Forced Labor Spurred by Human Overpopulation

     "It's not because people started breeding like rabbits. It's that they stopped dying like flies," says Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute (Why Population Matters, Population-Awareness.Net). Words this true only come very rarely. Due to the medical advances of the past few centuries, humanity has been able to increase the human life span, while also lowering the infant mortality rate. The infant mortality rate is the number of children who die before their first birthday. Humanity took 30,000 years to hit the one-billion population mark, which occurred in 1804, then began to increase at a greater rate during the nineteenth century. The population grew significantly, to six billion, in less than two centuries. Because of this trend, from the nineteenth century forward, the human population has exploded. In the time period of twenty minutes, 3,500 infants are brought into the world, and in the same amount of time, humanity is responsible for the extinction of an entire species, totaling approximately 27,000 species lost every year, (Why Population Matters, Population-Awareness.Net). According to Earth-Policy.org models, in less than fifty years the population will be approaching ten billion. The ever-quickening mathematical rate of increase, a property known as exponential growth, is a major contributing factor to the population upsurge. One of the causes of this exponential growth is modern-day forced labor. In many resource-poor countries whose GDP (gross domestic product) depends on their use by wealthy nations to manufacture goods, children are 'bred' only to be sold to corporate sweatshops and/or workhouses, both with deplorable working conditions. Despite child labor laws, which exist even in developing countries, many governments, such as that of China do not have the human resources to enforce these laws. Economic and political survival of nations and corporations perpetuates the horrors of forced labor, especially child labor. Thousands and even millions of laborers are added each year to countries in critical need of a large workforce, contributing to the overall population destabilization of the Earth.
     Population destabilization can be described in terms of humanity's problems as a sudden, seemingly unstoppable increase in population. The population increase can be described as "destabilizing" because never before in history has humanity required such a large quantity of the world's resources to insure survival of the species. Adding to the troubles of the need for resources is the loss of space. Because the population is increasing, people begin to move from regions with very dense populace to areas with a less dense one. Migration patterns of this nature can be seen on landmasses across the globe. With the movement of large groups of people in places where the population is growing in great percentage, loss of land and therefore food occurs. After a mass migration occurs, most arable land is used for the production of food. The sudden change in how the world's resources are consumed is a major contributing factor to forced labor. Because many people do not have the knowledge, skills and/or fertile land to use for food-production, more are forced to accept dangerous and illegal forms of labor merely in order to survive.
     The most significant of the forced labor issues that can possess most horrific ramifications to our future is that of child labor. Child labor is the use or need of non-adults from ages three through seventeen to work in hazardous conditions in order to survive. Although child labor is not the only case of forced labor, it is the largest. Forced child labor affects humanity more greatly than any other because children subjected to this form of exploitation become part of an accepted cycle and their experiences will be imprinted on their offspring as the 'norm.' Types of child labor include: child slavery, the trafficking of children for use in forced labor, prostitution of children, crime involving the use of children, and children used as soldiers. As quoted from the

