Education Ministers at UNESCO HLG in Dakar commit to fight social exclusion in EFA
Dakar, Senegal December 23, 2007
The International Center on Child Labor and education has been focusing on the children that are facing social exclusion and hardest to reach within the ongoing EFA efforts. ICCLE which is the northern advocacy office for the Global March against Child Labor, a world wide movement of NGO’s and Trade Unions has actively engaged on the plight of the children that are missing out of schools and has asked UNESCO to inform about the children missing out of schools with more details, on what are they doing if they are not in classrooms and to identify their special needs so that the EFA efforts at the country level are able to create the necessary pre-conditions to allow them attend full time school. These hardest to reach children in the national context do not figure in the education sector plans and strategies at the country level. They are children who face social exclusion, particularly children in hazardous working conditions and occupations, and children who are particularly vulnerable, i.e. very young working children (less than 14 years of age) and working girls, child victims of forced labor, children from minority groups or indigenous communities, children in conflict areas, child soldiers, children with disabilities, special needs children, and those affected by HIV/AIDS. The number and category of these children may vary from one country to another.
It is noteworthy that the efforts of ICCLE and Global March have been best reflected in the UNESCO led Seventh High Level Group meeting on Education for All in Dakar, Senegal where the communiqué released categorically states that:
“We recognized that achieving the EFA goals means reaching those children, youth and adults, especially girls and women, who have hitherto been excluded from basic education opportunities. Situations of disaster and conflict, in particular, have robbed many young people and adults of basic education, adding to the challenge of providing access to literacy, numeracy and life-skills. In order to ensure greater equity and inclusion, we propose the following actions during 2008 and beyond, to be led by governments at country level, in partnership with civil society and other stakeholders, and with the support of international partners:
a) Undertake a mapping to determine more precisely the characteristics of excluded groups, their circumstances and needs and thus inform more inclusive educational policies. This mapping could also:
i. Use household and other such surveys as sources of detailed quantitative and qualitative data;
ii. Empower communities by engaging them fully in identifying the excluded and vulnerable in their societies;
iii. Identify steps to strengthen and harmonize, where necessary, the legislative framework within which the right to education is guaranteed;
iv. Include a costing of what is needed to reach marginalized groups effectively.”
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Liberia: Firestone Challenge Advances
Africa Focus, All Africa.Com
Jan 17, 2008
Workers at the Firestone Rubber Plantation in Liberia have for the first time won representation under a free union vote, throwing out the officials of a company-controlled union. The vote took place in July last year, but it took two court decisions and an unauthorized strike before officials finally agreed to negotiate with the new union and hand over their company-collected union dues. The union recognition is only a first step, however, in changing a system of brutal exploitation of child labor and virtual bondage for the rubber tappers.
The Stop Firestone Campaign, joining Liberian and international non-governmental organizations, is supporting a law suit filed against Firestone by the International Labor Rights Fund on behalf of former child laborers and their children. Firestone and the newly-elected leadership of the Firestone Agricultural Workers Union of Liberia (FAWUL) met for the first time on January 10, at the initiative of human rights activist Samuel Kofi Woods, who has been Liberian Minister of Labor since February 2006. Wood expressed the hope that the meeting signaled a new willingness to find ways to improve the conditions of workers at the plantation.
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Nigeria: Trafficked Children - 'We Are Human, Not Commodities'
This Day, Jan 15, 2008, Lagos
For millions of children under various forms of modern day slavery, life, definitely, could have been better if there was a genuine determination to end the menace.
Olaolu Olusina writes that from Ekori in South-south, Nigeria to the coast of Yeji on the Volta Lake in Ghana, trafficked children are suffering the same fate
An unusual scene played out at the Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano, Nigeria some years ago. A young boy caused a stir when he refused to board an aircraft heading for London. Poor soul! He had never come close to an aircraft, not to talk of boarding one. His blunt refusal aroused the curiosity of immigration officials who were watching the drama. They eventually discovered that the "village boy" was a victim of child trafficking. He was promptly rescued from his abductors and taken back to his village in South-east Nigeria.
Shinny, as he is called, is 12 but slaves under the tropical sun in one of the pig farms scattered around the villages off the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway in South-west Nigeria. When this reporter sought to know where he came from, a dry smile was what he could offer. Upon further inquiries, however, he said in pidgin English: "I come from Akwa Ibom." Not satisfied with his defensive tactics, a further probe immediately gave him out. "I be from Calabar...," he said as he tried to parry further questions about his family background with the stuff one hears everyday from such kids.
