India guide:
The image of world leaders beating a path to India's door for promotion of business and investment sits uncomfortably with the harsh reality of the country's human development statistics. The government's failure to feed its vast population and overcome rural poverty may be compounded by the impact of climate change for which it is unprepared, so much so that the Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned of the possibility of social unrest. Nonetheless, India presides over the world's largest democracy, embracing countless cultures, languages, religions and a population exceeding one billion.
Millennium Development Goals in India:
On the 60th anniversary of its independence India basked in the praise of world leaders for its transformation from an impoverished agrarian nation in 1947 into a potential global superpower. Such judgement however focuses on narrow economic data alongside the disproportionate profile of the new Indian middle class of 50 million, less than 5% of the population, who enjoy an equivalent spending power of more than $10,000pa. Beneath this veneer, about 15% of the world's population face a daily struggle for essentials, including the 300 million Indians who survive on less than $1 per day. The global challenge of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) therefore rests disproportionately on the fight against poverty in India.
Large socio-economic regional disparities greatly complicate the picture. Almost half of India's most severe poverty is concentrated in just 5 states: Bihar, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. These poorest states also have to contend with the largest and fastest growing populations. In some pockets of the country, reports suggest that poverty indicators are even moving in a negative direction; indeed in many areas, the reliability of human development data is itself questionable.
This immense divergence explains in part why assessment of prospects of achieving the MDGs in India is difficult, not helped by the government's reticence in providing solid data or benchmarks - even the definition of poverty for the purpose of the Goals is unclear. No national MDG progress report was produced for the Millennium+5 World Summit in September 2005. A report was eventually announced in February 2006 but it has not been lodged with the other 179 reports in the UN online library.
Some creative pro-poor policies have been introduced such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) which guarantees 100 days of paid employment to every household in selected districts to work on public infrastructure projects. Furthermore, the government has given assurances that the resources necessary to achieve the Goals will be forthcoming and that the targets will be reached in advance of the 2015 deadline. More cautious civil society observers might however point out that water table levels throughout India have collapsed, that teacher absenteeism in primary schools is 25% with pupil drop-out rates of 40% and that the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food reported in March 2006 that "food insecurity is growing".
Food Security in India:
Of the statistics that undermine the image of India as an industrialised nation, none is more telling than the decline in food available to the rural population who have less to eat than in the 1950s. Over 200 million people are malnourished, most of them children. In the scramble for food, girl children are particularly at risk and comprise the majority of the 2.7 million annual deaths of children under 5. The government's safety net for feeding, known as the Public Food Distribution System (PDS), reaches less than 100 million people and is impaired by corruption at district level.
The crisis has been caused by inadequate and misdirected investment in agriculture, aggravated by regulations of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which force Indian farmers to compete on an unlevel playing field. Agricultural imports have increased four times since the WTO came into effect in 1995 and at least 4 million farmers have been rendered jobless. A tragic human consequence has been the suicide of about 100,000 farmers in the decade to 2003, most of them faced with crippling debts for expensive seeds and chemicals.
India's understandable insistence on the removal of protective subsidies and tariffs in rich countries was a contributing factor to the 2006 collapse of the Doha round of WTO negotiations. The internal strategy to boost the rural economy is the Bharat Nirman programme which since 2005 has directed substantial investment to rural infrastructure - housing, roads, water and electricity together with cheaper credit for farmers. Targets for food production will have to contend with reduced availability of land and significant water scarcity. Plans to invest in the biofuel crop jatropha with millions of hectares set aside for the purpose will need immense care in the context of India's current inability to feed itself.
Health in India:
India lives with many unenviable health statistics; the highest TB prevalence in the world, over one third of the world's malnourished children and maternal and infant mortality rates which are embarrassingly high in relation to the country's poorer neighbours such as Bangladesh.
There is immense unevenness in the provision of healthcare across the country. The government is happy to boast of a target of one million overseas "medical tourists" by 2010 whilst its own public hospitals are scraping for funds and facilities. Staff vacancies remain unfilled and absenteeism is high, forcing patients to revert to private treatment which they cannot afford. Immunisation programmes are in reverse in some areas and the target date for eradication of polio has been pushed back as far as 2010.
The government's response has been the National Rural Health Mission. Commencing in 2005 this programme promises major upgrading of health centres and introduces a new front line of health workers known as Accredited Social Health Activists. State authorities are also responsible for health funding but the central government's annual budget allocation for health at $3.6 billion appears derisory in comparison with $24 billion for defence.
