International Center on Child Labor and Education (ICCLE)

Hello, my name is Kayla. I'm a 14 year old at Broad Meadows Middle School in Quincy, 
Massachusetts. I'm like every other kid. I play basketball, and I do activities like drama.
But on Friday's, I'm in something a little different. I go to Operation Day's Work (ODW),
a great program that fights against the use of child labor. We raise money to help spread
education to children in poor countries, and we try to stop the labor of children.

So how do you do this? Well on the day before Thanksgiving, we're spreading the word to 
schools across the country about a child labor free shopping trip, or "Shopping with a 
Conscience". Now, here's what you do:  Get a list of stores from your local mall. Write
one store on each index card. Divide your group into teams of two. Put all of the index
cards in a hat and randomly have each group pull out stores. Make sure each committee
gets a "superstore" like GAP or Disney, Abercrombie & Fitch, Nike Town, and 6 more. Your
"super-store" has already been accused of having child labor, so save the best for last!!

Now that you know what to do, do you know what to say in each store? If not, here's a good 
example: "Hello, I'd like to buy your clothes/food/accessories, but first I need to know,
Does your store use child labor to make its clothes/food/accessories? Is everything you
make guaranteed child labor free?" To leave them with this curious question, we have tons
of postcards (received from NYC's National Labor Committee) saying, “We love shopping at
the mall, but we won't buy items unless they are guaranteed child-labor-free.” Hopefully,
these postcards (signed by the students) will be forwarded to the corporate headquarters
of the stores visited on the shopping trip. The students at Broad Meadows hope that the
Shopping with a Conscience Day spreads. We are willing to ship postcards to interested
schools. That's just about everything you need to know. Now it's up to you. Do you want
to help put an end to the abuse of children??

If you want to join us on the day before Thanksgiving, send an email to blindley@iccle.org
with a postal address and we'll ship you postcards! Wouldn't it be great for one school in
each state to go "Shopping with a Conscience"? 

Sincerely,
Kayla, 14, of O.D.W. Broad Meadows Middle School, Massachusetts, USA

I would have loved to carry the scent of sugar and spice, 
To wallow in frills and lace,
But Mama and Papa sent me off to work,
To keep money coming at a good pace. 

I would have loved to whisper in a teddy bear’s ear
As I poured him a cup of tea,
But instead I murmur comfort to my brother as we 
Scrub on bended knee.

I would have loved to dance, free of worry and care,
As I listened to a merry tune,
But all I do is match my brush to my breath 
And pray the day will end soon.

I would have loved to sing and suck in sweet air
As I twirled beneath the sky,
But all I do is dream and hope, 
And pray that the Bible doesn’t lie.

For that passage that Mama once read to me,
The one with a promise so true,
The one with words like a remedy,
That not even my fears can undo,

Instilled in me a fervent prayer,
A wish for all children kind,
That one day, hopefully someday soon, 
The chain of child labor will unwind.  

“Those who hope in the Lord 
      will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
      they will run and not grow weary, 
      they will walk and not be faint.”  (Isaiah 40:31)

Michelle Kukla, 15, Connecticut, USA

Across India, spindly street children still beg for alms or slave as rag pickers, sifting 
mounds of garbage for newspaper, bottles and anything else for recycling, reports Agence 
France Presse. The economic boom is blighted young lives. The Delhi-based South Asian 
Coalition on Child Servitude (SACCS) estimates that over 12 million school-age children 
in India are forced to scratch a living.

A World Bank report published last month highlighted how, despite India’s high 
growth rates and thriving middle classes, Indian children lag seriously behind 
counterparts in the developing world and rival Asian power China. “Grinding poverty, 
malnutrition and disease prevent poor Indian children from attending school. The 
maximum number of school dropouts are seen in the five to eight years age group.” Said 
the report’s author Venita Kaul. India has 78 girls for every 100 boys in school and only 
76% op pupils complete primary school compared with 99% in China, said the report.

“There is a vicious cycle between poverty, adult unemployment, illiteracy and 
child labor. Education is the key to breaking that cycle,” said Dutt Panda form SACCS. 
“Parents break down telling us that they don’t want to deprive their children of education 
but say they have no choice. We must give them a choice.”

India’s left-leaning government, which took office in May, has increased taxes to 
raise around one billion dollars to fund education and free lunches at schools. However, 
the World Bank said investment in education remained insufficient, with central and state 
government expenditure adding up to 2.65% of gross domestic product. “In a country of 
20 million children below 11 years, this amounts to a paltry sum of 1.8 dollars per child, 
per month,” the report said.

