Labor is Not a Commodity

Carter's Victory! Will Aeropostale, Forever 21, Urban Outfitters and Toys R Us Stop Forced Child Labor in Cotton?

Mitch Ellmauer, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum

This week, children's clothing company Carter’s (which also owns Osh Kosh B'Gosh) released a statement condemning the Government of Uzbekistan's use of forced child labor to produce the nation's cotton and promised to “take steps… to ensure compliance” to child and forced labor prohibitions among its suppliers. 

Carter’s sudden change in policy comes just two weeks after ILRF launched a petition on Change.org. The petition received over 700 signatures within the first week and the petition’s hundreds of signatures made Carter’s take notice. Thanks to everyone who took action! Now it's time to spring into action once again.

Cotton Coercion: Child Labor is the Tip of the Iceberg in Uzbekistan

By Elizabeth Dia, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum

Uzbekistan, a country now infamous for its use of forced child labor, also coerces adults to labor alongside the children. If the “tip of the forced labor iceberg” is an estimated 1.5 to 2 million children taking part in the cotton harvest, then adult forced laborers are the victims hidden under the surface. The Uzbek government, through local officials, requires all citizens to help pick cotton by creating quotas for farmers to meet. To ensure these quotas are met the government uses forced labor, as defined by International Labor Organization, or “…work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.” The penalties against those who refuse to pick cotton include: beatings, a loss of pension/maternity payments, a loss of utilities such as electricity, and threats of unemployment. 

No Exceptions (unless you are willing to pay)

Under the Soviet-style command economy in Uzbekistan, everyone has to pick cotton. Uznews.net reports that even the sick and breast-feeding mothers are forced to labor in the cotton fields. Factory workers, policeman, and solders are among those coerced into picking cotton. According to EurAsia.net, “Doctors, teachers, even an entire soccer team have been sent to pick cotton…” Teachers bring student as young as elementary school age to labor in the fields with them. In one area of Uzbekistan, all markets were closed, but merchants continued business in the streets by hiring laborers to go in their stead to the cotton fields. Local officials said that “all newlyweds and their guests…must collect cotton”. When people are unable to meet their daily quotas, they are forced to work at night or pay to buy the cotton from another source. 

And You Thought Tobacco Only Harmed the Smoker

Allison Richina, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum

Women for Justice in Africa (WOJA) in consultation with Marty Otañez, professor of political ecology, Anthropology Department, University of Colorado Denver and in collaboration with the International Labor Rights Forum, organized “Working Our Rights Away: Women and Child Laborers on Tobacco Farms in Kenya Speak Out,” and “Visualizing Health and Gender Equity: Views from Tobacco Fields in Kenya,” two workshops that were both located in New York, this past February. The two workshops examined the role of children and pregnant women as laborers on tobacco farms. The harsh conditions of pregnant women and children under the ages of fifteen are revealed through personal interviews and extensive research on Kenyan tobacco farms. WOJA and Otañez complied some of this information for an online video. The video hopes to deliver clear and thorough evidence of the realities of the pregnant women who are forced to work in tobacco fields. 

 

What is it like to be a pregnant woman farming tobacco in Kenya? LARGE from Marty Otañez on Vimeo.

Sting Hypocritical on Human and Labor Rights in Central Asia

Mitch Ellmauer, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum

Sting, the British pop icon, cancelled a concert in Kazakhstan recently over human rights abuses committed against striking oil workers. Workers from Kazakhstan’s state oil company went on strike in early May after their wages had been cut. Many of the strike’s leaders have been imprisoned, and many workers have been assaulted by police and company thugs. According to Sting and Amnesty International, playing in Kazakhstan would have been interpreted as an endorsement of President’s Nazarbayev’s administration.  

“Hunger strikes, imprisoned workers, and tens of thousands on strike represent a virtual picket line which I have no intention of crossing,” Sting wrote in a recent press release. 

However, Sting has not always been so concerned with human rights violations in Central Asia. Maybe the Kazakh government just wasn’t paying him enough. Last year, Sting was paid two million pounds to play at a music festival in Uzbekistan. The concert was organized by Gulnara Karimova, daughter of the country’s ironfisted dictator. 

Harry Potter Fans Demand Fair Trade Chocolate

Mitch Ellmauer, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two is set to be released this Friday. Harry Potter fans all over the country are not just lining up at the box office, they are also lining up behind fair trade chocolate.

The Harry Potter Alliance, an organization that encourages fans to fight for social justice, has teamed up the International Labor Rights Forum in calling for Warner Brothers to ensure that all Harry Potter-themed chocolate is Fair Trade Certified. Check out our press release here.

