Labor Standards not to be misused for protectionist trade purposes: Jonas Gahr Støre
Speech : Jonas Gahr Støre, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Norway
Speech: Mr. Juan Somavia, Director General ILO
Speech: Mr. Pascal Lamy Director General WTO
Jonas Gahr Støre, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Norway said that one hand that labor standards should not be used for protectionist trade purposes and at the same time on the other hand that the violation of fundamental principles and rights cannot be used as a
legitimate comparative advantage. He was speaking at the Decent Work conference at Oslo, 5 September 2008 organized by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, LO-The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions and the NHO - Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise. Present on the occasion were Juan Somavia, Director General, ILO, Mr Pascal Lamy, Director General, World Trade Organization, Mr Dag Terje Andersen, Minister of Labor and Social Inclusion, Norway, Mr Roar Flåthen, President, The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions among many other leaders from industry, academia and civil society.
He pointed to the poorest in the informal sector as the most vulnerable to the impact of globalization in the developing countries and irregular immigrants in the rich countries specially the women and “children on the move”, subject to abuse, trafficking and the worst forms of child labor, globalized misery is a social problem, a moral shame – and a growing threat of serious social instability. He said that it is critical to bridge the gap between economic and social dimensions of global governance. If economic progress for some means social decline for others – then we end up in a dangerous gap.
Citing Child labor as one example of abuse and neglect of human rights that needs to be addressed and fought and asked companies at all levels of their value chain – from the centre to the remote subsidiary to pay attention by installing systems need in place to avoid abuse.
Speaking on the occasion Mr. Juan Somavia, Director General ILO said the meeting will “contribute to the international debate on how coherent support for the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda can help improve economic governance, and promote full employment and decent working conditions around the world. He further said that the ILO agenda “could play a big role in shaping a socially just, fair globalization” in league with “a revitalized team of international organizations operating in a much more coherent way. “No doubt, we as heads of agencies can do a lot and we can do more than we are doing now”, he said. “But more convergent, more coherent, less parallel government policies will make our job much easier.”
Mr. Pascal Lamy Director General WTO said that the coherence is surely if not the only challenge faced in harnessing the positive dimension of globalization, as we need more international governance to cope for the issues of today. He said that it is a systemic issue. He identified four broad areas for addressing coherence in global governance by focusing on the coherence in domestic and international policies at country level, coherence in positions taken by the various countries in different international forums, coherence between positions taken at international forums by countries and in bilateral engagement and coherence in policies and actions of the various international organizations. He though mentioned that this problem of coherence in policies and actions is visibly bigger in larger countries than in smaller ones. He further clarified that there should be ways of promoting more coherence but this will remain very difficult as long as the principle that the monopoly of coherence lies with the sovereign nation states remains the fundamental principle of the international system, there are possibilities but the roads are narrow, this principle will narrow any road to coherence. He pointed out other issues of legitimacy, accountability, stake holders participation, the representation by the State and the feeling by the non governmental organizations not being represented. He however appreciate the effort of Juan Somavia in promoting decent work agenda through the system including the Chief Executive Board of the UN as a good example, promoting softly a coherence within the system.
Norwegians Government pledges NOK 100 million to promote decent work
Minister of the Environment and International Development Erik Solheim
signed an agreement today with ILO Director General Juan Somavia pledging
NOK 100 million to the International Labor Organization’s campaign to
promote decent work.
The agreement was signed in connection with the conference “Decent Work – A
Key to Social Justice for a Fair Globalisation” in Oslo, where employment
creation and promotion of Labor rights and standards are on the agenda.
“All people want a decent job, where their rights are respected and where
they can earn enough to support themselves and their families. This is not
only important for the individual, it is also good international development
policy,” said Minister of the Environment and International Development Erik
Solheim.
Norway is now increasing its support to ILO with a view to lifting the
campaign to promote decent work to the global arena. NOK 100 million has
been allocated for the period 2008-2009.
“The International Labor Organization is important both as a political
arena and as a partner in efforts to promote a fair globalization,” said Mr
Solheim.
Half of Norway’s contribution will be used to promote gender equality and
women’s rights at the workplace, which includes combating forced Labor and
human trafficking.
“It is important to empower women by investing in gender equality and decent
work for women. The money will also be used to promote the right to organize
and to bargain collectively, and to establish Labor inspection mechanisms
in developing countries,” said Mr Solheim.
Press Release from Ministry of Finance, September 9th, 2008
Norway September 9, 2008
Norges Bank’s active ownership activities in Monsanto Co. have contributed to a significant reduction in the use of child labor in the company’s hybrid cotton seed production in India. Norges Bank can still play an important role in achieving further improvements. The Ministry of Finance has therefore decided not to exclude Monsanto Co. from the portfolio of the Government Pension Fund - Global.
In November 2006, the Council on Ethics recommended that the Ministry of Finance should exclude Monsanto Co. from the investment universe of the GPFG. The Council then held the view that continued investment in the company would entail an unacceptable risk of contributing to the worst forms of child labor. The Ministry of Finance decided, based on plans presented by Norges Bank in spring 2007, that it would be appropriate to pursue an active ownership strategy for a limited period of time in order to establish whether this might reduce the risk of contributing to grossly unethical conduct.
We take the view, based on new assessments of the Monsanto case from both the Council on Ethics and Norges Bank this spring, that there is reason to believe that Norges Bank's continued exercise of ownership rights in Monsanto will be an important contribution to achieving actual improvement in conditions. – I therefore want Norges Bank to continue, as an active owner, to continue to engage with Monsanto for purposes of combating the worst forms of child labor within the company’s hybrid cotton seed production in India, says the Minister of Finance.
Norges Bank has reported on plans for, and, thereafter, the outcome of, its exercise of ownership rights through meetings and correspondence with the Ministry of Finance during 2007 and the first half of 2008. In its contact with Monsanto, the Bank emphasizes its expectation that there shall be continuous improvement in the conditions of children involved in the hybrid cotton seed production.
