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USDOL’s Polaski Lauds Liberian Union for Work on Child Labor

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Liberian Union Receives Child Labor Award

by SANDRA POLASKI on FEBRUARY 23, 2011 · 0 COMMENTS

The Liberian countryside

I want to tell you about the remote town of Harbel, Liberia and the Firestone Agricultural Workers Union of Liberia (FAWUL), which has worked tirelessly to improve the lives of workers and their children. The union just won the Department of Labor’s 2010 Iqbal Masih Award, an award that Congress established to recognize extraordinary efforts to end the worst forms of child labor.  This award is given in remembrance of Iqbal Masih, a Pakistani child carpet weaver who was sold into slavery at the age of four.  He escaped his servitude to become an outspoken advocate against child labor before losing his life at the age of 13.

FAWUL won the award for their efforts on behalf of children on the Firestone rubber plantation in Harbel. For years, children had labored on the plantation alongside their parents to meet the quotas for tapping rubber trees.  FAWUL was established in 2007, and by 2008 it had negotiated a landmark collective bargaining agreement that reduced the quotas by 25% and banned child labor on the plantation.  In 2010, FAWUL negotiated a second contract with Firestone that went further.  Under it, the company agreed to provide children living on the plantation with better schools. I imagine the children of Harbel no longer laboring in hot fields, but instead eagerly going to school with the same bright hopes for the future as our children have.

FAWUL’s success shows how unions can transform the lives not only of workers but of children and how dedication and perseverance can make a real difference in the fight against child labor.  It is also a testament to the importance of international solidarity.  The United Steel Workers worked jointly with the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center and the leaders of FAWUL and other unions to organize training programs addressing child labor issues. FAWUL’s work has brought hope to the rubber workers of Harbel and to their children.  It is a model of what is possible when unions and employers work together to address real problems.  I applaud FAWUL for bringing hope to the rubber workers and the children of Harbel.

Sandra Polaski is Deputy Undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs

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Islamist Suicide Bombing Kills Somali Star International–Soccer Used as Tool to Prevent Child Soldiers

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[from BleacherReports.com]

By James M. Dorsey/(Correspondent) on February 23, 2011

Soccer star killed in Islamist suicide bombing in war-torn Somalia
USAF/Getty Images

An Islamist suicide bombing that killed a star international on war-torn Somalia’s U-20 soccer team and wounded two other players constitutes a setback for the squad as well as efforts by the country’s football federation to lure child soldiers with the prospect of a soccer career away from the Islamist militia.

The attack is likely to figure prominently when FIFA President Sepp Blatter meets Somali Football Federation (SFF) president Said Mahmoud Nur on Thursday at a Confederation of African Football (CAF) gathering in the Sudanese capital Khartoum. FIFA supports the SFF campaign that has succeeded in turning hundreds of Somali youngsters recruited by the militia into soccer players.

The three players were targeted by the suicide bomber when they walked home earlier this week from training in a heavily fortified police academy in Hamar Jajab District, an area of several blocks in the bullet-scarred Somali capital of Mogadishu controlled by the US-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) rather than the Islamist insurgents of Al Shabab, an Al Qaeda affiliate.

Under-20 international Abdi Salaan Mohamed Ali was among 11 people killed when the suicide attacker rammed his van packed with explosives into a police checkpoint. Players Mahmoud Amin Mohamed and Siid Ali Mohamed Xiis were two of the 40 people injured. Abdi Salaan was widely viewed as one of Somalia’s best young players.

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Consumer-labor group calls bizarre Missouri Senate bill to reduce child labor protections something ‘out of Charles Dickens novel’

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For release: February 24, 2011

Washington, DC—The National Consumers League (NCL), the organization which helped pass federal child labor laws in the United States more than 70 years ago, is calling a Missouri bill to bring back child labor “straight out of a Charles Dickens novel.” The 112-year-old NCL is condemning a bill introduced in the Missouri state Senate by Republican Jane Cunningham that would eliminate the prohibition on employment of children under age 14.

“Labor crusader Florence Kelley would be rolling over in her grave,” said NCL Executive Director Sally Greenberg. “This is a new low,” said Greenberg. “Those who are attacking labor and worker protections are now apparently willing to put children back into factories or coal mines.”

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Liberian Union Receives Child Labor Award

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by SANDRA POLASKI

I want to tell you about the remote town of Harbel, Liberia and the Firestone Agricultural Workers Union of Liberia (FAWUL), which has worked tirelessly to improve the lives of workers and their children. The union just won the Department of Labor’s 2010 Iqbal Masih Award, an award that Congress established to recognize extraordinary efforts to end the worst forms of child labor.  This award is given in remembrance of Iqbal Masih, a Pakistani child carpet weaver who was sold into slavery at the age of four.  He escaped his servitude to become an outspoken advocate against child labor before losing his life at the age of 13. Read more

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Forgotten in the Shadows of War

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By Cassandra Clifford

Female child combatants are overlooked both in the media, as well as in the rehabilitation process.  All too often, female child soldiers are also expected to perform sexual services for older male soldiers; in many countries of conflict, girls in armed forces are claimed by militia leaders as “wives.”

