Child Labour
By
Jonathan Conley
Kayla O’Neill
Mallory Cunningham
Dana Whittiker
Suzanne Pemberton
Chelsey Dunphy
Human Rights 19 June 2012 Dr. Sharon Murray
Over 200 million children around the world have been subject to child labour situations. Although there is no agreed upon definition of child labour the Free the Children organization calls child labour work which is harmful to a child’s physical and mental development. Some of these children are kept from school and not permitted to play and even sometimes have to leave their families and homes in order to work long hard hours. Often times, children are working in dangerous situations and even die from accidents associated with their work. Children are also subject to abusive situations in those work environments by their employer. It is said that seven out of 10 children work in agriculture, two in services and the last one in industry.
Each child has their own situation and story which lead them to working in child labour situations. Sometimes children are forced into working because their families’ are so poor and other times they are forced against their will by human trafficking. Other children become the head of their households when their parents pass away and become responsible for caring for their younger siblings. According to Child Labour and the Global Village: Photography for Social Change the majority of children that are working in child labour situations are in Asia and Africa but note that it is happening all over the world in smaller amounts.
Child labour violates a number of Universal Declaration of Human Rights articles. There are three main areas that are violated with child labour and those are Article 3, Article, 4, and Article 26(1). Article 3 states that “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person”; this article is clearly violated as children that are working are not free to do as they please because they are being forced to work. Article 4, which states that, “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms” is also broken when children are trafficked and made to work without pay and without the option to come and go as they please. Finally, Article 26 (1), which states that “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit” is also violated because one of the major issues with child labour is that fact that children are unable to receive an education while they are working. They are denied this right and unfortunately have no chance in improving their situation.
Child labour is an extremely broad topic that includes everything from factory work to prostitution. Children mine, farm, and work in sweatshops and although they are all equally important issues this report will focus in on a few specific examples. The three case studies that this report will cover include: Child Labour and Cocoa Farming in Côte d’Ivoire, child labour in Canada and the United States and Child Labour in Carpet Factories.
Child Labour and Cocoa Farming in Côte d’Ivoire
Almost half of the world’s chocolate is made from cocoa grown in Côte d’Ivoire; most of the remainder comes from neighbouring West African countries. Although the farms that produce our chocolate seem a world away, in recent years the cocoa industry has made headlines across North America. The primary concern raised in many of these articles is that much of the chocolate that we consume is produced using child labour. A 2011 report commissioned by the US government found that more than 1.8 million children are involved in growing cocoa in Côte d’Ivoire and its neighbouring West African nations (Hawksley, 2011); several other reports suggest that some of these children have been sold into forced labour. Numerous headlines indicate the global significance of the child labour/cocoa issue, and the vast amount of African-produced chocolate sold in our grocery stores, consumed at our parties and celebrations, and stored in our kitchen cabinets indicates that we, as North American consumers, maintain a significant link to this issue.
Children working on cocoa farms are exposed to a variety of hazardous working conditions. Three cocoa farming tasks have been highlighted by the International Labour Organization as having the potential to pose unacceptable hazards for children: carrying heavy loads, assisting in pesticide application, and clearing fields using machetes (Gockowski, 2005). BBC reporter Humphrey Hawksley visited several Côte d’Ivoire cocoa farms, and painted a sorrowful picture of the children working there:
The sight of children carrying machetes or pesticide equipment is common throughout Ivory Coast’s cocoa belt […]. Silently, the children squatted down and started to work. They wore torn and grubby shorts and T-shirts. There was no laugher or play. On their legs were scars from machete injuries. There was no first aid kit around or any protective clothing (Hawksley, 2011).
According to the Food Empowerment Project, most children working on cocoa farms are between the ages of 12 and 16, but in some cases children as young as seven have been seen working on farms (www.foodispower.org).
Approximately 800 000 children work on cocoa plantations throughout Côte d’Ivoire. According to a 2002 study by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), an estimated 12 000 or more of these children are victims of forced labour (Sackett, 2008); a similar study by the US Department of States estimates the number of trafficked children working on cocoa plantations to be around 10 000 (www.labourrights.org). Beyond simply working in hazardous conditions, children who are victims of child trafficking and slavery often also suffer frequent beatings and other cruel treatment (www.labourrights.org). There is also evidence to suggest that some of the children who are sold as cocoa labourers are not natives of Côte d’Ivoire. Some children are brought in from poor countries that boarder Côte d’Ivoire, such as Mali or Burkina Faso (North, 2011). In such cases, traffickers prey upon the dire financial situations of Malian and Burkinabe families and entice teenagers with the promise of good jobs in Côte d’Ivoire (North, 2011). Once the children are across the border – away from their communities and others who speak their language – they are trafficked to cocoa farmers.
While there have been documented reports of child slavery and trafficking in the cocoa sector, many sources suggest that the majority of children working in the cocoa industry work on farms owned by their parents or extended family members (www.savethechildren.ca; Gockowski, 2006). According to Save the Children Canada, 90% of cocoa farming in West Africa is done by small family farms using traditional farming methods, and two-thirds of the children working in the cocoa sector work either directly or indirectly with their families (www.savethechildren.ca). This means that while labour may or may not be voluntary, most children who work on cocoa farms are doing so in order to help sustain the family business and increase their household income. The chocolate industry is worth more than ninety billion dollars per year, but 40% of the people in Côte d’Ivoire live below the poverty line. Despite the fact that Côte d’Ivoire exports nearly half of the world’s cocoa, it is one of the world’s 20 poorest countries (Hawksley, 2011; www.ruralpovertyportal.org). From 1985 to 2008 the rural poverty rate rose from 15 to 62 per cent (www.ruralpovertyportal.org). The issue of child labour may seem black and white to those of us living securely in North America, but it is far more complicated in a country where a child’s income may mean the difference between sustenance and starvation.