The Bank has been informed by Monsanto that the company has effected a significant reduction in the incidence of child labor in its labor force. The Bank has a clear expectation that the company, in light of its commitment towards zero tolerance on child labor, will continue to reduce the number of children in the cotton seed production. At the same time the company should further improve safety for its workers in general, and verify its child labor and safety performance through improved monitoring procedures.
Norges Bank has, in parallel with the dialogue pursued with Monsanto, taken an initiative to establish cooperation between several multinational companies within the hybrid cotton- and vegetable seed production in India. The objective of such an approach is to seek to enhance standards relating to the use of child labor within the sector as a whole, and not only within a single company. Norges Bank takes the view that a joint standard for multinational companies will be the most effective instrument for purposes of achieving continued improvements. It further believes that Norges Bank as an investor is uniquely well-placed to facilitate such a process. An initial meeting between several companies, including Monsanto Co., was held in June this year.
The Council on Ethics has, on its part, conducted its own survey of the recent situation in various parts of Monsanto's cotton seed production in India. The Council is aware of the efforts pursued by the Bank, and has taken these into consideration in its latest recommendation to the Ministry.
The Council on Ethics concludes, inter alia, as follows in its letter of 10 June 2008 to the Ministry of Finance:
”The Council’s assessment is that the detected violations in this case must be considered ongoing and, seen in isolation, deemed to count as “the worst forms of child labor”, and thus as grave violations which, in principle, qualify for exclusion from the Fund’s investment universe.
At the same time, the Council on Ethics finds that Monsanto has achieved considerable improvements, particularly within certain geographical areas, when it comes to reducing the occurrence of child labor use.”
Furthermore, the Council states that the role of Norges Bank in the improvement effort is of particular importance, not least because no other investors are engaged with the company on these issues at present.
The Council also states the following: "Given that the improvement efforts are further strengthened and their application extended so that these goals are met, and also that the sector-wide initiative succeeds in reducing the occurrence of child labor in the production linked to MMB and Mahyco in the same way as in the company’s own operations, the risk of future violations may be reduced to a level where the Fund’s investment in Monsanto no longer must be regarded as constituting a breach of the Fund’s Ethical Guidelines.”
Both Norges Bank and the Council on Ethics will closely monitor future developments.
Hopes for Democracy, Stability and Education Alive in Kenya
Huffington Post, September 9, 2008
Gene Sperling*
As the world celebrates International Literacy Day today, there are few countries being
more closely watched than Kenya. In 2003, when newly-elected President Mwai Kibaki announced during his inauguration that primary school would now be free for all Kenyans, over two million additional children poured into school. The cause of universal free education was thus linked from the start with the new hopes for a stable democracy in Kenya.
There is no question that early 2008 was at least a temporary set-back to many of those hopes. After the economic and democratic gains that had come with free elections in 2003 and an economy that had surged to 7% growth in 2007, ethnic violence exploded this January amidst charges that Kibaki supporters had rigged votes in the December 2007 Presidential elections. Over 1300 Kenyans died before peace was brokered. Beyond the tragic loss of life, school was disrupted for hundreds of thousands of children displaced by the violence, while a decline in tourism and the steep rise in oil prices appear to be cutting growth in half for 2008. To top it off, in early July, Finance Minister Amos Kimunya was forced to resign due to his suspicious sale of Kenya's Grand Regency Hotel.
And yet despite all this bad news, I returned from a week in Nairobi this summer feeling optimistic about Kenya. Yes, the power-sharing agreement between now Prime Minister Ralia Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) candidate and President Mwai Kibaki of the Party of National Unity (PNU) is unusual. Yes, peace was partially bought by splitting existing ministries in two to create ministerial slots to satisfy powerful advisors in each party. But the benefits of peace - however it was garnered - are enormous for Kenya. And Odinga - the likely winner of the election - showed real statesmanship by accepting the number two spot in the interest of that peace. However strained this political marriage between Kibaki and Odinga appears, it does seem to be functioning. And the resulting stability is starting to pay dividends. In July, France gave the green light to its citizens to both visit and invest in Kenya again. The partial privatization of Kenya's telecom company, Safaricom, was dramatically oversubscribed. With some luck on oil prices, growth could easily return to 6-7% levels by 2009 or 2010.
And in a bright spot, one area where this coalition government seems truly united is on education. Kenya made international news in 2003 by eliminating the terrible practice of charging even poor parents fees for each child they send to school - a practice that denies tens of millions of your people - especially girls - an education in much of the developing world. The announcement of free education by President Kibaki brought 1 million new children into school in one week! Since then, enrollment has gone from 5.9 million to over 8 million. Now Kenya is taking the pioneering step of eliminating fees for secondary school - even though it will cost the government ten times the amount to cover the cost of secondary school as opposed to primary school. While parents still face the expenses of boarding, uniforms, and travel, the abolition of fees has again led to a surge in enrollment.
While President Kibaki and his first Education Minister George Saitoti - both of the PNU - deserve great credit for pushing the elimination of fees, the Orange Democratic Movement seems just as committed. When I met with Prime Minister Odinga in his Nairobi office, he told me that the same education goals were in the platforms of both parties because "we all agree that education will be the ultimate engine of Kenya's economic growth."
The Ministry of Education has garnered international respect through both excellent civil servants like Permanent Secretary Karega Mutahi and Basic Education Secretary George Godia as well as their decentralized and transparent system for dispersing funds to local school districts. Rather than hold the money in the Ministry of Education, Kenya ensures that every shilling gets to the local level by depositing a per-child grant of 1,020 Kenyan Shillings (approximately $15 USD) to local banks accounts for each school. The headmaster is then required to post the amount received in plain view (which I saw firsthand in school after school that I visited) and work more closely with parent committees on how to spend the money that anything I had witnessed in the United States.