In Ekori, a rural community in Yakurr local government area of Cross River State in South-south, Nigeria, this reporter was faced with the stark realities of child trafficking. A once vibrant farming community is being depleted daily by the activities of modern day slave merchants and their collaborators. A generation of youths; the community's strength and future, now faces the threat of going into extinction. Ekori is believed to be the headquarters of a thriving trade in kid slaves and a hotbed for child trafficking.
Ofem Ubangha is from Ekori. He told this reporter that returnee slave kids usually return from the cocoa farms in South-west Nigeria about mid-December. "They always return from Ondo as from December 15, and the villagers welcome them with thundering shouts of Ondo-he! Ondo-he! Ondo-he! (meaning Ondo people have come) as trucks conveying them enter the village in droves," he said.
It was gathered that from December 10, every year, few of these kid slaves that have finished their contracts, or have been released by their masters, start returning home in trucks, with the attendant dangers to their lives while on transit. "Onward movement takes place in January and between January 3 and 10 of a particular year, about 30 trailers conveyed these children from Ekori to destinations in Ondo, Oyo, Osun, Ogun, Ekiti and Lagos States. Few of them are also ferried into neighbouring countries such as Cameroon, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea to work in plantations and farms," said a source who spoke on condition of anonymity.
It will recalled that few years ago, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) carried the story of one Felicia, an African (Nigerian) girl who was abducted into slave labor. She was being ferried from London to Italy when she smartly escaped from her abductors at the Heathrow Airport by disappearing into the toilet where she later asked for help. If Felicia was lucky to have escaped unhurt, 'Boy Adam' was not in any way.
His story should still be fresh in the memory of those that followed the case. When his remains were found dumped in River Thames in the United Kingdom. The London Metropolitan Police that investigated the murder discovered, through a forensic report, that he was a victim of child trafficking and that his murder had some ritual dimensions moreso as his head was severed and taken away before his remains were dumped into the river. Further tests carried on his remains led the Metropolitan Police to Benin City as the boy is believed to have come from Edo State in Nigeria.
Human trafficking, no doubt, has become the current social issue of the time. The startling revelation of the frightening dimension the menace is assuming makes it even more worrisome. And just like HIV/AIDS, it crosses local, national and international borders. Every year, some 600-800 million modern day slaves are trafficked internationally. Human trafficking, according to the United States' Department of State, is the third most lucrative business in the world, after drugs and trading of arms, with an estimated annual earning of $5-$7billion. The United Nations also estimates that about 706,000 to four million women and children are trafficked every year. Out of this figure, 50 per cent are children, with some as young as six years.
Vision Media, an American organization, reports that poverty is the factor in the global economy that leads to suffering. "Those toiling under the horrendous conditions of abject slavery cannot be viewed simply as victims of unfortunate circumstances in the melee of world trade and commerce," says Bill Butler, writer for Vision Media. "Modern day slavery must be acknowledged for the social issue it is; the result of a crime perpetrated by cruel and greedy individuals and criminal enterprises lacking in compassion for other people's suffering."
It was therefore not a surprise as this reporter watched in awe as Emelia Oguuah, filled with compassion, almost burst into tears on a live discussion programme on a Ghanaian television station recently. A mother, of course, with the milk of human kindness flowing in her, the Deputy Director, African Centre for Human Development, a non-governmental organization (NGO),could not hold back her emotions as she narrated the ordeals that young boys and girls, victims of child trafficking and forced labor, go through on a daily basis.
"Imagine an eight year old boy rearing about 150 cattle! He gets bitten by snakes, have dementia, his growth is stunted and retarded, he suffers all forms of deprivation," she said. "The Kayayes (female porters) at Tudu and Tema stations are sexually abused on a daily basis in order to get protection." Oguuah said that in such situation, "generations of children are born on the streets, raised on the streets and are going to die on the streets," adding, "we are building wasted generations."
Eric Appiah Okrah who works with the International Labor Organization (ILO) as the coordinator for the international programme on Eradication of Child Labor IPEC) in Ghana also painted a gloomy and more frightening picture of the menace. Speaking on the same programme as Oquuah, Okrah disclosed that in Kokrobite, a settlement on the outskirts of Accra, a kid slave said he knew that some of them (kid slaves) were actually used for rituals. According to Okrah, a Togolese trafficker arrested in Ghana, in fact, confessed that his first victim, a young boy obtained from Ghana, was used for ritual by his father back in Togo.
