Child Labor on the increase

At a recent conference of Labor Compliance Specialists, the conversation turned to child labor and its resurgence in China. We discussed the possible reasons for this spike. Here are the top 3.

1. A movement of work from the heavily audited east coastal belt into central china where few factories experience the scrutiny of factory audits.
2. Increased labor and material cost but little increase to the cost of the finished goods,
3. A shortage of workers.

With many factories struggling to stay in business and margins shrinking, it is hardly surprising that they try and cut costs. More than ever before, you are at serious risk if you do not have a robust compliance program, not only from being exposed by one of the many NGOs on the ground, but also falling foul of new regulations governing forced and child labor. 

If your factories are not passing on the large cost increases they are experiencing, you have to ask yourselves why.

Here's an Article from just-Style magazine by Leonie Barrie.

Garment, footwear and cotton producers continue to be among the worst offenders when it comes to the use of forced and child labour, according to a new report published by the US Labor Department.

The findings feature in the latest update to the 'List of Goods Produced by Child or Forced Labor' which the government agency was required to produce under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005. The initial list was published in September 2009, followed by the first update in December last year.

The department looked at a total of 130 goods from 71 countries. It found that 17 countries produced cotton with child or forced labour - including the addition of child labour in cotton production from Mali.

The other 16 countries are unchanged from the last list, and include Argentina, Azerbaijan, Benin, Brazil, Burkina Faso, China, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan, Paraguay, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Zambia.

It also singled out India and Nepal for using forced and child labour in the production of embroidered textiles, and Bangladesh, China and North Korea for textiles.

Six countries (Argentina, China, India, Jordan, Malaysia and Thailand) were claimed guilty of violations in garments, and five (Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India and Indonesia) in footwear.

"These reports provide an overview of international efforts to protect children from hazardous work and identify critical gaps in policy and enforcement that leave them vulnerable," says US Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis.

"Through increased education and awareness, and critical assistance to families and governments, we can help make exploitative child labour a thing of the past."

While the ILO estimates that more than 215m children are involved in child labour, US officials also point out that some countries with relatively large numbers of goods on the list may not have the most serious problems of child labour or forced labour.

"Often, these are countries that have adopted a more open approach to acknowledgement of the problems, have better research and have allowed information on these issues to be disseminated," they note.

"Such countries include Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, India, Kenya, Mexico, Philippines, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda and Zambia."

The report also advises companies and industry groups to implement social compliance systems to ensure they are not profiting from "grave labour abuses" in their supply chains.