Tag Archive for: forced labor

10 Stats about Women and Girls on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2021

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  • Of the 152 million children trapped in child labor, 64 million are girls [source].
  • 73 million children are trapped in hazardous child labor—27.8 million are girls.
  • 29 million women and girls are in modern slavery—71 percent of the overall total of enslaved individuals [source].
  • Women represent 99.4 percent of the victims of forced labor in the commercial sex industry [source].
  • Women and girls represent 84 percent of the victims of forced marriages, now categorized as a form of modern slavery [source]. There are an estimated 15 million individuals in forced marriages.
  • Worldwide, there are an estimated 67 million domestic workers—3/4 are women [source].
  • 132 million girls were out of school in 2016 [source].
  • 9 in 10 girls complete their primary education, but only 3 in 4 complete their lower secondary education [source].
  • In low-income countries, less than 2/3 of girls complete their primary education [source].
  • 42 million people have fled their homes because of armed conflicts; 50 percent are women; 10 million are estimated to be girls and young women. [source]
  • In 2017, there were an estimated 68.5 million forcibly displaced people, including 25.4 million refugees—half are women and girls. [source]

Child sugarcane worker. Photo by Noah Friedman-Rudovsky. Courtesy of Green America.

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Report Traces Goods Made with Child Labor to 76 Countries

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Of the products we use, wear, or consume every day, how many are made with child labor? Perhaps quite a few. A new report from the US Department of Labor identifies 148 different consumer goods produced with child or forced labor around the world. The list includes clothing, beef, sugar, bricks, coffee, and other products originating from 76 countries.

Gold tops the list. The report found that in at least 21 countries, children help mine gold, climbing into unstable shafts, carrying and crushing heavy loads of ore, and often using toxic mercury to process the gold. My colleagues and I have seen how dangerous this work can be, documenting the risks child miners face in Ghana, Philippines, Tanzania, and Mali.

Tobacco produced with child labor originates from at least 16 countries, placing it in the report’s top five. Child tobacco workers often labor in extreme heat, are exposed to dangerous pesticides, and risk nicotine poisoning from handling tobacco plants. In our investigations, children in the United States, Indonesia, and Zimbabwe have described nausea, vomiting, headaches, and dizziness while working in tobacco fields.

Governments, companies, and consumers share responsibility to end child labor. Governments should monitor and enforce their labor laws and provide children with good-quality, free education.

For children old enough to work, both governments and companies should ensure their jobs do not risk anyone’s health or safety. Companies should also monitor their supply chains, report on their efforts, and when child labor is found, transition these children to school or safe alternatives. Our report on the jewelry industry outlines steps companies should take.  

Consumers can ask retailers and manufacturers about their child labor policies and practices.

A young girl ties tobacco leaves onto sticks to prepare them for curing in East Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara.

A young girl ties tobacco leaves onto sticks to prepare them for curing in East Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia.

 © 2015 Marcus Bleasdale for Human Rights Watch

Ending child labor is possible. Since 2000, the number of children involved in it has dropped by a third ‒ from 245 million to 152 million. In the last two years, the Department of Labor found that 17 governments have made “significant” advancement in ending child labor, and another 60 have made “moderate” advancements. It noted particular progress in ending child labor in Panama’s sugar production, and cotton harvesting in Paraguay and Uzbekistan.

Still, we have a long way to go. Products that are part of our daily lives shouldn’t come at the expense of children’s health, safety, and education.


 
Jo Becker is the advocacy director of the Children’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, which is a member of the Child Labor Coalition.
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International Workers, Employers, Governments Call on Uzbekistan to End Forced Labor, Child Labor

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Press release: June 11, 2013


The International Labour Organization supervisory body recommends that the Uzbek government to take urgent and serious action to end forced labour of children and adults in the cotton sector.

(Geneva) – The Government of Uzbekistan should take urgent and significant steps to end systematic forced labour of children and adults in the cotton sector, said workers, employers, and governments from around the world, during the hearing of the International Labour Organization Committee on the Application of Standards. The CAS, the tripartite supervisory body of the ILO tasked with assuring that all governments abide by international labour standards, released its conclusions from the hearing today.

“We commend the international representatives of workers, employers and governments for recommending the Uzbek government to invite a high level ILO mission to monitor the 2013 cotton harvest,” said Vasila Inoyatova, Director of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan Ezgulik. “Their recommendations respond to the facts, including the deaths of Navruz Muysinov, Igor Yachkevskiy, Aziz Bakhtiyorov, and Umid during the 2012 cotton harvest.”

As highlighted by the German workers and Education International, the state system of forced child labour is serious, systematic and continuous. The Uzbek government has already mobilized children as young as age 10 as well as adults, to plough and weed cotton fields. On April 19, the deputy governor of Namangan region beat seven farmers for planting onions instead of cotton. As was the case during last fall’s cotton harvest, the forced labour of government employees this spring has again disrupted the delivery of essential public services, including health care and education. As an Indonesian worker delegate explained, state-run forced child labour is a major violation of international conventions and results in forced labour cotton products on retail shelves around the world.

During the hearing, Uzbekistan again denied that children worked in the cotton fields in 2012 and remained silent about the existence of adult forced labour. As the International Trade Union Confederation and International Organization of Employers noted, this claim lacks evidence and contradicts the facts presented by independent civil society The IOE also noted that if there were no forced labour in the cotton harvest, then there is no reason for the Uzbek government to refuse independent monitoring by the ILO.