While Kenya is stepping up to the plate with serious reforms and the financial commitment to replace lost school fees - including for 4,000 secondary schools - they cannot do it alone. The overwhelming funds needed are for teacher salaries - which typically make up 80% of school budgets. What Kenya most needs from the international community is help with the recurrent costs that would come with hiring the 47,000 new teachers that current Minister of Education Sam Ongeri says Kenya needs to handle the additional three million students while focusing on quality.
This financial reality demonstrates how essential it is for donor nations to not only start filling the $9 billion annual financing gap needed for universal basic education, but also to ensure that such support is, as Prime Minister Gordon Brown stresses, long-term and predictable. Poor nations that are worried that assistance will only be short-term will hesitate to bring on new teachers, fearful that their funding will be cut-off just as those teachers have been trained and deployed. And without an influx of new teachers, the admirable effort to bring in millions of new students will mean exploding class sizes and decreasing quality.
Everywhere I went in Kenya there were high hopes that if Barack Obama were elected, these concerns would finally be heard. But no G-8 leader should need to be the child of a Kenyan parent to know that both educational reform from nations like Kenya and financial support from donor nations like the United States will have to be long-term to paint the most optimistic future for Africa.
*Gene Sperling is Director of the Center for Universal Education at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was formerly National Economic Advisor to President Clinton.
Because Brazil is one of the world powers in soccer, we are dissatisfied with second place. This is now even true with women's soccer. One need only observe the visible suffering of our women players at the Beijing Olympics. Despite winning an honorable second place, a silver medal won in competition with the entire world, the women displayed the sort of sadness usually associated with placing last.
One could perceive a very similar reaction in the 1998 men's soccer World Cup when we placed ahead of all the countries except France. In soccer, we do not accept mediocrity, not even second place.
We lack this same behavior and emotion in other sectors of national life. Year after year, we place near last but the matter does not awaken indignation and goes unnoticed. For decades, we placed last in inflation; we are the worst in forest destruction and in income concentration, in the number of illiterate adults, in malaria and dengue fever cases. The international evaluations all place Brazil among the worst in reading capacity and mathematics ability. We are also the world's worst in juvenile crime. These shameful classifications do not, however, cause us to suffer as much as placing second in soccer. This is why we are good in soccer and very bad in other practices: we accept mediocrity in everything else while demanding excellence in soccer.
Four years from now our women's soccer team will again be able to compete in the Olympics and, at that time, may win. Until then, the rules will be the same; the ball will continue to be round. But the educational loss does not permit such easy recuperation. Four years from now, the entire world will have evolved in knowledge, in equipment, in teacher preparation. In soccer, we will have lost or won; but in education, if we continue to lose, we will continue to remain behind.
Losing a World Cup in soccer leaves us sadder. Losing the Education Cup, however, leaves us poorer, more unequal, more backward, more uneducated. Because faulty education generates a vicious cycle: when it is poor, it remains poor.
Why, then, are we crying over a soccer defeat while ignoring our failure in education? First, because our culture is geared more towards consuming, towards soccer, towards the immediate, towards happiness, than it is geared towards effort, towards the future and towards the sacrifice that education implies. Our poor population, nonetheless, has to survive day after day. They cannot wait for their children's education (the great creativity of the Bolsa Escola was uniting the need for immediate survival with education for the future). It is sad to acknowledge this, but the Brazilian elite has transmitted the idea - accepted by the poor people - that quality education is something reserved for the rich. As if it were natural that the children of the poor would not have the right to a school equal to that of the children of the rich.
Research presented by Veja magazine proves this. It shows that almost all parents find their children's public school to be good, while their children are not, in fact, in an adequate school. The parents consider the school to be that place with the right to a snack where they drop off their children. If there is no class, no homework, this is does not matter. To 89% of the parents with children in private schools, their money is well spent and has a good return, even when the indicators show that their children's performance is very poor in comparison with other countries. Ninety percent of the teachers consider themselves well prepared for the task of teaching, even if their students may place last in the world championship of education.
Unions strike over salaries; street dwellers invade buildings and lots, peasants invade farmland. We do not, however, see invasions of good schools to place the children of the poor in them. University professors strike for salaries; university students protest so that a rector will leave office; but they do not utter a single word in protest when we lose the elementary and secondary education championship.
Brazil has the resources to win some more medals in the 2012 London Olympics. And, in the next few years, to celebrate many medals won in the Olympics to follow, especially if we succeed in bringing the 2016 games to Rio de Janeiro. If we make a revolution in education, however, we will also make the cradle for our future athletes. We have the resources but the acceptance of mediocrity in education condemns us to be the losers of the educational Olympics.
* Cristovam Buarque has a Ph.D. in economics. He is a PDT senator for the Federal District and was Governor of the Federal District (1995-98) and Minister of Education (2003-04). He is the current president of the Senate Education Commission. Last year he was a presidential candidate in Brazil.
The chairperson parliamentary committee on gender, Labor and social development, Ms Theopista Ssentongo the Workers’ MP talks to the child mother Ms Emily Nelima shortly after handing over a goat to her at Bumoni. PHOTO BY DAVID MAFABI
While many a child would join the rest of African children in marking the day of the African child (June 6), Emily Nelima, although a child sat at home to look after another child; her baby. And besides the general pervasive atmosphere, Nelima is also enduring the harsh realities of being defiled and turned into a mother at the age of 11.“For a great part of this year, I have been thinking with futility to find out where I belong, to the children or adult mothers and whenever I think about this, I begin shedding tears especially when I see my friends and age mates going to school,” says Nelima. Nelima was impregnated at the age of 11 while in Primary Five. She was expelled from school (Musiye Primary School in Bumbo in Manafwa District), rejected by the person who impregnated her and banished by the parents, she only sought refugee at her helpless grandmother’s home. Ms Emily Nelima now 12 years, later gave birth to a healthy baby girl but could not afford to take care of the child as a single child mother. Fortunately, African Rural Development Initiatives (Ardi), a local NGO which is determined to restore hope amongst child mothers in the area learnt of her plight through a Good Samaritan and came to her rescue. The NGO that runs a skills development centre for child mothers and other youths at Bumoni is situated in Manafwa District. Nelima, is now certain of looking after her baby and later going to school. The child mothers of whom there are about 551 under Ardi in Bumoni, Bumbo and Bubutu sub-counties – describe a similar inhuman treatment by the fathers of their children and their parents. Ardi has given out a goat to every child mother as a source of milk for the baby as well as a means of generating income to look after their fatherless children. In fact most of the girls Daily Monitor visited have more than one goat from the original goat, others have bought cows and look forward to being self reliant.