Position Paper for the UN General Assembly Session on Children

"Affecting 250 million children today, child labour is a massive problem confronting the world community. The practice of child labour is a critical link in the chains that spread illiteracy, suppress women, spur overpopulation, intensify discrimination, and perpetuate poverty," (Global March Against Child Labour). One of the most significant among all the problems created by child labor is the pressure on the environment by the sudden surge in the population of the species. Two hundred-fifty million represents approximately one twenty-fourth, or 4.2%1, of the world's current human population, and one twelfth, or 8.3%2 the approximate total number of children on the planet. All of these children are working, in some way or another, in conditions that disrupt childhood, prevent their education, and violate their human rights. Child labor is among the cases in which the rights of people around the world are undermined in order to make a profit. Corporations and sweatshop owners profit from the use of workers who are either cheaply paid or not paid at all.
     Many of the children who work as child laborers in these conditions are uneducated and therefore ignorant of their rights. This leads to their being subjected to conditions that are hazardous, unsanitary, and ultimately illegal. Although there are laws in place against child labor and child slavery, many employers and/or guardians tend to not disclose information regarding illegal work practices forced on children. This information is withheld due to the fact that the children subjected to forced labor are in environments that may jeopardize their overall health. India is an excellent example of the extreme poverty and oppressive conditions to which child laborers are subjected, and is where an incredible estimate of sixty to one hundred-fifteen million children are working. Quoted from a report by the Human Rights Watch organization, "Whether they are sweating in the heat of stone quarries, working in the fields sixteen hours a day, picking rags in city streets, or hidden away as domestic servants, these children endure miserable difficult lives. They earn little and are abused much," (The Small Hands of Slavery, Human Rights Watch). These children work in difficult conditions to earn just enough money to eat, and perhaps give some to their families. Although both males and females are used as laborers, the female 'employees' are treated far more horribly then their male brethren: they earn less, suffer abuse by their employers, and have more demands placed on them. Although many girls in India work in the master's household, a great percentage of them work in some of the most dangerous labor jobs such as in stone quarries, factories, and in the construction industry. In addition, as the children are spending most of their exhaustingly long waking hours working, these children do not have the time for schooling, and many of them will spend their lives as illiterates. Also, without the education they need in order to lead healthy lives, many will die by the time they reach 30, and will leave any offspring to fend for themselves and possibly enter into the bonded labor system themselves. While most of these children are duty-bound to work as servants because of the expectations of their family's level in India's caste system, approximately fifteen million work in near slave-like conditions. This form of child labor, referred to as bonded child labor, is where children are forced to work in order to pay off their families' debt, in India, usually about 500 to 7500 rupees3,4, or $14.35 to $215.255. The children's parents or guardians incur these debts in the form of a loan from the creditors/employers. A consequence of these debts makes the situation worse: the debt labor will most likely be passed from one family member to another because of the exorbitantly high interest rates charged by the creditors usually increase the amount of the debt. Interest rates of around 1,200% of the loan a year are commonplace. The creditors create these rates in order to insure that the child will never be freed, since the value of a child laborer is much more than the monetary compensation given to the child's parents. An example of the dire living circumstances the victims of bonded labor is a story published in the report by the Human Rights Watch that describes the tale of a ten-year old girl as told by her brother:

My sister is ten years old. Every morning at seven she goes to the bonded labor man, and every night at nine she comes home. He treats her badly; he hits her if he thinks she is working slowly or if she talks to the other children, he yells at her. I don't care about school or playing. I don't care about any of that. All I want is to bring my sister home from the bonded labor man. For 600 rupees I can bring her home - that is our only chance to get her back. We don't have 600 rupees...we will never have 600 rupees. (The Small Hands of Slavery, Human Rights Watch)

