Trafficking in Children
Department of Labor Releases List of Slave-Made Goods
Published September 10, 2009 @ 09:13AM PT
After receiving over 6,200 letters from Change.org community members, the Department of Labor released their long-awaited report on goods produced by child labor and forced labor today. Thank you all for urging DOL to release this important tool for consumers!
This list was mandated by anti-trafficking legislation back in 2005, but the Bush administration dragged their feet for years. Now, thanks to your voices and the hard work of NGOs like Polaris Project and the International Labor Rights Forum, it's finally here. This list is a huge boon for consumers who want to choose slave-free products. With this list, we as consumers can finally hold companies and countries accountable for the slavery they use in making the goods we buy, and we can decisively take action to prevent slavery in the production of consumer goods. Today, we as consumers are more powerful to end slavery than ever before. And you, through Change.org, helped make that happen.
The report tops out at a daunting 194 pages, and can be read in it's entirety here. But let's face it -- no one wants to read 194 page government report, no matter how useful it may be. So here are some of the highlights I've found in my initial read-through:
- The most common goods which have significant incidence of forced and/or child labor are cotton, sugarcane, tobacco, coffee, rice, and cocoa in agriculture; bricks, garments, carpets, and footwear in manufacturing; and gold and coal in mined or quarried goods.
- 122 goods in 58 countries are produced with a significant incidence of forced labor, child labor, or both.
- More goods were found to be made with child labor than forced labor.
There's a long, detailed list that's a little blandly formatted, but it indicates whether goods in a certain country are made with child labor, forced labor, or both. It's important to keep in mind this doesn't mean all goods from that sector in that country were produced with exploitation. Here are some of the worst offenders for forced labor or slavery specifically:
- Bolivia: nuts, cattle, corn, and sugar
- Burma: bamboo, beans, bricks, jade, nuts, rice rubber, rubies, sesame, shrimp, sugarcane, sunflowers, and teak
- China: artificial flowers, bricks, Christmas decorations, coal, cotton, electronics, garments, footwear, fireworks, nails, and toys
- India: bricks, carpets, cottonseed, textiles, and garments
- Nepal: bricks, carpets, textiles, and stones
- North Korea: bricks, cement, coal, gold, iron, and textiles
- Pakistan: bricks, carpet, coal, cotton, sugar, and wheat
I'm sure in the coming weeks and months there will be additional levels of analysis of the data the DOL has collected. For example, I would be extremely interested in the most natural next step -- finding out what companies source problem products from problem countries and ship them to the U.S. I'd also be interested in seeing the breakdown for services, which is not included in this report. Hopefully, we can look forward to that level of analysis coming soon. And if not, I might just go ahead and do it myself.
In the meantime, this report gives consumers a lot to keep in mind as they try and shop responsibly. I know I'll be checking to see if my Christmas decorations were made in China a little more closely this year.
I urge you all to write a quick note of thanks to the DOL for this report in the comments section to let them know how happy we are to have this information.
Photo credit: DOL.gov
DNA Techology to Reunite Child Slaves with Families
Published September 07, 2009 @ 02:27PM PT
Paternity tests are no longer just the subject of Jerry Springer white-trash throw-downs; they're now a tool to help child trafficking survivors. Children who have been trafficked or abandoned at very young ages often don't have the answer to the most basic question: where did I come from? Now, the Life Technologies Foundation has funded research to use DNA testing to help reunite families torn apart by trafficking.
Kids are torn from their families in a number of ways: they are kidnapped, their parents are tricked, they are abandoned, and in a few cases they run away. Often, the children are young enough when they are removed from their families that they have no idea of their last name, the name of their home town or village, and how old they are. When these children are identified and removed from slavery by NGOs and law enforcement, the best option is usually to return them home. However, when no one, not even the child, knows where home is, that option often can't be used.
