Tragic Story Highlights the Impact of Grain Bin Danger

By Reid Maki, Coordinator, Child Labor Coalition

An estimated 25 to 30 kids a year die at work. Through its advocacy and its work, the Child Labor Coalition, a campaign of the National Consumers League (NCL), has worked to reduce that number over the years. Last spring, the NCL’s annual report on The Five Most Dangerous Jobs for Teens included the agricultural industry. Last year, we worked to help enact proposed rules to protect kids working in agriculture ultimately, however, that effort failed, and the organized farm lobby was able to force the Obama administration to withdraw the rules. We estimate this will lead to the unnecessary deaths of 50 to 100 youth working on farms over the next decade.

This week, the national media has focused much-needed attention on a particular type of farm-related death: work in grain silo facilities, which in a typical year kills 15 or more workers. According to recent data, 20 percent of the victims of grain engulfments are young workers.

National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting System’s News Hour each featured in-depth stories this week, highlighting a terrible tragedy that occurred in Mount Carroll, Illinois nearly three years ago. Two teens were engulfed by grain and killed while working in a silo: 14-year-old Wyatt Whitebread and 19-year-old Alex Pacas. Will Piper, a 20-year-old co-worker, barely escaped with his life because someone threw him a bucket that he was able to put over his head. The bucket prevented the flowing grain from asphyxiating him. Today, Piper lives in guilt because he turned his friend Alex Pacas onto work in the grain silo.

Among the worst aspects of this case are the fact that Wyatt, 14, was too young to be doing such dangerous work. He and Alex also should have been wearing safety harnesses as they walked on top of the crusty grain trying to loosen it. The facility had the mandatory harnesses but didn’t instruct or compel the teens to wear them.

The NPR and PBS stories grew out of reporting from the Center for Public Integrity. The center found that the fines levied by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration as a result of preventable grain engulfments were typically reduced over 50 percent and in some cases well over 90 percent.

In the deaths of Alex Pacas and Wyatt Whitebread, OSHA found 12 “willful violations” and initially leveled $555,000 in fines. This amount was later reduced to $200,000. A Center for Public Interest-NPR analysis found that the $9.2 million fines proposed by OSHA for engulfments that killed 179 people between 1984 and 2012 were eventually reduced to $3.8 million.

NCL and the CLC believe strongly that youth working on farms and agricultural facilities need to have stronger protections. We urge the Obama administration to reconsider the youth occupational safety rules it withdrew last April. Why allow teen workers to engage in jobs that we know to be extremely dangerous? And in cases where employers are found to be at fault for the death of teen workers, why are fines consistently and dramatically reduced?

Pausing to think about plight of world’s 300,000 child soldiers for a moment

By Reid Maki, Director of Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards

Today is an important day if you care about the welfare of children. Advocates have named February 12 “International Day against the Use of Child Soldiers” to highlight one of the worst forms of child labor. It’s hard to imagine that in 2013 the use of child soldiers is alive and thriving, but the BBC estimates that there are 300,000 child soldiers internationally. This number includes children of elementary school age who are handed automatic weapons and asked to kill, as well as others who are used for slave labor to support armies. Since January 2011, child soldiers have been used in at least 19 countries.

Many of the children suffer the worst forms of psychological warfare from their captors, who in many cases break them down by forcing them to kill or maim their friends or family. Many girls are sexually assaulted and forced to serve as sexual slaves. Many child victims are given drugs to keep them compliant. Their years of enforced service often produce intense psychological scarring that makes it hard to return to their communities. In some cases, they are shunned by their villages. Hear one girl’s compelling story in this YouTube video.

The Child Labor Coalition has tracked dozens of stories regarding the use of child soldiers over the last year and engages with its members to perform advocacy to reduce the use of child soldiers. Most recently, the warfare in Mali led to the recruitment of child soldiers, including children as young as 12. In early January, the United Nations decried the use of child soldiers in the Central African Republic, and in India, reports emerged that the militant group, the Garo National Liberation Army was using children in a variety of roles to support combat, including possibly the use of armed children. In early December, 2012, the U.S. government imposed sanctions on two “March 23 (M23)” leaders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for allegedly using child soldiers.