Data on HIV/AIDS has been unreliable, but government figures published in 2007 have been accepted as a new baseline. They show 2.5 million people living with HIV, a prevalence of 0.36%, about half previous estimates. Nevertheless the MDG target to stabilise and reverse this rate remains challenging. Drug-related transmission is commonplace in the poorer regions of the Northeast and, in South India, the high infection rate amongst sex workers is spreading the virus to women in rural areas. These groups are the focus of the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) which receives substantial government and aid funding. After a slow start, NACO also plans significantly increased provision of free anti-retroviral treatment.
Human Rights in India:
As well as failing human development, economic growth in India also tends to collide with human rights. This is most apparent in the forced displacement of poor people, typically through slum clearance for middle class housing, in massive energy and mining projects such as the Narmada dam, or in the unpopular Special Economic Zones. Civil society in India is increasingly alert to the issues of displacement.
Of the many awesome human statistics for India, none is more disconcerting than the gender ratio of only 927 girls for every 1,000 boys under age 6, the most imbalanced in the world and declining further each year. The horrific inference of infanticide has cultural and economic considerations at its root, coupled with failure to enforce legislation. Gender discrimination pervades Indian society, from the extreme practice of honour killings to resistance in parliament to quotas for female representation. The government is however attempting to improve the status of women both in the draft 11th five year plan and by passing legislation such as the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Bill, 2004, giving daughters and sons equal rights to property. The Domestic Violence Act passed in 2005 also represents the culmination of years of campaigning by women's groups.
Children, alas, are offered too many opportunities of employment - a combination of poverty, discrimination and inadequate schools means that child labour is an entrenched problem in India - as many as 23 million children aged 5-14 are believed to work, with another 75 million out of school and unaccounted for. Successive attempts to legislate, such as the 2006 ban on domestic and restaurant labour for children aged under 14, remain largely ineffective.
Politics in India:
Democracy in India is one of the wonders of the modern world with over 600 million registered voters. Elected representatives form the lower house of parliament called the Lok Sabha while nominated members form the upper house called the Rajya Sabha. The elected government appoints the prime minister. In a federal structure, the states have considerable powers not least in delivery of poverty alleviation programmes. Members of state assemblies together with members of parliament elect a president for a 5 year term, the office being largely ceremonial. Nevertheless, the election of Pratibha Patil in 2007 was notable in that she has become the first woman president of India.
The most recent parliamentary elections in 2004 resulted in victory for a coalition of parties (led by the Congress Party) known as the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Dr. Manmohan Singh emerged as the country's first Sikh premier. Voters were dissatisfied with the neo-liberal economic policies pursued by the outgoing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
For a country with such democratic credentials, India's ranking in the annual Corruption Perceptions Index published by Transparency International is disappointingly low. The Congress Party and the then foreign minister, Natwar Singh, were both named as beneficiaries of improper payments in the 2005 Volcker Report on the Iraq oil-for-food scandal. And the country was humiliated by the exposure of 11 MPs caught in the act of accepting cash bribes, apparently to plant suitable questions in parliament. The judiciary is inadequately resourced and notoriously corrupt.
Information and Media in India:
Whether it is print, radio, television or Internet, information and news is available in Hindi, English and almost all vernacular languages. Radio and the government-owned television channels have a relatively larger reach whilst since 2006 a policy concession allows non-profit and educational organizations to operate community radio stations. The government appears determined to explore the potential of 21st century technologies with ambitious schemes to create knowledge centres in every village in India by 2007. The business sector too is participating in these outreach ventures.
The Environment in India:
India has 2.4% of the world's land, but supports 16% of the global population. If it was possible to prioritise from the daunting checklist of environmental problems, then water management would be a strong candidate. Ambitious projects are readily conceived and announced, notably the $200 billion river-linking plan which aims to connect relatively healthy rivers in the north to those further south. Together with privatisation of urban water supplies, such mega-projects are viewed with suspicion as devices to transfer water resources from the poor to the rich. The government's claim that the water and sanitation MDG is already close to being achieved sounds over-optimistic with sanitation cover of only 40% in rural India and water programmes now under threat from climate change.
The monsoon cycle recently has not been following its familiar path and there are alarming estimates that changes to the Himalayan glacier ecosystem could reduce India's freshwater availability by as much as 30%. This scenario, together with the risks of rising sea levels and lower crop yields, has been publicised by the Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra K. Pachauri, himself an Indian. He has expressed the view that India is completely unprepared for the impact of climate change which he considers could lead to social unrest.