The ILO official said when about 100 slave children working with fishermen on the coast of Yeji on the Volta Lake were rescued by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in September 2003, and returned to their families, "it was discovered that these kids, as young as three-and-a-half years were being used as baits to catch fish by the slave masters who deliberately drown them on the river."
The case on the Volta Lake is pathetic; it is indeed one that has continued to generate the attention of the international community. And quite in line with trends in modern day slavery, where traffickers seek vulnerability in their intended victims, they also seek environments in which they can exploit victims with minimal threat of the victims' escape or law enforcement action. On the Volta Lake, quite a number of children find themselves confined and work under terrible conditions with no means of escape or help as the case may be.
Many of the unfortunate kids are subjected to beatings, deprived of food and water, and enough sleep. They are exposed to highly unsanitary conditions and infectious diseases as they are forced to perform life-threatening work in unsafe conditions without pay. One can then understand the emotional outburst of Oguuah and Okrah as they made a passionate case for the protection of the rights of the Ghanaian child.
It is however interesting that with all these developments, the US Department of State's 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report still classifies Ghana as a Tier two country; a country with an improvement on her anti-trafficking efforts. According to the report, "trafficking within the country is more prevalent than transnational trafficking, with majority of victims being children (boys and girls) engaging in forced labor in the fishing industry, agriculture and mines."
Observers are, however, not convinced that Ghana is doing enough. Prior to the IOM's intervention, the country had no law to prosecute traffickers. And in spite of her leading role in the sub-region, the country is yet to ratify the 2000 UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol. Though the country made an effort with its 2005 Human Trafficking Act that prescribes a minimum penalty of five years' imprisonment for all forms of trafficking, there is no maximum penalty for the offence. It is however gratifying to note that Ghana obtained its first conviction in February 2005 as a trafficker got a six-year jail term under the 2005 law. The 17-member Human Trafficking Board is also awaiting presidential approval.
And just as the countdown to the African Cup of Nations football competition, tagged Ghana 2008, begins, the Ghanaian government has been called upon to put adequate measures in place to prevent human traffickers from having their way .This followed the disclosure by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service and some organizations that some people have perfected plans to recruit children for prostitution during the games.
The secret association of commercial sex workers in Accra and Takoradi had earlier expressed concern, though for selfish reasons, about media reports of invasion of prostitutes from neighbouring Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire in the run up to the African Cup of Nations tournament.
Bright Appiah, an activist with the Children Right International, an NGO also said he had information from Kumasi that some "underground agents" have been paid to recruit sex workers, with children as some of their targets. Speaking at a two-day workshop organised by the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and sponsored by the British High Commission at Senchi near Akosombo in the country's Eastern region recently, Appiah said as the security agencies beefed up their watchdog role in host cities and surrounding towns of Ghana 2008, tournament, children could also be protected if government imposed a curfew on children during the tournament. While this may appear a sincere suggestion, observers are not in any way in support of this as it will definitely be an infringement of the rights of the child to free movement.
International sporting events, no doubt, have become fertile ground for human trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and children. The case of Ghana 2008 cannot, therefore, be an exception, say observers of the development. Adu Poku, director general of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Ghana Police Service confirmed this as well. "The international sporting events have become a fertile ground for human trafficking for sexual exploitation, the documented patterns of frequent trafficking of children for forced prostitution during World Cups and others as well as the increase of recruitment of children for prostitution in South Africa for the upcoming World Cup create a dire picture. We need to fight it to ensure zero tolerance for human trafficking," said the Ghana CID boss.
Tatiana Kotlyarenko, executive director of Enslavement Prevention Alliance West Africa, however, put the challenge at hand in proper perspective. "In South Africa, there are media reports of how street children as young as nine years old are being lured and prepared for prostitution for World Cup 2010," she said, even as she warned: "With no preventive measures in place and relatively easy border crossings for other ECOWAS members prior to, and during, the CAN 2008, it is highly probable that thousands of women and children will be trafficked into Ghana for the purposes of exploitation, as well as recruited internally.
The ECOWAS Commission estimates that not less than 300,000 children have fallen victim to trafficking in the sub-region, citing an International Labor Organization (ILO) report .The sub-regional body already has a protocol among member states that makes trafficking an offence. Member states are currently being encouraged to embark on reform of national laws with a view to harmonising them with international and regional conventions and protocol on trafficking in Persons.
