According to UNICEF, 1.2 million children are trafficked each year–many for purposes of sexual exploitation.
October 12th, 2012: The 28 members of the Child Labor Coalition (CLC) today expressed their condemnation of the shooting attack on 14-year-old education activist Malala Yousafzai by Taliban forces on October 9 in Pakistan’s Swat Valley
October 9, 2012 [Human Rights Watch interviewed 10 children, some as young as 11, working in tanneries. Many children work 12 or even 14 hours a day, considerably more than the five-hour limit for adolescents in factory work established by Bangladeshi law.] Workers in many leather tanneries in the Hazaribagh neighborhood of Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital, including children as young as 11, become ill because of exposure to hazardous chemicals and are injured in horrific workplace accidents, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The tanneries, which export hundreds of millions of dollars in leather for luxury goods throughout the world, spew pollutants into surrounding communities. The 101-page report, “Toxic Tanneries: The Health Repercussions of Bangladesh’s Hazaribagh Leather,” documents an occupational health and safety crisis among tannery workers, both men and women, including skin diseases and respiratory illnesses caused by exposure to tanning chemicals, and limb amputations caused by accidents in dangerous tannery machinery. Residents of Hazaribagh slums complain of illnesses such as fevers, skin diseases, respiratory problems, and diarrhea, caused by the extreme tannery pollution of air, water, and soil. The government has not protected the right to health of the workers and residents, has consistently failed to enforce labor or environmental laws in Hazaribagh, and has ignored High Court orders to clean up these tanneries. “Hazaribagh’s tanneries flood […]
October 4th, 2012: The smoking habits of the presidential candidates keep coming up: Barack Obama’s efforts to quit, Mitt Romney’s abstention
[News from the Raise the Bar, Hershey! Campaign:] Coalition urges Hershey and all chocolate companies to go 100% Fair Trade The Raise the Bar, Hershey! Campaign (www.raisethebarhershey.org) welcomed today’s announcement from the Hershey Co. (HSY) that it will be certifying 100 percent of its cocoa by 2020 and urged the chocolate giant to go 100 percent Fair Trade with incremental benchmarks. Hershey appeared to join its main rival Mars in announcing its target for certification with a 2020 deadline. Many other smaller chocolate companies are already 100 percent certified, a number of them using Fair Trade certification, the most rigorous certification for identifying and remediating the Worst Forms of Child Labor. The Raise the Bar, Hershey! Campaign released the following joint statement: “The Raise the Bar, Hershey! campaign is pleased that Hershey is announcing 100 percent certification for its cocoa by 2020. To truly address child labor, Hershey needs to make sure it is certifying all of its cocoa Fair Trade, the only certification that adequately addresses the Worst Forms of Child Labor. Hershey should certify and label one of its top-selling, brand name bars Fair Trade within the next year, and should certify and label all of its chocolates Fair Trade by 2020. We urge Hershey to reveal how the company plans to get to 100% certification by disclosing […]
According to a Tulane University study, 40 per cent of the 820,000 children working in cocoa in Ivory Coast are not enrolled in school, and only about 5 per cent of the Ivorian children are paid for their work.
The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release September 28, 2012 Presidential Memorandum — Presidential Determination with respect to the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008 MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE SUBJECT: Determination with Respect to the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008 Pursuant to section 404 of the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008 (CSPA) (title IV, Public Law 110-457), I hereby determine that it is in the national interest of the United States to waive the application of the prohibition in section 404(a) of the CSPA with respect to Libya, South Sudan, and Yemen; and further determine that it is in the national interest of the United States to waive in part the application of the prohibition in section 404(a) of the CSPA with respect to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to allow for continued provision of International Military Education and Training funds and nonlethal Excess Defense Articles, and the issuance of licenses for direct commercial sales of U.S. origin defense articles; and I hereby waive such provisions accordingly. You are authorized and directed to submit this determination to the Congress, along with the accompanying Memorandum of Justification, and to publish the determination in the Federal Register. BARACK OBAMA
Among the changes in this year’s 2012 update, the U.S. Department of Labor’s List of Good Produced by Child Labor by Country: Additions: [Product by country] Afghanistan Coal Bolivia Bricks Bolivia Corn Brazil Beef Brazil Cashews Cambodia Fish Dominican Rep. Baked Goods Ghana Fish India Thread/Yarn Indonesia Fish Madagascar Stones Paraguay Bricks Paraguay Sugarcane Peru Fish Philippines Fish Sierra Leone Cocoa Sierra Leone Coffee Sierra Leone Oil (Palm) South Sudan Cattle Suriname Gold Uganda Fish Vietnam Bricks New countries added to the 2012 list: South Sudan, Suriname, and Vietnam. New goods added to the 2012 list: Baked goods, beef, fish, and thread/yarn. To link to full report of the U.S. Department of Labor’s List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor (2012) go here .
In the Philippines, an estimated 246,000 children experience abuse, violence and child labor living on the streets.
By Bosco R. Asiimwe, 24 July 2012 [from AllAfrica.com] As the government moves to eliminate the use of underage children in exploitive and hazardous activities in the country, a new survey on child labour indicates that 40.6 per cent of people, who are actively engaged in agriculture in the Northern Province, are children. The ‘Child Labour in Agriculture’ household survey conducted by ICF international in January this year in the Northern Province, estimated 183,000 out of 214,000 people (ages 7 and older) involved in agricultural activities, were active in the previous seven days. Though more than 74, 000 adults in the province indicated that fewer children were engaged in child labour related activities, over the 90, 000 children asked, reported engaging in these illegal activities. About 51.2 per cent of child labourers are male. A big number of the victims [52.9 per cent] are aged between seven and 12 years while 28.2 per cent are between 13 and 15 years of age. Most children were engaged in household chores such as cooking, washing clothes and fetching water. Girls reported doing most chores [84.9 per cent] compared to 74.9 of boys. Overall, 13.5 per cent of children working in agriculture and attending school reported that their work interferes with their studies, at times forcing them to drop out of school.
CLC members—the Ramsay Merriam Fund, the American Federation of Teachers, and the National Education Association—made this web site possible through their generous support.