DAILY TRIFECTA: The Road To Hell Is Paved By Child Laborers

Guess who's footing the bill?

TITLE: How child labour in India makes the paving stones beneath our feet
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/mar/28/how-child-labour-in-india-makes-the-paving-stones-beneath-our-feet

EXCERPT: A long white line runs across the back of 14-year-old Amar’s hand, which he got from the jagged edge of a stone. Beside it are two scars, marks of the time when his hammer missed its target and sliced into his hand instead. Injuries like these are so common among cobblestone workers of all ages that they hardly expect any medical support from employers for such “minor accidents”.

Amar avoided work for as long as he could. But he is the oldest child in his family, and when his father got silicosis, he had to start bringing in money. Silicosis is a fatal lung disease characterised by shortness of breath and a cough. It is caused by prolonged exposure to fine silica particles found in sand, quartz and rocks. Sometime before her husband’s death four years ago, when the respiratory illness confined him to bed, Amar’s mother, Sumitra, took a loan that was too big for her to repay while taking care of a sick husband and six children. That’s when Amar, then aged 10, quit school and started work. The 80 rupees he now makes every day doesn’t do much to pay the bills (or repay the debt), but it’s better than nothing.

More than 11 million people living in India have been exposed to silicosis-causing dust. Until a few years ago, silicosis was typically misdiagnosed as tuberculosis, because the two diseases have very similar symptoms. This largely left workers to deal with the illness without employers’ or government support. In Budhpura, I was told, many workers don’t seek treatment for illness or injury, because of the cost of travelling to a hospital. It costs 2,000 rupees to get to Kota, the nearest city. “People simply drop dead if they can’t afford it,” one stonecutter told me.

One way to reduce the amount of dust produced by mining is by wet drilling, where water is applied to the stone through the drill as it works. In 1961, the Indian government ruled that wet drilling would be mandatory in mining operations, but this has not been implemented widely. Activists have also called for workers to be provided with protective gear, such as masks, gloves and helmets. But the people I spoke to told me that that hasn’t happened. “Mask? They can’t even get us drinking water,” one female stonecutter, who lives in Budhpura, told me. Besides, a mask makes it hard for them to work in the hot climate; temperatures in Rajasthan can reach over 45C in the summer.

Budhpura has been called the “village of widows” in some media reports, because of how many men have been killed by silicosis. These widows are raising their children on their own, forced to work in the same industry that killed their husbands. And they take their infants to work. Before they sit down to beat the stones, they sometimes thrust two rods into the ground nearby and tie up a cloth between them to act as a crib for the baby.

Mathur, from the Federation of Mining Associations, told me that fears about silicosis are “blown out of proportion”. He claims that international lobbies have been using misleading and old data to hurt the business interests of the country’s mining industry. He agrees that wet drilling can bring down the risk of respiratory illnesses, and that many companies are adopting it. But doing so isn’t always possible. “At some places there is a shortage of water,” he told me. He also argued that responsibility for preventing silicosis lies with the processing industry, which turns sandstone into different products such as paving blocks. “Processing is a separate industry altogether. You might say silicosis is coming from mining. But it’s coming from the processing industry.”

In 2019, following years of struggle by workers and activists, Rajasthan became the first Indian state to launch a comprehensive policy offering aid to silicosis patients. The state government now provides 300,000 rupees (around £2,800) for treatment that alleviates the silicosis patient’s symptoms, and an additional sum of about 200,000 rupees (£1,900) to their family after death. But most of the amount paid to the bereaved family members, workers say, is spent on their own medical treatments and debt repayment, which offers them little opportunity to move away from the industry and look for healthier jobs. “The cost of human life is only 500,000 rupees,” fumed Shankar Singh, the activist.

As I sat with Amar’s mother, overlooking the hills of depleting sandstone in front of us, I asked her if her son ever complains about having to work. “He does, of course. But what can I do? My hands are tied. We need food on the table,” she said.

The sound of metal striking on a stone in the distance filled the air as a young child in front of us played with his toy trucks and tractors. “Our husbands used to do this work,” she said. “They got silicosis. We’ll eventually get it too. And so will our children.”

