HISTORIC BREAKTHROUGH
FOR BANGLADESH KIDS
ENDANGERED BY
INDUSTRY INACTION
Garment Industry Delays Survey to Find
Child Workers, Place in Schools
by Pharis Harvey, Executive Director
In Worker Rights News n. 12 - August 1995
On July 4, 1995, the global campaign to eliminate child labor achieved a major victory. The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the International Labor Office (ILO) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to remove underage childrenÑthose under 14 in the case of BangladeshÑfrom BGMEA's 2,000 plus factories and to place those children in educational programs. Although the exact number of children affected will not be known until a survey is conducted, it is probably in the range of 25,000 to 50,000, and, if some journalistic reports are accurate, may be as high as 300,000. The agreement was also witnessed by U.S. Ambassador David N. Merrill, whose efforts were key to the success of the negotiations. The Bangladesh government also joined in the last phase to observe the talks and encourage their successful conclusion.
However, six weeks after the MOU was signed, the BGMEA had still formed no survey teams, and the success of the entire plan was put in doubt. After more than a month of waiting for BGMEA to name its surveyors, ILO and UNICEF have taken over the lead in forming teams. As of this writing, however, BGMEA is preventing the teams from functioning by refusing to name its representatives, without which the teams cannot gain entrance to factories.
If carried out as planned, this MOU is significant for numerous reasons. On a strategic level, the process culminating in the successful MOU demonstrated the effectiveness of global leverage and adroit negotiations. On a structural level, the terms of the MOU reveal an understanding by all parties of the broader problems which allow the system of child labor to perpetuate. Most child workers in the factories either join the impoverished informal sector upon reaching adulthood or barely reach adulthood at all. Thus, child labor, rather than alleviating poverty perpetuates it. Meanwhile, in most South Asian communities in which child labor is common, adult unemployment rates approximate child labor rates.
The MOU allocates funds for the education of child laborers, breaking the cycle of hopelessness for these children, and at the same time opens up spaces in factories where adults can work. And, at a family level, the agreement provides for the financial needs that arise when the children lose income. Immediate relatives of the retrenched child workers are to be given first priority for jobs. Children will also receive a stipend that is close to their current income if they stay in school.
GSP PETITIONS
Advocates have contributed to three petitions filed in June with the U.S. Trade Representative, challenging the beneficiary status of Indonesia, Colombia and the Philippines in the Generalized System of Preferences. This program, which give tariff-free access to the U.S. market for selected products from beneficiary developing countries, requires these countries to be "taking steps to afford workers internationally-recognized workers rights." In addition to the new petitions filed this year, the ILRF has petitions currently under review relating to Pakistan and Guatemala.
THE TERMS OF THE AGREEMENT
The MOU calls for the BGMEA, together with the ILO and UNICEF, to establish survey teams to ascertain the numbers of child workers. This survey was to have been completed by the end of August, but as noted, has not yet been able to start its work. The survey teams will also investigate whether there are family members of underaged workers who could fill job vacancies in the industry. Following the survey period, UNICEF, aided by local NGOs with experience in non formal education, will set up facilities to place children when they are retrenched. Target date is October 31, although the MOU proscribes BGMEA from firing children until school facilities can be made available. The agreement also forbids new hiring of children.
Funds for the program will be provided by UNICEF and the ILO. Combined they will give around $425,000 in 1995 alone, and have committed to provide ongoing monthly assistance for children's education and living expenses. The BGMEA has also pledged to provide significant funds for schooling and rehabilitation, upwards of $900,000 over the next three years.
The ILO Bangladesh office will hire and supervise a series of compliance monitors to assure that children are not fired prematurely, and that no children are subsequently hired to replace the ones being dismissed. UNICEF will oversee the schooling.
CONTEXT OF THE AGREEMENT
Senator Harkin's Child Labor Deterrence Act, recently reintroduced in the House by Rep. Barney Frank and others, basically states that goods produced by children under 15 (except in very poor countries where the limit could be 14, as per ILO standards) culd not be imported into the U.S. Some 43 percent of all Bangladesh garments are sold in the U.S. After a "60 Minutes" expose' in 1993 of clothes being made for WalMart by children in Dhaka, the BGMEA began to try to find a way to save its industry from the effect of this threatened import ban.
Negotiations proceeded by fits and starts through late 1993 and 1994. Thanks to the negotiating skills of ILRF general counsel Terry Collingsworth, who is the country director for the Asian American Free Labor Institute, and the persistence of the U.S. ambassador in Dhaka, David Merrill, the negotiations made significant progress during the fall of 1994. However, after the November electionsin the U.S. gave the BGMEA reason to believe the Harkin bill would not be passed in the current congress, the talks stalled.
In January, the Child Labor Coalition in the U.S. contacted Redwan Ahmed, M.P., president of the BGMEA, to inform him of its interest in these talks and its enthusiasm for the outline agreement they had reached before November. However, CLC co-chair Pharis Harvey told the BGMEA that if they should fail to come to an agreement, the coalition would encourage consumers in the U.S. to avoid buying Bangladesh garments. The talks resumed. By late March, an agreement had been reached by the negotiators and it was hoped that it could be signed while U.S. First Lady Hillary Clinton was in Dhaka on March 31. But, the BGMEA backed away, arguing a need for approval by all its members after a two-week notification period. Two weeks later, the BGMEA insisted they needed another month to plan an extraordinary general assembly to vote on the plan. On May 17, at this assembly, the BGMEA factory owners rejected the plan by a decisive vote. Instead, they passed a resolution to dismiss all children in the factories by October 31, without any compensation and without any plan for education or verification. (A similar resolution had been passed the previous year without significant effect, apart from the loss of jobs by an uncertain number of children.)
At this point, the Child Labor Coalition began its boycott call. On May 20, notice of the boycott was mailed to all 50 CLC member organizations, as well as to the Bangladesh and U.S. trade press. Within four days the negotiators were back at the table.
At the insistence of the BGMEA, AAFLI had already withdrawn from direct involvement. However, the ILO, which had hitherto been on the sidelines, joined in. Through June, the negotiators worked feverishly to reach an agreement and, on June 30, they succeeded. To honor Ambassador Merrill, without whose effort the talks would never have succeeded, the formal signing was set for America's birthday, July 4.
Although boycotts are risky because of the difficulty of ending them if conditions improve, CLC believed that the importance of the cause, coupled with its knowledge that U.S. retailers and consumers do not want to buy products made with child labor, rendered the threat logical and necessary.
Consequently, thanks to mutual persistence by all parties, an agreement was reached with no losers. In the long run, all are damaged by the use of underage labor in the factories: the children whose lives are compromised, the adults and heads of families who go without work, and the industry itself, which will eventually lose international market share if it does not comply with this basic labor norm.
A number of opportunities still exist to thwart the purpose of this agreement. The Child Labor Coali tion and other NGOs in Bangladesh have pledged to watch closely, and if necessary to point out the names of firms that do not comply to U.S. industry circles and to the media. Should a general breakdown of the agreement occur, a return to boycott would be necessary. However, with the full weight of UNICEF, ILO and the U.S. embassy in Dhaka behind this pact, it is hoped that the good will and good sense which created the MOU will continue to prevail.
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