An additional child labour concern associated with the cocoa industry is the negative correlation between child labour and school enrollment. In a survey of 1,500 cocoa producing families in Côte d’Ivoire, 64% of school-age children who did not work on the family farm attended school, while only 34% of school-age children working on their family farms attended school. According to the UDHR Article 26 (1), “Everyone has a right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory”; similarly, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 32(1) states that “States Parties recognize the right of the child to be protected from […] performing any work that is likely to […] interfere with the child’s education.” Many of the children who work on cocoa farms do not have adequate access to elementary education. Save the Children Canada estimates that as many as 27% of the children working on West African cocoa farms have never attended school, and 60% cannot read (www.savethechildren.org). This means that even in situations where work is voluntary, safe, and non-exploitative, child labour practices on many West African cocoa farms prevent children from accessing their right to education.
Although coco farming mainly occurs in West Africa, there is significant debate surrounding the culpability of North American institutions in the perpetuation of child labour on cocoa plantations. 50% of the cocoa consumed in the United States is produced in Côte d’Ivoire, and its beans are mixed into virtually every brand of mass-produced chocolate (North, 2011). Many major American corporations, including Nestle and Hershey’s, have faced public criticism for their unwillingness to address concerns of child labour in their manufacturing processes. Several companies, including Hershey’s, have begun to make moves toward more ‘ethically produced’ chocolate. In early 2012, Hershey’s announced that their “Bliss” line of chocolates (one of many lines that Hershey’s produces) will begin using only Rainforest Alliance certified cocoa; the announcement came one week after the International Labour Rights Forum threatened to air ads about Hershey’s child labour issues on jumbotrons outside of the Superbowl (Polis, 2012). While several companies have begun to address issues of child labour, few major chocolate manufacturers have moved to entirely child-labour-free chocolate, which means that the greatest beneficiaries of children’s labour in Côte d’Ivoire are North American chocolate companies, and the consumers who buy from them.
Child labour in Côte d’Ivoire is a complicated topic that inextricably intertwined with issues of rural poverty, traditional agricultural practices, consumerism, big business, and global politics; as such, many organizations advocate education, rather than penalization, as a solution to the negative practices associated with child labour in the cocoa industry. A 2006 study published by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture concluded that as child slavery and trafficking in the cocoa sector were relatively uncommon criminal offences, they should be solved with “criminal investigative solutions and not trade-distorting measures such as cocoa import restrictions or consumer boycotts” (Gockowski, 2006). Such restrictions and boycotts do little to solve isolated incidents of child trafficking, and instead “unfairly penalize the innocent majority of small families’ farms in West Africa struggling to earn their livelihood” (Gockowski, 2006). According to the same study, cocoa farmers from several West African nations participated in farmer field school developed by the Sustainable Tree Crops Program. The program included learning exercises developed in order to sensitize farmers on the dangers that children face in cocoa production. The study revealed that the proportion of children transporting heavy loads, applying pesticides, and clearing fields with machetes significantly declined after a family member participated in a farmer field school program. On average, there was a reduction of approximately 11 children employed in hazardous field tasks for every Sustainable Tree Crops Program field school. Such programs appear to be one of several viable solutions that address the problem of child labour while considering the economic and cultural situation of the families involved.
Child Labour and the Carpet Industry
Child labor is rampant within the carpet industry in Southern Asia. According to the Anti- Slavery society, “the total number of children involved in the carpet industry in South Asia is very difficult to assess, but in India the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude estimates that between 200,000 and 300,000 children are involved.” (Anti-Slavery Society 2007) They also claim “similar numbers may be working in Pakistan and up to 150,000 in Nepal. Children are chosen because they are cheap, accessible and easy to exploit. They are often bought and trafficked by carpet makers and forced to work long hours in appalling conditions.” (The American Anti-Slavery group)
Craig Kielburger explains the effects of the carpet industry on children. He says, “Children working in the carpet industry often suffer from many health problems.” Some of these include, “breathing difficulties from inhaling the carpet fibres, arthritis in their fingers from tying tiny knots, and growth deformities from working hunched over their looms.” (Peace Heroes) The children are forced “to weave up to 18 hours a day and some are not allowed to leave the factory or weaving shed they work in.” (Good Weave)
Not only are these children forced to work long hours in the carpet factories, but they are also often trafficked into a different form of labor after. The United Nations explained this in a report on child labor in June of 2004. They said, “Once trafficked into one form of labor, there is a strong likelihood that children may later be sold into another, For instance, a high percentage of girls from rural Nepal, recruited to work in carpet factories, are trafficked into the sex industry over the border in India.” Not only are children facing the atrocities within the carpet industry but also they are most likely going to be sold into another appalling form of labor afterwards. The future for children working in carpet factories is dismal if not non-existent.