Not all the news has been bad. In June 2012, Burma made significant strides in reducing its use of child soldiers when it released an action plan to tackle the problem. In 2012, Yemeni authorities said they were committed to stopping the use of children in the military.

The challenges governments face to end the use of child soldiers are often formidable, however. A February 6th Huffington Post blog by Jake Scobey-Thal noted that despite some progress, child soldiers are still being used in Burma and cited the International Labour Organization that their numbers may be as high as 5,000.

Two members of the Child Labor Coalition, World Vision and Human Rights Watch (HRW), have been leaders in the effort to pressure the US government into abiding by a congressional law, the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, which prohibits military aid to countries that use child soldiers. They’ve also provided a valuable service with early warnings when civil strife reaches the point that children begin to be dragged into military conflicts as they have been recently in Mali, Syria and the DRC.

Is the U.S. doing enough to protect children from becoming child soldiers or from being harmed by military conflict? On February 5^th, HRW cited recent recommendations by the United Nations (UN) committee of experts and urged the United States to do more to protect children harmed by conflict. The UN committee had expressed alarm about reports that hundreds of children have died during US airstrikes in Afghanistan over the last four years and noted that children have been arrested and detained in Afghanistan. US laws, said the committee of experts, have also excluded former child soldiers from securing asylum here.

“The US can and should do more to protect children affected by armed conflict,” said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director at HRW, who urged the U.S. to “take decisive action” on the children rights committee’s recommendations to address these problems.

In November 2012, Jesse Eaves, a senior policy advisor for child protection for World Vision told IRIN Humanitarian News and Analysis that the use of presidential waivers which is becoming a frequent occurrence is weakening the authority of the Child Soldiers Prevention Act. “When the United States government gives a waiver to a country identified in the State Department’s [Trafficking in Persons] report as country using children in their national military, this weakens the authority of the law by not holding the country accountable for removing children from their armed forces,” said Eaves.

In a press release about International Day to End the Use of Child Soldiers, Amnesty International called on governments to adopt a global Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) to prevent armed forces, like those in Mali, from using weapons to recruit children as soldiers. Final talks on an ATT treaty are scheduled to occur in March, and according to Amnesty, “the current draft ATT text proposes weak rules to help prevent arms transfers to states or groups using child soldiers.”

Clearly much work remains to be done to get the U.S. and other governments to do the right thing when it comes to child soldiers, but working together, the members of the CLC and its allies hope that in the near future the use of child soldiers will be banished. Readers interested in this issue should visit the White House comment page and let their concerns about the use of child soldiers and presidential waivers of the provisions of the Child Soldiers Prevention Act be known.

 

Education-for-girls activist Malala Yousafzai walks out of hospital after assassination attempt

By Reid Maki, Director of Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards

The world is celebrating great news that came in with the New Year: 15-year-old education activist Malala Yousafzai walked out of a Birmingham, England hospital on January 4^th, nearly three months after the Taliban shot her in the head and neck during an assassination attempt in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. Malala spoke out on behalf of her generation of girls having access to education —a position that was in sharp variance with Taliban extremists who tried to silence her.

Malala’s recovery, although far from complete, is being hailed as a miracle and her resilience is being celebrated far and wide. Malala’s courage has touched many, including pop-star Madonna, who dedicated a song to the girl in the days after the attack. She appeared at a concert with Malala’s name in large letters across her back.

Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown cited Malala as a hero and visited Pakistan to press for open access to education. “Can Pakistan convert its momentary desire to speak out in support of Malala into a long-term commitment to getting its three million girls and five million children into school?” asked Brown, who is currently serving as the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education. Brown’s advocacy in support of Malala has led to calls to provide school access to all girls by 2015.

For more than two decades, the Child Labor Coalition has fought to protect children from the worst forms of child labor and Malala’s vision is central to that effort. “Access to education is one of the keys to reducing child labor—that’s what Malala is fighting for and that’s why her work has been so important,” noted CLC Co-Chair Sally Greenberg and the Executive Director of the National Consumers League. According to the Global Campaign for Education, 53 percent of out-of-school youth worldwide are girls, and millions of girls face discrimination, sexual and physical abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence.

