Approaches to Reducing the Use of Forced or Child Labor Summary of a Workshop on Assessing Practice (2009) / Chapter Skim
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3 ASSESSING THE CONTEXT OF CHILD AND FORCED LABOR
3 ASSESSING THE CONTEXT OF CHILD AND FORCED LABOR
Pages 19-30
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From page 19... ...
First, it was important to separate child and forced labor as distinct problems with different root causes. "It seems to me when we are talking about child labor, we have to take a look at the role that poverty plays in that.
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Thea Lee emphasized this in her presentation, arguing that it is not possible to do a good job of evaluating child and forced labor or working to eliminate child and forced labor if you cannot also talk about freedom of association, the right to organize and bargain collectively, and protections against discrimination. Toni Dembski suggested that "when you are dealing with child and forced labor issues, you are also going to have contractors who are bending the rules in other places." Benjamin Smith from the ILO noted: "The inclusion of all of the fundamental principles and rights at work in multi-stakeholder initiatives and in efforts to clean up supply chains is really important as problems with the lack of freedom of association and collective bargaining or discrimination also contribute in a significant way to forced labor and child labor and vice versa.
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From page 21... ...
. The services sector includes wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels, transport, storage and communications, finance, insurance, real estate and business services, and community, social and personal services."3 Employment sectors can also be broken down into the formal and informal sectors.
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It may be that 6 See for instance: ILO-IPEC, Prevention and Elimination of Child Labor in Mining in West Africa, Project Document, Geneva, September 30, 2005. Gavin Hilson, "Challenges with Eradicating Child labour in the Artisanal Mining Sector: A case study of the Talensi-Nabdam District, Upper East Region of Ghana.
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In this section we focus on workshop presentations that covered company supply chains and business engagement with external partners. Supply chains Supply chains represent the processes by which goods are produced from raw materials.
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Along the supply chain the cocoa will change ownership at least six times and often many times more. The challenge facing Mars has been how to affect behavior on a family farm that is a great distance removed in the supply chain.
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Jeff Morgan commented that in the case of cocoa, in both Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire the government is highly engaged in the sector. They grant cocoa purchasing licenses and the sector has historically been a source of much tax revenue.
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Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor, 2008; Uzbek Human Rights Activists and Journalists, Forced Child Labor in Uzbekistan's 2007 Cotton Harvest: Survey Results.
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The U.S. government could act in a more coordinated way, and with its various laws and enforcement capabilities, the government could affect child labor in Uzbekistan.11 Tools A third dimension of the context pertains to tools that could be employed to combat child and forced labor.
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From page 28... ...
There are commonalities across each of these examples of classificatory schemes, including: • Businesses have multiple avenues to affect child or forced labor. 13 IFC, Addressing Child Labor in the Workplace and Supply Chain.
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Additional Comments Several participants felt that a contextual element missing from the discussion concerned the overall environment of the country where child or forced labor occurs, including such elements as the rule of law, relevant legislation, governance, taxation, and economic development. Examples of comments follow: • Kevin Bales suggested that the most powerful predictor of whether or not there are forced labor violations is the quality and content of the rule of law.
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From page 30... ...
• One participant noted that it was critical to get at root causes. This individual described a case where a girl was found working in a factory -- a case of child labor.
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