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by John Terry and
Donna Woonteiler
Background
On June 2, 1998, four young people from the Broad Meadows Middle School in Quincy,
Massachusetts, joined a group of several thousand youth from across the world in
a global march against child labor and exploitation. The target of the march was
the United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO), which was meeting in Geneva,
Switzerland, to revise international labor agreements at the ILO Conference on Child
Labor. A previous declaration, The Rights of the Child, was issued by the 1989 UN
Convention on Children and was subsequently ratified as law by every nation except
Somalia and the United States.
Organized by Kailash Satiyarthi of India, the Global March Against Child Labor was
an extraordinary event that started with high-level meetings in Washington, DC, and
culminated in Geneva, where student marchers presented their cause to international
policymakers.
Because many students wanted to participate but were unable to march, students at
Broad Meadows organized an Online March. Quincy students invited interested citizens
to either post email messages about child labor on the Web at www.globalmarch-us.org,
or to send them to their school at endchlabor@aol.com. Each email written
represented one virtual mile marched against child labor; the goal was to collect
3,000 email messages at a mile a message (the letter equivalent of miles across the
U.S.). The Broad Meadows students planned to print out and hand-deliver these email
messages to the U.S. Secretary of Labor, Ms. Alexis Herman.
After these young innovative advocates exceeded their goal, Anjali Kochar of the
Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights asked them to present their email
at a Washington, DC, Teach-In on Child Labor. A team of Quincy students flew down
to Washington, DC, joining the Global March, which had just finished crossing America.
They proudly presented their emails to the Secretary of Labor and then continued
on to the ILO meeting in Geneva. In the interview that follows, Elizabeth Bloomer,
12, Meagan Donoghue, 14, and their teacher Ron Adams talk about organizing the online
march, their campaign to end child labor, and what democracy means to them.
Q: Tell us about the Online March.
Elizabeth: We found out about the Global March back in October [1997]. There
were five marches from each of the five continents. We wanted to be a part of it
but we were too young to participate in the U.S. march, and it was going to take
a month. We wanted to know what we could do. So, we created the Online March, which
enabled a lot of other kids who weren't able to march to be a part of this, and to
raise their voice against child labor. Our goal was to collect 3,000 messages, symbolically
representing the 3,000 mile crossing of the U.S. We got 3,000 and then some. All
the marchers were going to Switzerland, and since we were part of it we were invited
to go.
Q: Why Switzerland?
Elizabeth: The UN delegates were meeting in Geneva to discuss the new child
labor laws, and they were going to rewrite them. We wanted our voice, our point of
view to be heard.
Q: Why do you want them to hear your point of view-what difference does it
make?
Meagan: Well, it does make a difference. More voices and more people can combine
to make a very strong voice.
Q: How do you think the grownups reacted to kids raising their voices? Do
you think you were heard?
Meagan: I think we were heard, because at the meeting we all got together and we
actually did the marching. Some of the delegates were crying; they looked like they
were really interested in what we had to say and our cause.
Q: How many young people do you think were there?
Meagan: Thousands. It was incredible because you got to meet so many people
and hear so many stories. It was just a once in a lifetime opportunity. And I feel
so lucky to have experienced it.
Q: How did this march get organized?
Ron: Kailash Satiyarthi [recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award]
of India came up with the idea to have a Global March. There were 1,500 delegates
inside the UN and there wasn't an empty seat in the place. They went right down the
center aisle, 200 strong, filled the stage at the UN, and were given permission to
have a spokesperson explain why these young people from so many different countries
had come to Geneva. Our Online Marchers were carrying the voices of 3,000 classrooms
and youth groups from across this country-too many voices for the delegates to ignore.
They got a chance to tell three different influential audiences about the Online
March.
Elizabeth: The first one we got to tell was Alexis Herman, Secretary of Labor.
There was a meeting in Washington, DC, and we presented her with about 600 messages.
Another was Eric Schwartz-President Clinton's Advisor on Human Rights-and Leon Feurth,
who is Vice President Gore's National Security Advisor. The third time we presented
the 3,000 messages was in Geneva with Kailash and all the marchers. In the closing
ceremony, representatives from all the countries came and presented him with little
contributions, like thumbprints, signatures, or footprints. And then we brought up
the [email] messages. We offered a little summary of what we were doing and who we
were. He thanked us and said, "Wow!" I think our book of email messages
was just as important as everyone else's contributions.
Meagan: Andrew Samet was the head of the U.S. delegation. So we told him our
story and he was impressed with it also.
Ron: And [Samet] took an action step: he inserted the news of the Online March
into the daily ILO bulletin. Delegates could then go to the Web site where the 3,000
messages were posted, and see what the Americans were saying.
Q: It sounds like carrying the torch into the Olympics!
Ron: There were five youth from America in Geneva, and four of them were from
this school. Our five youth were given a banner by Kerry Kennedy Cuomo at the big
send-off rally in Washington. She charged them with representing the United States.
So it was a big moment.
Q: What is the leadership in Washington doing about the child labor issue?
Ron: Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat from Iowa, is very active in the fight to
end child labor in the U.S. and around the world. He's sponsoring a bill to label
imports as child labor-free.
Q: He was responsible for the Rugmark label, was he not?
