Entries by Reid Maki

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.

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.

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 […]

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.

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.

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.

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.

Apple Report Reveals Child Labor Increase

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Tania Branigan in Beijing Apple’s annual report says 91 children worked at its suppliers in 2010, and 137 workers were poisoned by n-hexane Apple said it had strengthened its checks on age because of concerns about falsification. Apple found more than 91 children working at its suppliers last year, nine times as many as the previous year, according to its annual report on its manufacturers. The US company has also acknowledged for the first time that 137 workers were poisoned at a Chinese firm making its products and said less than a third of the facilities it audited were complying with its code on working hours. Apple usually refuses to comment on which firms make its goods, but came under increased scrutiny last year following multiple suicides at electronics giant Foxconn, one of its main suppliers. Last month, anti-pollution activists accused the firm of being more secretive about its supply chain in China than almost all of its rivals. The report says Apple found 91 children working at 10 facilities. The previous year it found 11 at three workplaces. It ordered most to pay the children’s education costs but fired one contractor which was using 42 minors and had “chosen to overlook the issue”, the company said. It also reported the vocational school that had arranged the employment to the […]

Organizer of child sex ring in Thailand sentenced to 25 years

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New York (CNN) — A Canadian man who admitted to running a sex ring involving young boys at his home in Thailand was sentenced by a federal judge in Newark, New Jersey, to 25 years in prison, court officials said Monday. John Wrenshall pleaded guilty to three counts, including conspiracy to engage in sex tourism, conspiracy to produce child pornography and distribution of child pornography, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said in a statement. “John Wrenshall created a place where innocent children were sexually brutalized as a vacation pastime,” Fishman said. “It is fitting that a man who has condemned children to live with unimaginable scars for his pleasure and profit should spend decades of his own life in a prison cell.” Wrenshall’s attorney could not be immediately reached for comment. Since January 2000, court authorities said the 64-year-old Canadian arranged illicit trips for Americans and others who paid him to engage in anal sex, oral sex and other sexual acts with Thai boys, according to the statement. His customers were permitted to videotape and photograph their abuse, the statement said. Wrenshall also personally victimized the boys in an effort to “train” them for his customers, it added. Some of the boys were as young as 4. London’s Metropolitan Police arrested Wrenshall at Heathrow Airport in December 2008. Three of […]

Afghans Plan to Stop Recruiting Children as Police & Protect Sex Slaves

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[From the New York Times:} By ROD NORDLAND KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan is expected to sign a formal agreement with the United Nations on Sunday to stop the recruitment of children into its police forces and ban the common practice of boys being used as sex slaves by military commanders, according to Afghan and United Nations officials. The effort by Afghanistan’s international backers to rapidly expand the country’s police and military forces has had the unintended consequence of drawing many under-age boys into service, the officials conceded. Stung by Afghanistan’s inclusion on the United Nations’ blacklist of countries where child soldiers are commonly used, like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, government leaders are expected to sign an undertaking with Radhika Coomaraswamy, the secretary general’s special representative for children and armed conflict, during her visit to Kabul on Sunday, the officials said. With the agreement on an action plan to combat the problem, the government will for the first time officially acknowledge the problem of child sex slaves. As part of the Afghan tradition of bacha bazi, literally “boy play,” boys as young as 9 are dressed as girls and trained to dance for male audiences, then prostituted in an auction to the highest bidder. Many powerful men, particularly commanders in the military and the police, keep such boys, […]