Uzbek Cotton: A New Spin on Child Labour in the Clothing Industry? (Case Study)
Q1. Which human or employee rights are at stake in
this case, and who are the key stakeholders?
Development rights: The right to enable children
reach their full potential.
Protection Rights: Rights that are essential to safeguard
children from all forms of abuse, neglect, and exploitation.
Participation Rights: The right that allows children to
take more active roles in their lives and communities.
Survival Right: The right to live life and to have
the most important basic needs.
Q2. Apply John Ruggies framework
for business and human rights of protection, respect, and remedy to this situation.
What does this suggest about the relative responsibilities of corporations and
governments in this case?
Companies are getting more concerned with child labour, especially
in their supply chains. They normally view it as un-appropriate with their values,
and also a real threat to their image. Child labour can be found in all phases
of supply chains, in agriculture, manufacturing, or retail.
Governments
shall make sure that pay for suppliers is
good enough to prevent hiring child laborers instead of adults, and provide
good labor conditions as well.
On
the corporation's side they should:
1. Commit themselves to prohibit Uzbek cotton from their supply chain.
2. Lobby the Uzbek
Government to allow an approved International
Labour Organization observe the harvest.
3. Use all available
means to pressure the Uzbek Government to end child labor.
4. Make their customers aware of this how much cotton they
purchase from Uzbekistan annually.
Q3. Should western
companies consider further action to help protect child cotton workers, or have
they already effectively discharged their ethical responsibility by instituting
a boycott of Uzbek cotton?
Yes they should consider further action, even if
they have done a great step towards preventing child abuse in Uzbekistan. Therefore,
I suggest further action like working together with local governments, trade
unions, and local organizations to eliminate child labor. A structural
solution is better reached when working together. Protecting the child workers' rights must not be only within the cotton
industry but in all other industries. As the boycott approach didn't have a high
effect on the Uzbek government, because they opened other deals with different
international markets that decided to
buy from them.
Q4. If you were working
for a group dedicated to eradicating child labor, what would your strategy be
now?
My strategy will be :
1- Show parents
the importance of education.
2- Make children love to go to school.
3- Law punishment for companies, governments, and
individuals for hiring and abusing
children.
4- Providing better salaries for parents to support
their families to prevent sending them to work.
5- Launch several campaigns for institutions to adopt and enforce codes
of conduct.
6- Support workers that are struggling to
organize unions and reject child labor.
7- Promoting
global labor standards in all trade agreements.
8- Promoting better access to
education.