Child labor, forced labor and trafficking are widespread in West Africa's cocoa industry. The US Department of Labor has included cocoa from Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea and Nigeria on its List of Goods Produced by Child Labor and Forced Labor. Many companies are starting to commit to using cocoa that has been certified by independent third parties to comply with international labor rights standards, but according to analysis from Free2Work, the supplier of Harry Potter chocolate does not do much to ensure that its chocolate is not tainted by labor exploitation.

Seeking To End Culture of Impunity, United Church of Christ Philippines Brings Suit Against Former President Arroyo

By Chip Gibbons, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum  

While many believed the era of rampant infringement of human rights, extra-judicial killings, disappearance, and general harassment of civil society members in the Philippines would come to an end when Gloria Macpagal-Arroyo left the presidency a culture of impunity has allowed human rights violations to continue uninterrupted. In the first six-months of  her successor President Noynoy Aquino’s administration the human rights group Karaptan documented, 4 forced disappearances, and 19 instances of torture. As recently as February 25, 2011, Rodel Estrellado, a member for the leftist party Bayan Muana, was abducted and killed.

While the Filipino state has largely failed in holding those guilty of gross human rights violations accountable civil society is seeking to fill this void. Last week, the United Church of Christ Philippines launched a civil suit against Arroyo. The suit alleges that as commander-in-chief Arroyo is responsible for the deaths at the hands of the military of 30 church members, as well as the illegal arrest and torture of another member. 

The timing of this lawsuit is quite awkward for Arroyo as was filed just a week before she was scheduled to attend a meeting of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty in Madrid, Spain. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo may at first glance seem like an ideal speaker for an organization dedicated to the abolition of capital punishment--an outspoken opponent of the practice since her career as a Senator in the early 1990s, she as President was behind the (second) abolition of capital punishment in the Philippines and commuted the death sentences of over a 1,000 prisoners. However, her presidency was mired by a much darker side--the extrajudicial killing and forced disappearance of trade unionist, human rights defenders, and other civil society activist. Karapatan had estimated the number of extra-judicial killings during her presidency as being 1,250.

The ABC’s of Cotton Picking

By Allison Richina, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum

Attending to school from eight in the morning until three-thirty in the afternoon for thirteen years may be a never ending thought of “Am I done yet?!,” “I have too much homework,” and “I don’t like my teacher.” Yet, this is a system so accessible to most US students that we often take our access to education for granted. Could you imagine a life without school? Sure! What a great time to enjoy friends, play sports, and do whatever you want! 

But what if you were pushed into a world of forced labor?  A life with little or no wages and consequently if your work was not done right, beatings? Or the work you perform was done in dangerous or unsupervised conditions? Or you were fed minimal amounts of food with little access to clean drinking water?

Tragic scenario, but a true one. Thousands of children in Uzbekistan are sent by the government to work in cotton fields. This disrupts the education of huge numbers of children during the harvest season. The government is fully aware of the thousands of children that endure unsafe and unhealthy conditions in the Uzbekistan cotton fields and, in fact they use the children to meet their own personal quota. Cotton farmers must sell their crop to the government at the below-market rates that it sets. Once purchased, the government then sells the cotton on the global market for the actual market price.

The Sweet Delicious Taste of, Child Labor?

Allison Richina, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum

Imagine that favorite piece of chocolate entering your mouth as you bite into its rich flavor. The very thought of chocolate brings pleasure and excitement to our taste buds. Where do you get your chocolate from? Maybe a drug store, grocery store, or a chocolate store?  Have you thought about where those stores and brands get their chocolate?

The shocking truth is that an estimate of 109,000 children are working in abusive conditions with as many as 10,000 suffering as victims of human trafficking or enslavement (according to the U.S. Department of State), and these may be conservative estimates. In 2005, the International Labor Organization estimated that as many as 200,000 children work in West Africa cocoa farms.

While chocolate is marketed to consumers as delicious and mouth-watering, the truth is that thousands of children have been subjected to hazardous working conditions on cocoa farms throughout West Africa.

Tell Carter's to Stop Forced Child Labor in Cotton

By Mitch Ellmauer, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum

Carter’s Inc. is lagging behind the clothing retail industry in speaking out against the use of forced child labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton industry. The irony is that Carter’s business is primarily a manufacturer of children’s apparel and its success has been built atop its two famous children’s brands: Carter’s and Oshkosh B’Gosh.

Uzbekistan is one of the largest cotton producing countries in the world and it is also well known for its authoritarian government, human rights violations, and exploitative labor practices in its cotton industry. Every harvest, the government closes schools and sends millions of children to the fields to pick cotton. Children are expected to work from sun up to sun set during the cotton harvest seasons. Older children live on the fields in makeshift barracks without electricity, sanitary facilities, clean water, or steady supplies of food. The children are subject to beating and abuse if they do not meet their quotas.