Day: June 12, 2023

Eliminating child labor will remain a pipe dream as long as major countries and big corporations continue to exploit this modern-day ‘slavery’ for their supply chains, according to a prominent rights activist.

‘There are 1 million children working inside the US and more than a million children working inside the EU,’ Fernando Morales-de la Cruz, a rights activist, journalist and social entrepreneur, told Anadolu in a conversation ahead of the World Day Against Child Labor, marked annually on June 12.

‘Sadly, there are tens of millions of children working in the supply chains of the US and EU. This has to stop.’

He said countries such as Norway and Switzerland also continue to ‘profit from the exploitation of millions of children by corporations.’

According to Morales-de la Cruz, more than 75 million children are being exploited in global supply chains.

In Africa, the region with the highest figures, he said child labor in the supply chains of major corporations is akin to ‘slavery in the 21st century.’

He also called out companies with ‘exploitative business models’ for touting the Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System (CMLRS) or aid efforts as signs of their positive intent.

‘CLMRS and development aid are only tools to pretend they care,’ he added.

The only real way to eradicate poverty and eliminate child labor is to increase ‘the prices paid to farmers and the wages paid to workers,’ he underlined.

2025 goal ‘impossible’

Given the pervasive exploitation of children in global supply chains, the world is ‘very far’ from actually eradicating child labor, Morales-de la Cruz asserted.

According to International Labor Organization (ILO) data, at least 160 million children were being made to work around the globe in 2021 – almost one in 10 of all children worldwide.

Nearly half of them were in hazardous work that directly endangers their health, safety and development.

Morales-de la Cruz, who leads several initiatives working on child labor, slavery and poverty, argued that the actual numbers could be as high as double the ILO figures.

He was referring to a September 2022 study by academics from the University of Zurich and University of Pennsylvania, which said the ILO numbers might ‘greatly underestimate the extent of the issue, since child labor indicators are typically based on surveys with parents – who have no incentive to truthfully disclose that their children work.’

The report said more than 373 million children between age 7 and 14 could be affected by child labor worldwide, ‘nearly 3-fold its global prevalence according to the World Development Indicators.’

Morales-de la Cruz categorically rejected any possibility of the international community achieving its aim of ending child labor by 2025.

‘It’s impossible. Even after the G-7 and EU committed in Elmau and Hiroshima, not a single developed nation has a concrete plan to eliminate child labor in its supply chains or even inside their own countries,’ he said.

He pointed to the concerted efforts underway in various US states to loosen child labor laws to allow companies to employ kids aged 14 and older, as well as recent legislation allowing children as young as 12 to work in small agricultural businesses in Quebec, Canada.

‘This is contrary to the commitments of President (Joe) Biden and Prime Minister (Justin) Trudeau at G-7 summits,’ he stressed.

In the US, the Department of Labor reported a 69% rise in children being employed illegally since 2018, including 3,800 violations across 835 companies in the 2022 fiscal year, damning figures that come amid legislative overhauls in Republican-majority states.

Much of the increase was tied to migrant children who entered the US illegally and who do not have a parent in the country, the department said in a February report.

Even international organizations like the UN, which have obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, are unable to eliminate child labor in their own supply chains, Morales-de la Cruz added.

He said there can be no effective solution until major countries and big companies are held accountable, and called on the thousands of business and political leaders who gather for the World Economic Forum in Davos each year to take the lead in efforts to address the issue.

The ILO declined to comment on Anadolu’s queries about possible discrepancies in its global child labor statistics, as well as Morales-de la Cruz’s allegations about the prevalence of child labor in supply chains of international organizations such as the UN.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Swiss private lender UBS said Monday it has completed the takeover of its rival Credit Suisse.

UBS said: “Credit Suisse Group AG has been merged into UBS Group AG and the combined entity will operate as a consolidated banking group.”

Credit Suisse, which was in deep financial trouble, was taken over by its rival UBS in March for some $3.2 billion.

It stressed that Credit Suisse’s shares will no longer be traded on the New York Stock Exchange and shareholders will receive 1 UBS share for every 22.48 Credit Suisse shares.

UBS will manage two separate banks under the names of UBS AG and Credit Suisse AG and each lender will continue to have its own subsidiaries and branches.

The statement also announced that Lukas Gahwiler will be chair of Credit Suisse’s board.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Ukraine said early Monday that the “fighter jet coalition” led by Western countries in support of Kyiv will be discussed during an upcoming Ramstein format meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.

‘During the meeting, we will discuss the details of the ‘aircraft coalition’. In this case, we are talking about the training of pilots and not only pilots but also our technicians and engineers who will deal with aircraft maintenance. Because this is a very complex system,’ Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said, according to a statement by the ministry on Telegram.

Reznikov said that the issue will be discussed with the teams of the defense ministries of the Netherlands, Denmark, the US, and other countries that have joined the coalition, adding that he included representatives of the Air Force in the Ukrainian delegation.

