Entries by Reid Maki

Sudan’s Lost Boys: Our Hopes for a New Country

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When South Sudan was created as an independent country in July, it offered a new hope and possibilities for a whole generation whose childhood was blighted by civil war. Among the victims of Sudan’s conflict were 27,000 boys orphaned by the fighting. Known as the Lost Boys, some were forced to fight as child soldiers, while others fled and became refugees. An estimated 1.5 million people were killed and another four million were displaced in what became Africa’s longest-running conflict. The refugees fled to camps in Ethiopia and other neighbouring countries. It was a dangerous journey – many drowned or died from hunger. Others were killed by wild animals. Some of those who survived ended up far away, in countries such as the US.

New Law in Chile Targets Street Beggars

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WRITTEN BY STEVE SHEA [The Santiago Times, Monday, Nov. 7, 2011] Parents who exploit children could face up to three years in jail. Sen. Carlos Bianchi recently proposed a new law that would seek to discourage adults from using children to beg for money on the street. The law would carry a prison term of between 541 days and three years. Photo by fanz/Flickr. “Begging can be considered the worst form of child labor,” Angélica Marín, the head of the Department of Protection of Rights told La Tercera. “Children forced into begging can have poor psychological, physical and moral development.” She went onto say that this is a practice ingrained in Chilean culture and, “it requires the rehabilitation of adults who, perhaps for generations, have used their children to ask for money.” This latest legislation will target those adults who use children to beg, both directly and indirectly, meaning directly if the child is begging and indirectly if the parent is begging with a child present. Both instances would be subject to the same jail time. The Ministry of Social Development released a report in early October that counted 785 children in Santiago who could be considered to be living in extreme poverty.

Cambodia

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In Cambodia,  52 per cent of children aged between seven and 14 work—over 1.4 million children.

CARE Act Reintroduced–Would Equalize Protections for Children Who Work in U.S. Agriculture

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Child Labor Coalition Press Release More progress needed to reduce child labor; Urgent action required on Uzbekistan, Domestic Workers Convention, and U.S. farmworker children For release: June 10, 2011 Contact: NCL Communications, (202) 835-3323, media@nclnet.org Washington, DC—As World Day Against Child Labor on June 12 approaches, the Child Labor Coalition (CLC) is alerting the public that more than 200 million children still toil around the world, often in dangerous jobs that threaten their health, safety, and education. Here in the United States, the CLC is applauding the anticipated re-introduction of the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment (CARE), which Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) plans to sponsor once again next week. The legislation [H.R. 2234] would close loopholes that permit the children of migrant and seasonal farmworkers to work for wages when they are only 12 and 13 years old, often in harsh conditions—10- to 12-hour days of bending over and performing repetitive tasks in 90- to 100-degree heat. “It’s time to level the playing field by closing these loopholes, which go all the way back to 1938, when the Fair Labor Standards Act was introduced,” said CLC Co-Chair Sally Greenberg, the Executive Director of the National Consumers League, a consumer advocacy organization that has worked to eliminate abusive child labor since its founding in 1899. “We must offer these children the […]

Rampant Child Labor in Cambodia

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by Bridget Di Certo and Chhay Channyda [from The Phnom Penh Post, Wednesday, 02 November 2011 12:04] Labour legislation in Cambodia is so weak and so often ignored that half the Kingdom’s children between the ages of seven and 14 participate in the workforce, the world’s largest federation of unions has told the World Trade Organisation General Council in Geneva. Children, women and ethnic and indigenous minorities suffer the most under the Kingdom’s “corrupt” enforcement of labour law, according to the International Trade Union Confederation, which has 150 million members. Yesterday it presented its report detailing how Cambodia falls short of international labour standards, along with a list of recommendations to the WTO, which is conducting a trade policy review of Cambodia concluding tomorrow.

