Kids’ Goal: Help End Child Labor
Ellen Yan
27 Nov 2005
One 11-year-old boy from Searingtown imagined himself as a coal miner with a hacking cough, then wrote a poem against child labor. Another Searingtown 11-year-old, a girl, read the United Nations' child bill of rights, then illustrated the right to play by painting youngsters in a game of tag.
"Child Justice," a collection of reflections inspired by a seemingly hopeless problem, has sprung from Searingtown School kids, a world away from child workers in places like Mexico's landfills and India's metal shops. The just-published book (Trafford Publishing, $12) caps a program in which fifth-graders researched the topic and heard firsthand from a former child slave of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime.
"The thing that shocked me is this is all happening right under our noses, in so many countries," said Faisal Haider, 11, who wants to be a lawyer and close down sweatshops. "I've been studying countries for so many projects, and I didn't know this was happening - children did work for nothing, and they were in bad conditions. It must have felt like torture."
Educators at the school brought the plight of an estimated 246 million child workers into the classroom last year after hearing human rights activist Chivy Sok speak at a seminar about her years under the Khmer Rouge. Sok, who now lives in the San Francisco Bay area, introduced her story in April to Searingtown students as young as third-graders. Earlier this month, she returned to talk again.
"When I was a lot younger than you, I was taken away from my parents," Sok told them.
So began a tale about pre-dawn to post-dusk days, digging ditches or whatever the Khmer Rouge ordered, all on just a bowl of porridge. She was 7 when she was "taken away" by soldiers and worked for three years. Keeping in mind her audience, Sok used tame language, leaving out rapes and other horrors she witnessed.
"When I share these stories, it's not meant to cause total sadness, because the whole point to doing this is to inspire them to make a difference," said Sok, who escaped the Khmer Rouge by foot into Thailand with her mother and brother.
Dozens of her fifth-grade listeners last year put together the book to raise money to fight child labor. Each artwork depicts a principle in the UN's Declaration of the Rights of Children.
The poems are a mix of despair and power, from "If I Were In Charge of the World" by a girl who would "cancel slavery" to the "Garbage Picker," about a girl who should have "a day to rest and just lie around."
Even though the authors are sixth-graders now, they remembered the facts when quizzed during the book's debut party Nov. 14 at the Shelter Rock Public Library.
"They take for granted that every child lives as they do, so this was the way to bring awareness," said Searingtown School librarian Karen Kliegman, who, along with art teacher Beth Vendryes Williams, said she thought the child labor issue would build character and insight. "I think it plants the seed of compassion in them."
For some youngsters who have started looking at labels and where food is grown, the awareness has led to a dilemma - to buy or not to buy products made with child labor.
"There's no right answer," said Tasnin Khan, 11, who organized a school bake sale that raised $230 for Ugandan AIDS orphans. "I think it's best to buy once it's exported to this country, because they work in those fields all day and think all that hard work didn't pay off because you didn't buy."
The project also has opened the way for Faisal's mother to tell him about the child servants her parents supported and secretly educated in Pakistan.
"This is just the beginning," Farah Haider said. "He understands the pain that other people have, and that is what we want our children to understand ... while they are enjoying themselves."
http://www.newsday.com/features/printedition/longislandlife/ny-vitalsigns4525909nov27,0,2818120,print.story?coll=ny-lilife-print
Iraq 's Child Labor Crisis Worsens
James Palmer
23 Nov 2005
Ali Mohammed Hussein, 9, ran away from his Karbala home in June after his abusive father made him quit school and seek full-time work.
No one hired the small-boned, fragile-looking boy, and he could find no means to earn money, so he decided to return to school against his father's wishes.
“I told him I wanted to go school and learn to read and write," Ali said. "He cut my legs with a hot knife and beat me with a chain. I left home the next day."
More than 1.3 million Iraqis ages 8 to 16 are in the work force, said a joint report last year by the Iraqi government and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
Of these, 27 percent work more than eight hours a day. Child-advocacy groups in the United States estimate that only 8 percent of American 15-year-olds work 15 or more hours per week.
The consequences of Iraq's child labor crisis are evident across society. A separate survey last year by UNICEF and Iraq's Education Ministry put the number of children not enrolled in secondary school at 2 million, nearly half those of high school age. In comparison, about 96 percent of Americans that age are enrolled in high schools.
"Many of my friends are working now instead of going to school," said Hassan Sameer, 16. The eldest son in a family of eight said he has abandoned thoughts of going to school now that he earns $110 per month at a Baghdad furniture market.
"My younger brothers tell me I should get an education, but there is no time for me to read and study," he said. "I tell them, 'You stay in school and make me proud.'"
Iraq's child labor crisis began with the sanctions imposed after the 1991 Gulf War. The percentage of children ages 6 to 14 working instead of going to school rose from 1.3 percent in 1987 to 7.2 percent in 1997.
Officials at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs say the situation has worsened since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. About a quarter of Iraqis now live in poverty and the unemployment rate reached 26 percent during the first half of last year, the Central Statistics Bureau reports.