Six hundred rupees are equal to $17.22. And she is one in 100 million. Such wide-scale poverty can be unimaginable, especially if viewed from a society where people can easily spend twenty dollars in a few hours. The income gap between the wealthy and the poverty-stricken in India is substantial. But even in this difference, India as a whole accepts bonded labor and bonded child labor because their understanding is well-established by cultural traditions passed down from generation to generation that are and are believed by all. These traditions create the belief that bonded labor is part of the expected order, making the process or eradication more difficult and prolonged. It cannot suddenly be changed, but must be slowly phased out. It is unimaginable that in India, which is the world's largest democracy, the second most populous and soon to be most populous nation, and one of the richest economies in the world, child servitude cannot be stopped because of the people's lack of will. With the government of India showing a lack of interest in stopping forced labor in their nation and being unable to provide for the scale of need of India's people is the reason their population is growing. In a nation of nearly a billion people that has a growth rate so high the population will soon surpass that of China, more and more children will be subjected to forced labor. With the yearly addition to India's population, more people will be needed to keep up with everyone's needs. The major contributing factor to India's overpopulation: the need of more people to work in order to care for the people already living there.
     Although societal bonded labor and the corporate use of children as laborers include a great quantity of those subjected to forced labor, the other forms of labor: child slavery, the trafficking of children, child prostitution, crime involving the use of children, and child soldiers, also affect a great number of children. One example of the cruel punishment of children in slavery is reflected in an article in the Oriental Daily, a Hong Kong newspaper on 10 December 1995. The article describes a fourteen-year-old girl who worked a Qungyuan City Bakery, a locality in Guangdong Province, China, who was "subjected to�torture by her employers," (Unequal Opportunities). Earlier in the year of 1995, bakery owners Cai Jinzhong and his sister, Cai Meiqiong, brought the rape victim and her cousin, 16, from Putian, Fujian Province. The young girls' family was poverty-stricken and chose to work at the Cai sibling's bakery in order to provide money for their family. After one day of training, the two were put to their shifts of 20 hours a day preparing dough for the oven. After a month on the job, the victim one day lost consciousness while on shift, and as punishment the bakery manager burned her with a ladle removed from boiling cooking oil. On other occasions, both Cai siblings tortured her severely with their cooking utensils as a form of punishment. The victim's cousin fled the city, selling his wristwatch to purchase a train ticket, and ended up having to work for 20 days in Guangzhou before returning to Putian. When he returned with the news, the towns' populace was in such an uproar that the authorities arrested the Cai siblings. The victim, extremely traumatized by the situation at the bakery, became mentally unstable by the time she was freed. This girl's case illustrates oppression, cruelty, and the inhumane treatment of child laborers. Unfortunately, events like this abound in China, where, as in India, there is an extreme gap between the poor and wealthy classes. The nation's limited policing forces are stretched because they must control and keep safe more than one billion people.
     However, in other parts of the world, including Asia and Africa, children are seen as potential soldiers in the nation's peacekeeping forces. Because of this practice, population is inflated through the birth of multiple children per family. In the process, governmental family planning programs are preempted in order to create a larger military in time of war. In Sri Lanka, the nation once known as Ceylon, the government, with the support of the nation's Prime Minister wants an increase in birthrate, foregoing its "Small is Beautiful" family planning program, so there will be an increase in the number of clergy and military personnel. In the nation, 63,000 people have died in its long-running civil war. In the words of the Prime Minister, "It is time for people to think that big is better," and the government will give incentives for families with more than two children (Sri Lankans urged to multiply for war). Sri Lanka's Family Planning Association, which provides the "Small is Beautiful" program commented that the government's lack of recruitment is not due to low population, but an ill-successful recruitment program. Such beliefs as that of the Sri Lankan Prime Minister encourage families to grow larger; therefore, increasing the population significantly. Although Sri Lanka may not use children in its military, in Sierra Leone, a small nation on the west coast of Africa, the RUF (Revolutionary United Front), a rebel army, is conscripting children to their military forces, and has not been above abducting children. The RUF has a long-standing history of threatening children into becoming soldiers. These types of "encouragement" can come as basic bribes like telling the children that the RUF will help them be reunited with their parents to more aggressive forms such as threatening the children's lives. Through these methods, the RUF can gain many recruits from the Sierra Leone demobilization camps. Once in the rebel militia, the child soldiers are forced to fight and commit abusive acts or die. Moreover, as the RUF needs not only soldiers, the organization also abducts many other minors for an inexpensive labor force that can carry goods and equipment, and many of the female abductees are mistreated by the gender-discriminating personnel. This cruelty can even come in the form of rape, which abounds among RUF soldiers. To make matters worse, the persecution does not stop after escape from the RUF. Former child soldiers and laborers of Sierra Leone must also face abuse by the pro-government forces, who will beat those from demobilization camps with the reason that they were provoked. Clearly, the lack of sufficient adult military personnel has forced the revolutionists to seek the use of children in all mediums of their war with the Sierra Leone government. And as the exploitation of young girls is widespread among the RUF, it may not be surprising that, in such filthy and unsanitary conditions, unwanted children are born and disease spreads easily.
     The last, and most horrific, example of child labor is the practice of commercial child prostitution. It is estimated that approximately one million children enter the market of commercially exploited children yearly and that the victims are from both genders. In a conference organized by the government of Sweden and UNICEF (the United Nations Children's Fund), the delegates discussed ways to prevent further criminal activities of this nature. Although the United States has recently passed a law forbiding anyone under U.S. jurisdiction to involve themselves in what they call "sex tourism," the problem is still in existence because of its widespread utilization. At the conclusion of the conference, the delegates had formulated a paper describing the problem of commercial exploitation of children and how to stop its spread (Issues - Child Labour). In its explanation, the paper gives evidence of how most of the acts of sexual exploitation can be related to the tourist. With the business world as it is, foreign travel has become common, and therefore has lost its old charm. Visitors, when travelling internationally, are often ignorant or mislead of the cultural values of the nation they are visiting. Therefore, they accept any advice from acquaintances who have been to the host country, and this is especially true in sexual values. According to historical thought, travel and prostitution have always been connected. Early in history, great tourist destinations, usually ancient cities and shrines, have always had their share of local prostitutes. As history proceeded, and sea travel became a more feasible market, the coastal cities became more promiscuous. Thus, with the invention of air travel, sexual services have become that much more readily available. Although travellers may not be intentionally seeking such services when they enter a foreign nation, psychologists have found certain factors that explain why they begin to search for such favors. These factors can include the anonymity that frees them from the rules of their society, the fact that they may not understand the language, reinforcement of cultural prejudice and feeling of economic superiority, ability to flee from an unhappy relationship, and the most significant: the "novelty" of having a child as a sexual partner. The children even become more easily available because organized crime syndicates supply the children in places where child prostitution is much in demand. Part two of the paper describes how a few in the tourism industry are sympathetic to the interest of child exploitation. Although there are laws in most western nations prohibiting the companies from publicizing sex-tours, there is a network in the industry to provide its clients with the option of child exploitation. Evidence of the tourism industry working with child prostitution syndicates was brought forth in 1992 by a Swiss reporter who arranged a sex-tour. At the end of his trip, the reporter wrote an exposition on the tourism agency (World Congress Against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children). Children subjected to prostitution are treated as commodities, and therefore purchased, hired, sold, rented, and eventually thrown away. This treatment of children affects their psyches significantly and can contribute to the overall population increase if more children come into demand. Plus, the typical sentiments of those who receive sexual services can spread disease and unwelcome pregnancies, further causing trauma to the children and affecting their lives forever.
     Understanding the existence and implications of child labor, action must be taken. The United Nations has for years tried to develop a way of combating child labor, and hopefully bringing an end to it worldwide. In a meeting entitled the UN General Assembly on Children, the council describes the resources and requirements that are necessary in order to "ensure the rights of all children," (Issues-Child Labour). The table below lists the requirements:

Table 1 - Position Paper for the UN General Assembly Session on Children First priority for children's needs in the budget setting process at national, state, and local levels Within three years, at least 0.1% of the GNP of developed countries to be dedicated to official development aid exclusively for children, with two-thirds of this aid to be allocated for girls A commitment by governments to allocate at least 6% of GNP for education, with two-thirds earmarked for primary education A reaffirmation to the promise that no country serious about achieving education for all will fail for lack of resources Implementation of a Global Initiative to mobilise and coordinate additional resources for education and, within the next 5 years, the conversion of at least 10 billion dollars of debt into resources for primary education A commitment for the international community to support the efforts of national governments to set ambitious but achievable targets for the progressive elimination of child labour The donation by socially responsible businesses of at least 1% of their profits to meet the basic needs of children Guarantees from international financial institutions that their interventions will support the fundamental rights of children, reduce child labour, and promote quality education for all Issues-Child Labour

These requirements, set at the meeting in 2001, lay down a framework for freeing all children from forced labor and giving them the rights they deserve. The UN resolution will hopefully be enacted with much haste, and may be given even more attention if citizens of the UN countries send letters and petitions in to put an end to child labor; although, it still will take many years to free all from bondage. And although child prostitution is the most horrible of all child labor dilemmas, commercial child sexual exploitation may be one of the easiest to resolve. With the removal of tourism licences from agencies, and the education of those who travel abroad, can help slow and even stop the proliferation of child prostitution. By refusing to create sex-tours, the tourism industry, combined with travellers who refuse such services would collapse the network created by organized crime syndicates. Workers in the tourism industry are in a rare situation to quickly end child prostitution.
     In closing, forced child labor is an atrocious institution in our world. It sends into the minds of our world's young ones that they are not deserving of rights and they lose hope. They are overworked, tortured, malnourished, raped, prostituted, and forced into circumstances of war. The needs of nations who are in desperate need of cheap labor, such as overpopulated India, add more people to their already superfluous populace. Increases of thousands and even millions of people around the world into forced labor significantly increases the population and contributes to the overall population destabilization of the Earth.

Annotations

1. Pg. 3, Ln. 14: 6,000,000,000 x 4.2% = 252,000,000. Total estimated population of the planet is approximately six billion.
2. Pg. 3, Ln. 15: 3,000,000,000 x 8.3% = 249,000,000. Total estimated number of children on the planet is approximately three billion.
3. All dollar figures are in United States currency.
4. Pg. 5, Ln. 3: 500 rupees x 2.87% = $14.35. The Indian rupee is worth .0287 dollars.
5. Pg. 5, Ln. 3: 7,500 rupees x 2.87% = $215.25. The Indian rupee is worth .0287 dollars.

Works Cited

"Global March Against Child Labour." Position Paper for the
     UN General Assembly Special Session on Children.

Child

     

Labour: Issues and Themes

. The Child and Armed
     Conflict Unit. 9 September 2002 .
"Issues-Child Labour."

Child Labour: Issues and Themes

. The
     Child and Armed Conflict Unit. 9 September 2002 .
"Sri Lankans urged to multiply for war." BBC News. 20 September 2002 .
"The Small Hands of Slavery: Bonded Child Labor in India."
     September 1996. Human Rights Watch. 9 October 2002 .
"Unequal Opportunities." China Rights Forum. 18 September 2002 .
"Why Population Matters." World Population Awareness. 20 August 2002 . "World Congress Against the Commercial Sexual
     Exploitation of Children." August 1996. United States
     Embassy Stockholm. 9 October 2002. .

Bibliography

Basu, Kaushik. "Child Labor: Cause, Consequences and
     Cure, with Remarks on International Labor Standards."
     

Child Labour: Issues and Themes

. The Child and Armed
     Conflict Unit. 30 September 2002
     http://www.worldbank.org/html/dec/Publications/Workpapers/wps2000series/wps2027/wps2027.pdf.
"Facts and FAQ." World Population Awareness. 19 September 2002
     http://www.population-awareness.net/faq.html.
"Global March Against Child Labour." Position Paper for the
     UN General Assembly Special Session on Children.
     

Child Labour: Issues and Themes

. The Child and Armed
     Conflict Unit. 9 September 2002
     http://www.essex.ac.uk/armedcon/Issues/text2000/child%
     20labour/001.htm.
"Issues-Child Labour."

Child Labour: Issues and Themes

. The
     Child and Armed Conflict Unit. 9 September 2002
     http://www.essex.ac.uk/armedcon/themes/childlabour/.
"Sri Lankans urged to multiply for war." BBC News. 20 September 2002
     http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1396590.stm.
"The Small Hands of Slavery: Bonded Child Labor in India."
     September 1996. Human Rights Watch. 9 October 2002
     http://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/India3.htm.
"Unequal Opportunities." China Rights Forum. 18 September 2002
     http://www.igc.apc.org/hric/crf/english/96spring/e6.html.
"Why Population Matters." World Population Awareness. 20 August 2002
     http://www.popualtion-awareness.net/whyPopMatters.html.
"World Congress Against the Commercial Sexual
     Exploitation of Children." August 1996. United States
     Embassy Stockholm. 9 October 2002.
     http://www.usus.usemb.se/children.