Tag Archive for: child labor

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India’s Exploited Child Cotton Workers

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By Humphrey HawksleyBBC News, Gujarat

Civil rights activist Jignesh Mevani describes the conditions endured by India’s child cotton workers

The noise was deafening and air in the factory in northern Gujarat was so thick with cotton dust it was like a snowstorm at night.

Women and girls, some no more than 10 or 11, fed machines with raw cotton picked from the nearby fields.

It is a process known as ginning – one end of a commercial supply chain that ends up as clothes and textiles in high street shops around the world. Globally, annual revenues from the industry are measured in the trillions of dollars.

Many household-name retailers concede they do not know exactly how the cotton they use is farmed and processed. Yet, for years, labour activists here have campaigned for their help.

Missing parents

“The workers’ lives are terrible,” said Jignesh Mevani, an activist who was our guide. “They are not paid the minimum wage. There are no safety precautions. There are many children.” Read more

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High Price of Gold is Child Slave Labor

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JEANETTE PAVINI’S BUYER BEWARE [from MarketWatch]

By Jeanette Pavini

Award-winning broadcast journalist and author Jeanette Pavini writes the Buyer Beware column for MarketWatch and wants to hear your stories, questions, problems and complaints. Write to her at BuyerBewareMKTW@gmail.com .

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold has been one of the greatest investment stories of the past decade, and its safe-haven appeal is likely to continue, with demand remaining solid for physical gold and gold jewelry. But regardless of the price gyrations in gold futures and demand, do we really know what the cost of gold is in human terms?

The surge in demand for physical gold has not only polished the fortunes of large mining companies, but has also driven a modern-day gold rush: The United Nations estimates there are between 15 million and 20 million gold miners in more than 70 countries worldwide.

What consumers need to be aware of is where the gold GLD -0.07%   and gold jewelry they purchase originates from. For the most part, gold comes from large-scale industrial mining operations which require skilled labor. Large mining operations in developing country can spur economic growth for the region.

But some artisanal and small-scale mining operations, known as ASMs, operate in poorer regions and places where child exploitation and human trafficking is common. Read more

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Child Labor Coalition Announces Top 10 Child Labor Stories of 2011

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List Points to Some of 2012’s Child Labor Priorities

Washington, DC—Advocates from the Child Labor Coalition (CLC), a group representing more than two dozen organizations concerned with protecting working youth, has released a list of the top ten child labor stories from 2011. The list represents international and American issues in child labor that received considerable attention in 2011 and what advocates hope is an increase in attention to exploitation faced by vulnerable child workers that has previously gone unnoticed by mainstream media.

“The year brought some much needed attention to serious child labor problems in the supply chains of some of the world’s largest companies,” said Reid Maki, Coordinator of the Child Labor Coalition and the Director of Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards for the National Consumers League (NCL). “However, we also saw a disturbing move in a few states to roll back long-standing child labor protections and a much-publicized attack on child labor laws by a presidential candidate.

The year’s 10 biggest stories, according to the CLC, included (in no particular order):

Apple acknowledges that child labor contributed to the making of iPhones and other electronic gadgets in its Chinese factories. In February, Apple announced that it had found 91 children worked at its suppliers in 2010—a nine-fold increase from the previous year. The company also acknowledged that 137 workers had been poisoned by the chemical, n-hexane, at a supplier’s manufacturing facility and that less than a third of the facilities it audited were complying with Apple’s code on working hours. In the year prior to December 2010, Apple had sales of over $65 billion.

Victoria’s hidden “secret”: children help harvest the cotton that goes into garments. Bloomberg Markets Magazine revealed in December that some of the cotton retail giant Victoria’s Secret uses is harvested by young children in the West African nation of Burkina Faso. The piece profiled 13-year-old Clarisse Kambire, who works on a cotton farm, where she said she is routinely beaten by the owner. By hand, Clarisse performs work that many farmers use a plow and oxen to perform and often works in 100-plus degree heat and eats just one meal a day. Some days she gets no food. Many of the children like Clarisse are considered “foster children” and receive no wages— most do not attend school. Limited Brand, the parent company of Victoria’s Secret, has annual sales in excess of $5 billion.

Read more

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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. Read more

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UK Child Labor Record Worsens

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Britain’s record on protecting children from workplace exploitation worsened over the past year, new research claims.

The UK was rated “medium risk” in the annual child labour index compiled by Bath-based global analysts Maplecroft.

It rose 12 places to be ranked 142nd this year, ahead of low-risk countries including Hong Kong (160th), France (163rd), Germany and Ireland (jointly at 175th) and Australia (185th).

Maplecroft said Britain fared worse in the index than other Western nations because large numbers of children were trafficked to and within the UK for labour and sexual exploitation.

The survey of 197 countries was topped by Burma, North Korea, Somalia and Sudan in joint first place, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe and Afghanistan.

A total of 76 nations were judged to pose an “extreme risk” to children’s welfare through the use of underage workers, up more than 10% from 68 last year.

The analysts put this sharp increase down to deteriorating security, resulting in greater numbers of children fleeing their homes and becoming internally displaced or refugees, and the global economic downturn.

