Liane Faulder

The Edmonton Journal

Monday, March 22, 2004

EDMONTON - On the first day of spring in Edmonton, you have to look hard for a sign of the season.

But a shortage of green sprouts didn't stop two Edmonton youngsters with something to celebrate from enjoying the outdoors.

That's because Alex Wickenheiser and his sister Emma have a new soccer ball. And despite the cold weather, they played with it Saturday as their mother, Teresa Engler, watched and smiled. The ball was a special purchase by this family and, in its own way, a spring-like sign of hope.

For the first time, fair-trade soccer balls -- made by Third World labourers under decent working conditions -- are available in Edmonton.

"This is a small, but meaningful gesture," says Engler, who bought the ball from Earth's General Store on Whyte Avenue. "I can't change anyone else, but I cannot contribute to the problem."

The problem Engler refers to happens in Pakistan and India's Punjab region, where an estimated 25,000 children aged 10 to 14 stitch soccer balls, according to the Global March Against Child Labour, an international lobby group. A growing recognition of the plight of child labourers began to emerge in the late 1990s, after a Life magazine photographer captured moving images of an impoverished 12-year-old boy sewing panels on Nike soccer balls. Since then, a global movement has emerged which aims to force big sporting goods manufacturers, such Nike and Adidas, to change their production policies.

Now, some large firms have made a commitment to not hire youngsters, although that's not actually helpful when Third World families need all members working to eke out a living, says fair- trade proponent Janine Gagnier.

That's why Gagnier's company, Fair Kick Soccer, which imports the fair- trade soccer balls, decided to look for other options.
"A lot of the big companies changed policies to assuage the consciences in North America, but they didn't change things to make life better," says Gagnier in a phone interview from her home in Victoria, B.C. "It doesn't help to deny children work if they don't have enough money to eat. That's the difference between fair trade and just saying we have no child labour."
Gagnier's fair-trade soccer balls are made by a company in Sailkot, Pakistan, called Talon Sport. The company works with an international monitoring organization to create a work environment which will provide a living wage for adults, so children aren't required to work, and benefits, including sick pay.

Talon created numerous stitching centres in Pakistani towns so people could have the choice to either work at home or come to the centre, where good lighting and ventilation are available. Gagnier says Talon is the only soccer-ball company to operate a women's-only workplace for its Muslim employees. After the age of 14, children are allowed to work for Talon, so long as they can prove they are still in school. Otherwise, the company only hires employees who are 18.

A 20-per-cent surcharge on the balls goes into a fund to further community development and support projects such as a preschool program for children and clean water.

"It's for the whole community, not just for the workers of Talon," says Gagnier, a member of the Canadian Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization. "This is done in the belief that for everyone's standard of living to be raised, the community's standard of living must be raised."

Gagnier says the high-quality balls, approved by FIFA, the Federation Internationale de Football Association, are competitively priced at $25.

"All these things can be provided without any real change in the economics, just a change in where the money goes and how it is shared among the people who are involved," Gagnier says.

Source:http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal/news/
cityplus/story.html?id=211d6c56-cdce-4a39-8d9d-cc74991e7d8c

New Vision (Kampala)

March 22, 2004

Posted to the web March 22, 2004

Kyetume Kasanga

Kampala

MASINDI district authorities and the ECLT Foundation, a consortium of tobacco companies, have signed a memorandum of understanding to eliminate child labour from tobacco growing areas in the district.

While signing the memorandum in his office recently, the LC5 chairman, John Majara, said the foundation based in Geneva, Switzerland, had agreed to provide $516,000 (about sh1b) to implement the programme over the next three years.

Majara, who is also the vice-chairman of the steering committee, said they planned to construct a vocational training institute at Kyema in Karujubu sub-county to cater for the children withdrawn from the tobacco gardens.

He said Masindi was piloting the project in the country.

The programme is co-ordinated by British American Tobacco, Uganda.

BAT corporate affairs manager, Fred Balikwa and Martin Gwoke, the ECLT representative, signed on behalf of ECLT Foundation.

