4500 Filipino Child Laborers Harvest Sugar for U.S. Markets (End Human Trafficking - Change.org)

By Amanda Kloer

Published September 07, 2009 @ 08:06AM PT

This week, over 6800 child laborers were rescued in the Philippines. They were exploited in a number of industries, from domestic service to commercial sex to selling drugs. But the vast majority -- over 4500 -- were being exploited on sugarcane plantations. Filipino authorities say these kids are only a tiny fraction of the over 4 million estimated to be enslaved or exploited in labor in the Philippines, in part to sell cheaper sugar to the U.S.

Sugarcane plantations can be extremely dangerous for children, and many work brutally long days with no breaks and little to eat. They cannot go to school, thus ensuring the plantation owners whole generations of workers who have no options other than the plantation and feel increasingly trapped in their situation. They are often take away from their families and forced to live on the plantations. Some of the children are slaves -- trapped by debt or the threat of violence and unable to leave. Others have the freedom to leave, but nowhere to go and no other viable ways to feed themselves and their families. Either way, it's exploitation of children that allows plantations to churn out cheaper sugar.

So where is all this sugar harvested by these Filipino kids going? Well, at least 500,000 metric tons of it are going to the U.S. every year. In fact, earlier this year the U.S. agree to import more sugar from the Philippines than ever before. This was good news for Filipino Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) head Rafael Coscolluela, who said in December 2008 that the Philippines is "in for hard times in the next two years and it’s time for belt tightening for the sugar sector.” He also said the Philippine sugar industry must “become more efficient to lower production cost.” I have to wonder if there is a connection between the "belt-tightening" measures the Filipino sugar industry put into place last year in order to sell more to the U.S. and the 4500 kids who were rescued from plantations several months later. How many plantation owners and operators cut costs by cutting the pay or food of children? How many cut costs by firing paid adult workers and enslaving children to take their places?

Filipino sugar is grown by exploited child laborers, and sold to U.S. markets. This isn't abuse taking place overseas and far away, it's abuse being packaged into a bag of sugar and sold in U.S. supermarkets. Maybe it's being sold in your supermarket. This is exactly why it's important to know where your products come from and ask pointed questions of companies and governments. You have a right to demand sugar produced without exploitation of children. And when you exercise that right? Well now that's sweet.

Photo credit: Raw sugar bowl by Ayelie

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Recession threatens families in Cambodia

Layoffs among parents augur a rise in child labour: experts.

Photo by: Sovan Philong

Fourteen-year-old bookseller Vichet waits for customers along the riveside on Tuesday.

A STEEP decline in Cambodia's garment exports for the month of July has forced officials to reassess the strength of the global economic downturn and its impact on the country, as child welfare experts warn that the Kingdom's most vulnerable citizens - its children - may have the most to lose.

Official figures released Tuesday showed a 26.4 percent plunge in garment exports for July compared with a year ago and a 17.5 percent slide from June, - the latest in a series of grim economic indicators that prompted an admission by the head of the Cambodian Economic Association that the worst of the crisis could still be ahead.

Standing in the path of that slide, says Bill Salter, head of the International Labour Organisation's subregional office in East Asia, are Cambodia's children.

"The trend threatens to push 200,000 people back into poverty and erect new financial obstacles in front of children trying to access education,"
Salter said Tuesday during the launch of a national workshop studying the impact of the global economic crisis on child labour.

An estimated 40 percent of children aged between 7 and 17 years are currently engaged in some form of child labour, the group ChildFund Australia said in June.

Child labour rising
ILO officials said earlier this year that the number of children working in hard-labour conditions in Cambodia had grown from an estimated 250,000 in 2002 to about 300,000 this year.

The government has acknowledged the risks facing children, especially as families dependent on the garment sector - the Kingdom's largest industrial employer - suffer job losses or salary cuts that could prompt them to pull children out of school and into the workforce.

Cambodia's garment sector, which accounts for about 90 percent of the Kingdom's total exports, has borne the brunt of an economic downturn that can be linked directly to the rising numbers of children being forced into work, the ILO's Salter said, as cash-strapped families increasingly view education as a financial burden.

Veng Heang, director of the Department of Child Labour within the Ministry of Labour, said the link between the global crisis and child labour was no surprise.

"We knew that the economic crisis would impact children," he said Tuesday, adding that a rise in instances of child begging, scavenging and domestic labour would not be unexpected.

Warnings over deteriorating child welfare came amid protests by thousands in the garment sector over slashed pay.

More than 70,000 garment workers have been laid off since the crisis began, industry analysts say, with another 100,000 under threat in the next two years.

Nearly 3,000 employees at the Sky High Garment Factory in Daun Penh district went on strike on Monday to protest drops in their salaries, inadequate working conditions and unexpected work stoppages.

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