Child labourers freed from granite pits (more "outsourcing?")

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20031016.wkids1016/BNStory/International/

Cotonou, Benin — Seventy-four child workers as young as four years old — their skin broken and palms callused from months of hauling granite — were receiving food, clothes and medical care in the west African state of Benin on Thursday after rescue from the traffickers who sold them into heavy labour.

Children told their rescuers that at least 13 of their young companions had died in the past three months — worn out by smashing and carrying rocks and sleeping, without adequate food, in the open, UN officials said.

“We would break the stones, and the men would come take them away in trucks,” one rescued boy, thin, filthy and heavily scratched, told Associated Press. He looked no more than 10.
<snip>
Tiny boys in dirty T-shirts and shorts, or bare-chested, the children hung out the windows of the buses that brought them back to their home country, staring solemnly.
<snip>
Sometimes it hurts to read the news...

[sistersofmercy]

1. 21st century slave trade is a problem globally that not many seem to

pay attention to or care about, unfortunately.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

2. Damn shame Benin isn't sitting over an ocean of oil...

Bushco would take care of the problems there.

[speckledgator]

6. Amen to that...

[TeeYiYi]

3. CHILD LABOUR, SLAVERY, SEXUAL EXPLOITATION AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

CHILD LABOUR, SLAVERY, SEXUAL EXPLOITATION AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

BY EUGENE W. PLAWIUK


This last summer an international conference was held in Sweden its primary concern was on the sexual exploitation of children world wide. Much of its focus however was on the condition of children in developing countries, countries that are now being targeted by multinational corporations for large scale investment as part of the so called new global economy.
The conference drew international attention to the matter of the international sex trade; the use of young girls and boys as prostitutes in countries such as India, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, etc. and the booming business of sexual tourism. Sexual tours of developing countries are organized for North American, European and Japanese businessmen. These tours have been a booming business for the past twenty years, despite the very real dangers of sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS.

The sexual tourism industry in many Asian countries is a direct result of the war economy imposed on these countries during the American war in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the 1960's and 70's. Countries such as the Philippines and Thailand were major staging areas for American troops, resulting in a war based black market economy of sex, drugs and other goods.

There is a direct economic link between sexual tourism and the exploitation of developing countries by multinational corporations based in industrial capitalist countries such as the United States, Germany and Japan. While the news media focused on the sensational exploitation of children in third world countries during the conference, they did not make a clear link between child sexual exploitation and child labour. However many representatives at the conference, including representatives of the International Labour Organization (ILO), did make this link.

And the link is clear. As developing countries welcome increased foreign investment and major corporations move operations out of North America, Nike is a good example, they move into cheap labour zones in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. As the urban metropolitan areas in these countries develop a new industrial base traditional rural agricultural economies in these countries are destroyed. Traditional subsistence farming and manufacturing are destroyed and families are forced to send their families to the city to work. Money earned in the city is then sent back to support the family. In many cases children sold through brokers to work, whether that work is in a Nike soccer ball factory, a rug plant or textile mill or in a brothel matters little. In fact the wages differ little as well whether one works in a factory or a brothel.

Read the entire article at: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/5232/ChildLabUpdate.htm

TYY

[denverbill]

4. Is this a Pat Robertson enterprise? Sure sounds like one.

[Mel]

5. Sure does sound like Pat

When I read things like this I have to ask how can people not support Kucinich's plan for trade?

[TeeYiYi]

7. evening kick

TYY :kick:

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

8. Seems as if the topic soesn't generate much interest....

Thanks for the kick, though!

[havocmom]

9. Billy_Pilgrim, it may not be lack of interest.

Perhaps, like me, not many can find words for the sadness and rage this news story evokes.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

10. That is a very good point. Thanks.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

11. What happens to the granite after it's sold?

People need to know so they can boycott the products of slave labor.

[gate of the sun]

12. people need to know that

slave labor depending on how it is defined is occuring all over the globe.....I try and I try to avoid purchasing items that are created by sweat shops......most but not all of the goods we purchase and "use to enhance" our lifestyles are created under less than ideal curcumstances.

I am devoted to not enabling this system of exploitation that is occuring globally.

not only are these poor people and children being exploited they are
are being used by companies, many of which are "US" companies so they can reap a larger profit from us . Many don't realize how these companies have left the "US" to countries where they can pay sub-human wages and then bring the product back to the "US" and extract from you and me unhuman prices. They do this attaining a much higher profit margin than previously possible.

I am against NAFTA, and the WTO both for encouraging this kind of capitalism. Capitalism holds no inherent value without those willing to hold human lives valuable. Enough said.