I. Overview
A 1994 study by the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE)
found that approximately 2 million, or 14.3 percent of children between 10 and
13 years of age are working.1 There has been
thorough documentation of some 1,300 children working in the footwear industry,
and less detailed information on children working in the textile, garment, and
tin industries. All of these industries export to the United States. There have
also been allegations of children working, directly or indirectly, in numerous
other export industries which require further investigation.
II. Child Labor in Export Industries
Footwear
A study of the shoe manufacturing industry in the city of Franca, Sao Paulo,
was conducted by the Central Único dos Trabalhadores ("CUT" -
National Trade Union Congress) with funding from the ILO's International Program
for the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) in 1993. The IPEC report focussed on
the condition of people working for independent contractors or subcontractors in
the Franca shoe industry. Of the 7000 persons working in the subcontracting of
shoe parts, 1,300 were children under the legal age of 14.2
Shoes are one of the leading exports from Brazil,3
with the industry in Franca contributing significantly to the country's footwear
production. The United States imported over $1.4 billion in footwear from
Brazil in 1993.4
An English translation of the conclusion of the IPEC report reads as
follows:
There does not exist on the part of these [child] workers any
knowledge of their rights and, on the part of the employers, any observance and
compliance with the labor norms and collective accords. It is child labor, thus,
exposed to all possible forms of exploitation and subjugation.5[informal
translation]
Despite the fact that child workers in the shoe industry generally work and
live with their parents, they continue to work under dangerous, unhealthy, and
exploitative conditions.
Children between the ages of seven and fourteen are found working for
independent contractors who have been sub-contracted by the larger firms to
produce leather shoe parts. The production takes place in homes and in
improvised, and partially mechanized, operations in garages, yards, and
verandas. The children work up to eight hours per day and more during school
vacations, cutting, trimming, folding, gluing, marking, hand-sewing, hammering
studs, and sanding the soles of shoes.6 The work
areas are often crowded, poorly lit, noisy, and poorly ventilated. The children
are exposed to various health hazards such as the toxic and addictive fumes of
the shoe glue. These hazards may cause dermatitis, asthma, bronchitis, and
injuries from work tools.
The independent shoe manufacturers of Franca made an agreement to eliminate
child labor in the industry in June 1993. This agreement has not yet resulted
in a withdrawal of child laborers from the industry.7
Textile and Garments
In 1993, the United States imported $289 million in textiles from Brazil.8 Several sources have reported the existence of
child labor in the weaving and piecework sewing tasks of the textile and garment
industries. However, no thorough documentation of the work of children in this
sector has been found. In 1988, the ILO Committee of Experts stated that 17
percent of all children working in Brazilian industry are involved in textile
and garment production.9 A government survey of
child labor in 1990 by Ana Lucia Saboia and Silvia Reise Bergman of the
Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) found that more that half
of the children under the age of 14 are employed in the clothing and textile
industry as weavers who sometimes operate heavy industrial machinery.10
Tin
A report by the Brazilian National Department for Mineral Production on the
Bom Futuro Cassiterite (tin-ore) mine in the state of Rondonia states that, ".
. . of some 3,500 people working at the mine in 1991, 600 were children and
adolescents."11 The General Confederation
of Workers (Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores - CGT) labor
central reported in 1991 that women, adolescents, and children can be found
manually digging exploratory tunnels and searching for cassiterite veins in the
mud of mining areas of Amazonia which are rife with malaria. The CGT report
concluded that, "the entire process of mineral extraction at the mine of
Bom Futuro systematically violates trade unions and human rights as defined by
the International Labor Organization."12
Cassiterite is a tin-ore used in the production of tin, one of Brazil's primary
exports. The United States imports tin ingots from Brazil.13
Other Export Industries
There are additional export industries which have been alleged to use child
labor, including the wood pulp, handicrafts,14
electronics, leather-processing, and gold mining industries. The ILO,
meanwhile, intends to investigate industries in Brazil suspected of using child
labor including: women's shoes in the south, mining and metallurgy in the Amazon
region, distilleries in the center-west, ceramics, plastics, watches, and
eyeglasses.15
There have been numerous reports of terrible conditions of child labor in
the charcoal industry. Several recent magazine articles in Brazil as well as the
ASI report, have provided significant detail of child labor in this industry.