Organizations around the world are also expressing sincere and serious concerns about the problem of human trafficking into the Southern African region in the run up to the World Cup 2010.The need to adequately prepare for the upcoming World Cup was one of the topics on the agenda at a conference held by the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women (GAATW) in Bangkok, Thailand last November.
The situation in Nigeria is not in any way better, though the country is also classified as a Tier 2 country by the 2007 TIP Report of the US State's Department. Nigeria, according to the report, remains a major source country for women trafficked to Europe and a transit and destination country for trafficked children to and from other parts of Africa.
Collateral Damages, a new report by the GAATW, which examines anti-trafficking measures and their impact on human rights of trafficked people in eight countries across the globe, however describes Nigeria's 2005 anti-trafficking act as a step in the right direction. It nonetheless notes that the act has many loopholes and shortfalls, which it says may be "the result of acting too quickly." Victoria Nwogu, author of the Nigerian chapter in the report said "the act essentially reproduces the UN Trafficking Protocol, without effectively adapting it to the local context. Some of the points of the Protocol are inappropriate for Nigeria and so the Act, in some places, misses its mark."
It would be recalled that following the endorsement of the UN Protocol on Trafficking In Persons, Nigeria went ahead to promulgate the 2003 Trafficking In Persons Law Enforcement and Administration Act. The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) was created in August 2003, with Carol Ndaguba as the executive secretary. The 2005 amendment to the Child Rights Act also increases penalties for traffickers and their collaborators.
Though sentences imposed have been inadequate, NAPTIP has continued to make commendable efforts as the country reported 81 trafficking investigations, 23 prosecutions and three convictions in 2006.The national action plan against trafficking developed in 2006 is also awaiting presidential approval.
The UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children came into force in 2003.It defines human trafficking as, "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, or abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments of benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation."
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Children for sale: UK's new slave trade
By David Harrison
January 28, 2008
Hundreds of young children are being sold and "trafficked" to Britain from Africa to be exploited as modern-day slaves, it can be revealed.
The illicit trade in children - sold by their parents, some while still babies, to criminal gangs and people traffickers - has been uncovered by a Sunday Telegraph investigation.
An undercover reporter was offered several children for sale by their parents in Nigeria: two boys aged three and five for £5,000, or £2,500 for one, and a 10-month-old baby for £2,000. Teenage girls - including some still pregnant - were willing to sell their babies for less than £1,000.
One international trafficker, tracked down in Lagos, claimed to be buying up to 500 children a year.
Impoverished African parents are being lured by the traffickers' promises of "a better life" for their children, thousands of miles away in cities including London, Birmingham and Manchester.
But, once brought to Britain, the children are used as a fraudulent means to obtain illicit housing and other welfare benefits, totaling tens of thousands of pounds each a year.
From the age of seven, rather than being sent to school, they are exploited as domestic slaves, forced to work for up to 18 hours a day, cleaning, cooking and looking after other younger children, or put to work in restaurants and shops.
Some of the children are also subjected to physical and sexual abuse, while others even find themselves accused of being witches and become victims of exorcism rites in "traditional" African churches in Britain.
Campaigners called last night for the Government and the police to take "urgent action" to end this "21st century child slavery".
"These children are being abused under our noses in our own country," said Chris Beddoe, the director of End Child Prostitution and Trafficking, a British-based coalition of international charities.
"It is totally unacceptable. We need urgent action to identify these children as they enter the UK, find those who are being abused and offer proper protection to those who escape or are freed from their abusers."
Vernon Coaker, the Home Office minister responsible for the prevention of trafficking, described child traffickers as "evil" and said anybody who could buy and sell babies was "sick".
But David Davis, the Conservative shadow home secretary, said: "The Government has utterly failed to take decisive action to tackle human trafficking.
"A Conservative government would take a range of practical measures - developed in detail over the last two years - to curb all aspects of this evil trade, which threatens Britain and the most vulnerable in our society."
A recent survey by the Government's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre claimed that 330 children, including 14 aged under 12, many of them from Africa, had been trafficked to Britain over the past year.
The police and campaigners believe, however, that this is just the "tip of the iceberg" and that the true figure is likely to be in the thousands.
The Sunday Telegraph can reveal how the trade starts more than three thousand miles away in Africa where babies are sold to predatory traffickers, able to persuade desperately poor and often illiterate parents to hand over their children. The children are then sold, at high profit, as "home helps" to African families in Britain and in other European and North American cities.
