Wed, 6 Aug 2008

The Iowa Labour Commissioner's Office said today that it has uncovered dozens of child labour violations at the United States' biggest supplier of kosher meat.

Labour officials said their investigation, which spanned several months, uncovered 57 cases of child labour law violations at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, where nearly 400 workers were arrested this spring in the largest immigration enforcement operation in US history.

The types of violations included minors working in prohibited occupations, exceeding allowable hours for youth to work, failure to obtain work permits, exposure to hazardous chemicals and working with prohibited tools.
"The investigation brings to light egregious violations of virtually every aspect of Iowa's child labour laws," Dave Neil, Iowa Labour Commissioner, said in a statement.

"It is my recommendation that the attorney general's office prosecute these violations to the fullest extent of the law." Juda Engelmayer, an Agriprocessors spokesman, declined to comment.

Federal immigration agents arrested 389 illegal-immigrant workers, mostly Guatemalans, in a May 12 raid at the Agriprocessors plant. Most of the arrested workers pleaded guilty within a week and are serving sentences in federal prisons outside Iowa before being deported.

Allegations of child labour violations were included in an initial affidavit and a search warrant that led to the raid at Agriprocessors, which also operates a plant near Gordon, Nebraska. Under Iowa law, it is illegal for children under the age of 18 to work in meatpacking plants.

A spokeswoman for Iowa Workforce Development, the agency that oversees the labour commission, said the number of violations is much larger than what is typically found in the state of Iowa.

"Typically, when we have child labour issues it's an issue of one or two individuals," said spokeswoman Kerry Koonce.
"From our point of view, with this investigation, it's a large-scale violation of the law." Koonce said the full report was not being made public because it is a part of a criminal investigation.

Labour officials say the child labour violations would normally be turned over to the county attorney's office, but in this case will most likely be handed over the Iowa attorney general at the county's request.

The attorney general's office said it could not comment on what penalties are possible, and state officials declined to release details on how many children may be involved or their ages.

Several underage workers who said they were employed at the plant have spoken out since the raid about their experiences.

At a meeting with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus last month in Postville, 17-year-old Noel Castillo Ordonez said he had worked long hours at the plant to support his family in Guatemala.

"I needed money for my family, because I could not help them," he said in Spanish.

At the same meeting, 17-year-old Gilda Yolanda Ordonez Lopez openly wept as she described being forced to work shifts as long as 12 hours with no overtime pay.

"They asked me how old I was, and I told them the truth," Lopez said.

State labour officials say they are still investigating some wage violations at the plant.

August 24, 2008

Dean Nelson in Delhi

The BBC is profiting from child labour in India where boys as young as eight are being forced by gangs to sell Top Gear and Good Homes magazines, for as little as 12p a day. According to campaigners, the children, who are sold by their families for about £12.50, suffer abuse at the hands of gangsters who control the roadside pitches where they hawk magazines.

Last week The Sunday Times interviewed young boys selling BBC magazines at road junctions throughout Delhi.

They had left their farming families in the northeastern state of Bihar after drought had ruined their crops, they said, and were now working punishing 12-hour days.

Top Gear magazine was launched in India in 2005. The BBC formed a joint venture with the Times of India group to create Worldwide Media, India’s biggest magazine publisher, which also produces Good Homes magazine.

but it is a ferociously competitive market and the battle for readers is fought on the main roads in big cities.

Retailers appointed by the joint venture hire distributors, who in turn employ gangs who use trafficked children to sell to motorists.

They include Sanjay, aged nine, who was last week selling both magazines at Delhi’s busy Moolchand flyover. He said he had come to the city two months ago with his 11-year-old brother, after drought ruined his parents’ rice crop in Bihar. He said he earned 60p-75p a day.

His fellow magazine seller, Anand, said that on an average day he sold four magazines and received five rupees (6p) per copy. “Yesterday I earned 50 rupees [60p], but today just 10 [12p],” he said.

The Indian Save the Children foundation raided one of Delhi’s junctions and rescued 13 children selling magazines earlier this year.

Bhuwan Ribhu, an activist for the foundation, said: “The BBC has a responsibility to police their subcontractors.” A spokeswoman for BBC Magazines last night admitted the use of child labour in India and said the corporation was “working urgently” to tackle the problem. “Plainly this is something we condemn utterly,” she said. “We have a rigorous ethical policy which covers all our activities around the world and take these matters very seriously indeed.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4597053.ece

Indo Asian News Service
Wednesday, July 23, 2008, (Kolkata)

It is a dark tale of beggary involving children as young as one. Every day, an agency - if it can be called one - networks between impoverished parents from West Bengal's rural areas and beggars in the city to supply children for collecting alms.

Pathshishu, the five-year-old agency, takes the children to the beggars in the morning and returns them to their parents in the evening - all for a fee of course. Never mind that it pushes children as young as one into the dark industry of begging or that it is a form of child labour.

"There are so many poor families in West Bengal's villages that fail to provide for their wards. At times there are as many as six children in a family. Every dawn they bring their kids to us and we distribute them among the city beggars," Montu Pal, owner of the agency, told IANS.

"Throughout the day the children stay and beg with them, and return home in the evening."

Pal said there is a great demand for "helpless-looking" children, which makes the beggars outsource them from rural areas.

"In this way both parties are satisfied - the parents don't have to bother about food and drinks for their wards, at the same time they earn money from beggars who hire the kids.