In Pakistan, educational inequalities abound. The World Bank estimates that only 57 percent of girls and women can read and write, and in rural areas, only 22 percent of girls have completed primary-level schooling, compared with 47 percent of boys. According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs, nearly one-third of Pakistani children aged 5-14 are deprived of schooling, and the country is making “no advancement in efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labor.” Inspired by Malala’s case, however, the government of Pakistan has signaled its desire to provide equal access to education.

“The right to education is fundamental, and we stand with Malala and all those around the world who are working with us to make sure all children have equal access to high-quality public education,” said American Federation of Teachers Secretary-Treasurer Lorretta Johnson, also a CLC co-chair, in the days following the attack.

Malala’s education advocacy began at age 11, when she blogged about Taliban atrocities in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. She wrote about the closing of schools for girls, which were a result of ultra conservative views—supported by the Taliban—toward women’s roles in Pakistani society. According to published reports, Malala felt forced to hide her school books and feared for her life, knowing that advocacy might make her a target of the Taliban. At age 11 she said, “All I want is an education. And I am afraid of no one.”

“Education is power, especially for girls. Malala knows this and has used her voice to advocate for others,” Lily Eskelsen, vice president of the National Education Association, a Child Labor Coalition member reminded us at the time of the shooting. “The Taliban underestimated Malala from the beginning, but her power has already been unleashed. They cannot call it back. An educated girl becomes an informed woman, able to make the best choices for her own well-being and that of her family; generations are impacted.”

Despite the unequal access to education faced by many girls around the world, there is some good news. According to the International Labor Organization’s latest statistics, the number of girls in child labor worldwide fell between 2004 and 2008 from 103 million to 88 million. “We need to keep that progress up. We need to keep Malala’s vision alive and provide girls with unfettered access to education,” said the CLC’s Greenberg.

Although Malala faces many challenges ahead, including additional surgeries, her recovery is nothing short of miraculous. Her heroism and advocacy for girls inspires us all and may indeed lead to lasting changes in educational access for girls and women.

Number of companies pledging to avoid Uzbek cotton Zooms past 100

By Reid Maki, Director of Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards

The Cotton Campaign recently passed an important milestone in the fight to protect children in Uzbekistan from forced child labor: more than 100 companies have signed a pledge to try to avoid purchasing Uzbek cotton. Consumers will recognize a lot of the names on the list—Levis Strauss, Fruit of the Loom, GAP, Ann Taylor, Wal-Mart—comprising many of the largest apparel companies in the world. To date, 124 companies have signed the pledge.

Each fall, the country of Uzbekistan compels hundreds of thousands of school children to leave their classrooms and perform back-breaking labor harvesting cotton. The children typically earn only pennies for their work and experience harsh, uncomfortable conditions. In many countries of the world cotton is harvested with machinery, but in Uzbekistan using school children, college students and adults forced into labor has proven to be a cheap solution to harvest needs and picking by hand results in cotton that can draw top prices. Ruled by a totalitarian dictator, Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan is the only country in the world whose government is compelling the widespread use of child labor for non-military purposes.

For years, the members of the Cotton Campaign, including the National Consumers League (NCL) and the Child Labor Coalition, which NCL co-chairs with the American Federation of Teachers, have applied pressure on companies that use cotton to eliminate their use of Uzbek cotton until Uzbek leaders allows the International Labour Organization to monitor the cotton harvest and until Uzbekistan eliminates exploitative child labor and forced adult labor from the harvest.

According to reports coming out of Uzbekistan during this fall’s harvest, more schools have remained open this year and the use of child labor has fallen somewhat. Apparently, Uzbekistan has allowed some younger children to focus on their studies by turning to increased forced labor of older kids in the 15- to 19-year-old range. Advocates see this as a sign that pressure is beginning to work. And having 100 companies sign the pledge to avoid Uzbek cotton sends a powerful message to Uzbekistan: you must do more to eliminate the use of forced labor and child labor and you must let the ILO monitor your next cotton harvest.