The DNA-PROKIDS Project is headed up by Dr. Jose Lorente and Arthur Eisenberg, and will use the $500,000 award from Life Technologies Foundation to create DNA collection kits, hire staff to help coordinate international efforts and process DNA samples, and to encourage more international collaboration through education and networking. DNA-PROKIDS has been around since 2000 in smaller forms conducting pilot work. In 2006, the team tested a group of kids orphanages and adoption centers in Mexico and Guatemala. They made 200 matches of children to parents who had not given their child away willingly, but had their child kidnapped or been tricked into giving their child to a trafficker.
DNA testing is a fantastic tool for parents who have had children stolen or who have otherwise lost children to try and get them back. It's also a great way for NGOs who identify trafficked children to try and reunite them with their biological families. I can guess, however, that the biggest challenge with the project will be helping people understand how DNA testing works and feel empowered to give a DNA sample. Child trafficking operations are so entrenched in some communities, and losing a child to traffickers is so common and experience, that parents may not feel like DNA testing can do anything to help reunite them with their child. The public awareness component of such an undertaking will be possibly more challenging than the scientific components.
This is a cool project, and I'm excited to see where it goes. It's also a creative solution to an issue that has plagued child trafficking organizations for years: how do you reunite a child with a family he has no memories of? Perhaps DNA testing will allow more parents who have lost children an opportunity to get them back.
Photo credit: Mother and Child by Adam Jones, Ph.D.
4500 Filipino Child Laborers Harvest Sugar for U.S. Markets
Published September 07, 2009 @ 08:06AM PT
This week, over 6800 child laborers were rescued in the Philippines. They were exploited in a number of industries, from domestic service to commercial sex to selling drugs. But the vast majority -- over 4500 -- were being exploited on sugarcane plantations. Filipino authorities say these kids are only a tiny fraction of the over 4 million estimated to be enslaved or exploited in labor in the Philippines, in part to sell cheaper sugar to the U.S.
Sugarcane plantations can be extremely dangerous for children, and many work brutally long days with no breaks and little to eat. They cannot go to school, thus ensuring the plantation owners whole generations of workers who have no options other than the plantation and feel increasingly trapped in their situation. They are often take away from their families and forced to live on the plantations. Some of the children are slaves -- trapped by debt or the threat of violence and unable to leave. Others have the freedom to leave, but nowhere to go and no other viable ways to feed themselves and their families. Either way, it's exploitation of children that allows plantations to churn out cheaper sugar.
So where is all this sugar harvested by these Filipino kids going? Well, at least 500,000 metric tons of it are going to the U.S. every year. In fact, earlier this year the U.S. agree to import more sugar from the Philippines than ever before. This was good news for Filipino Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) head Rafael Coscolluela, who said in December 2008 that the Philippines is "in for hard times in the next two years and it’s time for belt tightening for the sugar sector.” He also said the Philippine sugar industry must “become more efficient to lower production cost.” I have to wonder if there is a connection between the "belt-tightening" measures the Filipino sugar industry put into place last year in order to sell more to the U.S. and the 4500 kids who were rescued from plantations several months later. How many plantation owners and operators cut costs by cutting the pay or food of children? How many cut costs by firing paid adult workers and enslaving children to take their places?
Filipino sugar is grown by exploited child laborers, and sold to U.S. markets. This isn't abuse taking place overseas and far away, it's abuse being packaged into a bag of sugar and sold in U.S. supermarkets. Maybe it's being sold in your supermarket. This is exactly why it's important to know where your products come from and ask pointed questions of companies and governments. You have a right to demand sugar produced without exploitation of children. And when you exercise that right? Well now that's sweet.
Photo credit: Raw sugar bowl by Ayelie
Miley Cyrus, Dolls Market Pole Dancing to Tweens
Published September 03, 2009 @ 12:03PM PT
The newest sensation to sweep the tween market seems to be .... pole dancing? Miley Cyrus shook her underage stuff (what little she has of it) up and down a pole at the Nickelodeon Teen Choice awards in August, in front of an audience of kids and tweens. And now, kids can buy their very own Poll Dance Doll. What's next -- sexy thongs for kids? Oh wait, that already happened ...