"Most of the children come from West Bengal's rural areas of Panskura, Uluberia and Andul. The demand is the highest for babies as small as one - and their parents are given as much as Rs 100 per day. The next in-demand age group is two-five years, who get a daily pay of Rs 50."

How much does the agency draw from the two parties?

"There are two ways of working with us - on a monthly or a daily basis. At the moment we have a monthly contract with about 1,000 families and over 2,000 beggars.

"Both parties pay us 30 percent of their monthly income respectively. Besides, there are a number of daily clients who have to pay us 20 percent of their earnings."

Explaining the detailed procedure, Pal said: "Every morning at 4 am, parents bring their children to city-based railway platforms at Sealdah, Garia and Sonarpur Stations. Beggars crowd around these places.

"Our representatives take down the details of both the parties and hand over the children to the beggars. The children are returned to their parents by 5 pm."

But doesn't the police ever try to stop them? After all child labour is a crime.

"We are not bothered about police interference. A Rs 100 or Rs 500 note is enough to get rid of them. Besides, we are very careful."

Sure enough, a Government Railway Police (GRP) official at the Sealdah railway station said they had heard of such an agency but never come across it.

Dean Nelson, Delhi

THE fashion world called it “boho chic”. Sienna Miller, the model and actress, was credited with creating the retro hippie look that swept Britain’s high streets last spring, but according to human rights campaigners many of the clothes were made in India by children as young as seven.

Exporters in Delhi said last week that sales had increased by more than 60% as the fashion caught on. Swamped with orders, many had to subcontract embroidery to small workshops and middle-men.

Children who had been sold into bonded labour — virtual slavery — by their families in other parts of India were sent to work in Delhi to meet a surge in demand for traditional Indian zari embroidery and beading for the boho chic look.

Arun Bhutani, whose export company supplies Topshop and other leading high street names, said he had had so many orders from Britain and the United States for embroidery that he subcontracted out much of the work and had no idea whether child labour was used.

“We don’t allow child labour in the factory, but there’s no guarantee that it was not used. It’s not possible for everybody to check everything,” he admitted.

The campaigners say this is what the fashion industry must do to eradicate child labour. They are calling on designers and high street chains to guarantee that children have not made any part of their clothes, bags and shoes.

A spokesman for Topshop said the company allowed neither child labour nor subcontracting. “Topshop has not detected any child labour in our manufacturing process nor has it been made aware of this occurring by local stakeholders,” he said, adding that the company supported any independent initiative to protect the welfare of children.

The international fashion industry’s dirty secret is hidden in hundreds of cramped, dusty workshops on the outskirts of Delhi where an estimated 100,000 children work up to 14 hours a day.

The largely Muslim slums in Delhi’s Selampur and Kalakar suburbs could not be more remote from the glamour of the catwalk. In narrow lanes with open sewers, there are hundreds of one-room workshops, in each of which up to 15 children are forced to work long days for less than 3p an hour.

The workshops are filled with children from some of India’s poorest states, including Bihar and Jharkhand. In one of 10 workshops visited by The Sunday Times sat Fayaz, who appeared to be no older than eight, and Darinder, who claimed to be 15, but looked 12.

The two boys had been taken out of school in Bihar and brought to Delhi by their families. They were sitting back-to-back on a thin, rough carpet, each stitching tiny, glistening beads into patterns on pink chiffons stretched taut on wooden frames.

They and 11 other children worked from 9am to 9pm, with an hour’s lunch break, they said. They have one day off a week. They sleep on the floor beneath the zari frames.

Fayaz has an angelic face but his expression is fearful. He checks the boss is not listening before saying he does not know how old he is. “I earn 300 rupees (£3.50) a week. I miss my friends,” he said. “I went to school and I miss it.”

Darinder was handed over to the workshop two years ago after his mother died, leaving his father, a farmer, to raise him and his three brothers and sisters. “I earn 2,000 rupees a month. One thousand rupees goes in my pocket, the other 1,000 is sent home. I want to go home,” he said.

According to the anti-slavery Save Childhood campaign, thousands of children receive no pay for the first year until they are “trained”. A fashion trade expert who works for the group said: “There are thousands of workshops like these and 90% of them use child labour.”

Kailash Sathyarthi of the Global March Against Child Labour, said: “These children lose their opportunity to enjoy their childhood and they lose their constitutional right to an education. It is contemporary slavery.” Babs Mahil, a British-Indian designer who has made embroidered clothes for Tony and Cherie Blair and Richard Branson, urged the British fashion industry to back the campaign.

“If you’re subcontracting, you should know who you’re giving work to,” she said.

Last week the Indian government banned children from working as domestic servants or in hotels, cafes and roadside snack stands. The law on other sectors remains unclear.

A coalition of child protection organisations in the United Kingdom describes Albania as a country with one of the highest levels of child trafficking for sex.

A coalition of child protection organisations in the United Kingdom describes Albania as a country with one of the highest levels of child trafficking for sex.

British media reported on Sunday (August 17th) the findings, which suggest Albania, Ghana and Cambodia are hosts to so-called child sex tourism.

Traffickers smuggle the children from the country of origin mostly to the United Kingdom for sexual exploitation.

The report criticises the British justice system for tolerating this phenomenon while stressing that most of the paedophiles are teachers or volunteers who work in orphanages.

Currently, British citizen David Brown, former administrator of a children's centre in Tirana, and two other foreign citizens are on trial in Albania for paedophilia.