India's own carbon dioxide emissions are projected to treble by 2050 at current rates. The country has no obligations under the Kyoto protocol and has stipulated that it is unwilling to agree to any targets that might compromise economic growth or poverty alleviation.
Conflict in India:
The impasse with Pakistan over the disputed territory of Kashmir and Jammu is a constant undertone to almost every aspect of India's economic and political progress. Not only is the region identified with the risk of nuclear conflagration, but the maintenance of India's vast army and its nuclear arsenal absorbs a significant proportion of the national budget which might otherwise be devoted to human development.
Recent years have witnessed the beginnings of reconciliation through a ceasefire declaration in 2003 and a softening of rhetoric. India's position is that it is reluctant to cut the massive presence of its forces unless Pakistan does more to reduce atrocities committed by separatist terrorists on the Indian side of the "border", known as the Line of Control.
As fears for the situation in Kashmir ease a little, the government faces an insurgency which the prime minister has described as a serious security threat. Poverty and poor governance have aroused sympathy for militant groups inspired by the Maoist movement in Nepal. Known as the Naxalites, such groups are believed to have spread from the state of Chhattisgarh to be active in most eastern and central states. As in Nepal, the militants impose themselves on rural areas through a mixture of protection and extortion; as yet their progress has not been significantly impeded by official security forces.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
English literature
The term English literature refers to literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was Polish, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, Salman Rushdie is Indian, V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad, Vladimir Nabokov was Russian. In other words, English literature is as diverse as the varieties and dialects of English spoken around the world. In academia, the term often labels departments and programmes practising English studies in secondary and tertiary educational systems. Despite the variety of authors of English literature, the works of William Shakespeare remain paramount throughout the English-speaking world.
This article primarily deals with literature from Britain written in English. For literature from specific English-speaking regions, see the see also section at the bottom of the page.
Old English:
The first works in English, written in Old English, appeared in the early Middle Ages (the oldest surviving text is Cædmon's Hymn). The oral tradition was very strong in early British culture and most literary works were written to be performed. Epic poems were thus very popular and many, including Beowulf, have survived to the present day in the rich corpus of Anglo-Saxon literature that closely resemble today's Norwegian or, better yet, Icelandic. Much Anglo-Saxon verse in the extant manuscripts is probably a "milder" adaptation of the earlier Viking and German war poems from the continent. When such poetry was brought to England it was still being handed down orally from one generation to another, and the constant presence of alliterative verse, or consonant rhyme (today's newspaper headlines and marketing abundantly use this technique such as in Big is Better) helped the Anglo-Saxon peoples remember it. Such rhyme is a feature of Germanic languages and is opposed to vocalic or end-rhyme of Romance languages. But the first written literature dates to the early Christian monasteries founded by St. Augustine of Canterbury and his disciples and it is reasonable to believe that it was somehow adapted to suit to needs of Christian readers. Even without their crudest lines, Viking war poems still smell of blood feuds and their consonant rhymes sound like the smashing of swords under the gloomy northern sky: there is always a sense of imminent danger in the narratives. Sooner or later, all things must come to an end, as Beowulf eventually dies at the hands of the monsters he spends the tale fighting. The feelings of Beowulf that nothing lasts, that youth and joy will turn to death and sorrow entered Christianity and were to dominate the future landscape of English fiction.
This article primarily deals with literature from Britain written in English. For literature from specific English-speaking regions, see the see also section at the bottom of the page.
Old English:
The first works in English, written in Old English, appeared in the early Middle Ages (the oldest surviving text is Cædmon's Hymn). The oral tradition was very strong in early British culture and most literary works were written to be performed. Epic poems were thus very popular and many, including Beowulf, have survived to the present day in the rich corpus of Anglo-Saxon literature that closely resemble today's Norwegian or, better yet, Icelandic. Much Anglo-Saxon verse in the extant manuscripts is probably a "milder" adaptation of the earlier Viking and German war poems from the continent. When such poetry was brought to England it was still being handed down orally from one generation to another, and the constant presence of alliterative verse, or consonant rhyme (today's newspaper headlines and marketing abundantly use this technique such as in Big is Better) helped the Anglo-Saxon peoples remember it. Such rhyme is a feature of Germanic languages and is opposed to vocalic or end-rhyme of Romance languages. But the first written literature dates to the early Christian monasteries founded by St. Augustine of Canterbury and his disciples and it is reasonable to believe that it was somehow adapted to suit to needs of Christian readers. Even without their crudest lines, Viking war poems still smell of blood feuds and their consonant rhymes sound like the smashing of swords under the gloomy northern sky: there is always a sense of imminent danger in the narratives. Sooner or later, all things must come to an end, as Beowulf eventually dies at the hands of the monsters he spends the tale fighting. The feelings of Beowulf that nothing lasts, that youth and joy will turn to death and sorrow entered Christianity and were to dominate the future landscape of English fiction.