He also said issues related to the provision of air defense systems, ammunition, and artillery will also be discussed during the meeting.

‘Our priorities have not changed. This war is a war of resources. Resources mean not only weapons but also the ability to repair and maintain them and everything related to this,’ he said, adding opening various types of hubs for repairing equipment is an important issue.

The Western nations continue to support Ukraine with military and financial aid since the war began last year on Feb. 24. So far, they have been reluctant to send fighter jets to Kyiv.

However, Denmark and the Netherlands are playing a lead role among the Western countries, training the Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets, tweeted US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on May 25.

The US Defense Department announced last Tuesday that an in-person meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group is scheduled to take place at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels on June 15.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The author is a consultant and human rights trainer, specializing in negotiation, interethnic dialogue and peacebuilding with international organizations. She holds a PhD in Intercultural studies, with a major on ‘Children, Politics and Ideology’. She is currently conducting a postdoctoral research on youth-led nation-building approaches in conflict-affected settings. Dr. Drosopulos has nine (9) working languages, including Turkish and Russian.

ISTANBUL

In three questions, Mary Drosopulos points out the children that have disappeared since the start of the Ukraine-Russia war.

How many children are lost in the war?

Amid active hostilities and frustration, assessing the exact number of children lost during the war is impossible. According to recent figures (02.06.2023) provided by official Ukrainian sources, updated on a daily basis, ever since the outbreak of war until today, 19,505 children have been deported to Russia [1]. Out of these, only 371 have been returned, while 392 children are considered missing. To help locate missing children, the Ukrainian government has set up a website called “Children of War”.

Based on findings of research [2] conducted by the Yale School of Public Health together with the Conflict Observatory [3], published last February, at least 6,000 children from Ukraine ages 4 months to 17 years have been held at camps or other facilities across Russia and Russia-occupied Crimea since the start of the war on February 24, 2022. As per evidence provided in the report [4], these camps have been promoting the political re-education of Ukrainian minors and specifically, their ‘russification’ through military and patriotic training depicting Russia as the absolute “Motherland.” [5]

Rumors about Ukrainian minors being kept in Russia by force had first emerged last spring: In March 19, 2022, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry claimed that Russian forces had abducted 2,389 children from the Luhansk and Donetsk regions [6].

As per information provided via the European Parliamentary Research Service [7], several categories of “lost” children have been identified. Some are orphans or members of poor families, that have been forcibly displaced from state institutions; others had been separated from their relatives during the ‘filtration’ process [8], while there is also the case of children who had been sent to summer camps in various parts of Russia (often with parental consent) to escape witnessing atrocities, yet were not returned after their stipulated period of stay. In January 2023, Resolution 2482 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) called for “an immediate halt to the forced deportation and transfer of Ukrainian civilians, including children, to Russia and their safe return to Ukraine” [9].

What are the statements of different parties on the incident?

The Kremlin claims to be acting for humanitarian reasons, saving children from danger and hardship [10]; the Kyiv speaks of genocide [11]. The issue of Ukraine’s lost children has taken on symbolic connotations for both sides, which have been justifying their narrative in terms of identity, nationhood and dominance.

Two weeks after the outbreak of war, Maria Lvova-Belova, Putin’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights had reported during an official meeting that 1090 children, identified by Russia as orphans, had been rescued from state care institutions in the Donbas region and had arrived in Russia where “big-hearted” citizens were lining up to receive them [12]. Belova would soon turn into a key figure in this controversial story, portrayed by the local media as an “angelic” figure and “savior” of Ukrainian children. To her Western critics, she would respond by projecting the purity of her motives, justified, in her view, by the fact that she herself is a mother of 23 children, including a fostered child from Mariupol.

In May 2022, Putin modified Russia’s legal framework to fast-track and simplify the process for granting Russian passports and citizenship to Ukrainian children who were, allegedly, without parental care [13]. A couple of months later, in mid-July, Ukrainian children were pictured on the social media holding Russian documents during a naturalization ceremony, with Belova commenting publicly on how happy children looked after becoming Russian citizens [14].

The West has strongly condemned Russia’s practices. International humanitarian organizations, such as UNHCR, UN, UNICEF and civil societies worldwide have voiced strong concerns and condemned Russia for its actions.

On June 1, on the occasion of the International Day for Protection of Children, diplomatic missions in Ukraine made a joint statement where they expressed their appalment “by Russia’s large-scale forced transfer and deportation of children to Russia or Russian-controlled territory within Ukraine” and strongly urged the Russian Federation “to return Ukraine’s children to Ukraine” [15].

Can you compare the reactions towards Ukraine’s lost children with other cases of lost children in the world?

