Entries by Reid Maki

Meet the Child Workers Who Pick Your Food

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—By Tom Philpott [Mother Jones] Agriculture tends to cling to certain practices long after the rest of society as discarded them as morally repugnant. You might think slavery ended after the Civil War, yet it exists to this day in Florida’s tomato fields, as Barry Estabrook demonstrates in his brilliant book Tomatoland .Likewise, the practice of subjecting children to hard, hazardous, and low-paid labor seems like a discarded relic of Dickens’ London or Gilded Age New York. But here in the United States, hundreds of thousands of kids are doing one of our most dangerous jobs: farm work. They toil under conditions so rough that Human Rights Watch (HRW) has seen fit two issue two damning reports (here and here) on the topic over the past decade. In the second report, from May 2010, the group concluded: “Shockingly, we found that conditions for child farmworkers in the United States remain virtually as they were a decade ago.” This is to say – appalling. The kids who pick our crops are routinely exposed to toxic pesticides, their fatality rate is four times that of other working youth, and they are four times more likely to drop out than the average American kid—overall, HRW reports, just a third of farmworker kids finish high school. Oddly, there’s nothing illegal about their plight—most federal laws governing child labor […]

Peru sex slavery: Police free 300 women, including minors, in Amazon

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[Source BBC News Oct. 4, 2011] More than 400 police took part in the three-day operation Police in Peru say they have rescued nearly 300 women from sexual exploitation in a raid in the country’s Amazon region. At least four people were arrested in Puerto Maldonado on suspicion of human trafficking. Among those rescued from about 50 brothels were at least 10 minors – the youngest was a 13-year-old girl. More than 400 police took part in the three-day operation in the region, known for its illegal gold mining.

Child slavery bust in Vietnam

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[from AFP, September 30, 2011 4:52PM] TWENTY three children and young adults rescued from slave labour in a garment factory by Vietnamese authorities with the help of an Australian-run children’s charity have arrived in Hanoi. Vietnamese government officials and police from the victims’ home region, with help from the charity Blue Dragon, raided the factory in Ho Chi Minh City. The owners have been arrested and are awaiting trial. The victims, aged from ten to 21, are from the Kho Mu ethnic group, in Dien Bien province in Vietnam’s far northwest. Some of them had been working for up to two years as slave labour in the garment business. Tired but happy, the children relaxed for an hour at Noi Bai airport before boarding a bus for the 12-hour journey home to their villages. The group are told AAP they were looking forward to returning to their families. “I felt so homesick, living in Saigon,” said 12-year-old Trang. He was taken by car from his small village of 35 households and brought to Saigon, where he worked cutting cloth and was regularly beaten, he said. He couldn’t estimate how many hours he worked as he can’t read a clock. Gazing fixedly at his can of Fanta, he said he wanted to get home to his parents and six younger brothers […]

Asia Leads World in Child-Labor Products: US Report

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AFP WASHINGTON – India, Bangladesh and the Philippines lead the world in the number of products made by child workers, a US government stock-taking of the global scale of underaged labor revealed Monday. Some 130 types of goods – from building bricks and soccer balls to pornography and rare ores used in cellphones – involve child labor in 71 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the Department of Labor said. “We believe that we all have God-given potential … and every child should be given the right to fulfil their dreams,” said Labor Secretary Hilda Solis at the release of the 10th annual “Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor.” Focusing this year on hazardous work performed by children, and relying in good part on International Labor Organization data, the report examines efforts by more than 140 countries to address the worst forms of child labor. The International Labor Organization estimates that more than 215 million children are involved in child labor. One-third of countries have yet to define hazardous kinds of work prohibited to children, it said. Some nations have no minimum age for such work, and still more lack the means to monitor and enforce bans on dangerous child labor. A rundown of goods produced by child labor, issued alongside the report, underlined the degree to […]