Charcoal production takes place in the Carajas region of Amazonia under
subcontracted arrangements to the pig iron smelters who use the charcoal to feed
their kilns. The ASI report states that children work alongside their parents
and are involved in raking up the charcoal, putting it into sacks, and putting
it into the "mud cooling" of the kilns.16
Many of the workers in this industry, including children, can be classified as
debt-bonded or forced labor. Carlos Ferrari, Vice President of the CUT labor
central in the state of Mato Grosso du Sol, stated in a recent interview that;
People who have tried to escape have been murdered - 15 bodies were
found by the military police in a hidden cemetery . . . [The workers] must buy
inferior quality food and all supplies at over-priced company stores and are
constantly in debt. The father is the one who is contracted and then is forced
to put his children to work to pay off the debt . . . Until recently,
authorities denied the entire situation. When labor inspectors came to visit a
site, they were given a party and the workers were hidden.17
Although charcoal is not exported, some may be sold to iron smelters which
produce for the export market. It is difficult to identify the employer of the
subcontracted charcoal laborers in order to establish the link to exported iron.
According to Anti-Slavery International, "(t)he metallurgy companies
provide the charcoal burners with the 'technical structure', in this case the
kilns and wood, but try to maintain an arms-length relationship with workers
through the use of sub-contractors."18 This
subcontracting arrangement is common in many industries in Latin America and
contributes to what can be referred to as "invisible child labor."
Further research is needed.
The United States currently imports iron filings, ore, and pellets from
Brazil.19
III. Laws of Brazil
A. National Child Labor Laws
The basic minimum age for work in Brazil, as established in the Article 227
of the 1988 Constitution, is 14.20 Exceptions to
this law apply to children, at the minimum age of 12, who work within the
context of regulated apprenticeships, and for those who are authorized by a
judge to work. The Statute on Children and Adolescents (Law 8069-90), which
became law in July 1990, adds to the Constitutional provisions which outline the
qualifications for an apprenticeship, specific rights to which children and
adolescents are entitled, and the designation of the necessary educational,
developmental, and professional components for inclusion into an employment or
training program for minors.21
The Ministry of Labor is responsible for enforcing the child labor laws.
The IPEC report concludes that there is a shortage of labor inspectors and too
few inspections. Specifically, the enforcement of child labor laws in small
enterprises, including the shoe industry, is minimal and ineffective.22 In addition, exceptions to the minimum age laws
are frequently granted by judges for apprenticeships although there is a lack of
regulation of apprenticeship status.23
B. Education Laws
Brazilian law provides for free and compulsory education between the ages of
seven and fourteen.24 However, it is estimated
that more than five million children of the ages required to attend are out of
school.25 In the northeast, the poorest region
of Brazil, close to 52 percent of workers were found by the recent IBGE study to
have completed no more than four years of elementary school; in urban areas this
was true for 10 percent of workers.26 UNICEF's
1994 edition of State of the World's Children reports that at 22
percent, Brazil has one of the lowest primary school completion rates in the
world.27 These numbers reveal that Brazil's
legal provisions for compulsory primary education have not been effectively
enforced.
C. International Conventions
Brazil is party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.28 The Government of Brazil has not ratified ILO
Convention No. 138 Concerning Minimum Age for Admission to Employment. Brazil
ratified ILO Convention No. 5 Concerning Minimum Age for Admission to Employment
in Industry in 1934, but not Convention No. 59 -- the more recent convention on
minimum age in industry.29
IV. Programs and Efforts To Address Child Labor
By signing the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the ILO's
International Program for the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC), the Government
of Brazil made the statement that it intended to cooperate with the IPEC
initiative to eradicate child labor in Brazil. The director of ILO-Brazil, Mr.
Wilson Vieira dos Santos, recently said that each Brazilian state has promised
to sign a pact on child labor elimination before the end of 1995.30
With regard to debt-bondage and forced labor, it was not until 1993 that the
Ministry of Labor formally admitted the existence of the problem but, since that
time, the government's attempts to enforce the laws and abolish these practices
have been limited.31 Despite past weaknesses in
handling the issue of child labor, many Brazilians are encouraged by the
broad-based support for a recently launched collaborative initiative to address
child labor.