The research also highlighted the risk to multinational supply chains from the prevalence of child labour in rapidly-growing emerging countries including India (ranked 27th), China (36th), Vietnam (37th) and Brazil (54th).

Maplecroft human rights analyst Chris Kip said: “Business can be directly implicated or can be deemed complicit in violations of the prohibition of child labour if children are found to be working within their operations or are used by their suppliers.

“Companies should ensure stringent human rights due diligence within their supply chain is undertaken to reduce the risk of damaged reputations, litigation, investor alienation and consumer backlash.”

Read more:https://www.shropshirestar.com/money/uk-money/2012/01/05/uk-child-labour-record-worsens/#ixzz1ibcYJbBo

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Donna Ballman: Why Repealing Child Labor Laws Is a Truly Stupid Idea

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RedRoom

By Donna Ballman

Did you hear the one where the Republican contender for president said we ought to repeal child labor laws? Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but if you weren’t paying attention due to all the holiday parties, you might have missed Newt Gingrich’s comments on the subject. He said that child labor laws are “truly stupid.” He wants poor 10-year-olds to become school janitors.

As the mother of a 10-year-old, Mr. Gingrich’s comments have been weighing on me. I had to speak up. Talk like this might get some headlines and votes, but it’s shortsighted to even think about abolishing child labor laws.

Anyone who is thinking that this proposal is anything but idiotic needs a little history lesson:
In the beginning of the industrial age, factory owners figured out that the machines were so simple, even a child could operate them. Children were less likely to push for those pesky unions. So poor children were sent to work in factories with dangerous equipment. Children would work 12 to 18 hours a day, six days a week, to earn a dollar. Factories were creative in ways to keep the “young imps” inside, using barbed wire and locked fire exits. Children would do dangerous jobs like carrying hot glass, working in coal mines, hauling heavy loads, and working in textile mills. Read more

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California tells Apple, Others not to use Slaves

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This isn’t a repeat from the 19th century

| by Nick Farrell in Rome | Filed in Business Apple California

California has introduced a law requiring Apple and thousands of others to make sure that slave labour isn’t part of the supply chain.

According to Reuters,  the law was written following allegations that Apple and Gap used forced labour to create their products.

The law will force manufacturers to explain how they guard against slavery and human trafficking throughout their supply chain. More than 3,200 major companies which do business in California  will be required to disclose steps they take, if any, to ensure their suppliers and partners do not use forced labour.

Companies will risk getting sued by the state attorney general if they flout that law.

Apple declined to comment on the new legislation but the law comes after controversy about working conditions at huge supplier Foxconn, where there were a string of suicides.

However, it’s not clear how this law could cause Apple much trouble as the last we heard, none of the workers at Foxconn were actually forced to work there.

Apparently the law defines child labour and slavery as forced labour. Apple had some problems with some of its suppliers using child labour, but said that it sorted that out. Read more

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More than 1 million Children ages 10 to 14 still Forced by Poverty to work in Brazil

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By Associated Press

SAO PAULO — A newspaper says that despite the economic advances achieved by Brazil over the past few years, children from low-income families are still forced to work in Latin America’s biggest country.

The Folha de S.Paulo newspaper says Wednesday that its analysis of preliminary 2010 census figures compiled by Brazil’s government statistics agency shows that more than 1 million children between the ages of 10 and 14 were working last year.

0The newspaper says that many cases of child labor are difficult to eradicate because most of them involve work as domestic help or on small family farms in remote regions.

The statistics agency known as IBGE said it could not immediately confirm the newspaper’s report.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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U.S. to support Peru in fight against Child Labor

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By Manuel Vigo [from LivinginPeru.com]

On Tuesday the U.S Department of Labor awarded a $13 million grant in support of NGOs that fight against child labor in Peru.

The 4-year program will be carried out in Huancavelica, Junin and Pasco, and will target 6,500 children working in agriculture and other sectors in rural Peru, said the press release.

NGO ‘Desarrollo y Autogestión’ (DYA) will lead an international group of NGOs in the fight against exploitative child labor in Peru. Read more

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45% Reduction of Child Labor in 5 Years: Labor Minister

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Printed from The Times of India

NEW DELHI: Labour minister Mallikarjun Kharge told the Lok Sabha that there has been 45% reduction in child labour between 2004-05 and 2009-10.

Replying to a question by C M Chang, Kharge admitted India has not ratified convention number 182 of International Labour Organization about worst forms of child labour. He explained to ratify this convention, Centre has to not only consult all the states but also assess wider repercussion to the entire country. “At present, we are trying our best to prohibit persons up to the age of 14 years,” Kharge said.

The minister also listed out host of steps taken by the government that has helped in reducing child labour. He said government programmes like Right to Education, MNREGA, Mid-Day Meal scheme and others are inclusive in nature and help in reduction of child labour. “Many children are going to get education. Parents are also sending them. As the economic status is improving children are getting better education,” he said. Kharge said child labour is a problem that cannot be sorted out quickly, and concerted efforts of various government departments is needed.