On March 17, 2023, Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against Putin and Belova for the war crime of the alleged deportation of children [16]. This action resulted in several missing children returning to their families at the end of the same month. The number of returnees has not been specified, but it is said to be small compared to the overall volume of children still missing [17].

It is worth clarifying that, neither Russia nor Ukraine are ICC members. In practical terms, ICC lacks jurisdiction over these two territories, however, Russia’s prosecution has a highly symbolic value: The issuing of warrants intends to communicate a strong message that no one is immune and that “the world is watching”.

The international community has been discussing the establishment of a special tribunal for the crime of aggression, as this would be the only way for Russian leaders to be held accountable. The Gordon Brown initiative [18] is indicative of such intentions, yet consensus among international actions is yet to be reached.

International support has also been expressed in the form of generous amounts of financial assistance, a part of which is granted to civil society organisations caring for children. ‘Save Ukraine’ [19], the only public organisation in the country that regularly designs and conducts missions to repatriate children, is supported by American funds [20]. The organisation is also a frontrunner in documenting missing children’s cases, which it files to local and international courts. The United States is the largest single country donor of humanitarian aid in Ukraine, having provided more than $688 million through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) ever since the eruption of war [21].

To understand the cost of lost children to different stakeholders, one should go back to similar practices documented: The “disappeared children of Argentina” seized by the junta or “Spain’s lost babies of Francoism” are only some tragic cases in recent global history, where minors have been used as “trophies” of war. Abducted children can end up as victims of illegal adoptions, but also sexual exploitation or organ trafficking.

It should be noted than an international mobilization of such magnitude has not been witnessed in previous crises recorded in recent history involving children, as in the case, for instance, of the lost children of Syria. Geopolitical implications continue having an impact on international community’s approach. In August, 29, 2022, at her briefing to the Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Syria [22], assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Joyce Msuya had emphasized that ‘irreversible damage is being caused to the lives of Syrian civilians due to chronic under-funding of the international effort’ and had warned that if the international community does not act immediately, then a whole generation of Syrian children ‘might be lost’ [23].

[1] https://childrenofwar.gov.ua/en/

[2] https://hub.conflictobservatory.org/portal/apps/sites/#/home/pages/children-camps-1

[3] https://ysph.yale.edu/news-article/yale-joins-conflict-observatory-documenting-ukraine-war-crimes/

[4] https://hub.conflictobservatory.org/portal/sharing/rest/content/items/97f919ccfe524d31a241b53ca44076b8/data

[5] https://hub.conflictobservatory.org/portal/sharing/rest/content/items/97f919ccfe524d31a241b53ca44076b8/data

[6] https://www.9news.com.au/world/russia-ukraine-update-russia-accused-of-kidnapping-thousands-of-children/8a2c964f-a829-4f42-869c-681c4df98507

[7] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2023/747093/EPRS_BRI(2023)747093_EN.pdf

[8] https://www.gov.pl/web/special-services/special-services-have-identified-russian-filtration-camps

[9] https://pace.coe.int/pdf/af950f18903d947bda73c9e0a7689a2f41e9128cd2da8bd1bc2211277e4e666a/res.%202482.pdf

[10] https://iz.ru/1441845/kseniia-nabatkina/oni-boiatsia-gromkikh-zvukov-perezhivaiut-za-svoe-budushchee

[11] https://www.kmu.gov.ua/en/news/zaiava-mzs-ukrainy-do-mizhnarodnoho-dnia-pamiati-zhertv-zlochynu-henotsydu-vshanuvannia-ikhnoi-hidnosti-ta-poperedzhennia-tsoho-zlochynu

[12] http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67949

[13] http://deti.gov.ru/articles/news/deti-iz-dnr-nachali-poluchat-grazhdanstvo-rossii-v-uproshennom-poryadke

[14] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V138M3W7ft4

[15] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-statement-on-deportation-of-ukrainian-children-by-russia

[16] https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-ukraine-icc-judges-issue-arrest-warrants-against-vladimir-vladimirovich-putin-and

[17] https://missingchildreneurope.eu/ukraine/

[18] https://gordonandsarahbrown.com/2022/03/calling-for-the-creation-of-a-special-tribunal-for-the-punishment-of-the-crime-of-aggression-against-ukraine/

[19] https://saveukraineua.org/

[20] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/25/us/politics/ukraine-missing-children.html

[21] https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/press-release/united-states-announces-additional-humanitarian-assistance-ukraine#:~:text=The%20United%20States%2C%20through%20the%20U.S.%20Agency%20for,that%20has%20triggered%20staggering%20displacement%20and%20humanitarian%20need.

[22] https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/assistant-secretary-general-humanitarian-affairs-and-deputy-emergency-relief-coordinator-ms-joyce-msuya-briefing-security-council-humanitarian-situation-syria-29-august-2022

[23] https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/08/1125702

*Opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Anadolu.

Source: Anadolu Agency