Besides giving a goat to the child mothers, Ardi also re-kindles the child mothers’ lost hope through counseling, guidance and life skills development which helps them develop self esteem, awareness, and become assertive enough to make informed choices and decisions; this has resulted into over 147 child mothers going back to different educational institutions. According to the Executive director, Mr Joseph Weyusya, Ardi was initiated in 1999 to contribute to the wellbeing of the rural disadvantaged communities, a mission that has propelled it (Ardi) into the construction of a youth drop-in centre which has also become the new home for child mothers. The centre will be used purposely to have young people come together to learn and encourage each other positively. Weyusya says that although Ardi is supporting 551 child mothers by engaging them into income generating activities, teaching them skills like tailoring, and helping them to go back to school, there are over 1,000 child mothers who remain helpless in many homes in Manafwa District and even more in Uganda as a whole. Most of the staff at Ardi have been trained in counseling, and social guidance whose major role is to help the child mothers not to lose hope in life but to re-set their lost ambitions and fight on towards achieving them. Nelima is determined to go back to school with the ambition of becoming a nurse. “Good people from Ardi finally came to my help. I have gone through difficult life as a single mother, at times I have done without food and yet my child has to suckle besides the person I am staying with is very poor. Life is bad for me and I believe it is equally very bad for single child mothers. I mean why should my parents reject me as a child for being pregnant?”
Nelima also has a piece of advice for child mothers out there: “You will be expelled from school, rejected by your spouse and banished by parents but don’t think about aborting like others have done and ended up losing their lives. “There is life after delivery. You can still go back to school and make it,” she says. Weyusya says although initially he wanted to help the orphans, needy children and street children who had dropped out of school, his objective changed when he discovered shortly after research that there are many child single mothers living in the communities helplessly. “So I shifted my vision with a purpose to restore the hope destroyed in child mothers by giving them a hand in looking after their babies and yet sensitizing them to go back to school or begin income generating activities to earn a living,” said Weyusya.
A study conducted by Joanne Leerlooijer from the Netherlands revealed that many of the teenage girls in Manafwa are defiled, impregnated and/or forced into child mothers before they make 16 years. Weyusya who presented the report at a ceremony organized by the NGO to handover goats to over 100 child mothers, says plans are under way to extend the programme to other sub-counties in the district.
He says the goat project was funded by the Netherlands researcher and a friend to the project, Leerlooijer. Leerlooijer from Adopteer een Geit (adopt a goat) an NGO in Holland and friends, secured funds for Ardi activities which included construction of a youth centre, reproductive health and rights trainings, tailoring, and catering, purchase of goats among others. Weyusya says the youth drop in centre would provide an avenue for in door and outdoor games and sports for child mothers and the entire youth folk in the area. To date in Bumoni, Bumbo and Bubutu sub-counties child mothers know Leerlooijer who regularly visits them as their mother. “This lady is a good Samaritan to us,” remarks Esther Khainza, 15, another child mother who has enrolled back in school. Ms Leerlooijer says whereas Ardi has started voluntary counseling and testing, home visits and care, treatment of STDs, special child counseling and free distribution of condoms to help curb down the spread of HIV/Aids and unwanted pregnancies amongst the children, they are also targeting counseling the parents on how to live with their children even after they are found pregnant. Ardi also takes care of sexually active young people, and does not only preach the abstinence message but the ABC strategy (Abstinence, Be faithful and use a Condom) to fight HIV/Aids and that this has drawn commitment of the communities where Ardi works. The chairperson parliamentary committee on gender, Labor and social development, Ms Theopista Ssentongo who officiated at the goat giving ceremony to the child mothers blamed the increasing number of child mothers on lack of parental guidance for the girl-child. Ms Ssentongo who is the Workers’ MP said failure by parents to have time for their children and provide counsel to adolescent girls was responsible for the escalating cross generational sex, early marriages and bastards filling the streets. “Apart from reports from here, there is generally an increasing number of child mothers in Uganda below the age of 16 years. This reflects irresponsibility on the side of the parents to have time to give guidance, counsel and provide all the necessary demands of girl-child at school,” said Ssentongo. She said the existence of 43 percent of child mothers in Manafwa District reflects that the teenage girls in the district are actively engaged in unprotected sex.
She urged parents to make timetables to give time to their children in order to save the generation of young girls who are having sex at a young age and so getting early unwanted pregnancies.
Tanzania: Women who belittle education undermine their bright future
PUDENCIANA TEMBA, Daily News, September 10, 2008
EDUCATION is a key component of Tanzania’s development and economic growth agenda. And education starts at pre-and primary level to higher echelons. Primary school is the foundation of education at any level. It is at primary schools that the children are taught how to read and write. And it is at this level also that children’s behaviors are moulded. This is to say primary education is crucial and central to any further education and development. It is out of this realization that some national leaders leave their tight schedules and find time to officiate at graduation ceremonies of these children, to give them moral support and words of wisdom that will help them to successfully climb the ladder of education and subsequently lead a bright future. Some of those who performed this task last weekend were the Ministers for Infrastructure Development and Agriculture, Food Security and Co-operatives, Dr Shukuru Kawambwa and Mr Stephen Wassira respectively. The ministers jointly underscored the importance of primary education to children’s life, saying it is the foundation stone for their future. They said it is from primary education that the children’s career to secondary education and ultimately to colleges and university was determined.