Marketing pole dancing to kids gross and dangerous. Both the Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana empire and dolls are marketed to girls in the 7-13 age range. And girls 7-13 have no business pole dancing. There's a great scene in the movie Mean Girls where the popular girl's clueless mom (Amy Poehler) is smiling as she watches her 9-year-old daughter imitate an MTV spring break show by dancing provocatively and flashing the TV set. I always thought that scene was a funny hyperbole of what happens when children are parented soley by pop culture, but now it looks like a scary tarot-like prediction of a Tweens Gone Wild video. Watch the press coverage of Miley Cyrus closely, and you can see the media salivating for her to turn 18 so they can find a good-girl-goes-bad angle. They did it to Brittany and to Jessica and to the Olson twins. And they're going to do it to Miley.
This cultural Madonna-whore complex that eats young teen pop stars alive is moving to devour more and younger girls. At the end of the day this isn't just about a doll or a dance move. It's about the fact that kids are being sexualized at younger and younger ages, and that over-sexualization has serious consequences. It glamorizes commercial sex for young girls that have no understanding of the realities of the commercial sex industry. Desensitizing kids to commercial sex makes it easier for "friendly" pimps to lure them into prostitution and pimp control. Pimps prey on the natural sexual curiosity of teens, which has been warped and over-stimulated by a media culture which tells girls they are only valued for their complete purity or complete depravity. And once a pimp has control over a girl, it becomes exceedingly harder for her to leave.
I'm sure a lot of people will look at this and say, "big deal, it's just a doll." It is just a doll, but this doll and the carnage of fallen teen pop stars and the sexy thongs for kids and MTV and all the other sexy things that are marketed to kids start to add up into a pretty big pile of hyper-sexualized garbage.
Kids play in that garbage. And we're surprised when they come home dirty.
Photo credit: Gizmodo
How To Get Involved in Historic Anti-Trafficking Events
Published September 02, 2009 @ 11:00AM PT
On September 26, community groups from across the country will come together and walk to fight child trafficking. Grassroots organization DC Stop Modern Slavery (DCSMS) will host the DC Walk to Stop Child Trafficking at Meridian Hill Park from 9 a.m. - 2 p.m., making it largest anti -human trafficking event ever in the nation's capital and drawing attention to child trafficking in front of politicians and policy makers from across the country.
DC walkers will join their counterparts in more than 50 U.S. cities and on 40 U.S. university campuses to highlight September as Combating Human Trafficking Month. The nationwide effort is being coordinated by Stop Child Trafficking Now, a New York-based non-profit organization working to address the demand side of sex trafficking. In DC, local artists will perform rock, country, hip-hop, jazz, and cultural music while local and national human trafficking experts speak. And across the country, everyone from truckers to lawyers to students to pastors will come together and take a stand against child trafficking.
Here's how you can get involved:
If you live in the Washington, DC area, get your family, some friends, or your community group together and sign up for the DC Walk to Stop Child Trafficking.
If you live somewhere else, find a walk near you and get involved. Stop Child Trafficking walks are happening all over the country. If you can't find a walk near you, Stop Child Trafficking will help you start one. Or, you could consider supporting another walk financially.
All proceeds are shared between Stop Child Trafficking Now and a local anti-trafficking organization.
September 26 will be a historic opportunity to put child trafficking on the national agenda. I will be bringing you all the action from the DC walk, and I hope all of you who attend other walks will send in stories and pictures as well. Together, we can stop child trafficking.
Photo credit: Why Are You Sad, Kelly by Tacit Requiem
Feudalism Still Practised in Pakistan
Published September 01, 2009 @ 02:50PM PT
What do 13th century France and modern-day Pakistan have in common? Feudalism -- a system where a tiny minority of people own the vast majority of the land. In medieval Europe, feudalism was one of the major reasons innovation came to a screeching halt for several hundred years and leeches were considered medicinal. In modern-day Pakistan, feudalism is keeping men, women, and children in bonded labor across the country.