One obstacle that companies face who have signed the pledge is ensuring that no cotton actually enters their supply stream—despite their intentions to keep it out. Advocates and companies are working to make certain that the pledge is meaningful and that cotton does not pass through so many middlemen that its country of origin is no longer recognizable.

NCL and the Child Labor Coalition encourage consumers to look at the list of companies that have signed the pledge and if their favorite company is not yet on the list, let it know that it should be.

For more information about child labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields, please visit the Cotton Campaign here. Readers may view a video of children working in the fields here.

SEC adopts reporting rule to help with human rights issues

By Reid Maki, Director of Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards

The primary mission of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is to protect investors from unfair or unscrupulous practices. Last week, however, the SEC did something remarkable: It agreed to adopt a rule with the goal of diminishing the human rights consequences of business practices.

The SEC voted by a narrow 3-2 margin to require companies that use so-called “conflict minerals”—metals like gold, tantalum, tin, and tungsten which end up in a wide array of products like cell phones, computers and other electronic devices—to file reports about the use of minerals that have been fueling violent conflict and abetting widespread social abuses like the use of child soldiers. The rules were mandated under section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill and targeted towards minerals extrated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and neighboring countries.

Although two commissioners debated whether the SEC’s core mission of protecting investors should be expanded in this way, they agreed that conflict in the DRC and neighboring countries is a pressing problem and that warring groups are using profits from mineral extraction to engage in armed conflict and a wide variety of human rights abuses. Commissioners Troy Paredes and Daniel Gallagher voted against adopting the rule, arguing that there was no clear evidence that the reporting requirement would help solve civil rights abuses and that the SEC had no jurisdiction to tackle human rights problems. Gallagher complained that the SEC’s proposed rule had no exemptions for small businesses and said the reporting requirements might be overly burdensome.

SEC chair Mary Schapiro joined  commissioners Luis Aguilar and Elise Walter in voting for adopting the reporting rule. The three commissioners were quick to point out that the SEC was under a congressional mandate to implement the provisions and that the humanitarian crisis in sub-Saharan Africa is severe and required action.

The nonprofit community in general is pleased with the adoption of the reporting requirement, although some groups complained that the rules could be tougher and shouldn’t allow companies to list the origins of their mineral use as “indeterminable” for a two- to four-year period.

The hope is that by making the use of “conflict minerals” transparent, companies will be under pressure from stock holders and the public to seek “cleaner” minerals that are not tied to armed conflict or abuses. At the National Consumers League, we applaud this expansion of SEC’s role. It is our hope that supply chain transparency will help move the region’s intractable problems toward solutions and nudge war-torn countries like the DRC towards greater peacefulness. As a co-chair of the Child Labor Coalition, NCL has long worked for the protection of children from military exploitation and the use of child soldiers in this region has been endemic for years.

At the same hearing on Wednesday, August 22^nd, the commissioners voted by a 2-1 margin (with two commissioners recusing themselves) to require companies extracting resources—like fossil fuels and minerals–to report payments of $100,000 or more to foreign governments. NCL joins the nonprofit community in hailing this rule as an important step toward greater supply chain transparency.

Child labor advocates come together for three days of sharing and strategy

By Reid Maki, Director of Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards

The world’s child labor advocacy community does not gather together very often, but it did just that Sunday, July 28 through Monday, July 30, here in Washington for an international conference on agricultural child labor. More than 60 percent of the 215 million child laborers globally work in farms and fields–if you’re trying to solve the puzzle that child labor presents, agricultural child labor is the biggest piece of that puzzle and should not be ignored. Children who work in agriculture are exposed to pesticides and hazardous equipment like machetes. If you’ve ever seen a seven- or eight-year-old opening a cocoa pod with a machete, you know what kinds of dangers children are exposed to on farms internationally.

The Global March Against Child Labor, a world-wide network of civil society groups, teacher unions, and trade unions, organized the conference with logistical support from the Child Labor Coalition (CLC)–co-chaired by NCL and the American Federation of Teachers–and CLC members, especially the Solidarity Center and the International Labor Rights Forum. About 150 representatives from 40 different countries attended all or part of the three-day event, about half of those were from developing countries like Ghana, the Ivory Coast, and the Philippines with endemic child labor problems.