The traffickers use a network of corrupt officials and co-traffickers to obtain passports and visas, often giving the children new names.
Many of the young victims are flown directly from Lagos in Nigeria to London's airports. Others are taken, via other west African states such as Ghana and Benin, to "transit" cities, including Paris.
A growing number of the African slave children arrives in Britain unaccompanied, as asylum-seekers, or with "private foster parents".
Debbie Ariyo, the executive director of the London-based charity Africans Unite Against Child Abuse, said: "This trade is a disgrace. These children are not going to loving homes.
"They are being cynically used by adults as slave labor and to defraud the state and then when they get older and have served their purpose and no longer attract entitled to benefits they are thrown out on to the streets with no papers even to prove who they are. These are damaged, traumatised children and we have to end this misery."
Campaigners said that many of the slave children - psychologically and often physically damaged at 18 - were thrown out of the houses of their "owners".
They are left to fend for themselves, usually with no papers or documents to prove who they are. With nowhere to turn, many fall into crime and the sex trade. Those that come to the attention of the authorities when they commit a crime or go to social services for help are usually brusquely deported as illegal immigrants.
The Government will unveil new measures next month aimed at giving more protection to victims of child trafficking.
Mr Coaker said: "We have tightened our visa requirements and our ports of entry and we are gathering intelligence to help us stop this horrific trade."
A senior Scotland Yard officer said: "The traffickers and the people who buy the children and use them as domestic slaves have no regard for their wellbeing and we are determined to catch those involved in this vile business.
"But this is a hidden crime, going on largely in Britain's African communities and we would urge people in those communities to contact us if they suspect that any child in their area is being abused. We need their co-operation. They must not turn a blind eye."
Godwin Morka, the executive director of Lagos's anti-trafficking unit, Nathip, admitted that child trafficking was "rampant" in many Nigerian states. "We know these children are not going to happy homes and we are doing what we can on limited resources."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/27/nslave127.xml
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YEMEN: Moves to tackle child smuggling to Saudi Arabia
According to UNICEF, in 2005-2006, 1.2 million Yemeni children were out of school. Many of them try to find work and some are smuggled to Saudi Arabia
SANAA, 28 January 2008 (IRIN) - Officials at Yemen's Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor (MSAL) say child smuggling into Saudi Arabia is still going on, especially in the northern province of Hajja, but efforts are being made to prevent it.
Iman Mashour, a consultant at the MSAL's Combatting Child Labor Unit, told IRIN "the Saudi authorities say on average they arrest 10 smuggled children a day", but that there were no exact figures, he said.
If the smuggled children are arrested, the Saudi authorities bring them back to the border.
"Smuggling children into Saudi Arabia is going on and it takes place secretly as parents keep the issue secret. They do not tell others about their smuggled children as the latter contribute to the family income," she said.
Child welfare centres set up by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and run by MSAL aim to alleviate the problem. According to ministry data, Haradh centre, in Hajja Province, received 900 smuggled children in 2006 and another 622 in 2007. In early January 2008 a centre was also set up in Sanaa to cater for smuggled and street children.
Smuggled children exposed to abuse, killing
Jamal al-Haddi, general manager of Alternatives to Combat Child Labor Through Education and Sustainable Services in the Middle East and North Africa Region (ACCESS-MENA) in Yemen, told IRIN his organization began a study in October 2007 on child smuggling in Hajja Province.
"According to available data… 30 percent of schoolchildren in border villages had been smuggled into Saudi Arabia," he said.
Smuggled children were in danger of being sexually abused or killed: "When the Saudi authorities arrest them they put them in prison with adults. In the Yemeni border village of al-Khadour 20 smuggled children were found dead. They were killed either by Saudi bullets or military vehicles over the past few years while trying to enter Saudi Arabia," he said.
Al-Haddi said some smuggled children were used - sometimes with their parents' consent - to bring in sacks of flour from Saudi Arabia, using donkeys. Others take cattle from Yemen to sell in Saudi Arabia, because Yemeni cattle are higher quality and fetch higher prices than in Yemen.
"These children cross the border at night and walk 6-7km. They go in groups of 20-30," he said.
Trying to reduce child-trafficking
ACCESS-MENA is working on a project to reduce child trafficking in Hajja Province. It is setting up social clubs and refurbishing nine schools with the aim of keeping students at school, according to al-Haddi.
"We provided each school with a generator and four computers. We also established entertainment facilities," al-Haddi said.