"We have entire families with no means of support," said Layla K. Aziz, a director-general in the ministry.
Mrs. Aziz said the government is struggling to protect children's rights while trying to rebuild the country in an unstable and insecure environment. She said aid organizations have provided scant support and many have fled the country after finding themselves targets of violence.
The government bans children 14 and younger from working outside their homes, but officials say child labor so is pervasive that the law is difficult to enforce.
This leaves countless children, most illiterate, seeking work on Baghdad streets.
Abbas Abdul Hussein, 12, quit school two years ago to help support his parents and five sisters. He says he earns $20 per month collecting cans to resell as scrap in Sadr City, a Shi'ite neighborhood where garbage left in gutters festers in the relentless afternoon sun.
“I quit on my own because I wanted to help my family," Abbas said. "I cannot read or write. I hope to go back to school, but it is not possible now."
His father, Abdul Hussein, 46, is a day laborer, who collects cans with his son when he cannot find work.
Mr. Hussein said he does not want his son to work, but there is little choice. "No one wants their children to quit school," he said, "but what can I do? We have to survive."
Hussein Dawad, 10, stands on the side of a road in Sadr City pouring gasoline into the tanks of Iraqi vehicles. Motorists pay extra to bypass the mile-long lines at the pumps.
The boy is the only son left in his house. He said he works to support five sisters, his mother and a disabled father.
"I could not get a job last year, so I am lucky to have this one," the child said. He dreams of playing professional soccer, but would settle for returning to classes for now. "I am still trying to go back."
Most Iraqi working children ages 6 to 14 toil at home or in agricultural activities for their families. The work often is detrimental to their physical and psychological development, the UNICEF-Iraqi government report said.
Elaf Mohamed, 12, washes dishes and cleans her family's modest apartment instead of attending classes because her parents can afford to send only three of their six children to school. Her mother, Hudda Abbas, 35, says her husband does not receive a pension for his 25 years of military service and earns less than $100 a month driving a taxi.
"She was a very good student, so it is unfortunate," Mrs. Abbas said at her Baghdad home. "We do not have the money to pay for shoes, clothes, notebooks and transportation for six children."
Ali Mohammed Hussein, whose father forced him to quit school, is one of the lucky children.
He has returned to his studies with help from the Children First House, which the Ministry of Social Affairs established two years ago in the Iraqi capital for abused and abandoned children. Ali and 19 other boys ages 6 to 14 study without financial burdens.
He speaks with steely determination about his opportunity to learn to read and write, but reveals a mix of grief, bliss and doubt in his drawings: exteriors of modestly landscaped houses, armed men walking under a shower of bombs falling from a dark sky, colorful flowers in full bloom, and a boy sitting alone under a tree with his head buried in his arms and a large question mark hanging over him.
http://www.wpherald.com/print.php?StoryID=20051123-102400-2315r
The Quarry in India Is Child Labor
Hayden Kantor
18 Nov 2005
When we arrived that morning in Bhat Basti, a crowd of excited children swarmed around our jeep before I could even open the door. One of them was a pretty 12 year-old girl named Raju. She spends her days toiling in the cavernous quarries of India.
Bhat Basti is a cramped mining village that's sprung up on the scorched earth where the desert meets the city of Jodhpur. That day, I visited with colleagues from GRAVIS, the local non-governmental organization where I've been working as a researcher for the past four months.
Persistent droughts forced Raju's family to migrate to the city for work. But after laboring in the mines, her father died of silicosis, or occupational lung disease. When her mother fell sick earlier this year, the burden of supporting the family fell to Raju. She now earns 50 rupees ($1.25) for each 12-hour day of clearing rubble from the bottom of the mine. Because her low caste status limits her opportunities and dominating mine owners limit her freedom, it's unlikely that Raju will ever escape this cycle of poverty.
As community members told me her story, Raju sat on the ground beside us, tracing shapes in the sand with her hands. I tried to imagine those same hands carrying stones to a truck. Then I didn't want to imagine that anymore.
Yet Raju's story is hardly unique: Of the 2 million mine workers in Rajasthan, an estimated 20 percent are children. While a host of international treaties and domestic laws prohibit child labor, the authorities rarely enforce them. And because Americans increasingly import the marble and sandstone produced in these mines, we too are complicit in a system that exploits these children. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. imports of marble from India increased by 250 percent between 2000 and 2005, rising from 262 tons to 943 tons.
While most commentators are lauding India's booming IT industry, these mines represent the disturbing underside of the international economic order. There's a debate about whether globalization represents "a rising tide that will lift all boats" or, more malignantly, "a race to the bottom" where standards spiral downwards. This is a complicated issue. But that morning I saw the bottom in Bhat Basti. It's made of sandstone. And children are cutting away at the bedrock.
When I was an undergraduate at Duke University a year ago, trade seemed like little more than a numerical exercise. Today, one of the hardest parts about being here is the realization that there are stark limits to my own agency. I can do little more than share the stories of those who suffer in silence.