Risky Decision: Young Immigrants Sometimes Must Choose Between Work and School

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BY John Cox Californian staff writer  Armando Ramirez was about 14 years old when he left his home in southern Mexico to find work in California. First he and his 20-year-old brother went to Salinas to apply for a job harvesting broccoli alongside their mother. But while the older brother was hired, family members said, Armando was turned down on account of his age. About a year ago, the brothers moved to the Arvin-Lamont area. And that’s where Armando found the composting job that took his life. Although his work papers said he was 30 at the time of his death on Oct. 12, Armando was only 16. His case highlights the plight of immigrants who come to the United States as minors not to get an education — some have no idea of a diploma’s value — but because family poverty forces them into an illegal arrangement sometimes condoned with a wink and a nod.

Maid Firm Exposed

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Yi Somphose, Tep Nimol, David Boyle and Eak Soung Chhay Scores of crying women who said they had been forcibly detained and girls who claimed to have received fake documents to conceal the fact that they were as young as 16-years-old were discovered at a centre owned by the SKMM Investment Group labour recruitment firm yesterday. A group of 47 women told a Post reporter some 20 under-age girls had been hidden at a restaurant to conceal them from police, while eyewitnesses outside another SKMM facility said they had seen recruits jumping out of windows to escape. With tears pouring down her cheeks, 29-year-old Dam Nhean said SKMM staff told her that if she wanted to leave the centre to visit her baby, she would have to repay by double the US$800 loan she was given, reiterating claims made by many of the recruits.

Rampant Child Labor Goes Unaddressed in Kashmir

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By Sana Altaf [from IPSnews.net] India SRINAGAR, (IPS) – Fourteen-year-old Shafat Ahmad works as a domestic helper in the house of a Srinagar-based government employee in Kashmir. His younger sister embroiders shawls in an unregistered textile venture in her native village of Beeru. “When my father first brought me here, my employer promised to send me to school,” Shafat told IPS. Though he is keen to pursue his education, he has yet to attend a single class. The Ahmed siblings’ story is just one among thousands, as increasing numbers of children across the Kashmir Valley become mired in a child labor epidemic that strips them of their childhood and the chance for a decent education. Kashmir’s handicrafts industry, which has long served as the backbone of the state economy, has recently gained more sinister recognition as one of the state’s leading employers of child laborers. A prominent sociologist, B.A. Dabla, told IPS that the shawl industry was a particularly ravenous employer of children, especially young girls, whose small hands are useful for the intricate work of shawl making.

Protest Targets Candy Maker

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A coalition accuses The Hershey Co. of refusing to commit to buying cocoa produced without child or forced labor By STEVE SNYDER Staff Writer At the height of the Halloween candy-buying season, The Hershey Co. is being accused by a coalition of environmental and human-rights groups of refusing to commit to buying cocoa produced without child labor or forced labor. Hershey is vigorously defending its cocoa-purchasing practices. According to Change.org, more than 30,000 consumers have signed an online petition protesting Hershey’s policies. “A decade ago, Hershey signed an agreement to help fight child slavery and other abuses in the cocoa industry,” Elizabeth O’Connell, a member of the Raise the Bar, Hershey! Coalition, said in a news release. “Yet it has done far less than other chocolate companies to address these abuses.”

Uzbekistan: EU Parliamentarians Reject Textile Deal With Uzbekistan

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October 5, 2011 – 3:06pm, by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick [Source: EurasiaNet.org] European Union parliamentarians have rejected a trade deal that would have eased Uzbekistan’s export of textiles to Europe, citing the use of forced child labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton industry, Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe reported. The Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament voted unanimously against the inclusion of textiles in the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA), the pact that has governed EU-Uzbek trade since 1999. The vote prevented a lowering of tariffs on EU imports of Uzbek cotton, which make up at least 25 percent of Uzbekistan’s exports. The language of the legislation now stipulates that the inclusion of textiles “should only be put to the vote by Parliament after international observers, and in particular the International Labor Organization (ILO), have been granted by the Uzbek authorities close and unhindered monitoring.” The Uzbek government has failed to invite the ILO to inspect cotton fields during the harvest season, despite calls from employers and unions at the ILO annual meeting as well as human rights groups. In February, the European Council approved an amendment to the PCA, extending the customs and tariffs breaks to Tashkent. But the European Parliament had yet to approve it, and it still had to go through committees. EU members of parliament became concerned about increasing reports of the exploitation […]