The aim is also to bring formerly smuggled children back to school. "We ask parents not to send their children to Saudi Arabia again and be committed to doing so," al-Haddi said, adding that the project also trained teachers. Five training sessions for 100 teachers are planned for February.
Nasim Ur-Rehman, chief communication and information officer at the UNICEF office in Yemen, said that if children are not in school, they are more susceptible to being trafficked or end up doing dangerous jobs.
"In 2005-2006, 1.2 million children were out of school. They provided a fertile ground for child trafficking. So UNICEF began an awareness-raising programme and tries to get more children into school," Nasim Ur-Rehman said.
According to Ur-Rehman, before 2005, Yemen's government had been in a state of denial regarding child trafficking. UNICEF had been working to raise awareness of the issue in government circles, he said.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76449
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Uzbekistan: Top garment makers boycott Uzbek cotton
Industry targeted by child-labor activists.
January 21, 2008
by Gulnoza Saidazimova
In an open letter on January 17, some 100 Uzbek dissidents and activists abroad and 40 in the country say the forced use of child labor in the Uzbek cotton industry has become a "deliberate state policy" aimed at "acquiring extra profits."
Child labor has existed since the Soviet era in Uzbekistan, the world's third-largest cotton exporter. But the letter, the second such appeal by Uzbek activists in as many months, says that in recent years forced child labor has spread on a "mass scale," and that working conditions for thousands of minors who toil in Uzbek fields have worsened.
H&M and Marks and Spencer are among the retailers who have pledged to boycott the world's third-largest cotton producer.
One of the letter's signatories is Nadejda Atayeva, who heads a Paris-based Association on Human Rights in Central Asia.
"As you know, child labor has been used to pick and process cotton for many years [in Uzbekistan], and the time came when we decided to raise this problem," says Atayeva, whose group is behind the campaign to boycott Uzbek cotton. "We wrote the petition to the international community in order to start debate and address the issue properly because efforts to solve the problem inside the country did not bring any success so far."
Concerns over the use of forced child labor in Uzbekistan began attracting more international attention in October, after the BBC aired a documentary that showed Uzbek children picking cotton for clothing sold in Britain.
The BBC's Newsnight program filmed an Uzbek cotton field full of schoolchildren, some as young as 9, hard at work. The documentary showed how children were accompanied by a police escort, which cleared the road for buses and trucks loaded with mattresses to take the kids to cotton fields or back to the barracks. One boy said he was paid just two pence per kilogram — 40 percent less than officials in the capital, Tashkent, said pickers were paid.
Following the expose, several international companies said they would stop buying Uzbek cotton. Swedish retail giant H&M, Finland's Marimekko, and Estonia's Krenholm were the first. This week, they were joined by Britain's Tesco, the world's third-largest retailer, and by Marks and Spencer, Britain's largest retailer.
"We are really thrilled Marks and Spencer have just announced they will no longer be buying cotton from Uzbekistan," says Juliette Williams, who leads the Uzbek boycott campaign for the Environmental Justice Foundation, a British-based NGO. "And they are telling all their suppliers the same message — that they need to make sure that there is no Uzbek cotton in the production process to make clothes that will be sold in Marks and Spencer stores. We are really thrilled at that. It's quite a victory."
Williams says the decisions by Britain's major retailers have the potential to change a multibillion-dollar industry and stop abuses such as forced child labor. The boycott could also spread beyond Europe, a major buyer of Uzbek cotton and where one in every four garments contains it.
In Bangladesh, textile and yarn producers tell RFE/RL's Uzbek Service they might look for alternative sources for cotton if Uzbekistan, which supplies most of cotton used in Bangladesh, does not stop its child-labor practices.
Not everyone has embraced the boycott.
The International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC), a US-based group that promotes the world cotton trade, called the allegations by Uzbek activists "exaggerated" and "absurd." The ICAC's statement came after the Uzbek activists issued an initial appeal on November 16 to boycott Uzbek cotton.
ICAC Executive Director Terry Townsend has ruled out what he called "factual errors" on the use of defoliants and pesticides in cotton fields that activists claim Uzbek children are inhaling, as well as information on the level of pay for child workers and other issues. Writing on November 30, he concluded that a boycott of Uzbek cotton in international markets would be "highly impractical."
Nevertheless, Townsend says his committee's panel would be involved in "gathering objective information" pertaining to the allegations. The panel will present its findings during the ICAC plenary meeting in Burkina Faso in November 2008, he wrote.