At primary and secondary schools, children learn the basics that will make them choose a career at college and university level. Speaking at the third Graduation Ceremony for Epiphany Pre- and Primary School in Bagamoyo, Coast Region over the weekend, Mr Wassira said education was key to life and cornerstone for any other discipline and development. “Education is the basis for all other branches of learning. Health, economics, engineering and other fields begins with education,” he said. Mr Wassira told the children that usually countries that have no good education foundation are poor and lags behind in development. Officiating at the function, Dr Kawambwa who is also a Member of Parliament on the ruling CCM ticket for Bagamoyo Constituency, implored girls to study hard saying education was the only reliable tool to bail them out of poverty. He said under the patriarchal society, education is the only assurance for women’s bright future. He said experience has shown that educated girls and women lead better life than their unlearned sisters. Dr Kawambwa pleaded with both girls and boys to refrain from engaging in acts that will jeopardize their education. “You should avoid acts such as bhang smoking; illicit drugs taking, sex, etc that can land you into problems including childhood pregnancies, HIV/AIDS and drug addiction,” he said amid applause from over 200 parents and students gathered for the graduation. Available data have it that for one reason or the other, 30 per cent of Tanzanian children enrolled in school fail to complete seven years of primary education, while in secondary schools, the drop-out rate is 20 per cent.
Furthermore, figures show that the number of primary school drop-outs due to various reasons rose to 44,742 in 2006 from 32,469 the previous year. And total of 7,734 students abandoned secondary school in 2006, up from 6,912 in 2005. The pupils, mostly girls, drop out of school due to pregnancy, teenage marriage, child labor or truancy. Many of the children who drop out of school end up being exploited in many ways. In rural Tanzania, for example, one out of three children between the ages of ten and 14 years work outside their families. They labor as farm workers, miners, domestic servants, prostitutes and often under abusive and exploitive conditions. Commercial agriculture in Tanzania employs large number of these youngsters. They provide much of the manual and machine-based labor on tobacco, coffee, tea, sugarcane, and sisal plantations. For example, in one area of the coastal region, 30 per cent of the sisal plantation workers are children aged 12 to 14. They labor up to 11 hours per day with no specific rest periods, and six days a week. Their wages are half that of adults, while nourishment and lodging are inadequate. Only half of these children have completed primary school. Some plantations require as much as 14-, 16-, or even 17-hour work days. Mines and quarries also employ large numbers of youth who spend most of their days toiling above or under ground in very hazardous conditions. They risk injury from dust inhalation, blasting, mine collapse, flooding, as well as illness from silicosis. Young girls are often lured away from their rural families with schemes that promise lucrative employment in towns and cities, only to be exploited as underpaid domestic servants that work as many as 16 or 18 hours per day.
Domestic servitude in urban areas also makes for an easy transition to child prostitution, which is a growing business in Tanzania. As much as 25 per cent of child prostitutes in cities and towns in the country are former domestic servants. Poverty is one obvious reason for widespread child labor in Tanzania. Over 50 per cent of Tanzania's 40 million people live in extreme poverty, surviving on less than one US dollar per day. Many parents feel their survival is dependent on sending their children to work.
In the past 50 years, many African countries have come close to achieving Universal Primary Education (UPE). Yet they have not produced many of the expected social and economic development benefits from this. Tanzania almost achieved UPE in the early 1980s, but by 2000, enrolment had declined to less than 60 per cent of primary school-aged children. Since 2000, Tanzania has renewed its focus on achieving UPE through the Primary Education Development Programme (PEDEP), followed by an ambitious Secondary Education Development Programme in 2004. Many of the potential benefits of education have not been realized due to the myriad of problems besetting the education sector in the country. A good number of primary and secondary schools are faced with acute shortage of learning and teaching materials as well as qualified teachers.
The lack of sufficient teachers at all levels not only places constraints on expanding enrolment, but also negatively affects educational quality. However, the government is working on this by ensuring gradual training and employment of more teachers at primary and secondary levels. In most cases particularly in rural areas, only those who are able to supplement their primary education with private tuition, or who live in areas served by better schools, are able to progress to post-primary education. Due to this, good quality education has been restricted by the narrow post-primary education as few secondary leavers achieve good grades, therefore those taking up teaching have poor competencies in their chosen subject areas.
Uganda Health News: Official blames AIDS on increased child Labor
Ultimate Media
The acting commissioner for in the ministry of gender, and social development Harriet Luyima has indicated that HIV/AIDS has led to increased worst forms of child Labor like prostitution. HIV/AIDS is one of the leading causes of deaths in the country affecting mostly women and children. Government efforts to curb the disease has been hampered by mismanagement of HIV/AIDS funds, ignorance of the people and poverty. Speaking at a workshop for Sub Sahara Africa on HIV/AIDS, Luyima said that hundreds of children are being induced into child Labor to get the basic necessities of life like food, shelter and clothing for survival. She says that the majority of Uganda’s 1.5million children have been caused by death of parents from HIV/AIDS related causes. Luyima says that most of the children are engaged in the domestic sector and invisible activities like commercial sex. Although HIV/AIDS is blamed for causing increased child Labor poverty especially in rural areas is the leading cause of child poverty.
Ghana: Training of educators against child trafficking held at Senya Bereku
GBC, September 8th, 2008
A five-day capacity building programme for eight community peer educators
working against child trafficking in the Awutu Senya District has taken
place at Senya Bereku. It was organized by Rescue Foundation Ghana, a non-
governmental organization (NGO), whose vision is ensuring a safe environment
for healthy growth and development of all vulnerable children and women in
the country.
The programme, which was aimed at working with the communities and other
partners to eliminate worse forms of child Labor, child trafficking and
forced Labor, was held at two cluster centers. Each centre included four
schools with participants from each school.
The project officer of the NGO, Philip Kojo Mensah and Mawuena Kofi Diaba a
Resource Person on Peer Education, took participants through topics such as
the overview of child development, overview of child rights and protection,
and basic concepts on worst forms of child Labor.