The use of child soldiers in armed conflict plagues our global society, as thousands of children continue to be recruited into armed conflict by both government forces and armed rebel groups in spite global efforts to combat the continued use of children. UNICEF estimates there are some 300,000 child soldiers actively fighting in at least 30 countries across the globe with the majority, an estimated 200,000 in Africa. According to PE Singers book, Children at War, he estimates that 43 percent of all armed organizations in the world use child soldiers, 90 percent of whom see combat. Read more

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Working More Than 20 Hours a Week in High School Found Harmful

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Society for Research in Child Development Press Release

Many teens work part-time during the school year, and in the current economic climate, more youths may take jobs to help out with family finances. But caution is advised: Among high school students, working more than 20 hours a week during the school year can lead to academic and behavior problems.
That’s the finding of a new study by researchers at the University of Washington, University of Virginia, and Temple University. It appears in the January/February issue of the journal, Child Development.
In a reanalysis of longitudinal data collected in the late 1980s, researchers examined the impact of getting a job or leaving work among middle-class teens in 10th and 11th grades. Drawing from the full sample of about 1,800 individuals, the researchers compared adolescents who got jobs to similar teens who didn’t work, and adolescents who left jobs to similar teens who kept working.
Using advances in statistical methods, the researchers matched the teens on a long list of background and personality characteristics that are known to influence whether or not a young person chooses to work; using this technique allowed more certainty in estimating the effects of working on adolescents’ development than in the original analysis of the data.
The researchers found that working for more than 20 hours a week was associated with declines in school engagement and how far adolescents were expected to go in school, and increases in problem behavior such as stealing, carrying a weapon, and using alcohol and illegal drugs. They also found that things didn’t get better when teens who were working more than 20 hours a week cut back their hours or stopped working altogether. In contrast, working 20 hours or less a week had negligible academic, psychological, or behavioral effects.

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US Department of Labor presents Iqbal Masih Award to Liberian workers’ group for efforts to combat exploitive child labor

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News Release
ILAB News Release: [02/16/2011]

WASHINGTON — Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis today announced that the U.S. Department of Labor has presented the 2010 Iqbal Masih Award for the Elimination of Child Labor to the Firestone Agricultural Workers Union of Liberia.
“This award recognizes the extraordinary efforts of the Firestone Agricultural Workers Union to combat the worst forms of child labor internationally,” said Secretary Solis. “The group serves as a model to others, showing that progress is possible and worth the effort.”
The Iqbal Masih Award was established by Congress to recognize the work of an individual, company, organization or national government to end the worst forms of child labor. The award reflects the spirit of Iqbal Masih, a Pakistani child enslaved at the age of four who escaped his servitude and became an outspoken advocate against child slavery. Tragically, in 1995 at the age of 13, Iqbal was killed in Pakistan.

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26 Child Laborers from Bihar Rescued in Delhi

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(PTI) Twenty-six child labourers trafficked from Bihar were rescued and eight employers detained by authorities from south Delhi.

The Delhi Police and the task force against child labour conducted the rescue operation in Jamia Nagar area yesterday, said an official of child rights NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), representatives of which also took part in the raid. Read more

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UN Secretary General Calls for Greater Efforts to Tackle Child Rights Violations in Afghanistan

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Greater efforts are needed to end grave violations against children in Afghanistan, including their use as child soldiers, sexual violence, killing and maiming, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says in a new report to the Security Council.

In his report on children and armed conflict in Afghanistan, covering the period from 1 September 2008 to 30 August 2010, Mr. Ban acknowledges that progress has been made since his last report, especially in terms of dialogue with the Government on the protection of children.

Last month the UN and the Afghan Government signed an agreement in which the country made a commitment to protect children affected by armed conflict and to prevent the recruitment of minors into the national armed forces.

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UN reports ‘grave violations’ against children in Chad including child soldiers and rapes

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By Edith M. Lederer, The Associated Press | The Canadian Press – Tue, 15 Feb, 2011 7:46 PM EST

A U.N. task force has documented “grave violations” against children in the poverty-stricken central African nation of Chad including recruitment of child soldiers, deaths and injuries, and sexual violence against girls, according to a report circulated Tuesday.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in the report to the Security Council that the level and extent of attacks in Chad in 2010 were not as high as 2009 but were still “unacceptable.”
The report, covering the period from July 2008 to December 2010, said boys and girls as young as 12 years old are still being recruited by the Chadian National Army and armed groups and warned that rape and sexual violence continue to be “a widespread phenomenon.”
Eastern Chad has suffered a spillover from the Darfur conflict in part because many rebels come from tribes that overlap the Chad and Sudan border. Some Darfur rebels have had bases in Chad, and the Chadian groups have had bases in Sudan, but cross-border fighting has been limited for about a year because the two governments have improved relations.

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