Dorothee
Germany
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“Domradio” says that this Thursday in Cologne more than 100 adolescents and adults – meaning ordinary students and apprentices who are not even members of aid-organisations, politicians or human rights activists – held a demonstration against child-labor. In their paroles and on their signs and banners they critizise that many people neither know much nor are willing to get informed about child-labor. Not only do they not try to get information on whether or not human rights were violated in the production of their clothes – just taking a look at the label and reading “Made In China” or “Made in Bangladesh” would be enough to tell you that this product probably was made using child-laborers -, but in the case of many products they are simply ignorant. Coal and some other products won by mining for example are among the goods most frequently produced by children and yet many still think that “Child-Labor In Mines” is simply the title of a chapter from the history book we had when I went to Secondary School. When thinking about child-labor in the food-branche most people think of chocolate, coffee, cocoa and maybe also of vanilla, while little to nobody would think about for example rice, fish or the production of meat even though there are so many countries that use children in the production of these goods. Most people don’t know that either, but one of the biggest producers of hazelnuts, Turkey, also uses child-laborers in the harvesting of said nuts. With saccharosis won from sugar beet and sugar cane things are even more complicated. Sure most people don’t know that there are at least 14 countries where children work in the production of saccharosis, but another thing is that most (German) customers also are too lazy to read through the ingredients to avoid sugar. As vinegar, tinned fruits, blends of spices, most frozen products, multideck cabinet products, pastries and buns don’t taste too sweet and as some products – foir example crêpes, smoked salmon or fried potato patties – also have sugar-free variations, people simply presume that there is no saccharosis based on child-labor inside and without even skipping through the ingredients which normally would take less than a minute they simply buy products. As a matter of fact the food industry hardly uses sugar to sweeten things. Its primary purpose is to preserve things – yes, contrary to common belief salt isn’t the only substance used to conserve food – and as enterprises of course are interested to make the food products they sell not rot too fast most of them of course use sugar even in products you wouldn’t expect to contain sugar. As this report was more about child-labor than about this demonstration, “Domradio” also mentioned Syria as since 2011 many people lost their jobs – those who stayed where they lived before the revolution and of course those who fled to some other part of the country or even fled Syria alltogether -, forcing their children as young as five years to find a way to feed the family themselves. In Turkey some of them work in the production of hazelnuts, sugar beet and sugar cane. Generally speaking however there is no limit to what kind of jobs the youth of Syria does within and outside of Syria. Both troops – those supporting Assad and those defying him – use child-laborers. However it’s not like in Congo where children are used as child-soldiers, but mostly they use children as messangers. There also are reports about children doing illegal business like working as smugglers at the border between Syria and its neighboring countries. Other than that Syrian children and adolescents living in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Serbia, Greece, Turkey and of course Syria work in the agricultural sector, as traders, as sewers or they do work that is looked down upon like shoeshine boys and prostitutes. Aside from some of these jobs being humiliating, dangerous or condemnable another worrying factor is the load of work they have to do. Some children reported having to work seven hours a day and that for seven days a week.
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