Ebola: The Fight to Reach Zero and the Road to Recovery
To mitigate the outbreak’s ripple effects, Solidarity Center is currently providing financial assistance to infected workers and for families of deceased workers.
Cambodia Child Labor Laws Flouted with Fake IDs
Despite national legislation, poverty leads Cambodian families to help children lie about their age to get a job, while factories turn a blind eye to underage workers. Prospects for the workers, most of them female, are not good, according to Dave Welsh, country director for U.S.-based labor rights group the Solidarity Center. “At the end of their career, at the ripe old age of 35, the majority are left with no savings, no transferable skills and very little education,” he says. “The companies are taking the best years of these young women’s lives and working them to exhaustion.”
Swaziland: Police Attack Another Union Meeting
“In June 2014 the U.S. government took the rare step of suspending African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade benefits for Swaziland, citing the Swazi government’s systematic violations of fundamental worker rights, including refusal to legally recognize TUCOSWA,” reported the Solidarity Center.
U.S. Senate Looks at Way to Address ‘Modern Slavery’
Shawna Bader-Blau, executive director of the Solidarity Center, testified at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. She said the United States has a real opportunity to lead the fight against worker exploitation, especially with regard to upcoming negotiations on the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. “Our diplomacy must be much more robust and aggressive on tackling the root causes” of forced labor, Bader-Blau told the committee, stating her belief that “it’s not too much to ask that we see real systematic changes” in how countries operate before agreeing to anything in trade negotiations.
No World Bank Probe of Labor Abuses in Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan continued using forced labor, including children, for the country’s recent cotton harvest, according to a recent report by the Uzbek-German Forum, notes the Solidarity Center, a member of the Cotton Campaign.
Investigation Appears Stalled in Cambodia’s Garment Sector Killings
A year after two dozen large fashion brands wrote the Cambodian government requesting investigation into the killing by security forces of 5 garment workers protesting low wages, there has been no investigation or compensation for families of the deceased according to Dave Welsh, Solidarity Center-Cambodia.