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Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

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| 12:32 PM Jun 30 2018

Dorothee

Germany

‘Domradio’ says that from September on the ‘Landtag’ of Brandenburg (Germany) will have a new law banning tombstones produced by child-labor. Other things the ‘Landtag’ decided this week were that the ash of the diseased must not be turned into diamonds, that from now on stillborn children and miscarriages who weigh less than 500 g must also receive some form of burial and that any miscarriage or stillbirth of less than 500 g must be “eliminated”.
Alas the part about the tombstones can still be changed as in this case they still need to ask a second group of instances called ‘kommunalen Spitzenverbände’ what they think about this.

| 09:43 AM Feb 19 2017

Dorothee

Germany

“Domradio” says that on a business trip to Lebanon – he had to visit multiple places all around the country – a Roman-Catholic cleric reported to the local police having found about 80 child-laborers locked in just one room and having witnessed children being sent across the border to Lebanon to earn some money there refugees. Needless to say he gave them a detailed description of the exact locations and now hopes that the police will act.

| 11:36 AM Jan 07 2017

Dorothee

Germany

>”Domradio” says that according to statistics made by the organisation “Transfair” most Germans seem to be ignorant of the fact that most hazelnuts in German stores come from Turkey and thus are a potential product of child-labor. Of course the stores selling these nuts are aware o that and thus sell imported nuts from Turkey just as they are cheaper. Thus “Domradio” encourages customers to inform themselves – firstly about which kind of products could be produced by child-labor (for example through the “ILO”) and secondly about where the products they buy come from.
>The latest sample of the magazine “GEO” says that an average German has about 40 kg of clothes – about 95 trousers, shirts, jumpers, shoes, gloves, hats, underwear etc. – in his closet. People either don’t take care of their clothes as they are so cheap OR they get bored very fast and want to wear something new. Anyway most Germans – according to the article – throw their clothes out after only three years, despite polls proving that they know that with every new shirt they buy they increase the chance of buying a product made by a child who was forced to work for the well-being of its family.
However there is also good news: “GEO” says that in Hamburg (Germany) a shop named “Redesign” opened that takes old clothes, people don’t need any more and has some sewers transform these old things into more fashionable clothes. Before you can send your clothes to them, they want you to ak them for permission though:
redesign Ateliergemeinschaft S21
Billhorner Deich 94
20539 Hamburg
Tel 01573 8720469
info@redesign-hamburg.de

| 12:07 PM Nov 27 2016

Dorothee

Germany

Under the title “Die Fair-Trade-Lüge” (The Fair-Trade Lie) the German radio station SWR3 now reported why a fair-trade seal doesn’t always guarantee fair-trade-products:
>Unlike the term “organic” “fair trade” isn’t defined by law in many countries including Germany. Thus technically anybody could invent a fair-trade-seal, make up his own criteria for this seal and then put it on some products. Thus you always must be sure to know which seal comes from a serious human-rights organisation and which one doesn’t.
>Even serious organisations like “FLOCERT” can’t watch plantations all the time – at best they can visit there very often – before claiming that these plantations grow fair-trade products. They don’t know how workers are treated or whether or not child-laborers are used when nobody’s watching.
>You may use one of those few serious fair-trade seals if only 1/5 of your product are fair trade.
>Companies that mix fair trade products and non-fair trade products together (for example fair trade oranges and non-fair trade oranges, fair trade cocoa and non-fair trade cocoa…) before producing anything with them are allowed to use a serious fair trade-seal on all of their products even if by chance one bottle of orange-juice or one chocolate.cookie doesn’t contain a single ingredient that was produced under fair conditions.
>Licenses to get a serious fair trade-seal are very expensive. Thus it happens that the boss of a company reduces the wages of his workers to save money to get a fair trade seal.
>These farmers have problems not even fair trade organisations help them with. For example if temporarily the demand for a certain product isn’t that high farmers are just left with a high percentage of their products as nobody wants to buy them.
>Farmers need to sell at least 20% of their goods to actually make some profit. However if their customers already have enough of a certain product to be sold in their shops they usually buy far less than that and thus don’t even pay “their” farmers enough to get by.
As a result the maker of this article suggests avoiding those products that are most likely to be the result of child-labor, like coffee, rice, tea, sugar, vanilla, cocoa, palm-oil, coal, gold, gems and fish caught in some areas…at least until something is done to avoid the problems mentioned above.

| 12:02 AM Jun 10 2016

Dorothee

Germany

“Domradio” says that this Thursday in Cologne more than 100 adolescents and adults – meaning ordinary students and apprentices who are not even members of aid-organisations, politicians or human rights activists – held a demonstration against child-labor. In their paroles and on their signs and banners they critizise that many people neither know much nor are willing to get informed about child-labor. Not only do they not try to get information on whether or not human rights were violated in the production of their clothes – just taking a look at the label and reading “Made In China” or “Made in Bangladesh” would be enough to tell you that this product probably was made using child-laborers -, but in the case of many products they are simply ignorant. Coal and some other products won by mining for example are among the goods most frequently produced by children and yet many still think that “Child-Labor In Mines” is simply the title of a chapter from the history book we had when I went to Secondary School. When thinking about child-labor in the food-branche most people think of chocolate, coffee, cocoa and maybe also of vanilla, while little to nobody would think about for example rice, fish or the production of meat even though there are so many countries that use children in the production of these goods. Most people don’t know that either, but one of the biggest producers of hazelnuts, Turkey, also uses child-laborers in the harvesting of said nuts. With saccharosis won from sugar beet and sugar cane things are even more complicated. Sure most people don’t know that there are at least 14 countries where children work in the production of saccharosis, but another thing is that most (German) customers also are too lazy to read through the ingredients to avoid sugar. As vinegar, tinned fruits, blends of spices, most frozen products, multideck cabinet products, pastries and buns don’t taste too sweet and as some products – foir example crêpes, smoked salmon or fried potato patties – also have sugar-free variations, people simply presume that there is no saccharosis based on child-labor inside and without even skipping through the ingredients which normally would take less than a minute they simply buy products. As a matter of fact the food industry hardly uses sugar to sweeten things. Its primary purpose is to preserve things – yes, contrary to common belief salt isn’t the only substance used to conserve food – and as enterprises of course are interested to make the food products they sell not rot too fast most of them of course use sugar even in products you wouldn’t expect to contain sugar.
As this report was more about child-labor than about this demonstration, “Domradio” also mentioned Syria as since 2011 many people lost their jobs – those who stayed where they lived before the revolution and of course those who fled to some other part of the country or even fled Syria alltogether -, forcing their children as young as five years to find a way to feed the family themselves. In Turkey some of them work in the production of hazelnuts, sugar beet and sugar cane. Generally speaking however there is no limit to what kind of jobs the youth of Syria does within and outside of Syria. Both troops – those supporting Assad and those defying him – use child-laborers. However it’s not like in Congo where children are used as child-soldiers, but mostly they use children as messangers. There also are reports about children doing illegal business like working as smugglers at the border between Syria and its neighboring countries. Other than that Syrian children and adolescents living in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Serbia, Greece, Turkey and of course Syria work in the agricultural sector, as traders, as sewers or they do work that is looked down upon like shoeshine boys and prostitutes.
Aside from some of these jobs being humiliating, dangerous or condemnable another worrying factor is the load of work they have to do. Some children reported having to work seven hours a day and that for seven days a week.

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