Child labor
Child labor is the employment of children under an age determined by law or custom which makes it illegal. This practice is considered exploitative by many countries and international organizations. Child labor was utilized to varying extents through most of history, but entered public dispute with the beginning of universal schooling, with changes in working conditions during industrialization, and with the emergence of the concepts of workers' and children's rights. Child labor is still a problem in some places
Child Labor is very common, and can be factory work, mining[1], prostitution or quarrying, agriculture, helping in the parents' business, having one's own small business (for example selling food or apparrel), or doing odd jobs. Some children work as guides for tourists, sometimes combined with bringing in business for shops and restaurants (where they may also work as waiters). Other children are forced to do tedious and repetitive jobs such as: assembling boxes, polishing shoes, stocking a store's products, or cleaning. However, rather than in factories and sweatshops, most child labor occurs in the informal sector, "selling many things on the streets, at work in agriculture or hidden away in houses — far from the reach of official labor inspectors and from media scrutiny." And all the work that they did was done in all types of weather; and was also done for minimal pay.[2]
According to UNICEF, there are an estimated 250 million children aged 2 to 17 in child labor worldwide, excluding child domestic labor. The most widely rejected forms of child labor include the military use of children as well as child prostitution. Less controversial, and often legal with some restrictions, are work as child actors and child singers, as well as agricultural work outside of the school year (seasonal work) and owning a business while operating it out of school's hours.
In many developed countries,[5] it is considered inappropriate or exploitative if a child below a certain age works, excluding household chores or schoolwork. An employer is often not allowed to hire a child below a certain age. This minimum age depends on the country; child labor laws in the United States set the minimum age to work in an establishment without parents' consent and restrictions at age 16.
In the Industrial Revolution, children as young as four were employed in production factories with dangerous, and often fatal, working conditions.[6] Based on this understanding of the use of children as laborers, it is now considered by wealthy countries to be a human rights violation, and is outlawed, while some poorer countries may allow or tolerate it.
In the 1990s every country in the world except for Somalia and the United States became a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, or CRC. The CRC provides the strongest, most consistent international legal language prohibiting illegal child labor; however it does not make child labor illegal.
Poor families often rely on the labors of their children for survival, and sometimes it is their only source of income. This type of work is often hidden away because it is not always in the industrial sector. Child labor is employed in subsistence agriculture and in the urban informal sector; child domestic work is also important. In order to benefit children, child labor prohibition has to address the dual challenge of providing them with both short-term income and long-term prospects. Some youth rights groups, however, feel that prohibiting work below a certain age violates human rights, reducing children's options and leaving them subject to the whims of those with money. The reasons a child would consent or want to work may vary greatly. A child may consent to work if, for example, the earnings are attractive or if the child hates school, but such consent may not be informed consent. The workplace may still be an undesirable situation for a child in the long run.In an influential paper on "The Economics of Child Labor" in the American Economic Review (1998), Kaushik Basu and Pham Huang Van argue that the primary cause of child labor is parental poverty. That being so, they caution against the use of a legislative ban against child labor, and argue that should be used only when there is reason to believe that a ban on child labor will cause adult wages to rise and so compensate adequately the households of the poor children.Child labor is still widely used today in many countries,including India and Bangladesh. Even though country law states that no child under the age of 14 may work, this law is ignored. Children as young as 11 go to work for up to 20 hours a day in sweatshops making items for US companies, such as Hanes, Wal-mart, and Target. They get paid as little as 6 and a half cents per item. One of the largest companies in Bangladesh is Harvest Rich, who claim not to use child labor, although the children only got 1d per week.