“To demonstrate commitment, the Uzbek government must invite a high level tripartite ILO mission by August 1, in order to monitor the 2013 cotton harvest,” said Joanna Ewart-James. “Delays would result in another year of over a million children and adults forced to pick cotton.”

In a strong statement, the United States delegate stated “The United States Government remains seriously concerned about the systematic and persistent use of forced labor and the worst forms of child labor in cotton production in Uzbekistan,” adding that “we deeply regret that the Government has been resistant to accepting ILO assistance.”

“The Uzbek government needs to accept ILO monitoring that includes participation of independent civil society,” stated Brian Campbell, International Labor Rights Forum. “The participation of Uzbek civil-society organizations is the indicator of the Uzbek government’s commitment to abide by international labour standards.”

 

For more information, please contact:

In Uzbekistan, for Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan Ezgulik, Vasila Inoyatova, +998.97.131.4872, vasila.iva@gmail.com (Uzbek and Russian)

In United States, for International Labor Rights Forum, Brian Campbell, +1.347.266.1351, brian.campbell@ilrf.org (English)

In United Kingdom, for Anti-Slavery International, Joanna Ewart-James, +44.7957.426524, j.ewart-james@antislavery.org (English and French)

In Germany, for Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights, Umida Niyazova, +49-17687-532684, umida.niyazova@uzbekgermanforum.org (English, Russian, Uzbek)

In France, for Association Human Rights in Central Asia, Nadejda Atayeva, +33.61.746.1963, n.atayeva@gmail.com, (Uzbek, Russian, French)

 

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Uzbekistan: U.S. Report Fails Child Labor Victims–Unwillingness to Impose Meaningful Consequences Allows Abuses to Continue

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[The following is a press release from the Cotton Campaign regarding a letter to the State Department in which the CLC joined more than 40 groups to express disappointment about the failure to cite Uzbekistan for forced labor and child labor abuses in its cotton harvest.]

(Washington, DC, June 21, 2012) – The United States government’s decision not to cite Uzbekistan for its widespread practice of forced and child labor in the country’s cotton sector sends the wrong message to the Uzbek government, a broad coalition of groups said in a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on June 19, 2012. The coalition called on US officials to press the Uzbek government to invite the International Labour Organization (ILO) to monitor the 2012 cotton harvest.

The letter followed the US government’s release on June 19 of its annual Global Trafficking in Persons (GTIP) report. The report fails to cite Uzbekistan as a country that does not comply with minimal standards to combat forced and child labor, or a “Tier III country,” the groups said. Under the US Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), the Uzbek government should have demonstrated that it was making “significant efforts” to eliminate forced labor to avoid a downgrade to Tier III, which would carry the threat of sanctions.

“Forced labor of adults and children is human trafficking under US law,” said Steve Swerdlow, Central Asia Researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The failure to classify Uzbekistan properly for the fifth straight year is wholly inconsistent with the well-documented evidence of its systematic abuses. The US effectively sent a message to Uzbek authorities that enslaving children for profit in abusive conditions is cost-free.”

The coalition consists of human rights, trade union, apparel industry, retail, investor, and other nongovernmental organizations, including groups from Uzbekistan.

Uzbek authorities use a cotton production system that in practice relies on the use of forced labor, while consistently denying that forced labor is used and cracking down on rights activists who try to monitor it. Reports about the 2011 harvest by local monitoring groups and academic studies highlighted the coercion of children as young as 10 and adults to pick cotton and to fulfill government quotas.

The State Department report identifies the Uzbek government’s state quota system for cotton production as a root cause of the practice of forced labor. However, even though Tashkent has clearly made no progress in addressing the issue, the State Department waived the threat of sanctions, as it did last year.

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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. Read more

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A dozen nations added to U.S. Government child, forced labor list (AP)

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WASHINGTON — The Labor Department is adding a dozen countries to the list of nations that use child labor or forced labor, as officials warn the global economic crisis could cause an upswing in the exploitation of children and other workers.

From coffee grown in El Salvador to sapphires mined in Madagascar, the agency’s latest reports, to be released Wednesday, identify 128 goods from 70 countries where child labor, forced labor or both are used in violation of international standards.

“Shining light on these problems is a first step toward motivating governments, the private sector and concerned citizens to take action to end these intolerable abuses that have no place in our modern world,” said Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

New to the list are Angola, Central African Republic, Chad, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

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U.S. DOL Proposes Revisions to List of Products Made from Forced or Indentured Child Labor

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Initial Determination Proposing Revisions to the EO 13126 List

On December 15, 2010 the Department of Labor announced an initial determination proposing to update the EO 13126 list in accordance with the “Procedural Guidelines for the Maintenance of the List of Products Requiring Federal Contractor Certification as to Forced or Indentured Child Labor.” The initial determination proposes to add Hand-Woven Textiles from Ethiopia to the list. It also proposes to remove Charcoal from Brazil from the list where, preliminarily, the Department of Labor has reason to believe that the use of forced or indentured child labor has been significantly reduced if not eliminated. On December 16, 2010 DOL published a notice in the Federal Register officially requesting public comment on its initial determination for a period of 60 days. On December 23rd, 2010 DOL published a correction to the December 16th initial determination. DOL will consider all public comments prior to publishing a final determination updating the list of products, made in consultation and cooperation with the Departments of State and Homeland Security. Until publication of the final determination, the current July 20, 2010 list remains valid. [Continue to see the list].

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