(College/Institute/University)
Human Trafficking
There is a flourishing international trade in human beings. In camps in the jungles and elsewhere, the victims of these “human traders” brutalize, rape and at times kill those who fall prey to them. These groups “service” the needs of businessmen looking to use the cheap labor to maximize their profits (Stoakes, Ranong, and Kelly, 2015). One of the most prevalent forms of the commercial trade in humans is child labor; in places such as Africa, children are used to service the cocoa fields using extremely dangerous implements even in the hands of adults (Food Empowerment Project, 2016). Child labor occurs mainly as a result of grinding poverty and do not have the resources to lift their status in life.
However, though these are factors in child labor, there is a growing focus on international trade policies as well as inequitable trade practices in the occurrence of child labor (Child Labor Education Project). In the report of the International Labor Organization (2016), it is estimated that the global labor force is composed of more than 10 million child workers. In the United States and in the global community, it is believed that armies of children are deployed in hazardous working conditions that place their health and welfare at grave risk. Among these activities are working around or with heavy machineries and toxic chemicals (Borrelli, 2015).
The occurrence of human trafficking is not limited to the developing or Third World nations. Business establishments in the United States have been reported to use victims of human trafficking to provide the needed labor for their commercial establishments. Many of these victims work in inhumane conditions and are often forced to work inordinate hours without any rest (WDRB News, 2014). In African cocoa plantations, the ILO reports that 50 to 70 million children are being exploited in the agriculture industry, with the majority of these children being abused by their own families (CNN Freedom Project, 2011).
In response to tragedies such as the collapse of the Rana Plaza Building, factory accidents in Pakistan and modern day forced servitude in the Thai fishing industry, the ILO intends to commit part of its summit on promoting safe working conditions in international supply chains. Gearheart (2016) proffers that the global labor agency must begin with determining what has failed; years of promoting corporate social responsibility programs has not slowed down, much less stopped, from companies giving their workers less than subsistence wages, deploying them into inhuman and slave like working conditions and diminish worker’s rights to establish labor unions and to collective bargaining.
People have been enslaved to pay off mounting, “mountain-like” debts. However, there is hope for those “trapped” in these situations. For example, organizations such as Lahore, Pakistan-based Bonded Labor Liberation Front have raised monies to end slave labor in their country. In Pakistan, hundreds of laborers work at the brick kilns hoping to pay off their debts which in reality are insurmountable (Whiteman, 2015). In connection with child labor, countries such as Bolivia have tended to take a less confrontational approach by legitimizing child labor in the hope that this will help make this sector safer for the children as well as ensure fair compensation for the children.
Nonetheless, global human rights groups have condemned the law stating that these laws, allowing children to work as young as 10 years old to be employed legally, runs diametrically counter to prevailing global labor accords that place the minimum age a child can legally be employed at 14 years of age (NPR, 2016). One company that has had a degree of success in turning things around is global sportswear brand Nike; though the company has not been able to being manufacturing facilities in line with acceptable labor standards, it has done an extreme about face in restoring its corporate reputation. Rather than denying or downplaying allegations, Nike has devoted itself to publicly declaring progress reports of its efforts to bring facilities in compliance with global labor standards (Nisen, 2013).
References
Borrelli, L. (2013) “Child labor figures alarmingly high worldwide: 6 major companies guilty of child labor” Retrieved 12 June 2016 from <http://www.medicaldaily.com/child-labor-figures-alarmingly-high-worldwide-6-major-companies-guilty-child-labor-246760
Child Labor Public Education Project, “Global economy” Retrieved 12 June 2016 from <https://www.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/laborctr/child_labor/about/global_economy.html
CNN Freedom Project (2011) “The dark side of chocolate” Retrieved 12 June 2016 from <http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/06/the-dark-side-of-chocolate/
Food Empowerment Project (2016) “Child labor and slavery in the chocolate industry” Retrieved 12 June 2016 from <http://www.foodispower.org/slavery-chocolate/
Gearheart, J (2016) “Global supply chains: time for a convention on decent work” Retrieved 12 June 2016 from <http://laborrights.org/blog/201606/global-supply-chains-time-convention-decent-work
Nisen, M (2013) “How Nike solved its sweatshop problem” Retrieved 12 June 2016 from <http://www.businessinsider.com/how-nike-solved-its-sweatshop-problem-2013-5
NPR (2016) “Bolivia makes child labor legal, in an attempt to make it safer” Retrieved 12 June 2016 from <http://www.npr.org/2014/07/30/336361778/bolivia-makes-child-labor-legal-in-an-attempt-to-make-it-safer
Stoakes, E., Ranong, C., Kelly, A (2015) “Sold from a jungle camp to Thailand’s fishing industry: ‘I saw 13 people die’” Retrieved 12 June 2016 from <http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jul/20/sold-from-jungle-camp-thailand-fishing-industry-trafficking
WDRB News (2014) “LMPD: Employees of Chinese buffet were victims of human trafficking” Retrieved 12 June 2016 from <http://www.wdrb.com/story/25587501/louisville-police-say-employees-of-chinese-buffet-were-victims-of-human-trafficking?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=t.co
Whiteman, H (2015) “The photos that raised $ 2 million to free bonded workers” Retrieved 12 June 2016 from <http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/19/asia/pakistan-humans-new-york-bonded-labor/index.html