Child labor was approached from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. For example, Karl Marx called for "Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form" in his Communist Manifesto. Concern has also been raised about the buying public's moral complicity in purchasing products assembled or otherwise manufactured in developing countries with child labor. Others have raised concerns that boycotting products manufactured through child labor may force these children to turn to more dangerous or strenuous professions, such as prostitution or agriculture. For example, a UNICEF study found that 5,000 to 7,000 Nepalese children turned to prostitution after the United States banned that country's carpet exports in the 1990s. Also, after the Child Labor Deterrence Act was introduced in the US, an estimated 50,000 children were dismissed from their garment industry jobs in Bangladesh, leaving many to resort to jobs such as "stone-crushing, street hustling, and prostitution," -- all of them, according to a UNICEF study.[2] "more hazardous and exploitative than garment production". The study says that boycotts are "blunt instruments with long-term consequences, that can actually harm rather than help the children involved."
Today there are several industries and corporations which are being targeted by activists for their use of child labor.
The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company operate a rubber plantation in Liberia which is the focus of a global campaign called Stop Firestone. Workers on the plantation are expected to fulfill a high production quota or their wages will be halved. As a result, many workers are forced to bring children to work. The International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit against Firestone (The International Labor Fund vs. The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company) in November 2005 on behalf of current child laborers and their parents who had also been child laborers on the plantation. On June 26, 2007, the judge in this lawsuit in Indianapolis, Indiana denied Firestone's motion to dismiss the case and allowed the lawsuit to proceed on child labor claims.
A UK investigative report in October of 2007 found children as young as nine working sixteen to nineteen hours a day without pay in India producing Gap for Kids clothing. One child, Jivaj, from West Bengal told The Observer that some of the boys in the sweatshop had been badly beaten. 'Our hours are hard and violence is used against us if we don't work hard enough. This is a big order for abroad, they keep telling us that. 'Last week, we spent four days working from dawn until about one o'clock in the morning the following day. I was so tired I felt sick,' he whispers, tears streaming down his face. 'If any of us cried we were hit with a rubber pipe. Some of the boys had oily cloths stuffed in our mouths as punishment.'[7]
On October 28, Marka Hansen, president of Gap North America, responded, "We strictly prohibit the use of child labor. This is a non-negotiable for us – and we are deeply concerned and upset by this allegation. As we’ve demonstrated in the past, Gap has a history of addressing challenges like this head-on, and our approach to this situation will be no exception. In 2006, Gap Inc. ceased business with 23 factories due to code violations. We have 90 people located around the world whose job is to ensure compliance with our Code of Vendor Conduct. As soon as we were alerted to this situation, we stopped the work order and prevented the product from being sold in stores. While violations of our strict prohibition on child labor in factories that produce product for the company are extremely rare, we have called an urgent meeting with our suppliers in the region to reinforce our policies."[8]
Child labor is used in the production of cocoa powder, used to make chocolate. See Economics of cocoa.
Child Labor is very common, and can be factory work, mining[1], prostitution or quarrying, agriculture, helping in the parents' business, having one's own small business (for example selling food or apparrel), or doing odd jobs. Some children work as guides for tourists, sometimes combined with bringing in business for shops and restaurants (where they may also work as waiters). Other children are forced to do tedious and repetitive jobs such as: assembling boxes, polishing shoes, stocking a store's products, or cleaning. However, rather than in factories and sweatshops, most child labor occurs in the informal sector, "selling many things on the streets, at work in agriculture or hidden away in houses — far from the reach of official labor inspectors and from media scrutiny." And all the work that they did was done in all types of weather; and was also done for minimal pay.[2]
According to UNICEF, there are an estimated 250 million children aged 2 to 17 in child labor worldwide, excluding child domestic labor. The most widely rejected forms of child labor include the military use of children as well as child prostitution. Less controversial, and often legal with some restrictions, are work as child actors and child singers, as well as agricultural work outside of the school year (seasonal work) and owning a business while operating it out of school's hours.
In many developed countries,[5] it is considered inappropriate or exploitative if a child below a certain age works, excluding household chores or schoolwork. An employer is often not allowed to hire a child below a certain age. This minimum age depends on the country; child labor laws in the United States set the minimum age to work in an establishment without parents' consent and restrictions at age 16.
In the Industrial Revolution, children as young as four were employed in production factories with dangerous, and often fatal, working conditions.[6] Based on this understanding of the use of children as laborers, it is now considered by wealthy countries to be a human rights violation, and is outlawed, while some poorer countries may allow or tolerate it.
In the 1990s every country in the world except for Somalia and the United States became a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, or CRC. The CRC provides the strongest, most consistent international legal language prohibiting illegal child labor; however it does not make child labor illegal.