Addressing the participants at the end of the programme, the Executive
Director, Madam Sylvia Hinson Ekong, said child trafficking over the years
had been a silent threat to development, international and national
legislative provisions to combat the practice, child trafficking continues
to flourish. She said the NGO has designed a lot of capacity building
workshops to help peer educators to effectively reach out to their peers and
selected communities on the hazards of child trafficking.
Madam Ekong advised the participants to use the knowledge and skills
acquired during the period to reach out to other peers, to help combat and
roll back child Labor and trafficking in the society.
The authorities in Turkmenistan have ordered an end to the use of children to pick cotton, although analysts doubt the ban will come into force in time for the forthcoming harvest. At an August 15 cabinet meeting, President Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov said children would no longer be drafted in to help with the cotton harvest. “This practice is finished, and it’s our job to ensure there is not one single case of child Labor exploitation from now on,” he said. The president warned school heads that they would be held accountable if their pupils were taken out of class for the harvest. Children have worked the cotton fields of Turkmenistan ever since the country was part of the Soviet Union. At that time, the country was gathering 700,000 or 800,000 tons of cotton a year with the help of this cheap Labor force, made up of students and schoolchildren. Turkmenistan is Central Asia’s second-largest producer of cotton, and the crop is an important export earner along with natural gas. Turkmen cotton sells for over 2,000 US dollars a ton on the Liverpool Cotton Exchange.
Turkmenistan ratified United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child long ago, and its parliament passed laws in 2002 and 2005 banning the employment of under-sixteen and protecting children from economic exploitation. Nevertheless, child Labor is still being used both in agriculture and in the service sector. “The authorities have been ignoring the Convention and their own laws for all these years,” said one NB Central Asia observer. The peak times when schoolchildren go out to the field are towards the end of the school year in early summer, when they help with weeding, and early September, when they go to harvest the crop, which can take 30 days. However, this is not the only area where 12 to 16 year-olds work alongside adults. A departmental head at a school in the northern Dashoguz region said schoolchildren were also involved in fattening up the silkworms used for silk production. “All the pupils are released from classes and sent along with their teachers to gather mulberry branches,” she said. The silkworms live off mulberry leaves.
In addition, local observers say large numbers of minors from poor families work at Turkmen markets, carrying heavy sacks and doing other unskilled work at all hours and in all weather. Bahram, who is in the ninth grade at school, is one of these market workers in the Lebap region of eastern Turkmenistan. “I clean fresh fish at the city market all the time, while my 13-year-old brother pushes a barrow carrying customer’s purchases,” he said. Barham often misses school because of the work. He earns just four or five US dollars a day, but he is better off than his classmates who get paid nothing at all for working in the cotton fields. According to NB Central Asia commentators, many Turkmen adults are concerned about the presidential ban on child Labor, as they are reluctant to lose out on the additional income earned by their children. Farmers are particularly unhappy as they have long relied on child Labor. A tenant farmer from Boldumsaz district in northern Turkmenistan said he would ignore the order and carry on using minors, as he cannot get by without this additional Labor pool. Another farmer said he saw nothing wrong even when small children work in the fields four to six hours a day in hot weather.
The authorities may have to take more sophisticated measures to enforce the ban, given the lack of public understanding of the need to end compulsory child Labor. There are economic issues to be addressed – the underlying reason why families send their children out to work. Human right activists propose a number of measures including imposing tougher sanctions on officials at all levels for allowing the practice, and public awareness. “There’s a need for educational, explanatory work to persuade the public to reject child Labor as an appalling form of exploitation”, said an activist in the capital Ashgabat. This will of course take time. Tadjigul Begmedova, who heads the Bulgaria-based Turkmen Helsinki Fund, believes that despite the president’s orders, it is unrealistic to expect the scale of child Labor to decrease, and the practice is likely to persist in the countryside “Right now it’s impossible to imagine they will stop using child Labor,” she said. The hard fact is that hand-picked cotton makes for a better product, and small hands are well suited to picking fine cotton from the plant.(NB Central Asia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service is resuming, covering only Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan for the moment.)
M. Ghazanfar Ali Khan I Arab News, September 6, 2008
RIYADH: Child is becoming a problem in Saudi Arabia, where nearly 1.54 percent of the child population works, a study said. The study, first of its kind in the Kingdom, commissioned by King Abdul Aziz City for Science & Technology (KACST) and conducted by Dr. Mohammad Abdullah Al-Naji, put the Eastern Province on top of the list at 2.3 percent followed by Makkah, Madinah, Asir and Riyadh. Economic issues are the primary driving factors behind child , followed by other factors that include dropping out of school and domestic compulsions, the study said. Some 2,000 Saudi children included in the study were either interviewed by Naji himself or asked to fill out questionnaires prepared as part of the national survey. According to the International Organization, education is crucial for breaking the child cycle and eradicating it by 2016. The study attributed lack of education to be the prime factor behind child among certain segments of Saudi population. In case of foreigners, especially African expatriates, poverty has been identified as the major cause of child labor. Children, according to the study, “are mostly employed in the business sector followed by agriculture.” Naji wrote in his concluding remarks that Saudi Arabia has enacted a number of laws on child , including setting the minimum employment age at 13 in all fields, with the exception of family businesses and domestic , as well as animal herding and some agricultural jobs. According to another study conducted by Saud-Al Shahri, a Saudi social worker, there are more than 83,000 homeless children in the Kingdom.
“Nearly 69 percent of child beggars in Riyadh are Saudis,” said the study, adding that about 88 percent of mothers of child beggars are illiterate and only nine percent of them hold an elementary school certificate. Naji, in his study, has also drawn attention to Article 32 of the Children’s Rights Act that stipulates a six-hour working day, with time off for rest. It also says that children are not to work for five hours straight or at night. Furthermore, the employment of children in strenuous or hazardous jobs is prohibited, and child in general should be voluntary, not compulsory. The law also says a child’s work should not interfere with his or her schooling or be harmful to the child’s health, either physically, mentally, spiritually, morally or socially.