Atayeva said this week's statement was partly in response to the ICAC's reaction to the original call for a boycott. The activists' November appeal was sent to the European Union and the governments of the United States, Russia, and China, as well as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank, the UN's Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the International Labor Organization.
Cotton revenues are a major source of hard currency for Uzbekistan, with around $1 billion in annual exports. But activists say it's especially lucrative for the ruling elite, such as President Islam Karimov's family and cronies. They say the boycott will not affect ordinary Uzbeks.
Officials in Tashkent have not publicly reacted to recent international outcry. However, in the past they have denied the use of forced child labor in the country's agricultural sector, saying Tashkent adheres to international conventions on child labor and "forbids any form of child labor in cotton fields and other agricultural sectors."
Atayeva, a former schoolteacher, was fired from her job in Uzbekistan for refusing to send sick schoolchildren to the cotton fields. She says the letter's signatories are all Uzbeks with firsthand experience of conditions in Uzbek cotton fields, and that foreigners who deny their accusations appear to have been deceived by the Uzbek government.
"Our appeal is based on our concern over the fate of Uzbekistan's children, who are deprived of a proper education at the expense of collecting 'white gold,'" Atayeva says.
RFE/RL's Uzbek Service contributed to this report.
http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewFeature8.cfm?REF=38
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PAKISTAN: Trafficking of children on the rise
LAHORE, 21 January 2008 (IRIN) - A disturbing new trend in people smuggling is emerging in Pakistan: More and more children are being sent by their parents on hazardous journeys in a bid to reach wealthier countries, with several instances of such trafficking reported recently in local newspapers.
Of the more than 2,200 persons deported to Pakistan in 2007, mainly from Oman or Iran (from where many hoped to reach European destinations), 15 were children under 18, according to figures maintained by Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
Two of the children sent back were Muhammad Zulfikar, 12, of Bhimber District in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, and Waqar Hasan, 14, from the town of Mandi Bahauddin, near Gujrat, a town 120km north of Lahore, the provincial capital of Punjab.
Zulfikar had been apprehended on the Turkish border and Waqar on the Iranian frontier. Both boys had hoped to make it to Greece.
"I wanted to follow in the footsteps of the many people from my area who have gone abroad and made a fortune," Zulfiqar said after being handed over to the FIA, the government agency responsible for tackling human trafficking.
According to Arif Bokhari, the FIA's assistant director, the "trend of trafficking teenage boys" is rising in Pakistan's populous Punjab. He blamed parents who "paid out large sums of money to agents" for subjecting children to such hazards.
Hostel
Under an agreement between the FIA and the Lahore-based Child Welfare Protection Bureau (CWPB) of the Punjab government, both Zulfikar and Waqar are now at the bureau's well-run premises, attending school and living with some 200 other children at the hostel.
Other victims of child trafficking, including former child camel jockeys rescued from Gulf States over the past few years, are also housed at the facility.
"We educate and rehabilitate these children," Zubair Ahmed Shad, programme director at the CWPB, told IRIN.
He also explained that the "children saved from traffickers and living with us are doing well", and pointed out there had been a sharp decline in trafficking to Gulf states since the United Arab Emirates (UAE) banned the use of child jockeys in March 2005.
But other children are not as fortunate as Zulfikar and Waqar, who, despite their ordeal, are alive and well.
In 2006, a family from the town of Gujranwala, about 80km north of Lahore, reported their son missing - apparently while on his way to Greece - only to learn later that he had died during the ordeal.
The agent whom the parents had paid to organise the hazardous journey was arrested, but the victim's family declined to testify against him after he promised to take two other sons overseas free of charge.
"Economic desperation"
"It is the economic desperation of people that leads them to do such things," said Akhtar Hussain Baloch of the Islamabad-based Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child, which has campaigned against child trafficking for many years.
Recognising such realities, the authorities have in recent years worked to mitigate this, putting forward the Prevention of Human Smuggling Control Ordinance, which was enforced by the Pakistan government in 2002.
Under the law, tougher punishments are envisaged for anyone found involved in trafficking people, including prison terms and fines for parents.
Additionally, as part of its measures to curb smuggling, in 2006 Pakistan's FIA published a "red book" listing 165 agents in various places from Pakistan to Greece, and has sought Interpol assistance to tackle them.