Poor families often rely on the labors of their children for survival, and sometimes it is their only source of income. This type of work is often hidden away because it is not always in the industrial sector. Child labor is employed in subsistence agriculture and in the urban informal sector; child domestic work is also important. In order to benefit children, child labor prohibition has to address the dual challenge of providing them with both short-term income and long-term prospects. Some youth rights groups, however, feel that prohibiting work below a certain age violates human rights, reducing children's options and leaving them subject to the whims of those with money. The reasons a child would consent or want to work may vary greatly. A child may consent to work if, for example, the earnings are attractive or if the child hates school, but such consent may not be informed consent. The workplace may still be an undesirable situation for a child in the long run.In an influential paper on "The Economics of Child Labor" in the American Economic Review (1998), Kaushik Basu and Pham Huang Van argue that the primary cause of child labor is parental poverty. That being so, they caution against the use of a legislative ban against child labor, and argue that should be used only when there is reason to believe that a ban on child labor will cause adult wages to rise and so compensate adequately the households of the poor children.Child labor is still widely used today in many countries,including India and Bangladesh. Even though country law states that no child under the age of 14 may work, this law is ignored. Children as young as 11 go to work for up to 20 hours a day in sweatshops making items for US companies, such as Hanes, Wal-mart, and Target. They get paid as little as 6 and a half cents per item. One of the largest companies in Bangladesh is Harvest Rich, who claim not to use child labor, although the children only got 1d per week.
Child labor was approached from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. For example, Karl Marx called for "Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form" in his Communist Manifesto. Concern has also been raised about the buying public's moral complicity in purchasing products assembled or otherwise manufactured in developing countries with child labor. Others have raised concerns that boycotting products manufactured through child labor may force these children to turn to more dangerous or strenuous professions, such as prostitution or agriculture. For example, a UNICEF study found that 5,000 to 7,000 Nepalese children turned to prostitution after the United States banned that country's carpet exports in the 1990s. Also, after the Child Labor Deterrence Act was introduced in the US, an estimated 50,000 children were dismissed from their garment industry jobs in Bangladesh, leaving many to resort to jobs such as "stone-crushing, street hustling, and prostitution," -- all of them, according to a UNICEF study.[2] "more hazardous and exploitative than garment production". The study says that boycotts are "blunt instruments with long-term consequences, that can actually harm rather than help the children involved."
Today there are several industries and corporations which are being targeted by activists for their use of child labor.
The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company operate a rubber plantation in Liberia which is the focus of a global campaign called Stop Firestone. Workers on the plantation are expected to fulfill a high production quota or their wages will be halved. As a result, many workers are forced to bring children to work. The International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit against Firestone (The International Labor Fund vs. The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company) in November 2005 on behalf of current child laborers and their parents who had also been child laborers on the plantation. On June 26, 2007, the judge in this lawsuit in Indianapolis, Indiana denied Firestone's motion to dismiss the case and allowed the lawsuit to proceed on child labor claims.
A UK investigative report in October of 2007 found children as young as nine working sixteen to nineteen hours a day without pay in India producing Gap for Kids clothing. One child, Jivaj, from West Bengal told The Observer that some of the boys in the sweatshop had been badly beaten. 'Our hours are hard and violence is used against us if we don't work hard enough. This is a big order for abroad, they keep telling us that. 'Last week, we spent four days working from dawn until about one o'clock in the morning the following day. I was so tired I felt sick,' he whispers, tears streaming down his face. 'If any of us cried we were hit with a rubber pipe. Some of the boys had oily cloths stuffed in our mouths as punishment.'[7]
On October 28, Marka Hansen, president of Gap North America, responded, "We strictly prohibit the use of child labor. This is a non-negotiable for us – and we are deeply concerned and upset by this allegation. As we’ve demonstrated in the past, Gap has a history of addressing challenges like this head-on, and our approach to this situation will be no exception. In 2006, Gap Inc. ceased business with 23 factories due to code violations. We have 90 people located around the world whose job is to ensure compliance with our Code of Vendor Conduct. As soon as we were alerted to this situation, we stopped the work order and prevented the product from being sold in stores. While violations of our strict prohibition on child labor in factories that produce product for the company are extremely rare, we have called an urgent meeting with our suppliers in the region to reinforce our policies."[8]
Child labor is used in the production of cocoa powder, used to make chocolate. See Economics of cocoa.
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