Stop Child Slavery

“Somaly Mam has dedicated her life to rescuing girls and young women from sex slavery in Cambodia.” - CNN

Little Indian recommend a site asking for a national call in to support The Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2007.

The day for that call has passed, but it is not too late to extend your support. Washington Watch states the latest major action was 4/24/2007. The full text of the Act (S. 1175) can be found here. The bill’s goal: “To end the use of child soldiers in hostilities around the world, and for other purposes.”

Here are a few excerpts of the congressional findings that prompted this bill.

Congress makes the following findings:

(1) According to the September 7, 2005, report to the General Assembly of the United Nations by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, `In the last decade, two million children have been killed in situations of armed conflict, while six million children have been permanently disabled or injured. Over 250,000 children continue to be exploited as child soldiers and tens of thousands of girls are being subjected to rape and other forms of sexual violence.’.

(2) According to the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities (CETO), Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, `The Child Soldier Phenomenon has become a post-Cold War epidemic that has proliferated to every continent with the exception of Antarctica and Australia.’.

(3) Many of the children currently serving in armed forces or paramilitaries were forcibly conscripted through kidnapping or coercion, a form of human trafficking, while others joined military units due to economic necessity, to avenge the loss of a family member, or for their own personal safety.

(4) Some military and militia commanders force child soldiers to commit gruesome acts of ritual killings or torture, including acts of violence against other children.

(5) Many female child soldiers face the additional psychological and physical horrors of rape and sexual abuse, enslavement for sexual purposes by militia commanders, and severe social stigma should they return home.

This bill would limit US military financing, training and arms transfers to governments that are involved in the recruitment and use of child soldiers. I don’t care what side of the political table you’re on, the use of child soldiers is not a republican or democrat issue. It’s a common sense human rights issue. Call your congressman in support of this bill.

Find your senators’ phone numbers at: www.senate.gov

Senators who have already co-sponsored the bill (as of July 2, 2007):
Bingaman (D-NM), Boxer (D-CA), Brownback (R-KS), Casey (D-PA), Coburn (R-OK), Cochran (R-MS), Durbin (D-IL), Feingold (D-WI), Feinstein (D-CA), Johnson (D-SD), Kerry (D-MA), Menendez (D-NJ), Mikulski (D-MD), Reed (D-RI), Roberts (R-KS), Snow (R-ME).

Little Indian directed me to a few excellent sites that detail what India is doing on it’s own to combat child labor and child slavery issues. One of them, a report from the Indian Embassy, begins with this staggering fact:

“ There are more children under the age of fourteen in India than the entire population of the United States. The great challenge of India, as a developing country, is to provide nutrition, education and health care to these children.”

We here in the United States are unfamiliar with numbers that large. What the number indicates is that even if, as the report indicates, only 3.6% of the workforce is under 14, the resulting numbers will still be beyond our ability to comprehend.

The report intro continues with this statement:

“While child labor is a complex problem that is basically rooted in poverty, there is unwavering commitment by the Government and the people of India to combat it. Success can be achieved only through social engineering on a major scale combined with national economic growth. International policies and actions, therefore, must support and not hamper India’s efforts to get rid of child labor.”

I would hope that the words on this blog and the resulting actions would support and not hamper India’s own efforts to combat child labor and child slavery.

I’m so happy to have Shelley Seale contributing here.

Her last post, “Children as Chattel: Child Labor & Trafficking in India“, is worth a serious read and reflection. I commented on it, stating that one of the paragraphs haunted me. It was this paragraph:

“Child laborers and prostitutes exist in such large numbers for a very simple, yet horrific, reason: they are cheap commodities. Children cost less than cattle; a cow or buffalo costs an average 20,000 rupees, but a child can be bought and traded like an animal for 500 to 2,000 rupees. They can be paid the least, exploited the most, and due to their largely invisible status have virtually no power against their oppressors.”

It is horrific at a level I’m unable to get me mind around. Since Shelley is there, seeing it, feeling it, I asked her, “How does the average American begin to help? How can they effectively create change?”

She responded in an email to me. With her permission, I would like to share it with you here.

From Shelley:

I understand your concern and the feeling of being overwhelmed by the horror of it. Honestly, I feel the same way. Yet, there are many things that the average American, halfway around the world, can do to help bring about change to this “industry.” The very first step is awareness, which people are actively taking when they choose to read articles like this and blogs like yours, instead of turning away. In the words of Albert Schweitzer: “Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.”

For more proactive steps, there are simple things which can keep that conscious awareness at a level at which it can help these children:

1. Be aware of where the goods you buy are coming from. Is it really worth getting something a few dollars cheaper if it is made by slave labor or children? There is a resource called “The Better World Shopping Guide” which is an ethical consumer’s guide to avoiding buying products such as ones that are made in these types of factories and sweatshops that employ child labor. You can go on their site and see the BEST and WORST companies on the planet based on a comprehensive analysis of their overall records of social and environmental responsibility for the past 20 years.

2. You can take action by signing petitions and/or financially supporting organizations that are working worldwide to end child labor. Some of them are: globalmarch.org | endchildlabor.org | earthaction.org

3. You can support individuals and NGOs such as CCD which I visited and profiled for this story. These are the real grassroots people who are working in the trenches every day to uphold the rights of children to that most simple of things: a childhood. Centre for Communication and Development

4. Write to your senators and representatives and urge them to support United Nations’ and global efforts at ended child labor, trafficking and slavery. For a website to look up your representative and contact them online, go to www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml.

Together, we CAN make this a world fit for children!

Shelley, thank you. I know everyone reading this will benefit from your insight.