Senator Harkin (Iowa-D), the congressional champion who has led a many-year crusade to reduce child labor, opened the conference with a speech that urged attendees to work to remove the “worst forms of child labor”—the types of child labor that harm physical, mental, or moral well-being of a child worker. After the speech, the senator stayed for the rest of the morning to soak up as much of the conference as he could. For the advocacy community, it was a powerful statement of support and concern.

Kailash Satyarthi, founder and leader of the Global March and a Nobel Prize nominee, expressed frustration at the slow progress in eliminating the worst forms of child labor. He reminded attendees that the 2016 deadline to eliminate worst forms of child labor set by the international community is fast approaching and we still do not have a strategic child labor elimination plan for each country. Satyarthi also demanded that multinational corporations stop hiding behind modest corporate social responsibility initiatives and seriously confront the huge child labor problems in their supply chains.

CLC member and filmmaker Len Morris of Media Voices for Children agreed, telling conference participants that the corporate sectors responsible for many child laborers— cocoa, cotton, and tobacco—could eliminate child labor from their supply chains in a year or two if they really wanted to. Money and resources, said Morris, are the key. Companies simply must be willing to commit enough financial resources to adequately confront these difficult problems.

The conference featured a number of leaders in the fight to keep kids in school and out of exploitative child labor, including Constance Thomas of the International Labor Organization’s International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor, Fred van Leeuwen of Education International, Geronimo Venegas, president of the IUF Agricultural Trade Group, Mauro Vieria, Ambassador of Brazil, Tim Ryan of the Solidarity Center, and many others working on the front lines of child labor remediation.

The difficulties of eradicating child labor proved a steady theme for conference participants. U.S. presenters Norma Flores Lopez of the Children in the Fields Campaign and  Zama Coursen-Neff of Human Rights Watch noted the very disappointing withdrawal of occupational child safety rules  for agriculture by the Department of Labor and the White House in April. One child labor advocate who works on agricultural child labor issues in West Africa was stunned to learn that the U.S. has its own problem with child labor in agriculture and was having similar difficulties reducing its dependence on child workers.

The conference featured several workshops that allowed participants to strategize about remediation efforts. A conference framework document identified several factors needed to eliminate child labor in agriculture:

• a conducive legislative environment and policy framework;
• protection of child rights; universal free quality basic public education;
• decent employment and decent wages and work for adult workers [so children do not have to work];
• food security, the right to food and sustainable rural livelihoods;
  the rights of workers to organize and to bargain collectively in free, independent trade unions;
•  the rights of farmers to form their own independent organizations;
• gender equality, social inclusion and non-discrimination;
• strong safety and health laws and their enforcement;
•  adequately resourced and funded labor inspection.

The conference also allowed participants other opportunities for activism. Several of the Global March attendees picketed the White House with anti-child labor signs. And conference attendees also enjoyed some “down time” at a wonderful evening of music and child labor activism at a local Busboys and Poets restaurant. The event, organized by the CLC and ILRF, and cosponsored by the Global March and the CLC, featured talks by three farmworker youth who are interning for CLC members the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP) and Farmworker Justice, as well as the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The interns spoke movingly about their experiences working in U.S. fields and the challenges posed by educationally by their constant migration. Norma Flores Lopez, the director of the Children in the Fields Campaign for AFOP and the Domestic Issues Committee chair for the CLC, related the interns experiences to her own working in the fields as a farmworker youth.

All in all, the weekend provided many opportunities for the advocacy community to come together from across the globe, all of us looking for effective strategies to reduce or eliminate child labor in our countries. Perhaps most important, the conference focused some much-needed attention to the problem of child labor in agriculture across the world.

 

How American consumers can help stop the poisoning of children in Mali, Africa

By Reid Maki, Director of Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards

Did you happen to see Brian Williams’ news show Rock Center last week? It featured a chilling report about child gold miners in Mali, Africa. As many as 20,000 kids are estimated to work in Mali’s artisanal mines, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), which released a report, “A Poisonous Mix: Child Labor, Mercury, and Artisanal Gold Mining in Mali.”

