Forced Labour/Child Labour
In the vast marketplace of the world we would far prefer as consumers not to be assailed with inconvenient details respecting how the products we purchase have been resourced and manufactured, or gathered and processed. Our delicate feelings of compassion and empathy are hijacked if we linger too long on thoughts of accessibility, affordability and impaired ethics.Doubtless the information is there for the having. But why would we go out of our way to access it, only to feel troubled and conflicted as a result? It takes time and energy and no little amount of moral indignation to linger on the unfairness that surrounds us in the world. We are privileged in the advanced countries of the world, and those living elsewhere are decidedly not.
Must we really know that in Mexico 80% of indigenous children over the age of six work in the agricultural sector, cultivating products like chili peppers. And 1.5 million children work in industries - including pornography, rather than attending school. Children as young as five often forced to carry buckets of coffee beans down stretches of mountain terrain.
Which more than adequately explains why we feel so virtuous buying fair-trade, organic coffee.
In China the forced labour workforce is huge, mostly comprised of prisoners, many of whom are members of Falun Gong - 200,000 of them, at any event. Forced into labour camps, having undergone no trial, but guilty of practising a forbidden religion. In preparation for the holiday season, factories that produce Christmas lights force workers to log unlawful overtime hours. Child labour included.
We don't all buy holiday lights, but then there are toys, textiles, nails, clothing, footwear, electronics, decorations - all for sale at bargain-basement prices, produced in China by forced and child labour.
Children in the Philippines trafficked from rural to urban areas are forced into domestic service, prostitution and pornography. Over four million Filipino adults are reported trafficked into forced labour conditions in the Middle East. Child labour in the Philippines focuses on jewellery production, considered safe; on pyrotechnics, and gold mines, where exposure to mercury can be a problem.
Inconceivable for us to imagine children in these circumstances, conscripted to work alongside adults in gold mines, in the production of fireworks, exposed to all the dangers such processes involve.
An anti-slavery organization reports a large portion of labourers in India are victims of debt bondage; a form of forced labour/slavery where people are informed they are paying off a loan. In one city alone, over one million people are caught in bonded labour; about 10% of them children. Children who manufacture hand-rolled cigarettes given tobacco to produce 1,000 cigarettes.
From India comes brassware, bricks, embroideries, fireworks/incense, footwear, garments, gems, bangles, leather goods, locks, matches, rice, silk, soccer balls - and all involving child and forced labour - and we get smoking deals.
Brazil's government has roving mobile inspection units in remote areas where armed guards re used to prevent labourers from escaping. Almost 50,000 people were rescued by the inspection units between 1994 and 2011. Child labour is ongoing in the country; 23,000 children working on the streets of 75 cities.
The world is an unjust place.
Labels: Chaos, Corruption, Crime, Economy, Human Relations, Marketing, Political Realities
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, May 12, 2012
<< Home