United States: AG charges Hollister, 26 others broke child laws
Boston Herald, By Donna Goodison, Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Hollister Co., the teen clothing chain inspired by the laid-back surfing lifestyle of Southern California, apparently isn’t getting the message about the state’s child laws. A summer sweep of Massachusetts malls resulted in 27 retailers being cited for 106 child violations, and Hollister garnered nearly half of them, according to state Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office.
Hollister, an Abercrombie & Fitch Co. subsidiary, must pay $2,750 in penalties for 51 violations for employing minors without work permits. The Hollister store at the Solomon Pond Mall in Marlboro was responsible for 34 of the violations. The company was also the biggest offender of child laws in a December sweep of malls by the Attorney General’s Office during the busy holiday shopping season. State child laws require 14- to 17-year-olds to have work permits from their school superintendents before starting jobs. Employers also must keep the permits on file at the locations where the minors work. The Steve & Barry’s store at the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers was cited for 12 child law violations, also for employing minors without work permits. It received a $600 penalty. Only one store, Aeropostale at the Cape Cod Mall in Hyannis, violated child protections that govern how late teens can work. It earned a $100 penalty for letting a minor work after 10 p.m.
Kmart cited for violating child law at Assembly Square
Mon Sep 08, 2008, 03:03 PM EDT
Somerville - The following is a press release from the office of Attorney GeneralMartha Coakley.
Attorney General Martha Coakley’s Office has issued 27 citations for more than 100 child violations at retail stores in malls throughout the Commonwealth for violations during the summer working season. Nearly all of the citations were for the retailers employing minor employees without work permits. Investigators discovered violations occurred at various malls across the state including: Assembly Square Mall in Somerville; Burlington Mall; Cape Cod Mall in Hyannis; Holyoke Mall; the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers; Silver City Galleria in Taunton; the Solomon Pond Mall in Marlborough; the Walpole Mall; and, the Wrentham Outlets.
In Somerville, Kmart was found to have two cases of employment of a minor without work permit, and was fined $100. Retailers showed improvement from the December 2007 holiday shopping season when Attorney General Coakley’s Office issued 31 citations for 177 violations of the child laws.
“Our office is pleased to see more retailers making strides to comply with the state’s child laws,” Attorney General Coakley said. “These laws are essential to protecting the health and safety of our teen workers and the people of the Commonwealth.”
The Massachusetts Child Laws include restrictions on both the type of occupations in which minors may be employed, as well as the hours during which they may work. The law also requires employers to ensure that teens have proper work permits prior to beginning work, and that employers post all minors’ work schedules in the workplace.
Further information on the Massachusetts Child Laws can be found at the Attorney General’s youth employment website, www.lowdown.com, and at the Attorney General’s website, www.mass.gov/ago, in the Workplace Rights section under Youth Employment. Those wishing to report violations of the Commonwealth’s Wage and Hour laws can contact the Attorney General’s Fair Hotline at (617) 727-3465.
India: Pirated CD racket involving child Laborers busted
September 2nd, 2008 (IANS)
The Lucknow police Tuesday claimed to have unearthed a major racket of pirated CDs and DVDs involving at least half a dozen kids who were coerced into the crime. The scam was busted after crime branch sleuths raided a house in the Naka locality here after “one of the boys escaped and informed the police about (the racket)”, additional superintendent of police Manish Mishra told IANS. The kids were forcefully engaged in making the pirated CDs, the police “They are aged between 11 and 14 years and have no computer knowledge,” Mishra said. The police recovered 224 CD writers, 28 CD copiers, 26,000 fake CDs and DVDs of various Bollywood and Hollywood movies, besides porn movies, and over one million wrappers of various films. “The recovery is estimated to be above Rs.5 million and we also arrested the two accused, Rajdeep Chhabra and Govind Chhabra, who ran the racket,” Mishra added. The minors used to work from 9 p.m. to 6.30 a.m. and were kept locked inside the copying room till the completion of their daily work.“Most of the minors belong to poor families of the rural outskirts of the city and other neighboring districts and were paid nominal Labor charges for the work”, Mishra said. The accused have been booked under various sections of Copyright Act, Child Labor Act, Bonded Labor Act and the Indian Penal Code, the police officer said.
14 trafficked children rescued in flood hit Bihar’
By Indo-Asian News Service on Wednesday, September 11, 2008
At least 14 children have been rescued from the clutches of traffickers in the flood ravaged districts of Bihar - a disturbing sign that middlemen are taking advantage of the vulnerable situation of the hapless people. Kailash Satyarthi of the Bachpan Bacaho Aandolan (BBA), a child rights organization, said because of the negligent attitude of the officials and lack of volunteers, the NGO has not been able to save all children from being trafficked.
Most of the children, rescued during last three days, were seen at the railway stations, where the traffickers board the trains along with a bunch of kids to metros such as Delhi, Kolkata, Punjab, Haryana and Mumbai. “Our volunteers identified 35 children as being trafficked in the Saharsa railway station, one of the districts where the floods have wreaked havoc. However, because of lax attitude of the railway officials and lack of volunteers, 27 of them were still taken away. We could rescue only eight,” Satyarthi told IANS.Similarly, in the Katihar railway station, the BBA volunteers rescued six children.Darbhanga, Bhagalpur, Saharsa, Katihar, Supaul, Madhubani, Sitamarhi, Purnea, Kishanganj and Khagadia are some of the places in Bihar where children are trafficked from. “Most of these children are in the age group of eight to 13 and they are being lured away on the pretext of a better life in the city when the reality is that they are being pushed into roadside eateries and dhabas once they set foot in the metros,” Satyarthi said.
“While we understand that the entire government administration and police are engaged in rescue and relief work, the scandal of child trafficking, which is also another disaster, is largely ignored," he added. For its part, the BBA has set up a 24-hour helpline number to gather information and take complaints on trafficking cases. The state government and other local NGOs, along with BBA, have also organized awareness campaigns to curb this negative trend and warn people to be on their guard.
