parental exemption,” for example, will continue to exempt from coverage kids working on their parents’ farm. Children will still be allowed to work on farms at the age of 12 as long as the work task is not known to be especially hazardous by DOL. We would ask farm families, isn’t preventing 50-100 child deaths worth some minor inconveniences? This summer two 17-year-old boys lost their legs in a grain augur in Oklahoma. The proposed protections would apply some common sense protections and save thousands of teen workers from needless pain and suffering. Read more

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New Child Labor Laws Expand Work Hours

[Waunakee Tribune]

Tyler Lamb
Regional Reporter

By Tyler Lamb

Regional Reporter

A provision inserted within Gov. Scott Walker’s biennium budget revised Wisconsin’s child labor laws July 1, effectively expanding the hours 16- and 17-year-olds can work.

The state’s child labor laws now mirror federal regulations, but is it a wise idea? Critics contend the change weakens labor laws and makes sure employers don’t have to pay a living wage.

Proponents challenge the measure will provide employers with the flexibility they need to stamp out the confusion between state and federal regulations.

Last month, a provision was placed into the governor’s budget bill by Joint Finance Committee co-chairs Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) and Rep. Robin Vos (R-Rochester) without a public hearing. The measure was later approved along party lines by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

Under the old rules, minors could not work more than 32 hours on partial school weeks; 26 hours during a full school week and no more than 50 hours during weeks with no classes.

The new law no longer limits either the daily or weekly hours, or the time of day minors may work. The measure also repealed a state law which prevented 16- and 17-year-olds from working more than six days a week. Teens of all ages are still banned from working during school hours. Read more

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Apple Report Reveals Child Labor Increase

Tania Branigan in Beijing

Apple’s annual report says 91 children worked at its suppliers in 2010, and 137 workers were poisoned by n-hexane

Apple said it had strengthened its checks on age because of concerns about falsification.

Apple found more than 91 children working at its suppliers last year, nine times as many as the previous year, according to its annual report on its manufacturers.

The US company has also acknowledged for the first time that 137 workers were poisoned at a Chinese firm making its products and said less than a third of the facilities it audited were complying with its code on working hours.

Apple usually refuses to comment on which firms make its goods, but came under increased scrutiny last year following multiple suicides at electronics giant Foxconn, one of its main suppliers.

Last month, anti-pollution activists accused the firm of being more secretive about its supply chain in China than almost all of its rivals.

The report says Apple found 91 children working at 10 facilities. The previous year it found 11 at three workplaces.

It ordered most to pay the children’s education costs but fired one contractor which was using 42 minors and had “chosen to overlook the issue”, the company said. It also reported the vocational school that had arranged the employment to the authorities for falsifying student IDs and threatening retaliation against pupils who revealed their ages.

Apple said it had strengthened its checks on age because of concerns about the falsification of ages by such schools and labour agencies. It also audited 127 facilities last year, mostly for the first time, compared with 102 in 2009.

The report shows a marked decrease in compliance on working hour requirements of a maximum 60-hour week with one day off. In 2009, only 46% met the standard; last year that fell to 32%.

Only 57% were compliant with its code on preventing working injuries and 70% or fewer met standards on air emissions, managing hazardous substances, and environmental permits and reporting.

But there were some signs of improvement in other areas. Compliance on wages and benefits improved from 65% in 2009 to 70%.

The report also says that 137 workers at a Suzhou supplier were poisoned by n-hexane, a hydrocarbon, last year. Previous reports had indicated 62 employees were affected and Apple had declined to answer repeated queries about the incident.

A spokesperson said it had “provided more transparency” regarding the company and Foxconn given recent concerns.

The report said Apple was “disturbed and deeply saddened” by the Foxconn deaths. Apple’s chief operating officer, Tim Cook, and other executives went to Shenzhen to see the facilities and the firm commissioned an independent review of conditions.

“I think it is positive that after such a long delay Apple has finally acknowledged the [n-hexane] problem,” said Ma Jun of the Institute for Public and Environmental Affairs, one of the organisations that criticised the US firm last month.

But he added: “This report shows that Apple is still not ready to accept public scrutiny … We have listed the names of some Apple suppliers but there is no mention of them [here].”

Debby Chan, of Hong Kong’s Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour campaign, said there was no way for others to monitor the behaviour of suppliers because Apple would not identify them or even say how many it had.