HRW, a member of the Child Labor Coalition, which is co-chaired by NCL, found that kids as young as six years old “dig mining shafts, work underground, pull up heavy weights of ore, and carry, crush and pan ore.” As if this backbreaking labor wasn’t bad enough, “many children also work with mercury, a toxic substance, to separate the gold from the ore.” Mercury, as HRW notes, attacks the central nervous system and is particularly harmful to children.

“These children literally risk life and limb,” said Juliane Kippenberg, senior children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “They carry loads heavier than their own weight, climb into unstable shafts, and touch and inhale mercury, one of the most toxic substances on earth.”

Many of the child workers and adult workers have no idea that Mercury is poisonous. The children described the horrible aches and pains that the work leaves them with; one child commented, “Everything hurts.” Apparently, the gold shafts collapse with some regularity. NBC reporter Richard Engel talked to miners who told him a shaft had collapsed the previous day, killing one miner. Many children are not paid wages for their labor. Some receive bags of dirt which may or may not have any gold dust in them. NBC found that many children work instead of going to school.

Unfortunately, American consumers who buy gold are unwittingly abetting the problem. The Malian gold passes through several middlemen and ends up in jewelry and other items around the world, including the U.S.

In Britain, a fair trade activist and jeweler named Greg Valerio  worked with the Fairtrade Foundation to help consumers be sure that the gold they are purchasing is free from child labor and the most egregious labor abuses. Valerio is now trying to replicate the system in the U.S. but he needs our help. The next time you go into a jewelry store, ask if the gold is “fair trade” gold and where it came from.

“One of the biggest problems we have now is that the consumer doesn’t go into a jewelry store and ask, ‘Can you trace this gold?’  If the consumer would do that, we would see a shift in the sector,” said Marc Choyt, a New Mexico jeweler who makes jewelry out of recycled precious metals.

“Absolutely dirty gold is making it into the United States and jewelers who don’t have a traceable supply chain can’t tell you where it’s coming from,” Choyt said.

For more information, check out HRW’s press release here.

Advocates force ouster of Uzbek official from Fashion Week over child labor issues

By Reid Maki, Child Labor Coalition Coordinator and NCL Director of Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards

It’s not every day that you get your message through to one of the world’s most notorious dictators, but some of us in the child labor advocacy community think we may have just done that last week during New York City’s Fashion Week.

For several years, the Child Labor Coalition, 28 organizations working to end the labor exploitation of children around the world, has been deeply concerned about the forced use of child labor in Uzbekistan, where Islam Karimov has ruled with an iron fist for 21 years. Each fall, Uzbek school children and their teachers are forced to leave their classrooms and perform arduous hand-harvesting of cotton for up to two months. The children—estimates of their numbers range from several hundred thousand to almost two million—receive little or no pay and often perform this back-breaking work from young childhood and through college. The workers are charged for shelter and food and by the time those expenses are deducted their compensation is so small it would be fair to say they worked for little or no pay or “slave wages.” The profits of this labor tend to flow to Uzbekistan’s ruling elite. Unlike child labor in most countries, Uzbekistan’s occurs as a result of national policy filtered down to local government authorities.

Recently, members of the Cotton Advocacy Network and the Child Labor Coalition, led by the International Labor Rights Forum and other CLC members like the American Federation of Teachers and the Human Rights Watch highlighted this issue by targeting advocacy at Karimov’s daughter Gulnara, who in addition to being Uzbekistan’s ambassador to Spain is a fashion designer who was participating in Fashion Week, where designers from around the world hold shows to reveal their new clothing lines.

Since Gulnara Karimov has bragged about the use of “high quality” Uzbek cotton and is a member of Karimov government, the advocacy community felt that she could fairly be used as an advocacy target.

As ILRF and the Cotton Advocacy Network planned its protest, IMG, Fashion Week’s organizer, washed its hands of Gulnara’s controversial show by cancelling it. Gulnara then moved her fashion show to the stylish Manhattan restaurant Cipriani on 42^nd Street for a private show on September 15^th. About two dozen of us followed the show to let attendees know about Uzbekistan’s child labor problem. It appears that our efforts scared away Gulnara, who according to media reports, was nowhere to be found.