Ron: Yes, he's one of the people who brought Rugmark to the U.S.
Q: Like dolphin-free tuna.
Ron: That's part of his speech: "If we can put a dolphin-free label on
tuna, can't we put a child labor-free [label] on rugs?" That shifts the responsibility
onto consumers and manufacturers. His bill is coming up this fall. It will require
that all imports be labeled "Child Labor-Free" or they can't come into
the United States.
Elizabeth: There are two guaranteed child labor-free soccer balls that we
know of. One that Dunkin' Donuts put out, and a ball Reebok puts out.
Ron: So now it's up to you. And it costs more for that ball, so a consumer
has to make a choice. Do I want to buy brand "X" which is 10 bucks cheaper?
Or do I want to pay the additional 10 dollars knowing that no children were injured?
Senator Harkin is also beginning a campaign about the food we eat, and this is where
the U.S. has a problem understanding child labor. It is not just about manufacturing,
and it does not only exist overseas. We still have children in the fields of the
U.S.-I don't mean the sons and daughters of family farmers, but a quarter-million
migrant kids who are making below the minimum wage. These kids deserve an opportunity
to go to school.
Elizabeth: It's kind of deep, though. People can say, "The label on the
shirt says, 'Guaranteed Child Labor-Free,' but who picked the cotton to make it?
What if the company knows there are children picking the cotton? They might send
it over here and have adults make the shirts, but then it's not really child labor-free.
They shouldn't be able to put that label on it because children picked the cotton.
...maybe
in the future, if we don't speak up, then people will be just as bad off as child
laborers are today. We're trying to stop that, so it can be better for the future,
by learning from the past.
Q: Why didn't the United States sign the 1989 Rights of the Child document?
Meagan: I'm not sure but it doesn't make us look too good.
Elizabeth: It's embarrassing, and hypocritical.
Ron: Yes, I feel embarrassed about it too. Technically speaking, the U.S.
signed the document in 1989 but did not get the two-thirds majority needed in the
Senate to ratify it. There are all kinds of explanations for this, but it's hard
to get at The Reason. Generally speaking, the Senate is guarded because some international
treaties have undermined the U.S. Constitution. Maybe nine years ago child labor
was an abstract issue; it only existed across the ocean. But the reality is much
more apparent now-awareness has intensified over the last nine years. So we are very
hopeful that when the ILO Child Labor Agreement comes up in 1999 it will get ratified,
and its passage will have an immediate impact.
Q: What can people do to help end child labor?
Elizabeth: There are five steps. The first is that we as consumers have to
make sure we know who's making our clothes, or who's picking the cotton that makes
the clothes. And if we don't know we have to make sure that other people know. If
they don't know they should go and ask until it gets back to the answer.
Meagan: Another one is about companies: they should guarantee that no children
are working in their factories or fields.
Elizabeth: Another one is that governments have to make laws that will enforce
the ending of child labor. There are some but they're not really being carried through,
so we have to make sure that they are carried through.
Meagan: Another one is education: children should be guaranteed an education
until they're at least 12 years old.
Elizabeth: And the last one is micro-credit loans. We're giving poor mothers
and families money to buy back their kids from child labor and start their own businesses,
therefore breaking the cycle of poverty.
Q: So in all of this, what have you learned about democracy?
Elizabeth: Well, it goes like-we learned a little bit about democracy, how
we choose students to represent us. We learned that people have rights and children
have rights, it's not just the adults that get to dictate everything. Also that everyone
should have an equal opportunity to go to school.
Q: What can you do to help?
Elizabeth: Exactly what we're doing: trying to get people informed that children
are being harassed and dictated to. That's one thing the Online March does-it gives
information to people that don't have a lot of knowledge. Child labor really is kind
of concealed, so it's not like an open topic that's on the news every night. So we're
trying to get the message out that people-children-don't have a lot of rights.
Meagan: Another type of democracy that we have right here is about decision
making on all sorts of issues: how we elected representatives to go to Geneva, how
we decided on which proposal to accept for the School for Iqbal, and even how we
choose the time of our next meeting.
Q: What gives you the right to do all this?
Elizabeth: Because we have the freedom of speech.
Q: Earlier you said something about taking things for granted: that if you
just sit back nothing changes, everything will stay as it is.
Meagan: That's right. You can't just turn away from the child labor problem.
That would be very, very selfish, like saying, "It's not affecting me, why should
I care?" Because it could end up affecting you later on, or in the long run
it could end up affecting the world. So you have to do something, you can't just
turn your back on a problem this big, and this well known.
Q: Do you think you could ever lose your right to go to school? Do you think
it could happen in the United States?
Meagan: Anything could happen.
Ron: But you're in school, you're guaranteed a free education in this country.
Because...?
Elizabeth: Of the Constitution. In our history class we learned that if the
women in the mill factory just kept quiet, if they didn't rebel or speak up-or if
Lewis Hine didn't take pictures of the child laborers in America-then we wouldn't
be where we are today. So maybe in the future, if we don't speak up, then people
will be just as bad off as child laborers are today. We're trying to stop that, so
it can be better for the future, by learning from the past. It's kind of like interconnected.
John Terry and Donna Woonteiler are the editor-in-chief and managing editor, respectively,
of New Designs.
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