India has the largest number child Laborers in the world: CITU
New Delhi, Sept 10 (PTI) Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) president M K Pandhe today said India has the largest number of child Laborers in the world with about "50 million children having no other choice but to work whatever is available to them at a paltry wage".
Speaking at a workshop on "Media and Child Labor" here, Pandhe said, "India has the largest number of child Laborers and CITU believes that as long as there is poverty in the country, child Labor can not be abolished...
"Unfortunately in our country, the definition of poverty line takes into account only the nutritional standard or daily consumption level. It does not provide for a living standard that would ensure that children go to school regularly." The workshop, organized in association with the Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) with an objective to focus the attention of media on the issue of child Labor, was part of the ongoing joint campaign of CITU and International Labor Organization (ILO).
Pandhe said over 20 years ago, India passed a law to prohibit child Labor in hazardous industries but practical experience shows that child Labor in hazardous industries has "increased after adoption of the law".
"Urge to survive is much more powerful than the threat of dangerous working conditions," he pointed out and said "adequate media coverage on the issue will contribute a great deal in creating public pressure on both Central and state governments to take concrete measures to tackle it in the right earnest." ILO representative in India Leyla Tegmo Reddy said, "The problem of child Labor can not be solved in isolation. We need to adopt a comprehensive vision. Child Labor has to be tackled in the context of national development frameworks, poverty reduction strategies, provision of education and decent employment for parents." PTI
Philippines: End child , bring them back to school — Lapus
PIA Info Services, Pasig City (5 September) -- The Department of Education
(DepEd) today signed an agreement with World Vision Development Foundation
(WVDF) to step up efforts in bringing more than 800,000 Filipino children
toiling as ers back to the classroom.
Through the ABK2 Initiative, or Pag-aaral ng mga Bata Para sa Kinabukasan,
DepEd and WVDF will jointly raise public awareness and mobilize resources to
combat child and promote school attendance.
"Our children are supposed to be in school and not on the streets or in
sweatshops working under horrible conditions," said Education Secretary
Jesli Lapus. ABK2 is a four-year project funded by the United States Department of
that aims to contribute to the reduction of exploitative child in the
Philippines.
According to Elnora Avarientos, Executive Director of WVDF, the six
identified sectors where child is particularly rampant are in
commercial agriculture (sugarcane plantation), domestic work, pyrotechnics
business, mining, quarrying, sex trade and scavenging.
DepEd backs the project in the form of policy and technical support that
will provide children access to quality and relevant education
programs.
Based on the 2007 sub-regional multiple indicator cluster survey conducted
by the National Statistic Office and the United Nation Children's Emergency
Fund in 2007, some 830,000 children in the Philippines, or 16% of all
children, are classified as children. Of these, about 670,000 children
both attend school and work as child ers.
The Education Chief added that even if poverty is the major cause for such a
sorry situation, these 830,000 children, undeniably, remain the
responsibility of DepEd. "We are accountable to them in terms of their
education. This is one of our major concerns," added Lapus.
DepEd has vigorously pursued non-traditional programs to increase the
participation and retention rates of school children, especially those
burdened by difficult circumstances.
This includes the "Child Find" program which is focused on reaching the
Un reached children who are out of school. DepEd is also holding multi-grade
classes. It now has 24,882 such classes all over the country.
The multi-grade class is where students of different grade levels are
handled by a single teacher. "It not only provides access to education for
children who are otherwise out of school, it also addresses the quality of
education we provide to this sector," said Assistant Secretary Teresita
Inciong.
Through its Bureau of Alternative Learning Systems, DepEd is implementing
the Accreditation and Equivalency Test and the Philippine Education
Placement Test to give learners outside of the classroom a chance to return
to the educational mainstream.
According to Lapus, DepEd has also strengthened the curricular offerings of
its 261 Tech-Voc schools to encourage children to go into skills training
programs that have employment value.
ABK2 project associates are Christian Children's Fund represented by
national director Ana Maria Locsin and Educational Research and Development
Assistance Foundation whose executive director is Dolora Cardeno. (DepEd)
Here is a unique opportunity to help rescue, rehabilitate and educate children engaged in the worst forms of child labor, this academic year. Please consider giving a one-time donation of $300 to make possible the raid and rescue of 10 children from forced labor in India! With a 'recurring donation' of $55/month, you can provide 1 child rescued from forced labor with food, shelter, education and vocational training in a rehabilitation center.
Or, send a child from the brick kilns or shoe factories to school in Pakistan. With a 'recurring gift' of only $33/month (or a one-time donation of $396/year), you will provide a child with school supplies, textbooks, a daily meal, and a uniform! Do you know that some Americans spend more than $30/month on dyeing their hair?! With a generous recurring donation of $132/month, you can support 1 teacher of these children.
Please share this letter with friends or family members who might be interested in donating to this very just cause.
Global March remains the most recognisable global alliance against child labour and for universal education, but our profile in Europe has diminished in recent years. The Sofia consultation concluded that we need to adapt to the new legal, constitutional, political and economic realities of Europe; to coordinate more effectively across borders; and, in some cases, to rebuild national networks that have become weak or even inactive. The GM International Council and the ITUC - as the key international and pan-European trade union constituent of the Global March - wish to support a stronger regional alliance between NGOs and trade unions that can deliver a reinvigorated programme of work.
Agenda of the Meeting
To establish a new Pan-European/Euro-Mediterranean structure including all 51 states of the ILO’s European Region (EU and non-EU members; the Commonwealth of Independent States, Georgia and Turkmenistan; and Turkey) plus Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. Nothing prevents us from seeking to enlarge our Euro-Mediterranean reach if we wish. We noted the benefits of continued sub-regional coordination and the need for more effective national coordination among effective and active member organisations.
To establish a permanent office in Brussels (or possibly the Netherlands).
