Child Maids Posed As Family In The US?

Huffington Post- IRVINE, Calif. — Late at night, the neighbors saw a little girl at the kitchen sink of the house next door. They watched through their window as the child rinsed plates under the open faucet. She wasn't much taller than the counter and the soapy water swallowed her slender arms.

To put the dishes away, she climbed on a chair.

But she was not the daughter of the couple next door doing chores. She was their maid.

Shyima was 10 when a wealthy Egyptian couple brought her from a poor village in northern Egypt to work in their California home. She awoke before dawn and often worked past midnight to iron their clothes, mop the marble floors and dust the family's crystal. She earned $45 a month working up to 20 hours a day. She had no breaks during the day and no days off.

The trafficking of children for domestic labor in the U.S. is an extension of an illegal but common practice in Africa. Families in remote villages send their daughters to work in cities for extra money and the opportunity to escape a dead-end life. Some girls work for free on the understanding that they will at least be better fed in the home of their employer.

The custom has led to the spread of trafficking, as well-to-do Africans accustomed to employing children immigrate to the U.S. Around one-third of the estimated 10,000 forced laborers in the United States are servants trapped behind the curtains of suburban homes, according to a study by the National Human Rights Center at the University of California at Berkeley and Free the Slaves, a nonprofit group. No one can say how many are children, especially since their work can so easily be masked as chores.

Once behind the walls of gated communities like this one, these children never go to school. Unbeknownst to their neighbors, they live as modern-day slaves, just like Shyima, whose story is pieced together through court records, police transcripts and interviews.

"I'd look down and see her at 10, 11 _ even 12 _ at night," said Shyima's neighbor at the time, Tina Font. "She'd be doing the dishes. We didn't put two and two together."

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Thankyou Knowledgium for the heads up.

World Day Against Child Labor

Today is World Day Against Child Labor.
Learn More here

Read an article about the Modern day slavery of child workers that you may unwittingly be contributing to here.

Take action to make change here and here.

*World Day Against Child Labor was established in 2002 by the International Labor Organization (ILO) as a way to highlight to plight of children exposed to the worst forms of child labor. This year's theme is "Education: The Right Response to Child Labor." More information available here.

-From ILRF

crossposted at UU

The Great African Scandal

Do you wear, purchase or create in gold?
Do you eat American grown rice?
Do you eat, purchase or create in chocolate?

I did. That is until I watched a film by Dr. Robert Beckford who visited Ghana and meets with three families involved in extracting the natural resources needed for gold, rice and chocolate.

This film is a strong argument for Fair Trade items.

Yes, Fair Trade costs more and with the skyrocketing of food prices globally it is hard to consider going for pricier fair trade chocolate, for instance. If we are to truly calculate costs, however, no price is great enough.

Buying fair trade insures that no child labor is used, that schooling is mandatorily provided and that worker's conditions are monitored and maintained for safety.

According to the Fair Trade Federation:

"Children’s school fees are paid; nutritional needs met; health care costs are covered; the poor, especially women, are empowered; the environmental impact of production, sourcing, and transport is mitigated to the fullest extent possible. Such an impact is created, because fair trade approaches development as a holistic process."

If we are not conscious of the processes and consequences of the goods we purchase we are agents of destruction. With awakened knowledge however, we will be found to be Agents of Rejuvenation.

Watch The Great African Scandal.

Will you alter your purchases after viewing this video?


A Contribution of Danielle Vyas