The Right to Education
This week at Media Voices, we have a trailer for a film that reminds us that poor children have a right not just to education, but to quality in their education. Daniela Kon’s film, Talibe, exposes a persistent issue with some Islamic boarding schools in Senegal, where teachers treat their students as cash cows, requiring [...]
Off the Backs of the Children: Forced Begging and Other Abuses Against Talibés in Senegal
This 114-page Human Rights Watch report documents the system of exploitation and abuse in which at least 50,000 boys known as talibés – the vast majority under age 12 and many as young as four – are forced to beg on Senegal’s streets for long hours, seven days a week, by often brutally abusive teachers, known as marabouts. The report says that the boys often suffer extreme abuse, neglect, and exploitation by the teachers. It is based on interviews with 175 current and former talibés, as well as some 120 other people, including marabouts, families who sent their children to these schools, Islamic scholars, government officials, and humanitarian officials.
Child Labor and Educational Disadvantage: Breaking the Link, Building Opportunity
An important new report on child labor and access to education by UN special envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown.
EO 13126 – Products Produced by Forced or Indentured Child Labor
The Executive Order is intended to ensure that U.S. federal agencies do not procure goods made by forced or indentured child labor. It requires the Department of Labor, in consultation with the Departments of State and Homeland Security, to publish and maintain a list of products, by country of origin, which the three Departments have a reasonable basis to believe, might have been mined, produced or manufactured by forced or indentured child labor. Under the procurement regulations implementing the Executive Order, federal contractors who supply products on a list published by the Department of Labor must certify that they have made a good faith effort to determine whether forced or indentured child labor was used to produce the items listed.
Closing Remarks of Virginia Murillo Herrera at Child Labour in Agriculture Conference
Kailash Satyarthi introduces the speakers on the dais, and the first speaker, Virginia Murillo Herrera, Executive President of Defensa de Niñas y Niños Internacional-Costa Rica (Defence for Children International-Costa Rica) addresses the conference (in Spanish). (Courtesy of the Global March Against Child Labour)
Conference on Child Labour in Agriculture – Senator Tom Harkin Opening Remarks
Senator Tom Harkin opens the International Conference on Child Labour in Agriculture in Washington, D.C. on July 28th 2012. The conference was sponsored by Global March Against Child Labour
Chump Change and Smoke
I’ve just attended the Global March Conference on Child Labour in Agriculture in Washington DC.The room was filled with people committed to ridding the world of products made by child labor labor. They have their work cut out for them.
World Day Against Child Labor 2012 – An Appraisal
” For 215 million children, this day should be every day” (U.R. Romano) This week at Media Voices, we turn to friends, mentors and colleagues to share their views on progress and setbacks in the global campaign to end the worst forms of child labor.
Kenya Country Profile
from the US Department of Labor’s 2010 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor
Jamaica Country Profile
from the 2010 US Department of Labor report on the worst forms of child labor
Joceli’s Legacy: My First Encounter with Child Labor
I can still remember the first time I saw a child engaged in the worst forms of child labor. Her name was Joceli, a 13-year-old Huichol girl, whose family migrated from the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico to harvest tobacco. She sat under a tree stringing tobacco leaves, working alongside her parents from sun-up to [...]
The Price of Gold
At least 20,000 children work in Malian artisanal gold mines under extremely harsh and dangerous conditions. These children literally risk life and limb. They carry loads heavier than their own weight, climb into unstable shafts, and touch and inhale mercury, one of the most toxic substances on earth. Courtesy NBC Rock Center
Haiti Country Profile
from the 2010 US Department of Labor’s Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor
Down on the Farm
This week at Media Voices, Julia Perez highlights the Congressional Farm Belt resistance to changing labor regulations in a way that extends the same protections to youth working in agriculture as we have in all other labor sectors. Her piece, The Parental Exemption on Family Farms: If Corporations Are People, Are They Parents Too?, points [...]
The Parental Exemption on Family Farms: If Corporations Are People, Are They Parents Too?
As I read the recent headlines opposing the Department of Labor’s (DOL) proposed protections for working children in agriculture, my foremost thought was ‘I’m too logical for politics.’ In a few short months since the announcement, an estimated 98 Congressional Representatives and 28 State Senators rallied to protest and further request a stop to the [...]
Moldova: Code of Conduct to Eradicate Child Labour
In Moldova, there has been success in fighting child labour in the country’s vast agricultural sector. One key to that success is the employers’ Code of Conduct to eradicate the worst forms of child labour, which was developed with assistance from the ILO. Moldova’s employers are also investing in new technologies and in their communities, to ensure a more prosperous future without child labour.
A Poisonous Mix: Child Labor, Mercury and Artisanal Gold Mining in Mali
2011 Human Rights Watch report on children involved in mining gold by hand using mercury to bind the gold in Mali.
U. R. Romano speaks at Tedx in Fruitvale
U. R. Romano, director of Harvest (La Cosecha), speaks at the Tedx Fruitvale: Harvesting Change conference about children working in the fields in U.S. agriculture, and the costs to them in terms of health and educational opportunity, of migrating across the country for months during the picking season.
A Rude Surprise!
I’ve never considered myself a slave owner. My house is filled with normal stuff; some furniture, clothes, quite a bit of music and books and an 80-year-old piano. So imagine my surprise when I recently completed the survey at SLAVERY FOOTPRINT, a new web site and mobile app, to discover that my lifestyle is made [...]
2011 List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor
Open publication – Free publishing – More bonded labor
Remembering Wangari Maathai
News of Wangari Maathai’s death reached me in Nairobi last week, the city where we first met in 2003. After months of balletic scheduling with her office, she showed up alone at the Fairview Hotel for an interview on child labor, the subject of a documentary I was producing, Stolen Childhoods. Already, we had filmed [...]
2003 Interview with Dr. Wangari Maathai
Wangari Muta Maathai was born in Nyeri, Kenya (Africa) in 1940. The first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree, Professor Maathai obtained a degree in Biological Sciences from Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas (1964). Professor Maathai was active in the National Council of Women of Kenya in 1976-87 and was its chairman from 1981-87. In 1976, while she was serving the National Council of Women, Professor Maathai introduced the idea of community-based tree planting. She continued to develop this idea into a broad-based grassroots organization whose main focus is poverty reduction and environmental conservation through tree planting.
Len Morris shot this interview with Dr. Wangari Maathai for the film Stolen Childhoods in 2003.
Transcript – Interview with Dr. Wangari Maathai
In 2003, Len Morris interviewed Dr. Wangari Maathai for the film Stolen Childhoods.
