In the News

Labor Department exposes goods made by child labor

Associated Press
09/10/2009

By Sam Hananel

A new Labor Department report identifies more than 58 countries where child labor or forced labor is used to make hundreds of goods — from coffee grown in Colombia to Christmas decorations made in China — that often end up in the United States.

The government wants American companies and consumers to know about the chance these products are made under conditions in which children and other workers are exploited and abused.

Government report uncovers child labor trail in food

FoodNavigator-USA.com
09/10/2009

By Guy Montague-Jones

A new US Department of Labor (DOL) report has found that slavery and child labor are still common in the production of popular food ingredients like cocoa and sugar.

Commissioned under legislation passed in 2005, the report sought to uncover the scale of the forced and child labor problem and draft a list of goods produced under conditions that violate international standards.

The newly published report has found 122 goods in 58 countries that are produced using child labor, forced labor or both, including cocoa, sugarcane and coffee.

Child, forced labor behind many products: study

Reuters
09/10/2009

By Marcy Nicholson

Children and forced laborers are mining gold, sewing clothing and harvesting cocoa around the world, and India is the source for the biggest number of products made by these workers, a U.S. government report said on Thursday.

The Department of Labor for the first time released a list of goods produced by child or forced labor in foreign countries after Congress told it to compile one. The department looked at 122 products in 58 countries.

Low-Wage Workers Are Often Cheated, Study Says

New York Times
09/01/2009

Low-wage workers are routinely denied proper overtime pay and are often paid less than the minimum wage, according to a new study based on a survey of workers in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

 

The study, the most comprehensive examination of wage-law violations in a decade, also found that 68 percent of the workers interviewed had experienced at least one pay-related violation in the previous work week.

 

Child labour force set to rise

Phnom Penh Post
08/26/2009

The number of children in Cambodia forced into labour will rise as the recession tightens its grip on the local economy, child welfare experts warned.

"The global economic downturn threatens to put more children at risk of dropping out from school or being sent to work," Bill Salter, director of the International Labour Organisation's subregional office in East Asia, said on Tuesday.

"The trend threatens to push 200,000 people back into poverty and erect new financial obstacles in front of children trying to access education."

Malawi's child tobacco labourers suffer nicotine poisoning

The World Today
08/26/2009

ELEANOR HALL: Multinational tobacco companies are coming under pressure today for their policy of buying tobacco from farms that exploit children.

An international study has revealed that children working in Malawi's tobacco fields are absorbing up a huge amount of nicotine, the equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes a day.

Some of these children are less than five and they work for less than 2 cents an hour in oppressive conditions.

Jess Hill has this report.

Pages