The International Labor
Rights Fund (ILRF) has launched a "Foul Ball"
campaign aimed at ending the use of children as human
sewing machines in the production of soccer balls in
Pakistan and other Third World countries for export to
the United States and elsewhere.
An estimated 11,000 children sew the balls, which also
are used in Europe. There the International Confederation
of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) is seeking the cooperation
of FIFA, the international soccer governing body, to help
end the practice.
The AFL-CIO has endorsed the Foul Ball campaign and the
Union Label & Service Trades Dept. is working closely
with the ILRF on the effort.
Kids Organize Against Child-Labor Imports
Shocked by news of the inhuman exploitation of child
workers in many Third World countries, junior high and
high-school age students in Canada, the United States and
other Western countries are organizing to help try to end
it.
Chief impetus for the young people's movement appears to
have been the murder on Easter Sunday 1995 of Iqbal
Masih, 12, who was gunned down in his village in Pakistan
as he rode his bicycle.
Until he escaped two years earlier, Iqbal had spent six
years shackled to a rug loom, tying tiny knots 12 hours a
day, making three cents a day. After escaping he had
crusaded against the horrors of child slavery in his
country.
Iqbal's murder remains unsolved, but some believe carpet
makers who had threatened him were responsible.
Craig Kielburger of Toronto, then also 12, read a
newspaper story about Iqbal's murder. "I basically
looked at my life and then at his. The gap in between
stood out so much," he told a reporter.
Craig contacted child-labor organizations, put together a
small library of articles, was shocked by what he learned
and with schoolmates founded Free the Children, to write
letters, conduct petition drives and talk to whoever will
listen.
In November 1995, Craig spoke to the convention of the
Ontario Federation of Labor. Delegates were so moved they
passed the hat and raised $150,000 for a center in India
where freed child workers can rehabilitate their bodies
and learn to read and write and study a trade.
Free The Children has grown to more than 300 children,
with chapters in the United States and Europe as well as
Canada.
One of the U.S. chapters was organized in May 1996 in the
Washington, D.C. suburb of Falls Church, Va., by Shannon
Goold, 13, and Adam, 15, and Elizabeth, 3 Carter.
When they took a petition door-to-door, some people
slammed doors in their faces. When they went to
congressional offices, some staffers belittled their
efforts. When they tried to leaflet a soccer industry
conference in Rosslyn, Va., the hotel kicked them out.
Even his classmates made fun of him at first, Adam told
the National Consumers League.
But after a school assembly on child labor, more than 100
students--grades six through nine--signed up for Free the
Children U.S.A.
Last fall the three organized a nationwide petition drive
for a congressionally mandated labeling system to inform
consumers that products are "child labor free."
They also have been active in the Foul Ball campaign
aimed at ending child labor in the production of soccer
balls.
They have received inquiries from four other states about
setting up chapters of Free the Children.
Meantime, children at the Broad Meadows Middle School in
Quincy, Mass., have raised $106,700 from schools in all
50 states and 12 foreign countries to build a grade
school in Iqbal's village.
The Broad Meadows students met Iqbal when he visited them
in late 1994 while he was in the U.S. to receive the
Youth in Action Human Rights Award, sponsored by the
Reebok Foundation.
"He was so small," said one of the Broad
Meadows students. "He looked like he was six."
The Board Meadows students said that they, too, are
interested in forming a chapter of Free the Children.
Reprinted from the Label Letter. |