Liberia: Mistreatment of Child Workers by Super Bowl Advertiser Bridgestone-Firestone Needs Scrutiny
Bridgestone-Firestone runs the largest rubber operation in the world based in Liberia. The country's fertile soil and stable workforce brought Firestone to Liberia back in 1926. For 82 years, the company has secured a steady flow of rubber from Liberia to the United States through a system based on modern-day slavery. Firestone has recently signed an agreement with the Liberian government that will keep them there until at least 2042.
Much of the article goes through the struggle of an individual child, Abu. He is an eleven year old child who helps his father with his work. Abu explained how he started at 4:30am cleaning the storage cups, applying chemicals and pesticides to trees, and then moving on to collect the white rubber sap streaming down each tree. He poured the cup of rubber sap into a large bucket then hoisted two of these buckets onto a pole to move from tree to tree. These buckets weigh around 75 pounds once they are full. Abu then takes these two heavy buckets a mile down the road to vast storage tanks where the rubber would be poured into tanker trucks and taken to a processing area before shipment to America. Abu once wanted to be a doctor, but is unable to go to school and is used as beasts of burden; he and countless other children have no way out.
There is a horrible quota system that withholds pay unless a set number of trees are tapped (milked) each day. Firestone has set the number at 650 trees. According the research done by CNN, it would take nearly 21 hours to complete this task as an individual. These parents are forced to have their kids help so they can attain their daily wage of $3.19.
In November 2005, the International Labor Rights Fund brought a case against Firestone in U.S. Federal court for violations of child labor rights. Now in discovery phase in U.S. District Court in the Southern district of Indiana, t he case spotlights Firestone's modern day slavery and abuse of children's rights. There are also many complaints of Firestone for chemicals and other toxic wastes being dumped into the rivers. In 2007 Firestone was awarded the “Public Eye” award given by global environmentalists and non-governmental organizations to the most irresponsible corporation in the world.
I thought this was a very interesting article and thought the story of Abu was a classic example of many of the child labor predicaments we have gone over in class. He is put in a situation where he must help his family at such a young age that will limit him from ever receiving a formal education and lining his life up for this kind of work for a long while. This is a very sad reality that people must live like this and huge corporations don’t really care as long as they receive their money.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200802020049.html
2 comments:
Thanks for spreading the word about this situation! You can find out a lot more information and ways to take action by visiting http://www.StopFirestone.org.
You can send an urgent action e-mail to the NFL and Firestone here: http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/NFL08
You may also be interested in the stories of other children on the plantation. Check out these recently collected affidavits from child laborers on the Firestone rubber plantation: http://www.stopfirestone.org/Affidavits2008.pdf
This was an mind distrubing article to me. It is sad to know that a child has to work to help provide for his family. Being a HDFS major, I know that this child will never get the experience of just being a kid. All of his social and mental abilities are over looked as a child and he is thought of as an adult. We really need to figure out a way to stop such things in other parts of the world. I also don't understand why the U.S is always the main focus of these problems. We need to do better for our neighboring countries.
Post a Comment