Human Goods

Produced by Youth for Human Rights International.

Watch more videos based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights here.

IRIN recently reported on the International Labor Organization’s study of child labor in Pakistan’s bangle industry.  According to the study, children must hunch over hot stoves for average 12-hour days in order to produce glass bangles.

Pakistan’s Federal Bureau of Statistics claims 3.3 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are currently involved in the industry.

IRIN quoted Fazila Gulrez, national manager of promotions for the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child, arguing that educating children in the workplace is not the solution to the problem.  She added:

The notion that poverty is a cause is inaccurate.  In fact child labor itself leads to poverty and creates a vicious circle…  The high drop-out rate from schools with 50 percent leaving education within the first 5 years of primary education also contributes to child labor.

Child participation in the industry provokes ethical dilemmas across the board.  For student Raheela Abbas, exposure to the plight of children and their working conditions caused her to renounce wearing bangles altogether.

But it’s important to understand the broader picture as well.  These children, like most others in their families, are working in deplorable conditions because they have no other options.  Boycotting something that is repulsive is often an attractive option, but it’s also necessary to take into account the repercussions if the industry’s overall economy takes a hit.

So …  What DO you do?  Human Goods appreciates your comments.

(Photo source:  Wide Angle)

For anyone wanting to understand how globalization and new migration trends are affecting the illegal trafficking and smuggling of humans, it’s worth watching PBS’s Wide Angle episode, “Dying to Leave.”

Although produced in 2003, the short but excellent documentary, which can be viewed on their website, provides a wide angle indeed on how intertwined the baffling flux of global economics is with often dangerous patterns of international migration – from Iraqi refugees braving deadly seas to illegally reach Australia, to Moldovan single mothers being forced into prostitution in Japan, to Mexican workers violently imprisoned in Florida work camps.  They leave their homes because of economic hardship, but often end up in worse situations abroad.  The show argues,

Images of an abundant west have flooded the poorest parts of the world, fueling the perception that a better life is within reach.  In the modern global economy, capital and goods now move freely all over the world.  Not so, people.  The movement of people across borders is now more regulated than it’s ever been.

Human smuggling is harder to detect for immigration officials because it is so voluntary.  Paul Holmes, former head of the UK’s Metropolitan Police Vice Squad, points out that when people willingly choose, under the deceived illusion of a better job and life overseas, to sneak across borders, it is very hard to detect.  The average customs official in Bogota, who is specifically trained to recognize victims of trafficking, typically has about 45 seconds to assess whether or not someone is going to be manipulated into a trafficking situation once they reach their international destination.

In the growing shadow of globalization, distinguishing clearly between those who are voluntarily smuggled and those who are unwillingly trafficked becomes problematic at best.

“Once you take violent control of another human being, they stop being a smuggled person and start being a trafficked person,” trafficking expert Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves states.

Last week California passed two new pieces of legislation,

One of the new bills creates a counseling and treatment program for trafficked and sexually exploited minors. The other bill, recognizing that a majority of people trafficked into the United States are non-citizens without valid immigration documents, requires thorough investigation of trafficking cases regardless of citizenship status and allows victims to keep their names out of public record.