ILRF Photo Credit: Robin Romano
The International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) has recently released their 2010 annual report, “building a just world for workers”. The ILRF seeks to achieve just and humane treatment for workers worldwide, from campaigns working to end the use of child labor in cocoa and cotton, to our urgent action efforts aimed at defending the right of workers and their advocates to organize, and to our ongoing activities to hold the non-compliant factories of multinational corporations responsible when safety standards are breached, ILRF has made a difference in the lives of workers around the globe.
The report highlighting their campaigns, programs and accomplishments throughout the year. Additionally the report also highlights ILRF’s future campaign plans, including efforts to end the use of child labor, forced labor and human trafficking. The ILRF states, that their are “an estimated 211 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are working around the world”. Poverty continues to be the root cause of child labor and sadly child labor is present in all continents in varying degrees with health impacts on the victims and economic impacts. The 2010 report therefore highlights such campaigns fighting for the rights of children such as their increasingly successful efforts to end the use of child labor in the cocoa industry, especially their Raise the Bar, Hershey campaign, for which they continue to increase the pressure on Hershey in 2011 to “set clear commitments and goals for addressing the egregious labor rights abuses in its cocoa supply chain”. The ILRF also sought to combat the violations against workers on Bridgestone/Firestone’s rubber plantation in Liberia, which have led to the “extreme exploitation” of workers, who are forced to meet high production quotas for low wages, and have thus led many workers to bring their children to work with them increasing the exploitation and vulnerability of children. ILRF once again led the charge in 2010 in advocacy efforts to eliminate forced child labor on Uzbekistan’s cotton plantations, where the government has continued to remove thousands of children from schools across the country to work picking cotton to meet government led quotas.
The report also highlights new partnerships such as that with the Not for Sale Campaign, which led to the development of Free2Work.org, a website which rates products and
companies based on their policies to eliminate forced and child labor in their supply chains. Through the year, ratings of new companies in a range of industries, from food to
clothing to electronics, were added to the site. The campaign also placed ratings of certification programs as feature to help consumers understand the policies behind the
increasing number of labels in the marketplace claiming to protect worker rights. Additionally the partnership and campaign led to the development of a Free2Work iPhone
application that easily aids consumers to obtain details on their favorite products as they shop.