Trafficking of girls
While boys in impoverished parts of rural Pakistan, particularly towns in the southern Punjab, are more likely to be trafficked overseas, girls are trafficked more often within the country, and sometimes sold into what amounts to little more than sexual slavery, says the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
HRCP has reported that in most cases, they are given away for amounts of money ranging from US$1,300 to $5,000 by impoverished parents, sometimes in "marriage"; and sometimes to agents who promise lucrative jobs as domestic servants in large cities.
Many of these girls, according to child rights groups, end up as sex workers. Some are no older than 10 at the time of the "sale".
"Hundreds of girls are trafficked within the country each year. There are markets in the North West Frontier Province where these victims are sold like cattle," I.A. Rehman, director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76109
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US Congressmen probe child labor on Ghana’s cocoa farm
January 20, 2008
A delegation from the US Congress is on a three-day visit to the country to monitor efforts by the Ghana government to reduce the worst forms of child labor and slavery on the nation’s cocoa farms.
The delegation, led by Senators Thomas Harkin of Iowa and Bernard Sanders of Vermont and the New York State Representative, Elliot Engel, is visiting some cocoa farms in the Western Region.
They would also meet with representatives from partner Non-Governmental Organizations working to reduce and eliminate the worst forms of child labor in the production of cocoa and related activities.
Senator Harkin and Congressman Elliot Engel have been leading a crusade by consumer groups in the United States to pressurize chocolate manufacturers not to utilize cocoa from countries where child labor is prevalent on cocoa farms.
But Congressman Engel told a meeting with government officials that the visit was not a fault-finding one but meant to complement the efforts of the Ghanaian government to combat child slavery and bondage on the cocoa farms.
Meanwhile the Ghana government says it has nothing to fear or hide from the visit by the three US Congressmen.
The advocacy work by the congressmen to reduce forced labor in cocoa, resulted in the signing of a protocol for growing and processing cocoa beans between chocolate manufacturers in the US and La Cote d’Ivoire in September 2001.
Deputy Manpower Minister Frema Osei-Opare says though Ghana was not a signatory to the protocol, government is still committed to working towards achieving the prescriptions of the protocol.
She told Joy News government was not pleased with a purported research work carried out by Tulane University, a US-based university contracted by the US government that sought to portray that forced child labor was prevalent in Ghana.
Mrs Osei-Opare also told Joy News government was not happy with the activities of some NGO working on reducing child labor in the cocoa industry in Ghana.
http://www.myjoyonline.com/news/200801/12322.asp
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Stores cited for child labor violations during holidays
By Greg Turner/Daily News staff
Associated Press
Jan 16, 2008
Two Natick mall stores were among 31 retail outlets fined for child labor violations during the holiday shopping season, according to an announcement Wednesday from Attorney General Martha Coakley.
During employment checks in December, state investigators found that the Puma and Spencer Gifts stores at the Natick Collection had minors without work permits on staff. Puma was fined $100 for two violations while Spencer must pay $50 for a single violation.
Coakley's office found a total of 177 violations at 31 mall stores in December. Besides employing minors without work permits, violations included failing to identify minor employees on work schedules and minors working past the latest permissible hour.
Changes to the state's child labor laws went into effect in 2007, including a restriction on employing 16- and 17-year-olds after 10 p.m. on nights before school days. Minors also cannot work past 8 p.m. without adult supervision.
"It's safe to say this is something we're going to keep our eye on and work to enforce,'' said Harry Pierre, a spokesman for Coakley.
Kevin Mahoney, the general counsel for New Jersey-based Spencer Gifts, said his company has paid its fine.
"I have no comment other than we were cited and the employee did eventually produce a work permit,'' he said.
Kenzie Kids Inc., a children's clothing and gift shop at the Chestnut Hill Mall, was fined $50 for employing a minor without a work permit.
"One of our long-standing employees had her daughter work some Sundays (before) Christmas,'' said owner Estelle Colgan. "It never occurred to us she needed a working permit. Her mom was working with her the same shift and driving her into work.''
Colgan said the young employee has since obtained a work permit from the state and had it signed by her mother and school officials as required by law.
The AG's office said one of the worst offenders was Hollister Co., a clothing store owned by Abercrombie & Fitch. Its Hyannis location at the Cape Cod Mall was cited for 15 instances of working 1-6 to 17-year-olds past 10 p.m. on a night before a school day. The store was assessed $6,000 in child labor penalties.
Coakley also said Hollister's Burlington Mall location employed 57 minors without work permits.
Abercrombie & Fitch could not be reached for comment.
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