But because words alone cannot halt this injustice, GRAVIS started a mine workers' union and an integrated program to address their needs, such as raising awareness about potential health hazards and workers' rights; constructing schools so children can learn to read; forming self-help groups so women can earn an alternative income and lobbying the government to award compensation to workers suffering from silicosis.
Yet despite these efforts, I fear we're waging a losing battle. It's still too easy to read about the issue and simply shrug off the tragedy. But child labor isn't a cause, it's a crisis. And the crisis isn't looming, it's arrived.
Saturday, November 19 is the World Day against Child Abuse and Exploitation, and it's time we began to fulfill our responsibility to these children. What if a coalition of concerned citizens forced the U.S. construction industry to raise its standards? What if we demanded certification for each shipment of stone, and boycotted mines that disobeyed the law? What if the international community shamed Indian officials into removing their hands from the mine owners' pockets and start enforcing the laws?
Eradicating child labor won't be easy. But by supporting local movements and altering the way we consume, we can effect change.
That morning, after listening to the adults speak, I asked Raju about her life.
"It's very difficult to work there," Raju told me, her voice barely audible. "But if I didn't, how would we eat?"
When I asked about her dreams, a thin smile crept across Raju's face. "Maybe in my next life," she said softly, "I'll be reborn as a person who travels in a car."
http://www.newsobserver.com/559/story/368359.html
First Global Task Force to Address Child Labor
Xinhua Net
28 Nov 2005
A global task force will be set up for the first time to deal with the issue of child labor in international efforts to promote education for all, according to a proposal unanimously adopted by participants in Monday's meeting on Achieving Education for All and Elimination of Child Labor in Beijing.
At the third Round Table of the UNESCO Fifth High Level Group Meeting on Education, education ministers and senior officials from governments and international organizations agreed to immediately launch a global task force to eliminate child labor and develop education for all after recognizing that key links between combating child labor and universal education exist.
"If children continue to be an income source or a source of cheap labor, universal education won't be achieved," said Ad Melkert, World Bank Executive Director. "Only healthy and well-educated people can ensure sustainable economic development and social welfare to make education accessible to all."
According to the 2002 statistics of the International Labor Office (ILO), 246 million children are engaged in child labor and 179 million of these boys and girls are involved in the worst forms of child labor. The Asia-Pacific region has the largest number of child workers in the 5-14 age group - some 127 million. Up-to-date figures will be released by the ILO next spring.
The global task force, agreed the participants, will start to collect better data in countries as reality may be hidden, a precondition to set up effective strategies, and invite other partners to make cooperation broader not only between education and child labor agencies but on an international level.
It will help increase political will and momentum to mainstream child labor issues, advocacy for coordination and support, and step up exchanges of best practices to help countries learn from each other.
Chinese Education Minister Zhou Ji called at the meeting for increased international efforts and bilateral and multilateral cooperation.
Participants agree that the fundamental way to combat child labor is to help families and communities develop their economies and eradicate poverty, which calls for the international community and governments to come up with practical and effective assistance to promote education.
"Maintaining child labor is maintaining poverty. Only by getting the kids in school can their parents' income be increased, discouraging child labor," said Melkert.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-11/28/content_3849111.htm
Firestone Accused of Using Slave Labor
Gary Gentile
17 Nov 2005
A federal lawsuit filed Thursday accuses tire maker Bridgestone Firestone of employing slave labor and child labor on its massive rubber plantation in Liberia.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court, seeks class action on behalf of 12 adult workers and 23 children who work and live on the "Firestone Plantation" in Harbel, Liberia.
The suit claims the workers are trapped in a "gulag of misery" and forced to work under conditions that have changed little since the plantation was founded in 1926.
"The plantation workers are modern day slaves, forced to work by the coercion of poverty, with the prospect of starvation just one complaint about conditions away," the lawsuit states.
The Japanese company, with North American headquarters in Nashville, Tenn., said it had not been served with the lawsuit, but said the claims were "completely without merit.' Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire is a unit of Bridgestone Corp.
The company said its workers are represented by a labor union, are highly paid, and that no one under 18 is employed. The company also has a strict policy against child labor.
"Firestone Liberia has a courageous and hard working leadership team comprised primarily of Liberians who are working to create hope and opportunity for the people of the Harbel community," the company said in a statement.
The lawsuit claims workers get up at 4:30 a.m., then work 12 to 14 hours while using primitive tools to tap the rubber trees and collect raw latex.
The suit also claims that Bridgestone Firestone imposes impossible quotas on the laborers and cuts their pay by half if the daily quotas are not met. In order to meet their quotas, laborers routinely have their minor children join them, the lawsuit claims.
Laborers are paid a daily wage of $3.19 before deductions and must tap at least 1,125 trees per day.
The court action was organized by the Washington, D.C.-based International Labor Rights Fund, which also helped organize a lawsuit in the 1990s against Unocal Corp. alleging human rights violations during the construction of a pipeline in Southeast Asia.
The lawsuit claims the plaintiffs, identified only as John, James and Jane Roe, could not bring similar court actions in Liberia because of fear of retribution and corrupt court system.
The lawsuit requests a jury trial and unspecified damages.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/17/AR2005111701098.html
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