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Child Labor is Growing: Which Side are the Democracies On?

October 18, 2021 in /by

CHILD LABOR IS GROWING: WHICH SIDE ARE DEMOCRACIES ON?

This is the Year for the Elimination of Child Labor. What can democracies do to make this a reality?
By  |

According to the International Labor Organization’s latest report last fall, despite years of declining rates worldwide, child labor is indeed on the rise again. And the increase began before COVID exacerbated the situation.

Shortly before Bolsonaro issued his statement, more than a dozen anti-child labor organizations from Central and South America came together in Costa Rica to take stock of the struggle and make plans for 2021, the UN-designated Year for the Elimination of Child Labor. One challenge had become clear: the surge in right-wing authoritarian governments across Latin America has threatened years of progress.

“This is particularly worrying,” said Kailash Satyarthi, founder of the Global March Against Child Labor, in 2019, “since Latin America has seen some of the most significant progress over the past decade to eliminate child labor.” Satyarthi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for his decades of rescuing tens of thousands of child laborers and advocating for the rights of children.

From the viciously anti-civil rights platform of Bolsonaro to the string of authoritarian governments coming to power in Central America, child labor activists in the region feel embattled and under pressure. The forum participants from Nicaragua said flatly they would not be able to hold such a meeting of child labor groups in the current atmosphere in their country. Fortunately, the government of Costa Rica remains committed to this process and aspires to be the first country in the world to eliminate child labor.

… Read the rest

187 Organizations Endorse Legislation (CARE Act) to Close Child Labor Loopholes that Endanger the Health, Safety and Educational Development of Farmworker Children

October 4, 2021 in , , , , , /by

The Child Labor Coalition is reaching out for organizational endorsements of the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment and Farm Safety, H.R. 3394, which would end exploitative child labor in U.S. agriculture. [This is the bill number in the 116th Congress. We expect the bill to be reintroduced soon in the 117th Congress.]

187 great national, regional, and state-based groups have endorsed this much-needed legislation.

We ask organizations to help us advance this vital legislation which would remove the exemptions to the Fair Labor Standards Act that allow children to work unlimited hours in agriculture at the age of 12; these exemptions also allow child farmworkers to perform hazardous work at the age of 16. A text of the bill can be found here.

The educational impact of child labor on U.S. farmworker children has been devastating. We estimate that two out of three children who work in the fields drop out of school.

Rep. Roybal-Allard’s press release explains why there is an urgent need to protect farmworker children and how the bill accomplishes this.

Organizations that wish to add their names to the list of endorsers, please email reidm@nclnet.org .

The 187 groups below have endorsed the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment and Farm Safety between 2019 and 2021:

Action for Children North Carolina

AFL-CIO

Alianza Nacional de Campesinas

Alliance for Justice

American Academy of Pediatrics

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)

American Federation of Teachers

American Medical Women’s Association

Amnesty International USA

Asian Americans Advancing Justice — AAJC

Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance

Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs

Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers (AWPPW)

Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, & Grain Millers International Union

Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, & Grain Millers International Union, Local 351 (NM)

Bank Information Center

Beyond Borders

Beyond Pesticides

Bon Appétit Management Company

California Human Development

California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation

Casa de Esperanza: National Latin@ Network for Healthy Families and Communities

CATA – Farmworkers’ Support Committee (NJ, PA, MD)

Center for Childhood & Youth Studies, Salem State University (MA)

Center for Human Rights of Children, Loyola University

Center for Progressive Reform

Centro de los Derechos del Migrante

Child Labor Coalition

Child Welfare League of America

Children’s Alliance (Washington State)

CLASP

Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking̶̶—CAST

Coalition of Immokalee Workers

Coalition on Human Needs

Communications Workers of America

Community Farm Alliance

Corporate Accountability Lab

CREA: Center for Reflection, Education and Action

Delaware Ecumenical Council on Children and Families

Dialogue on Diversity

Earth Ethics

Earth Justice

East Coast Migrant Head Start Project

Episcopal Farmworker Ministry (North Carolina)

Fairtrade America

Fair World Project

Families USA

Farm Labor Organizing Committee

Farmworker and Landscaper Advocacy Project (Illinois)

Farmworker Association of Florida

Farmworker Justice

Feminist Majority Foundation

First Focus Campaign for Children

Food and Water Action

Food Chain Workers Alliance

Food Empowerment Project

Food Policy Action Education Fund

Food Tank

Friends of the Earth

Futures Without Violence

General Federation of Women’s Clubs

Girls Inc.… Read the rest

Keeping Teens Safe at Work — Tips for Parents, Employers, and Teens”

April 28, 2021 in , , /by

Tips for parents, employers, and teens:

While work plays an important role in the development of teenagers, teens and parents should carefully think about prospective jobs that teens are considering and assess possible workplace dangers that those jobs might possess.

Tips for teen workers

NCL urges teens to say “no” to jobs that involve:

  • Door-to-door sales, especially out of the youth’s neighborhood;
  • Long-distance traveling away from parental supervision;
  • Extensive driving or being driven;
  • Driving forklifts, tractors, and other potentially dangerous vehicles;
  • The use of dangerous machinery;
  • The use of chemicals;
  • Working in grain storage facilities; and
  • Work on ladders or work that involves heights where there is a risk of falling.

Know the legal limits
To protect young workers like you, state and federal laws limit the hours you can work and the kinds of work you can do. For state and federal child labor laws, visit Youth Rules.

Play it safe
Always follow safety training. Working safely and carefully may slow you down, but ignoring safe work procedures is a fast track to injury. There are hazards in every workplace and recognizing and dealing with them correctly may save your life.

Ask questions
Ask for workplace training—like how to deal with irate customers or how to perform a new task or use a new machine. Tell your supervisor, parent, or other adult if you feel threatened, harassed, or endangered at work.

Make sure the job fits
If you can only work certain days or hours, if you don’t want to work alone, or if there are certain tasks you don’t want to perform, make sure your employer understands and agrees before you accept the job.… Read the rest

Child Labor’s Prevalence Perception Problem–What the Consumer Surveys Reveal

March 12, 2021 in /by

There are a lot of obstacles to ending child labor that the Child Labor Coalition (CLC) and its nearly 40 members confront on a daily basis. Poverty, governmental indifference, educational access issues, and a lack of awareness of the negative, long-term impact of child labor on children are all big factors, but another is lack of knowledge of the scope or prevalence of the problem.

The average American consumer doesn’t understand that child labor is a pervasive problem affecting an estimated 152 million children in the world – and that’s an estimate developed before the pandemic started. We think the number has grown significantly since COVID-19 began, throwing hundreds of millions of families into deeper poverty.

We became aware of the gap between the public’s perception of the problem and the reality of situation seven years ago when the group Child Fund International commissioned a survey of over 1,000 consumers. Only one percent knew that roughly 150 million children were trapped in child labor globally. That number translates to one in 10 children. It’s staggering to think about. Even more disturbing: 73 percent of survey respondents – essentially three out of four—incorrectly guessed that the global total was less the one million. They were off by a factor of 150!

It’s hard to galvanize public and political opinion to confront a pressing social problem when few people realize the massive scope of the problem and instead misperceive it as a tiny, moribund problem. If we want corporations that benefit from child labor to take serious action, we need a better understanding of the problem’s prevalence.… Read the rest