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200403220922.html

3/17/04

by Nia Ngina Meeks

Hershey Foods Inc. has been anything but sweet toward African children slaving in cocoa fields overseas, a group of black ministers in Harrisburg, Pa., is charging.

About 40 churches led by the Rev. W. Braxton Cooley Sr., president of the Interdenominational Ministers Conference of Greater Harrisburg, have targeted Hershey as the local face of a nightmare that affects children in West Africa.

The lust for cocoa profits has driven many African adults to snatch and enslave African children to work in the fields alongside families that scrabble to earn less than pennies a day to support a global sweet tooth.

Though Hershey contends that it is working with a host of other corporate and governmental agencies to arrest the problem, these clergy don’t believe that the 184-year-old confectioner is doing enough.

“We’re talking about corporate responsibility,” Brenda M. Alton, a member of the ministers’ group told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “When we bite into that chocolate bar, we are biting into the flesh of our children.”

The bulk of the world’s cocoa beans are produced by four West African nations: Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana and the Ivory Coast, with the latter supplying some 43 percent of the market.

Children are tasked with clearing fields, weeding, maintaining the trees and applying pesticides, among other duties. But the machetes used for clearing and the toxins meant to poison pests both prove hazardous for youngsters - many of whom are under 14.

While a great deal of them work beside their parents, thousands of other children, ages 9 to 12, routinely are snatched from their homes, sometimes from neighboring countries, and forced into labor, according to a 2002 study issued by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. Media reports about the cocoa-bred slave trade among West African children began surfacing as early as 2001.

Hershey spokesman John C. Long said chocolate giants around the globe began conferring with labor organizations and others about how best to attack the problem in response to the outcry.

The industry is putting together a monitoring system, though it is unclear as to when pilot programs will be established. But there is a commitment to having all farms monitored for child labour abuses by July 2005, said Susan S. Smith, spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based Chocolate Manufacturers Association and the National Confectioners Association.

“Hershey Foods has played a leadership role in efforts to ensure that cocoa is grown responsibly,” said Long, “since reports of child labour in the Ivory Coast first appeared.”

Earl Harris, a pastor at St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church in Harrisburg, dismissed Hershey’s responses as “inadequate, sluggish and ineffective.” He serves as second vice president for the ministers’ conference. “The slavery still goes on,” said Harris. “How could we support an industry that is so callous that they use babies to make a profit?”

Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based social watchdog group, argues that fair trade standards would alleviate the slavery issue because poverty - the root of the situation - would be lessened.

Offering American subsidies, much like what farmers here and other places receive, would help farmers earn better wages and deter the slave trade, said spokeswoman Melissa Schweisguth.

It’s an argument the ministers are echoing. They noted their chocolate boycott on Valentine’s Day, arguing that sweet indulgences come at too high a price, and that others should follow suit.

The ministers gained support from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the National Baptist Convention, fraternities and others. These ministers are gearing for a spring meeting with members of the Congressional Black Caucus, in hopes of adding legislative muscle to their cause.

That’s not to say though that the ministers represent a united front.

Both local branches of the NAACP and the Urban League declined to be involved. Ditto for the local African-American Chamber of Commerce.

That’s because some say this battle is but an outgrowth of earlier disagreements, such as minority hiring and procurement at the Harrisburg International Airport.

Hershey, as a Fortune 500 company and one of the largest employers in the area, could have exercised more pressure in those areas, too, the ministers have said.

“This issue did not start with West Africa,” said Fredrick A. Clark, an area consultant who is Black and works with Hershey Foods. “(The ministers) have other issues that are personal and not related to progressing the issue of all people of color.”

The ministers disagree, saying that they have focused their efforts on one point, bringing light to a moral outrage.

“The picture being produced is that the matter is under control,” Harris said. “They have chosen to ignore it.”

Source: http://www.sfbayview.com/031704/boycotthershey031704.shtml

Children battling poverty
By CARRIE LEE

Thursday March 18, 2004

Social workers estimate that nearly one in seven people in Hong Kong are living below the poverty line, writes CARRIE LEE.