Here's how bonded labor in Pakistan works. Let's say I'm part of the 10% of men (and they are almost all men) lucky enough to own 90% of land in Pakistan. I need someone to harvest the crops on my land, so I go into a village and find a poor family with children. I offer to take two of their sons to my farm, and feed and house the kids. All the kids have to do is sign a contract to work off their room and board. I'm not going to pay the kids, but I'll send the family a portion of my crops. The kids sign, I take them to my farm, and I invent a massive debt their room and board is costing me that they can never pay off. So, I get free labor for life and for only the cost of a tiny potion of my harvest. The system is not very different from that of medieval Europe.
Previous efforts to address debt bondage and slavery in Pakistan have revolved around legal intervention, humanitarian efforts, and public education. These are all great things, but the fact is that Pakistan is operating as a feudal society. And in a feudal society, there are serfs, or as we now call them, bonded laborers. But unlike 13th century France where almost all serfs were exploited in agriculture, Pakistanis are exploited in a number of industries, including brick kilns, carpet weaving, mining, glass-bangle manufacturing units, tanneries, domestic work and beggary. It's a diversified portfolio of a feudal society, but its still the dark ages.
In order to address bonded labor in Pakistan, we need a new approach which takes into account the archaic systems Pakistan has long relied on. Otherwise, Pakistan might never see its own Renaissance.
Photo credit: Little Farmer by Sparkle_lavalamp
Why Obama's "Neo-Socialism" Might Prevent Human Trafficking
Published August 31, 2009 @ 01:50PM PT
President Obama has been accused of a lot -- everything from being a Kenyan wearing a big-eared American mask to thinking there are 57 states in the U.S. But nothing beats the conservative right wing's pitch-fork-wielding, torch-brandishing cries of "Socialist! Socialist!" for the Misinformed, Knee-Jerk Accusation of the Year Award. In fact, President Obama's brand of "neo-socialism" just might prevent human trafficking in the U.S.
Robert Fisher points out that many of our socialist-under-the-bed fears stem from a huge cultural misunderstanding that socialism and communism are the same thing. Socialism and communism are like the Olson twins -- they're related, but one is a lot more healthy and functional. Socialism is an economic system advocating some level of public ownership and administration of production and resources, and it can operate effectively with democracy. Communism is a political system with one form of government and usually one party, and it cannot operate effectively with democracy. Socialism has actually been slowly and increasingly incorporated into the U.S. economy for over a century in the form of social programs and "safety nets" like food assistance, Medicaid, and other programs that are often the subject of political debate. So while some might throw around the term "neo-socialist" intending it to mean "corrupt Trotsky-worshipper," "neo-socialism" is just a logical extension of the slow expansion of the social welfare state that's been underway since the Magna Carta.
And "neo-socialism" has the possibility to do great things, like prevent human trafficking in the U.S. Over 100,000 American children are trafficked into the commercial sex industry each year -- not from other countries but from places like Ohio, Kansas, and Oregon. For the most part, these children are vulnerable to pimps and traffickers because they come from the foster care system, from families with addiction issues, from abusive parents, from impovrished neighborhoods, and from under-resourced school systems. The continued growth and evolution of the social welfare state will address a lot of these root causes of human trafficking in the U.S. When given access to the resources a developed and evolved "neo-socialist" fiscal policy provides, the children who are today lured from bus stops into brothels might still be in school. The young girls who turn to pimps because system after system has failed them might not be failed at all. And that's nothing to shake a pitch-fork at.
So President Obama, go ahead and fill that White House moat with alligators for when the angry mob comes calling, but don't be afraid of the "S-word." You could become the president whose bold, progressive policies finally put a dent in the growing number of trafficked children in America. And remember -- if the right-wingers get past your defenses, you can always put Biden in your spare Obama costume and hideout in Kenya.