Peru Sex Slavery: Police Free 300 Women in Amazon

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More than 400 police took part in the three-day operation Police in Peru say they have rescued nearly 300 women from sexual exploitation in a raid in the country’s Amazon region. At least four people were arrested in Puerto Maldonado on suspicion of human trafficking. Among those rescued from about 50 brothels were at least 10 minors – the youngest was a 13-year-old girl. More than 400 police took part in the three-day operation in the region, known for its illegal gold mining. The region has seen an influx of fortune-hunters trying to make a living from the trade. Prosecutors say young girls are lured to the area by women who travel around offering them jobs in shops or as domestic helpers, but that the girls often end up being forced to work as prostitutes in local bars. Last month, the charity Save the Children said that more than 1,100 underage girls were being used as sexual slaves in illegal mining camps in the south-eastern Peruvian state of Madre de Dios. Camps set up along the main highway have also attracted unlicensed bars used for prostitution. The gold rush is contributing to the destruction of the rain forest and contaminating the environment with tons of mercury, used in processing the precious metal. Peru is the world’s fifth largest gold producer.

The Terrorized Lives of Somali Child Soldiers

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As the rattle of gunfire echoed loudly outside, Mohamed Abdi sat in the corner of a Mogadishu restaurant and wondered aloud how much longer he could survive in one of the world’s most dangerous capitals. “Mogadishu is full of miseries, sometimes you fall into traps and can be abducted by either government forces or insurgents, to fight for their cause.” The 15-year-old’s father died two years ago and since then life in Somalia has been a daily struggle to support his mother and two brothers who live in a nearby refugee camp. Unlike thousands of his countrymen who have been displaced because of fighting between government forces and Al Shabaab -a militant Islamist group linked to Al Qaeda- Abdi is fortunate in that he recently found work as a waiter. However, it was not so long ago that the youth was fighting in urban warfare. As Somalia’s civil conflict continues unabated, child soldiering is an issue of growing concern. In a report last month Amnesty International (AI) detailed cases of children as young as nine years being made to take fight in war. The report – In The Line of Fire: Somalia’s Children Under Attack – exposed the full impact of the on-going conflict on children and said that both Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government and Al Shabaab were guilty of gross […]

Absenteeism, a Perennial Problem in GTR Schools

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MEERA SRINIVASAN Access during monsoon, prevalence of child labour are the reasons P. Ranjitha walks for nearly an hour and a half to reach school every morning. “It takes little longer when it rains,” says the class VIII student of Government Tribal Residential (GTR) School, Ponneni. Her matter-of-fact response about at least three hours’ walk to school and back home made it seem like a common practice among students like her who go to GTR schools. Her classmate T. Prakashraj says, “I walk two hours every morning to reach school,” as if to highlight that his feat outdoes Ranjitha’s. While many children stay in tribal hamlets around the area, some children such as Ranjitha and Prakashraj stay in localities far away and go to the nearest GTR School.

From playground to battleground: children on the frontline in Somalia

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from The Guardian, reporter Mohamad Shil As the rattle of gunfire becomes louder, Mohamed Abdi sits in the corner of a Mogadishu restaurant wondering how much longer he can survive in one of the world’s most dangerous capital cities. “Mogadishu is full of miseries. Sometimes you fall into traps and can be abducted by either government forces or insurgents, to fight for their cause,” says the 15-year-old. Thousands have been displaced because of fighting between government forces and al-Shabaab, a militant Islamist group linked to al-Qaida. Abdi is fortunate in that he recently found work as a waiter, but not so long ago he was involved in urban warfare. As Somalia‘s civil conflict continues, the use of child soldiers is causing growing concern. In a report last month, Amnesty International detailed cases of children as young as nine being forced into combat. The report – In the line of fire: Somalia’s children under attack – exposes the ongoing conflict’s impact on children, arguing that both Somalia’s transitional federal government and al-Shabaab are guilty of gross human rights violations. “As a child in Somalia, you risk death all the time,” says Michelle Kagari, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Africa. “You can be killed, recruited and sent to the frontline, punished by al-Shabaab because you are caught listening to music or wearing the ‘wrong’ clothes, […]

Tighter Child-Labor Rules on Farms Proposed

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By SCOTT KILMAN [from The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 32, 2011] The U.S. Labor Department proposed Wednesday to increase for the first time in four decades its list of jobs too hazardous for hired hands age 15 and younger to do on the farm, long one of the most dangerous places in America for children to work. Under the proposed changes, laborers who are hired to do such things as drive most tractors or work in tobacco fields would have to be at least 16 years old. Workers who toil in tobacco fields can be exposed to unsafe levels of nicotine, a problem called green-tobacco sickness.