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51

Brazil Child Labor Conference Plenary Statement by CLC Member Jo Becker Urges Three Actions

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[Jo Becker delivered the following speech October 9, 2013 at the III Global Conference on Child Labor in Brasilia, Brazil]. I’m pleased to be able to speak on behalf of Human Rights Watch. Over the last decade, we have documented child labor in more than 25 countries, in all regions of the world. In hundreds of interviews, we have seen how these children put their health, their educations, their safety and sometimes their lives at risk. We have met children harvesting sugarcane who have gashes on their legs from sharp machetes; children picking tobacco who suffer nicotine poisoning; children who have climbed into deep mining shafts for gold, only to have them collapse; and child domestic workers who travel long distances from their families, only to be beaten and sexually abused by their employers. We welcome the progress that has been made in reducing the numbers of children in child labor, including its worst forms. However, we are deeply concerned about the 168 million children who are still engaged in child labor, including the 85 million who are in hazardous conditions. In particular, we want to highlight three situations: 1)      Child domestic workers: The new ILO report finds that child labor rates are going down, with one exception – the numbers of child domestic workers increased by over 1 million […]

52

Child Labor Advocates Come Together for Three Days of Sharing and Strategizing

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 The world’s child labor advocacy community does not gather together very often, but it did just that Sunday, July 28 through Monday, July 30, here in Washington for an international conference on agricultural child labor. More than 60 percent of the 215 million child laborers globally work in farms and fields–if you’re trying to solve the puzzle that child labor presents, agricultural child labor is the biggest piece of that puzzle and should not be ignored. Children who work in agriculture are exposed to pesticides and hazardous equipment like machetes. If you’ve ever seen a seven- or eight-year-old opening a cocoa pod with a machete, you know what kinds of dangers children are exposed to on farms internationally. The Global March Against Child Labor, a world-wide network of civil society groups, teacher unions, and trade unions, organized the conference with logistical support from the Child Labor Coalition (CLC)–co-chaired by NCL and the American Federation of Teachers–and CLC members, especially the Solidarity Center and the International Labor Rights Forum. About 150 representatives from 40 different countries attended all or part of the three-day event, about half of those were from developing countries like Ghana, the Ivory Coast, and the Philippines with endemic child labor problems. Senator Harkin (Iowa-D), the congressional champion who has led a many-year crusade to reduce child labor, […]

54

More than 150 Groups Urged U.S. to Implement Child Safety Rules for Agriculture But U.S. DOL Succumbs to Political Pressure from Farm Lobby and Withdraws Proposed Protections

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[The CLC submitted the following letter to Secretary Solis, urging her to implement the first update of occupational child safety rules for agriculture in four decades. The letter was originally submitted in March with 105 signatories. This update had 156 organizational endorsements. Unfortunately, the Department of Labor withdrew the proposed rules in late April under strong pressure from the Farm Lobby .] April 19, 2012 The Honorable Hilda L. Solis Secretary U.S. Department of Labor 200 Constitution Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20210 RE: Updates to the Agricultural Hazardous Occupations Orders as Proposed by the Department of Labor Dear Secretary Solis: The Child Labor Coalition represents millions of Americans, including teachers, workers, farmworkers, farmworker advocates, and human rights activists concerned about the safety, education, and welfare of children who work in agriculture. We understand the needs of our nation’s farmworker families and have seen the effects of agricultural work, especially on children. The Coalition, along with the organizations listed below, support the proposed changes to the agricultural hazardous orders and implore the Department to implement the changes as quickly as possible. As many as 500,000 children and teenagers toil in agriculture, an industry consistently ranked as one of the most dangerous industries in America. Last year, 12 of the 16 children under age 16 who suffered fatal occupational injuries worked in […]

55

Rick Montgomery Kansas City Star Response

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Rick Montgomery’s January 2nd  piece, “Proposed Changes to Child Labor Law Could Affect Life on the Farm,” fails to note that the proposed Department of Labor (DOL) protections could save 50-100 kids from dying on farms over the next decade, according to the estimates of the Child Labor Coalition.  Agriculture is the most dangerous industry in which large numbers of kids work, and the proposed regulations are long overdue, representing the first significant update of child labor safeguards for agriculture in 40 years. The protections are necessary because of widespread exemptions to child labor laws that agriculture enjoys and will continue to enjoy. The “parental exemption,” for example, will continue to exempt from coverage kids working on their parents’ farm. Children will still be allowed to work on farms at the age of 12 as long as the work task is not known to be especially hazardous by DOL. We would ask farm families, isn’t preventing 50-100 child deaths worth some minor inconveniences? This summer two 17-year-old boys lost their legs in a grain augur in Oklahoma. The proposed protections would apply some common sense protections and save thousands of teen workers from needless pain and suffering.

56

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 […]

57

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.

58

107 Groups Endorse the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment (CARE), which would extend child labor protections to many children working in U.S. agriculture.

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The Children’s Act for Responsible Employment [CARE has been reintroduced as H.R. 2234 in the current session of Congress] The CARE Act  has been endorsed by the following 107 organizations: Action for Children North Carolina; AFL-CIO; Alliance for Justice; American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee; American Association of University Women; American Federation of Teachers; American Rights at Work; America’s Promise Alliance; Amnesty International USA; Asian American Justice Center; Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance; Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs; Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers  International Union; Bon Appétit Management Company; California Human Development; California Institute for Rural Studies; California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation; Calvert Group Ltd.; Center for Community Change; Change to Win; Child Labor Coalition; Coalition of Immokalee Workers; Coalition of Labor Union Women; Children’s Alliance, Washington State; Communications Workers of America; Covenant with North Carolina’s Children; Dialogue on Diversity; East Coast Migrant Head Start Project; El Centro Latino of Western North Carolina; Farmworker Advocacy Network [North Carolina]; Farm Labor Organizing Committee; Farmworker Association of Florida; Farmworker Justice; First Focus Campaign for Children; Food Chain Workers Alliance; Galen Films; Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network; General Federation of Women’s Clubs; Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities; Hispanic Federation; Honest Tea; Human Rights Watch; Interfaith Worker Justice; International Association of Machinist and Aerospace Workers; International Brotherhood of the Teamsters; International Initiative to […]

59

Child Labor Continues – Unabatedly and Shamelessly

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 From [Newkerala.com]  New Delhi : Pramod is all of nine. His tender age, however, does not give him the luxury of a carefree and fun-filled life. He and his younger brother toil on the streets of Delhi, selling cigarette and other tobacco products for a living. “My family is very poor and there is not much scope to earn a decent living in my village in Kanpur,” Pramod told IANS, working in a kiosk in the INA market in south Delhi. “That’s why I and my brother came to Delhi a year back and we have been selling cigarettes here to earn some money,” he added. Said his younger brother, who said he was aged eight: “If we had enough money we wouldn’t have come here on our own… Maybe we could have gone to school.” 

60

GoodWeave and Your Carpet Choice Can Help Improve Child Labor Standards

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Julia Moulden/Huffington Post My column runs on Saturdays, so you’re likely reading this on the weekend. Are you barefoot, and luxuriating in soft carpeting under your toes as you relax? And did you know that you can influence whether the rugs you buy for your home and office are made with child labour or not? Well, with a little help from the folks at GoodWeave, you can. GoodWeave certifies child-labour-free rugs and provides education and opportunities for children who are rescued as well as those at risk.