DIGGING through stinking heaps of garbage in one rubbish bin after another, a small boy stops occasionally to pluck out a prize – bunches of old newspapers or cardboard.

“I’ll be able to sell them for a few (Hong Kong) dollars,” says the skinny eight-year-old who identified himself only by his middle name, Chun. “If I don’t do this, how can we have enough money for milk powder for my brother and sister?”

Chun is not picking through garbage dumps in India, the Philippines or Bangladesh but in Hong Kong, one of the wealthiest cities in the world. Not far away, state-of-the art skyscrapers gleam along its scenic waterfront and a shiny parade of chauffeured Mercedes and Rolls-Royce limousines deposit captains of industry at their offices, hardly drawing a second glance from passers-by.

Not long ago, many people in the financial centre dreamed of becoming the city’s next tycoon, wheeling and dealing their way from rags to riches like Asia’s richest businessman Li Ka-shing. Now, many would be happy just to get a real job, or, like Chun, have a little money in their pockets to help feed their families.

Despite signs of recovery in recent months, years of economic stagnation have widened Hong Kong’s rich-poor gap and unemployment levels remain among the highest in Asia. With more poor mainland Chinese settling here, poverty is potentially a growing social problem in the territory.
Social workers estimate nearly one in seven people in the city, or almost one million people, are living below the poverty line, including nearly 400,000 children.

“Poverty is seriously affecting children in Hong Kong, leading to problems such as malnutrition. Our situation is a bit like that in Third World or developing countries,” says social worker Sze Lai-shan. She estimates there are thousands of child labourers in Hong Kong, including hundreds picking through junk piles. Child labour is illegal in the city but many elude the police by saying they are merely helping out their parents.

Chun’s father is in jail. His mother is from mainland China and is not allowed to work in Hong Kong but manages to stay by repeatedly renewing her tourist visa. Chun has to help take care of his three-year-old brother and a baby sister.

Crammed in a 10sqm flat, the family live from hand to mouth on monthly welfare payments of some HK$6,000 (RM2,955) in one of the world’s most expensive places to live. Many children from families on the dole get only half of their required daily energy intake, according to a recent survey by Sze’s Society for Community Organisation.
In a recent survey, some said they picked through discarded food at markets looking for something to eat while others said only that they have obtained free food from various sources.
Wai, a 10-year-old boy who would not disclose his family name, says he regularly takes free packs of ketchup from a fast food chain. “I mix it with rice,” says the pale lad, whose family is too poor to afford dishes to accompany rice every day. Unlike many of his peers who are better off, Wai has never eaten at McDonald’s. To him, even fruit is a luxury that he seldom gets to eat. Wai wore the same school uniform for three years before his mother bought him a new one.

“Carrying a heavy schoolbag, he walks half an hour to school and back every day to save transport expenses,” says his mother Ho Siu-fong, who is chronically ill and unable to work. The pair live on HK$4,000 (RM1,970) of monthly welfare payments.

About 290,000 households in Hong Kong scrape by on social welfare and housing assistance. But the government, battling a ballooning deficit, has been cutting expenditure, including welfare payments to each claimant. – Reuters

Source:http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2004/3/18
/features/7458674&sec=features

The Monitor (Kampala)

March 17, 2004
Posted to the web March 17, 2004
Jonathan Akweteireho
Masindi

The district chairman here Mr John Majara has signed a memorandum of understanding with a Geneva-based NGO to check child labour.

The organisation Elimination of Child Labour in Tobacco Growing

Areas fights child labour, which leads to school dropout.

"I can predict the future is not bad for our children who have long suffered under child labour," Majara said at the signing of the memorandum on March 15.

The three-year project is to cost about $516,000 (about Shs 1 billion) and is being implemented by British American Tobacco Uganda (Batu).

Majara said research indicates that about 50,000 children have dropped out of school in the two sub-counties and are employed as child labour in tobacco growing.
The projects includes construction of a modern technical school at Kyeema hill, 4kms on Masindi-Kigumba road.