We shouted things like “Hey, hey, ho, ho—Child Labor’s got to go” and “Uzbek cotton is mighty rotten.” We were joined by several Uzbek nationals, including one who had been forced to work in the fields himself as a child. Another Uzbek man said his daughter is a college student in Uzbekistan and that she is forced to harvest cotton every afternoon. He told a reporter from the Guardian that “it is back-breaking work, very, very hard, and most children have to work from sunrise to sunset every day until the harvest is finished. No weekends, nothing, for two or three months.” One protestor, an American woman from Connecticut, carried a sign that said, “Free Abdul,” who she explained was an Uzbek exchange student that she hosted who has subsequently been jailed by the Karimov regime as a political prisoner. Photos of the rally can be found here.

We handed out hundreds of leaflets and our protest received wide coverage about a dozen journalistic organizations including the New York Post, and Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

Members of the CLC conducted a similar protest outside the Embassy of Uzbekistan in 2009. At that time, some of us wondered if word of the protest would filter up to Karimov. With the ouster of his daughter from Fashion Week, we’re pretty sure Islam Karimov got the news this time.

If you would like clothing retailers to know about your concerns regarding Uzbek cotton, please consider adding your name to this Change.org petition (one of several targeting specific retail chains).

Longoria Lifts Efforts to Protect Child Farmworkers in Washington, D.C.

By Reid Maki, NCL’s Director, Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards

Efforts to protect child farmworkers got a big boost last Thursday, June 16^th when the popular actress Eva Longoria helped Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.) introduce legislation to extend child labor law protection to agriculture. “The Children’s Act for Responsible Employment,” has been introduced several times over the last decade but garnered increased support in the last Congress when 106 House members joined Roybal-Allard in co-sponsoring the bill.

“Agriculture is the only industry governed by labor laws that allow children as young as 12 to work with virtually no restrictions on the number of hours they spend in the fields outside of the school day,” Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard told attendees at the press conference.  “Tragically, unable to keep up with the competing demands of long work hours in the fields and school, a recent report found that child farmworkers drop out of school at four times the national dropout rate – slamming the door shut on the very pathway that could one day help them escape a lifetime of unrelenting work harvesting our crops.”

“I want to commend Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard for her leadership in Congress on the CARE Act,” said Longoria, one of the stars of ABC’s Desperate Housewives.

Eva Longoria speaking on the plight of the estimated 400,000 migrant farmworker children in the US

When Longoria learned about these working children, she became so concerned she decided to produce a film about child farmworkers: “The Harvest/La Cosecha.”

The film had its D.C. premiere on Capitol Hill later in the day. It focuses on three young farmworkers, ages 12, 14 and 16, who are among the estimated 400,000 children who work as migrant laborers on America’s farms.  As it detailed their day-to-day struggles, the emotional toll of poverty and migration was palpable. Even veteran farmworker advocates found it incredibly moving. Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farmworkers of America with Cesar Chavez found herself wiping away tears as she talked after the film. She said it reminded her of her and Cesar’s young days as farmworkers and organizers.

The teens travel with their families across thousands of miles to pick crops in southern Texas, northern Michigan and northern Florida during the harvest season. Along the way, they face backbreaking labor in 100-degree heat, physical hazards from pesticides, the emotional burden of helping their families through economic crises when work opportunities dry up, separation from their families and peer groups, and dwindling hope for their educational and economic advancement.

The film will be released theatrically in Los Angeles and in New York in July, along with special screenings in 30 cities nationally. Advocates hope the film will bring much needed attention to a problem that is little known by most Americans.

While retaining current exemptions for family farms, the CARE Act would bring age and work hour standards for children in agriculture up to the standards for children working in all other industries. Under CARE, teenagers would be required to be at least 14 years of age to work in agriculture and at least 18 years of age to perform particularly hazardous work. 14 and 15-year-olds would be permitted to work in certain agriculture jobs, as decided by the Department of Labor.