(World Bank Newsletter www.worldbank.org)

MBABANE, 9 Nov 2004 (IRIN) - Government's unmet commitment to finance the 
education of AIDS orphans and children from indigent families could lead to the 
imminent closure of all primary schools in the country, headmasters have warned. 

"If government fails to pay by 10 November, we would be compelled to close down all 
schools," said Themba Shabangu, chairman of the Swaziland Head Teachers' 
Association, in a statement. 

School head teachers are hard pressed to keep their institutions open because of financial 
shortfalls stemming from the admission of orphans and poor children. A Swazi child's 
education often depends on his or her parents' ability to pay school fees and ancillary 
expenses like school uniforms and stationery.  

"Our hearts bleed for the plight of the orphans. Their numbers grow each term because 
AIDS is claiming their parents. But is it right for all children to be denied education 
because of this tragedy?" asked the headmaster of a school in the central Manzini region, 
referring to the possible closure of schools. 

The headmaster, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said parents were hard pressed to 
provide for their children's education in Swaziland's declining economy. 

The local media has reported that some schools are faced with bankruptcy because the 
burden of providing free education to a burgeoning population of orphans and indigent 
children has surpassed the income generated by parents who can afford to pay fees. 

Last week school headmasters marched on the ministry of education and the prime 
minister's office, brandishing placards and shouting slogans urging the release of 
promised monies for orphans' education. Security forces barred their way, but a petition 
listing the schools' concerns was delivered to the education ministry's principal secretary, 
Goodman Kunene. 

The United States Ambassador to Swaziland, John Lucke, called on the government to 
provide free education to all Swazi children, and The Times of Swaziland reported that 
Lucke had promised US financial support for 15 to 20 Swazi schools to accommodate 
their poor and orphaned pupils. 

The UN Children's Fund has estimated that Swaziland currently has 60,000 children 
orphaned by AIDS. 

At the head teacher's general meeting this week, school heads resolved that if government 
did not meet its commitment to provide financial assistance to orphans and poor students, 
such children would be refused admission when the new school year commenced in 
January 2005.

(http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=44056&SelectRegion=Southern_Afr
ica&SelectCountry=SWAZILAND)

PESHAWAR, 13 Oct 2004 (IRIN) - Usman is just 11 years old. Dressed in ragged, 
greasy clothes, he holds heavy engine parts as he awaits orders from his employer, who is 
busy fitting a head gasket to an ancient Toyota taxi. For a 10-hour day he earns about US 
$4 a month at a car repair workshop in the capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier 
Province (NWFP), Peshawar.  

"What else can I do? I do want to study but being the lone earner in my family I am 
forced to work. If I do not work, who will feed those who depend on me?" he wondered. 

Working children are a very common sight in NWFP, where according to official figures 
gathered in 1996, 1.1 million children, out of a total of 3.6 million countrywide, are 
engaged in various forms of hazardous labor despite the extensive legislation that is 
supposed to regulate the practice. 

The Employment of Children Act 1991 clearly states that no child below the age of 14 
shall be permitted to work or be employed in any establishment in the country. Similarly, 
articles 11, 35 and 37 of the Pakistani constitution also prohibit child labor.  

But a recent survey conducted by the UN children's agency UNICEF indicated that at 
least eight million children are at work in Pakistan out of its total population of 140 
million.  

Khalid Hassan, project manager with the International Program on the Elimination of 
Child Labor (IPEC), told IRIN that child labor was embedded in the culture of NWFP 
and that poverty and a lack of education were responsible. 

"We don't ask the children to work. Instead their elders bring them here. You tell me 
what these children would do, even if they got an education?" Shakoor Khan, the owner 
of a car repair shop employing 12 children, told IRIN. "The government and NGOs 
should be grateful to us because we are imparting free-of-cost skills to these children," 
the man shouted above the din of a diesel truck. 

In Peshawar alone there are more than 5,500 auto workshops, furniture factories, shoe 
factories, brick kilns, carpet weaving centers and tyre repair centers where more then 
37,000 children labor, the ILO report revealed. 

In addition, there are hundreds of small hotels and tea stalls and thousands of shops in the 
city where thousands of children are engaged in various kinds of labor, while a sizeable 
number of children are associated with the business of selling small goods in city streets 
and bazaars.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43644&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&Sele
ctCountry=PAKISTAN