Child Labor

BBC recently reported[17] on Primark using child labour in the manufacture of clothing. In particular a £4.00 hand embroidered shirt was the starting point of a documentary produced by BBC's Panorama (TV series) program. The program asks consumers to ask themselves, "Why am I only paying £4 for a hand embroidered top? This item looks handmade. Who made it for such little cost?", in addition to exposing the violent side of the child labour industry in countries where child exploitation is prevalent. As a result of the program, Primark took action and sacked the relevant companies, and reviewed their supplier procedures.

The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company operate a rubber plantation in Liberia which is the focus of a global campaign called Stop Firestone. Workers on the plantation are expected to fulfill a high production quota or their wages will be halved, so many workers brought children to work. The International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit against Firestone (The International Labor Fund vs. The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company) in November 2005 on behalf of current child labourers and their parents who had also been child labourers on the plantation. On June 26, 2007, the judge in this lawsuit in Indianapolis, Indiana denied Firestone's motion to dismiss the case and allowed the lawsuit to proceed on child labour claims.

On November 21, 2005, An Indian NGO activist Junned Khan, with the help of Police, Labour Department and NGO Pratham mounted the country's biggest ever raid for child labour rescue in the Eastern part of New Delhi, the capital of India. The process resulted in rescue of 480 children from over 100 illegal embroidery factories operating in the crowded slum area of Seelampur. For next few weeks, government, media and NGOs were in a frenzy over the exuberant numbers of young boys, as young as 5-6 year olds, released from bondage. This rescue operation opened the eyes of the world to the menace of child labour operating right under the nose of the largest democracy in the whole world.

After the news of child labourers working in embroidery industry was uncovered in the Sunday Observer on 28 October 2007, BBA activists swung into action. The GAP Inc. in a statement accepted that the child labourers were working in production of GAP Kids blouses and has already made a statement to pull the products from the shelf. [18][19] In spite of the documentation of the child labourers working in the high-street fashion and admission by all concerned parties, only the SDM could not recognise these children as working under conditions of slavery and bondage.

Distraught and desperate that these collusions by the custodians of justice, founder of BBA Kailash Satyarthi, Chairperson of Global March Against Child Labour appealed to the Honourable Chief Justice of Delhi High Court through a letter at 11.00 pm. [20] This order by the Honourable Chief Justice comes when the government is taking an extremely retrogressive stance on the issue of child labour in sweatshops in India and threatening 'retaliatory measures' against child rights organisations. [21]

In a parallel development, Global March Against Child Labour and BBA are in dialogue with the GAP Inc. and other stakeholders to work out a positive strategy to prevent the entry of child labour in to sweatshops and device a mechanism of monitoring and remedial action. GAP Inc. Senior Vice President, Dan Henkle in a statement said: "We have been making steady progress, and the children are now under the care of the local government. As our policy requires, the vendor with which our order was originally placed will be required to provide the children with access to schooling and job training, pay them an ongoing wage and guarantee them jobs as soon as they reach the legal working age. We will now work with the local government and with Global March to ensure that our vendor fulfils these obligations." [22] [23]

On October 28, Marka Hansen, president of Gap North America, responded, "We strictly prohibit the use of child labor. This is a non-negotiable for us - and we are deeply concerned and upset by this allegation. As we've demonstrated in the past, Gap has a history of addressing challenges like this head-on, and our approach to this situation will be no exception. In 2006, Gap Inc. ceased business with 23 factories due to code violations. We have 90 people located around the world whose job is to ensure compliance with our Code of Vendor Conduct. As soon as we were alerted to this situation, we stopped the work order and prevented the product from being sold in stores. While violations of our strict prohibition on child labor in factories that produce product for the company are extremely rare, we have called an urgent meeting with our suppliers in the region to reinforce our policies."[24]

In early August 2008, Iowa Labor Commissioner David Neil announced that his department had found that Agriprocessors, a kosher meatpacking company in Postville which had recently been raided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, had employed 57 minors, some as young as 14, in violation of state law prohibiting anyone under 18 from working in a meatpacking plant. Neil announced that he was turning the case over to the state Attorney General for prosecution, claiming that his department's inquiry had discovered "egregious violations of virtually every aspect of Iowa's child labor laws." [25] Agriprocessors claimed that it was at a loss to understand the allegations.

In 1997, research indicated that the number of child labourers in the silk-weaving industry in the district of Kanchipuram in India exceeded 40,000. This included children who were bonded labourers to loom owners. Rural Institute for Development Education undertook many activities to improve the situation of child labourers. Working collaboratively, RIDE brought down the number of child labourers to less than 4,000 by 2007

Child labour is also often used in the production of cocoa powder, used to make chocolate. See Economics of cocoa.

World vision

World vision is helping thousands of children a year, as they want every child to get a good education. They help people that are in child labour as they know that they don't work in a healthy and clean environment, some children get beaten if they don't produce enough work and many of them aren't going to school. World vision think that it is harmful, cruel and mean to make kids under 15 work for hours, all because their parents are needing to owe back some money or to buy food and water. World vision raises money by selling different things so they can buy and the donate animals and money to the families, but at the same time many people sponsor a child. World vision has helped and is still helping many children and families that are in child labour.

The children

Many children that are in child labour work in factories or for people, as they only get a few dollars a week. The children get pains in their back, legs, hands and fingers as some of the jobs require working under the sun all day, standing cracking rocks or making coir rope. They don't have much time to play during their work hours and most of them don't get a good education. The main jobs that the children do is making beedies, making matches or making fireworks. Normally when the children make beedies or fireworks, they usually work in a very dirty and unhygienic environment. When these kids are working, they are really scared of been beaten by their boss, and they get really exhausted because of how long they work. If people keep carrying out child labour, the number will decrease and the children won't get a good education or a job. Most children that are in child labour want to be like their parents but would not like to follow in their footsteps.

Parents

Many parents are taking away their children's education so that they can work for people and make money for the sake of owing someone back or for the need of food and water. The parents are sacrificing their children's lives to work for them as many of the children are bonded with other people. Most families don't have a choice to stop and not work as they are made to do it, which hurts the parents and guardians of the children. Every parent is sad to put their child at work because they aren't letting their children to live how they want to as they don't have any options to stop and because some parents have to bond their children to other people.