World Day Against Child Labor

Today is the 11^th annual World Day Against Child Labor. Established by the International Labor Organization (ILO) in 2002, the goal was to focus attention on the global extent of child labor and the actions and efforts needed to end it.

What is Child Labor?

Child labor is a form of work that is hazardous to the health and/or physical, mental, spiritual, moral, or social development of children and can interfere with the child’s education. The ILO states that approximately 246 million exploited children, ages 5-17, are involved in forced labor, which includes domestic servitude, exploitation in agriculture, service, and manufacturing industries, sexual exploitation, use of children in armed forces or drug trade, and child begging.
 

                                          nytimes 

Fifteen Facts About Child Labor Trafficking.

1. Child trafficking is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world. Child and human trafficking is the second largest illegal enterprise in the world, next to drug trafficking.  It is estimated that in the next five years, human trafficking will outstrip drug trafficking.
2. UNICEF estimates that in 2011, 150 million children aged 5-14 in developing countries were involved in child labor. Of these children, the ILO estimates that 60% work in agriculture.
3. Around 115 million children are engaged in hazardous work, such as in the sex or drug trades
4. Most child laborers are employed by their parents rather than in manufacturing or formal economy.
5. Child labor accounts for 22% of the workforce in Asia, 32% in Africa, 17% in Latin America, and 1% in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and other first world nations.
6. In the United States, 9% of farm workers are children.
7. Currently the child labor problem in the U.S. is worse than in 1930; with approximately 5 million children in the work force. 
8. Africa has over 65 million children employed in child labor; the highest percentage compared to their population. Asia has 114 million children employed in child labor, and Latin America and the Carribean region has 14 million child laborers.
9. According to the Maplecroft Child Labor Index 2012 survey, 76 countries pose extreme child labor complicity for companies operating worldwide.
10. The ten highest risk countries in 2012, ranked in decreasing order, were Myanmar, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, DR Congo, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Burundi, Pakistan, and Ethiopia.
11. Of the major growing economies, the Philippines is 25^th riskiest, India 27^th, China 36^th, Vietnam 37^th, Indonesia 46^th, and Brazil 54^th.
12. According to a 2009 Washington Times survey, the Taliban buys children as young as seven to be used as suicide bombers. The average price for these children is $7,000-14,000 dollars.
13. The most human trafficking incidents in the United States occur in New York, California, and Florida.
14. Family members will often sell their children or other family members into slavery; often the younger the victim, the higher to price.
15. The global market of child trafficking was evaluated by UNICEF at over 12 billion dollars a year.

SC Digest

What is the Minimum Age for Work?

According to the United Nations (among member States ratifying Convention 138)

Hazardous work- Any work that is likely to jeopardize children’s physical, mental, or moral health should done by anyone under the age of 18

Basic minimum age- the minimum age for work should not be below the age for finishing compulsory schooling, which in most countries is generally 15.

Light work- Children between the age of 13 and 15 may do light work, as long as it does not threaten their health and safety, or hinder their education or vocational orientation and training.

stop child labor rally

What is being done about Child Trafficking?

Despite some positive enforcement developments, there are relatively few cases concerning child labor that make it to court. Only 1.5% of reports received by the CEACR (Committee of Experts on the Application on Conventions and Ratification) concerning child labor contain information on Court decisions.

                The ILO’s goal for this year is

1. Legislative and policy reforms to encourage and foster the elimination of child labor in domestic work, the provision of decent work conditions, and increased protection to young workers in the domestic work sphere who have reached the legal working age.
2. Ratify ILO Convention No. 189 concerning decent work for domestic workers and its implementation; ratification of ILO’s Child Labor Convention
3. Increased Action to build the worldwide movement against child labor and to build the capacity of domestic worker organizations to address child labor

Organizations that provide help

• Office of Refugee Resettlement- provides relocation, reunification, and support services to refugee children
• United States Department of Labor

If you think you have come into contact with a victim of human trafficking, call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center at 1.888.373.7888. The NHTRC can help you identify and coordinate with local organizations that protect and serve trafficking victims.
 

References

International Labor Organization 

Office of Refugee Establishment 

Stop Child Trafficking Now.org 

Maplecroft Report 

Project Censored

Jasmine Prokscha
Asian American Trafficking Outreach Project (AATOP) Program Development Intern 

The U.S. Lags Behind in Ratification of Human Rights Convention

Happy International Human Rights Day! December 10 was chosen to honor the day when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948. According to the UDHR, human rights are indivisible and inalienable, and encompass three categories: 1) civil and political rights, 2) economic, social, and cultural rights, and 3) rights that extend beyond the confines of a country and an urge for all countries who have signed the UDHR to mutually safeguard these rights for each other.

Eleanor Roosevelt and the UDHR

This morning, Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, released a press statement celebrating the important of human rights and also reiterating the United States’ priority commitment to protect human rights for both its citizens and those abroad. “Human rights cannot be disconnected from other priorities,” she wrote. The U.S. is no doubt in a privileged position, with both political power and technical knowledge that allows it to contribute to far-reaching human rights work. Our nation seems to excel in the open discussions of many human rights issues and does not have as serious of human rights violations as some other countries. Isn’t it uncanny then, that the U.S. has not ratified the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)?

The U.S. is among one of seven countries who have yet to ratify the CEDAW, placing it alongside Iran, Nauru, Palau, Somalia, Sudan, and Tonga. It is also the other country besides Somalia who has not ratified the CRC to this day, although it has ratified two provisions: 1) prohibiting the involvement of children in armed conflicts, and 2) prohibiting the sale, prostitution, and pornography of children.

Both the CEDAW and CRC are crucial in protecting the freedoms of children. The CEDAW promotes equality for women in the legal system, in political and public life, in access to education, in the right to equal pay, in the right to enter marriage, in the right to maternity leave. It protects women from discrimination linked to parental responsibilities and places women on the equal footing as men to enjoy human rights. The CRC protects children from neglect, abuse, exploitation, sexual abuse, underage labor, and deprivation of a national identity, healthcare, and education. It even calls for pre-and post-natal care for mothers, and seeks to ensure that children have adequate living standards that are conducive to their physical, mental, spiritual, moral, and social development.

There are several reasons for why the U.S. has not reached ratification of both of these long-overdue treaties. Opposition to the CEDAW comes from the contentious debate on women’s rights in the U.S. with regards to family planning, reproductive rights, and gender equality. Some of the same individuals and organizations that protest adoption of the CRC fear that parental rights to raise children at each parent’s discretion and traditional family structures will be undermined. However, the CRC does emphasize the importance of family involvement and guidance in nurturing the child.

It has been 31 years since the CEDAW and 12 years since the CRC went into force. The women and children of the U.S. have been waiting to have their rights. The people of the U.S. have a responsibility to recognize them and do them justice by serving them as equal human beings. 

Esther Liew

AATOP program development intern