Majara said tobacco growing Karujubu and Budongo sub-counties are the priority targets.

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200403170078.html

By Our Staff Reporter

COIMBATORE, MARCH. 2. The Kovai Child Labour Abolition Support Society (CLASS) is conducting awareness programmes on child labour for conservancy workers of the district.

The Project Director of Kovai CLASS, V. Jisha, said that there were reports that a number of conservancy workers were taking their children with them for work. Hence, the Kovai CLASS decided to organise one-day awareness programmes for them. Under the programme that commenced in Tirupur on February 9, all the 751 workers were covered. Ten programmes were conducted for those in Coimbatore Corporation and eight more were planned.

During these programmes, interactive sessions were organised to find out why the workers sent their children to work. The importance of education was also explained to them.
An undertaking was taken from them stating that they would not send their children to work. Ms. Jisha said that these were being organised at a total cost of Rs. 3.14 lakhs and all the workers would be covered by March 18.

Source: http://www.hindu.com/2004/03/03/stories/2004030312760300.htm

Tk 15 to 20 only for 12 hours' work

Our Correspondent, Barisal.

At least 10,000 child labourers are working in Bidi factories in Barisal division.

They work in hazardous and inhuman conditions but paid unbelievably small amounts. There are 17 big Bidi factories in the division, including six in Barisal district.

Most of the children are between eight and twelve. But in official records of the factories, there is no existences of child labourers. They are shown as 'assistants'.

One child labourer earns Tk 15 to 20 for twelve hours' work. He is paid Tk four for making 1000 Bidi sticks, which takes about three hours. Thus the average payment per hour is only Tk 1.25. Payments are made weekly.

The working condition is very much unhygienic. Due to pollution from tobacco dust, they develop respiratory problems in early age, and become susceptible to fatal diseases like cancer and bronchitis.

Medical facility by the factory owner for their check-up or treatment is unthinkable.

Most of them are illiterate and so can not learn any other profession. Once they leave the factory in young age, they turn into drug peddler or criminal or labourers to earn livelihood.

The factory owners do not abide by any law.

These were revealed in a recent survey by the Association for Sanitation and Economic Development (ASED), a local NGO. It enumerated 10,000 child labourers in Bidi factories in the division till December last year. The number is increasing with the growth of population and lack of literacy and social awareness.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) prohibits employment below the age of 14.

Literacy and social awareness can solve the problem. The government can easily check child labour at Bidi factories and improve working conditions there, sources said.

Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/2004/03/02/d40302070179.htm

Cops sitting tight, allege activists

Chitrangada Choudhury

Mumbai, March 7: A RAID is conducted in two filthy Dharavi sweatshops and 91 child labourers are rescued. And three whole days later, not a single arrest made.

It’s little wonder then, that children’s rights activists are alleging that the police are dragging their feet over the arrest of the owner of the raided zari embroidery factories on Dharavi main road.

Some children named the man in their statements, some even cited his cellphone number. But officials at the Shahu Nagar police station say they’re yet to trace the individual, Mushtaq Mohammed.

Senior Inspector Kishore Motling said, ‘‘Mushtaq’s phone number is unreachable.’’

But when this reporter called the number, the call was answered by a man who replied to this name and even confirmed he had a zari embroidery business in Dharavi.

The activists are also upset that the adult present in one of the units was not arrested by the police but treated merely as a witness.

It’s not surprising, according to Kishore Bhamre, a co-ordinator with the organisation Pratham. ‘‘In Filterpada, where 33 children were rescued from a zari unit last November, the employer was let off that very day on bail,’’ said Bhamre.

According to Merine John of the Coordination Committeee for Vulnerable Children, the umbrella body which approached the police to carry out Thursday’s raids, arrests are the key to dealing a body blow to the system.

‘‘The problem is not just of child labour, but of human trafficking because large numbers of children are being systematically brought to the city to be exploited in this manner.’’

Source: http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=78167