Reid Maki at last Thursday's press conference. 4 out of 5 Americans believe that all children should be protected equally from child labor.

I was among the speakers at the press conference and I pointed out the inconsistencies of U.S law, which does not allow a 12-year-old to work in an air-conditioned office but will allow that same child to work 14 hours in 100-degree heat, performing back-breaking labor in fields treated with pesticides. I feel fortunate to coordinate the Child Labor Coalition (CLC), co-chaired by NCL, which has had protecting child farmworkers as a priority for the last 10 years.

During the press conference, I noted the results of NCL’s new consumer poll on attitudes about child labor in agriculture, which found that 4 out of 5 Americans believe that all children should be protected equally from child labor, no matter the industry they toil in. The poll found that only 3 percent of Americans would let their own children work more than 40 hours per week in the fields—something many 12-year-old migrants do today. Given the public’s concern about child labor, it’s unfathomable that Congress has so far refused to fix this glaring glitch in our child labor laws.

Norma Flores López of the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs—also a CLC member—said, “Starting at the young age of 12, I worked in the fields alongside my family. I worked to help my family survive, often until my hands were so swollen that I could not hold a pencil at school. Like thousands of American farmworker children today, I experienced the hazards of child labor in agriculture first hand, which is why I know how important it is to equalize the child labor law by passing the CARE Act.”

Please consider writing or calling your Representative or Senator today and telling them that you protect equal child labor protections for agriculture. Can we afford to sacrifice another generation of farmworker youth?

 

The missing piece

By Ayrianne Parks, Communications Director, Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, and Reid Maki, Coordinator, Child Labor Coalition

This past Sunday, 60 Minutes focused much needed attention on the issue of child labor in U.S. agriculture. The piece, which may have seemed balanced to the average viewer, failed to convey the dangers child farmworkers are exposed to, including toxic pesticides, razor-sharp tools, and the educational harm that they suffer.

The show’s segment called, “The debate on child labor,” focused mostly on agricultural economics from the perspective of a migrant farmworker family and a grower—both struggling to get by. However, this is an issue that existed far before the recession. Farmworkers make an average of $10,000 to $12,000 annually with no benefits. These extremely low wages in farm work, often compel parents to bring their very young children to work in agriculture, an environment most—including the father interviewed—hope their children will have the opportunity to escape in adulthood to pursue their dreams. The grower interviewed pointed out that Americans want cheap produce and that comes at a price paid by the sweat and toil of laborers.

Byron Pitts, who reported on the issue, also interviewed Norma Flores López, AFOP’s Children in the Fields Campaign Program Director and Domestic Issues Chair of the Child Labor Coalition. Several months ago, when 60 Minutes filmed its interview of Flores López, a former migrant farmworker child herself, she spoke in detail about the educational and health consequences of child labor. While most of her concerns did not make it into the show, 60 Minutes did post some of her comments on their Web site, but it is likely few Americans will see them. The average viewer who watched the show will come away with the impression that plucky farmworker kids will survive their years of child labor without suffering many negative consequences. Some do, most do not.

When Byron Pitts asked a large group of farmworker kids how many of them planned to go to college, each of them raised a hand. Having worked in the same South Texas fields as the kids, Norma Flores López knows well that few migrant kids are able to overcome the exhaustion of working 10-14 hours days or the obstacles that accompany missing school and changing schools, because their family is constantly migrating.

The sad truth is that most migrant kids do not even make it through high school. Federal data on this is horrible, but if you talk to migrant educators they will tell you that the dropout rate in many migrant communities ranges from 50 to 80 percent.

Farmworker children pay a high price, often sacrificing their education and health, for the very little amount they actually earn by working in the fields. We are thankful to 60 Minutes for helping bring attention to the very real problem of child labor in America and we hope that those who watched the piece will continue to educate themselves, their families, friends, and communities on the inequity of U.S. child labor law which—for reasons that are unclear to many of us—allows impoverished Latino children to sacrifice their futures for what often amounts to subminimum wages. For more information on child labor in the U.S. please visit www.afop.org or www.stopchildlabor.org.