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Ending Child Labor
from: Rose DesRochersYour Nike shoes that cost you 150 dollar and your 70 dollar pair of Levi Strauss jeans were most likely made by a young person from the age of 5-14 living in Indonesia, Honduras, China or Haiti. They are forced to work with no benefits, low wages, long hours, and unsanitary conditions. They are basically slaves. Some factory management assault, rape, and abuse the workers.
Children are the majority that dies from this immoral exploitation. According to http://www.solidaritycenter.org Children are forced to work up to 15 hours a day, seven days a week in factories and in fields. These children are deprived of schooling, beaten, sexually abused, engorged and forced to work in dangerous unsanitary conditions. The children are sold to employers who pay families for the use of their child.
211 million children from the ages of 5-14 work worldwide in sweatshops. The U.S. government estimated that, 50,000 to 100,000 each year women and children are trafficked in the United States, half of which are trafficked into domestic servitude and sweatshop labors from various countries. Trafficking is a slavery-like practice that must be eliminated. Trafficking in women and children is now considered the third largest source of profits for organized crime, behind only drugs and guns," An estimated 200,000 Bangladeshi women have been trafficked to Pakistan over the last 10 years, the majority being young women.
According to a Press Release March 2005
With an estimated 600,000–800,000 people trafficked worldwide in 2004 alone, human trafficking is a $5.7 billion a year industry The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights urges you to take the following actions:
"Help End Sweatshop Practices" Action Alert on http://www.lchr.org
US Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, introduced a comprehensive legislation to tackle the violations of human rights in the context of the trafficking of persons, particularly women and children, for purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation. Please send the following message to your state representative asking him or her to support the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. To review the Act, go to; http://thomas.loc.gov and type in the following Bill Number: S. 2449.
Dear NAME OF YOUR SENATOR HERE:
I write to you as a concerned citizen and I am asking for your support. Each year thousands of persons are trafficked into the US and are held under slave like conditions. This is a gross and escalating human rights violation and a worldwide problem that must be addressed in the US, even as the US government continues to fight it on the international front. I therefore ask you to support the Bill S.2449 by Senator Wellstone to combat trafficking of women and children. The Trafficking Victims Act 2000 strikes at a domestic and international problem which has been neglected for too long. In a recent report on trafficking, the CIA estimated that every year more than 50,000 women and children are brought to the United States and are forced to work as prostitutes, forced laborers or servants. Worldwide, trafficking affects up to 2 million persons each year. This is a gross human rights violation.
The Bill S.2449 by Senator Paul Wellstone aims to prevent trafficking in persons, provide protection and assistance to those who have been trafficked, and punish those responsible for trafficking. It will ensure that the State Department and U.S. law enforcement agencies are fully engaged in the issue, that our immigration laws do not encourage rapid deportation of victims, and that trafficking victims receive needed services and safe shelter. In addition, the Bill toughens criminal penalties, and provides substantial resources to programs assisting victims at home and abroad.
I urgently ask you to sign on as a co-sponsor for Senator Wellstone's Bill and to vote in favor of it.
Sincerely,
Your Name
Your Address
Free the Children is an international network of children helping children at a local, national and international level through representation, leadership and action. Co-op America's Sweatshops.org aims to end sweatshops and child labor; supports fair trade, international human and labor rights. Download “Ending Public Subsidies of Sweatshop Abuses: A Guide to ‘Sweatfree’ Procurement Laws,” a manual by the group No More Sweatshops!
Children are being stripped of their rights and forced to work long hours in harsh sweatshop conditions for wages of 20-30¢ an hour. It's time to work together and end child labor. You can get lists of companies using sweatshop labor from The Just Shopper's Guide.
Resources for this article:
http://www.ncjw.org/html/News/PressReleases/050304/
http://shell.ihug.co.nz/~stu/shoppersguide.htm
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/
http://www.freethechildren.org/
About the Author
Rose is a published author from Canada Ontario and is also the founder of http://www.todays-woman.net a community for men and women over 18, where writers/poets/columnists meet and exchange ideas, contest, rate and review and help each other succeed in the writing industry.admin@todays-woman.net
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