“I regard this report as a means of image-building rather than ensuring compliance with labour rights,” she added.

Apple said that immigrant workers in countries such as Malaysia had been reimbursed $3.4m (£2.1m) in “exorbitant” recruitment fees since 2008 thanks to its checks. It has also increased efforts to crack down on the use of potential conflict minerals and expanded social responsibility training.

It is unusual in publishing its audit report and said 40% of the facilities audited last year said Apple was the first company to check them for social responsibility compliance.

The report also said that 99% of facilities met its freedom of association requirements.

But independent unions are not allowed on the Chinese mainland and Geoff Crothall, of Hong Kong’s China Labour Bulletin, said: “It is Henry Ford-style freedom of association: You can have any union as long as it is [in] the Associated Federation of Trade Unions.”

Last month, Apple reported record profits of $6bn for the fourth quarter of 2010.

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Apple’s child labour issues worsen

Apple, the technology giant, has admitted that child labour is a growing problem at the factories which manufacture its computers, iPods and mobile phones.

In one factory it had found 42 children working on the production line and has now terminated its contract.

[The Telegraph]

Apple said that 91 children under the age of 16 were discovered to be working last year in ten Chinese factories owned by its suppliers.

By comparison, in 2009, Apple said eleven underage workers had been discovered.

“In recent years, Chinese factories have increasingly turned to labour agencies and vocational schools to meet their workforce demands,” said Apple’s report.

“We learned that some of these recruitment sources may provide false IDs that misrepresent young people’s ages, posing challenges for factory management,” it added.

In response, Apple said it had “intensified” its search for workers under 16, the minimum legal working age in China. In one factory it had found 42 children working on the production line and has now terminated its contract. Apple said it decided that the management “had chosen to overlook the issue and was not committed to addressing the problem.”

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Loopholes ‘put UK children at risk’

 [from the Belfast Telegraph]

The legacy of years of indifference to child sex tourism is putting British children at risk, according to a report.

Ecpat UK, which campaigns to stop child abuse, also warned that paedophiles convicted of offences against children abroad are escaping UK sanctions because of loopholes in the British legal system.

Home Secretary Theresa May should act to close a loophole which enables sex offenders to travel abroad for up to three days without informing the authorities, Ecpat UK said.

Director Christine Beddoe said the charity was “deeply concerned” that “the legacy of years of indifference to child sex tourism is placing British children at risk”.

“Data about British sex offenders abroad is patchy, rarely shared between authorities and it is uncertain how much ever gets on to the UK criminal records data base,” she said.

“The Government simply don’t know how many British sex offenders have been prosecuted abroad and then slip back into the UK undetected.

“Despite their ongoing risk to children and the fact that many of these individuals are known to authorities both in the UK and in the country in which the abuse took place, these individuals often fall off the radar.”

Its report – Off The Radar: Protecting Children From British Sex Offenders Who Travel – also called for a cross-Government strategy to deal effectively with the investigation and prosecution of child sexual offences committed abroad.

It went on: “We are concerned about the vulnerability of children in international schools and orphanages because of the lack of information-sharing between jurisdictions, and the fact that international organisations are unable to access the criminal records-checking procedures that would be expected as standard procedure by UK institutions.”

Ecpat UK stands for End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of children for sexual purposes.

Read more: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/uk/loopholes-put-uk-children-at-risk-15083426.html?r=RSS##ixzz1E3kMC74E

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Reid Maki/CLC Coordinator

reidm@nclnet.org/202.207.2820

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CLC Calls for the End of the Worst Forms of Child Labor on World Day Against Child Labor (2009 Press Release)

Washington, DC–Today, June 12th, the Child Labor Coalition (CLC), representing 22 organizations, including several of America’s largest labor unions, celebrates 2009 World Day Against Child Labor by urging consumers and the general public to take action against exploitative child labor.

“This week we also celebrate the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 182, designed to eradicate the worst forms of child labor,” said Sally Greenberg, Executive Director of the National Consumers League and co-chair of the CLC. “Child labor rates have dropped during the last decade but much work remains to be done,” said Greenberg.

“The ILO estimates that today 218 million children are still working in conditions that deny them their rights to a proper childhood, threatens their education, and their well-being,” said fellow CLC Co-Chair Antonia Cortese, Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which represents 1.4 million public service employees.

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