TITLE: US court absolves top tech companies in Congo's child labor case
https://abcnews.go.com/International/us-court-absolves-top-tech-companies-congos-child/story?id=107839639

EXCERPT: The five tech giants -- Apple; Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google; Dell; Microsoft; and Tesla -- were accused of "knowingly benefiting from and aiding and abetting the cruel and brutal use of young children in the Democratic Republic of Congo to mine cobalt" in case documents seen by ABC News.

However, in a 3-0 decision on Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Colombia held that the tech companies could not be held liable, with the court decision stating they did not have anything more than an "ordinary buyer-seller transaction" with suppliers in the DRC.

"Many actors in addition to the cobalt suppliers perpetuate labor trafficking, including labor brokers, other consumers of cobalt, and even the DRC government," the decision read. "Issuing an injunction to the Tech Companies to 'stop the cobalt venture from using forced child labor' would not bind the direct perpetrators of the unlawful labor, who are not before this court."

The case was brought by 16 plaintiffs in December 2022, including four former miners and legal representatives of child miners who lost their lives and suffered major injuries in cobalt mining operations in the DRC.

The defendants were accused of "knowingly benefitting from and aiding and abetting the cruel and brutal use of young children in the DRC to mine cobalt," and the case claims that the defendants "know and have known for a significant period of time" about the human rights violations in the DRC's cobalt mining supply chain.

TITLE: Child Labor in Cocoa Supply Chains: Unveiling the Layers of Human Rights Challenges
https://www.sustainalytics.com/esg-research/resource/investors-esg-blog/child-labor-in-cocoa-supply-chains--unveiling-the-layers-of-human-rights-challenges

EXCERPT: Companies continue to come under scrutiny for their failure to meaningfully address child labor issues within their supply chains. Sustainalytics’ controversy research shows that over the last 10 years, 167 human rights incidents in food companies’ supply chains involved child labor in cocoa farming – 38% of which were recorded in the last three years.¹⁵ These incidents mostly relate to the continued use of child labor in the supply chains of seven major cocoa industry players: cocoa traders OFI Group Ltd. and Cargill, Inc., and chocolate manufactures Nestlé SA, The Hershey Co., Barry Callebaut AG, Mondelēz International Inc., and Chocoladefabriken Lindt & Sprüngli.¹⁶  

While these companies continue to be involved in significant controversies related to child labor, they are not ignoring the issue and have responded to the long history of allegations through a focus on management efforts. The seven food companies being evaluated in this article scored well on the indicator assessing their policy commitments to ensure the observance of human rights among their suppliers (i.e., scope of supplier standards). Furthermore, the companies have strong supply chain management programs in place. However, despite overall strong management of the issues, meaningful gaps remain. 

All seven companies in this assessment have a policy addressing child labor. However, only three have policies that address minimum living wages (see Table 1). Without a minimum living wage, cocoa farmers may experience unstable and insufficient income where they need to rely on their children to work on farms. 

SEE ALSO:

How they did it: The New York Times exposes migrant child labor exploitation across 50 states
https://journalistsresource.org/media/migrant-children-labor-abuse-goldmith/

Illinois legislator wants to strengthen child labor laws amid migrant crisis
https://www.thecentersquare.com/illinois/article_95ee3018-eae9-11ee-ba72-a77d75cf7b7c.html

DeSantis signs bill rolling back Florida's child labor laws
https://www.cltampa.com/news/desantis-signs-bill-rolling-back-floridas-child-labor-laws-17503369

Western Pa. Domino's operator fined $344,000 for 715 violations of the Child Labor Act
https://www.post-gazette.com/business/career-workplace/2024/03/25/dominos-operator-department-of-labor-child-labor-act/stories/202403250062

TN company ordered to pay nearly $300K after allegedly employing children in ‘hazardous’ jobs
https://www.wate.com/news/hamblen-county-news/tn-company-ordered-to-pay-nearly-300k-after-employing-children-in-hazardous-jobs/

Underage teen workers did 'oppressive child labor' for Tennessee parts supplier, feds say
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/03/27/child-labor-laws-violations-tennessee-company-tuff-torq/73125006007/

Powell ranch for troubled teens faces forced labor lawsuit
https://billingsgazette.com/news/local/crime-courts/troubled-teen-industry-powell-wyoming-ranch-forced-labor/article_f117e8ce-ed34-11ee-b389-4b53d450e6ad.html