The collaborative campaign launched in March 1994 by the ILO, UNICEF, a
prominent Brazilian social activist Herbert de Souza (Betinho), and others is
encouraging. The purpose of this campaign is to raise the public awareness of
the risks involved, to pressure the government to maintain and advance child
labor legislation, to help employers and unions monitor child labor violations,
and to enact collective bargaining accords for the elimination of child labor.
The campaign aims to bring together federal, state, municipal, business, and
labor elements to address all of these areas.32
The individual trade unions have generally not taken up child labor as a
priority, but the CUT labor central and the Shoeworkers Union have been active
in advocating the elimination of child labor for those under 14 years of age as
well as safe, registered, and legally-protected work for minors aged 14 to 18.33 There has also been some collaborative research
and activity on child labor between the CUT and the Catholic University of Sao
Paulo. In addition, three major labor centrals (CUT, CGT, Forca Sindical) and
the Confederation of Agricultural Workers (CONTAG) have been working with the
ILO to identify other rural and urban sectors to target in future studies.34
In Brazil there are a large number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
concerned with the promotion of child rights. These organizations proliferated
due to the urgent situation of street children and several have also been active
in advocating the protection of child workers' rights.35
An NGO coalition, DCA Forum in Defense of the Rights of Children and
Adolescents, was created in 1990 to assist in the passage of the Statute on
Children and Adolescents. This group still exists and publishes a free
periodical on the issue.36
It has been asserted that, with the exception of the ABRINQ Foundation's
effort, there has been a general lack of interest among the business community
to join in the effort to address child labor.37
ABRINQ, which is part of the Brazilian Toy Manufacturers Association, has been
active in legal reform initiatives to benefit children as well as contributing
to a report on child labor in collaboration with ILO-Brazil.38
The ILO's IPEC Action Program began in 1992 with the Brazilian Ministry of
Labor's approval and partnership. Several of the groups who were instrumental
in drafting the Statute of the Child and the Adolescent have been involved in
IPEC's program which includes efforts to research, publicize, and mobilize
different sectors to address child labor. In addition, IPEC is training trade
unionists to collect and disseminate information on the situation of child
workers as well as financially supporting programs for at-risk children.39 A separate joint effort by UNICEF and ILO-Brazil
is focused on pushing for universal access and retention of children in primary
school as the best solution for the elimination of child labor. Mario Ferrari,
the Senior Program Officer of UNICEF in Brazil, summed up the UNICEF initiative
as "working on the demand side of education to have society strengthen the
demand."40
The issue of child labor has only recently become the subject of broad based
mobilization, but this is an encouraging step in the direction of eliminating
child labor.
1 American Embassy-Brasilia, unclassified
telegram no. 02523, March 30, 1994 [hereinafter Brasilia 02523].
2 American Embassy-Brasilia, unclassified
portion of telegram no. 09470, December 9, 1993 [hereinafter Brasilia 09470].
3 The World Fact Book (U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency, 1993) 54-55 [hereinafter The World Fact Book].
4 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of
Census, Merchandise Trade - Imports by Commodity (June, 1994).
5 Irandi Pereira and Raquel Licursi Benedeti
Rosa, Child Labor in the Footwear Industry in Franca (Geneva:
International Labor Organization, 1993) 30 [informal translation into English
from Portuguese version] [hereinafter IPEC Report].
6 Id. at 22.
7 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
for 1993 (U.S. Department of State, February 1994) 383 [hereinafter Country
Reports].
8 U.S. Department of Commerce, International
Trade Administration, Office of Textiles and Apparel, Major Shippers Report:
Textiles and Apparel (June 11, 1994).
9 ILO Committee of Experts Report 1988, 53,
cited in Lammy Betten,International Labor Law: Selected Issues
(Boston: Kluwer Law and Taxation Publishers, 1993) 302-303.
10 "Child Labor Accounts for 18 Percent
of Work Force," Associated Press, January 2, 1994.
11 Alison Sutton, Slavery in Brazil
(London: Anti-Slavery International, 1994) 93 [hereinafter Slavery in Brazil].
12 Confederação geral dos
Trabalhadores, Mechanismos da Violência no Brasil: Um Relatorio
Especial, Violação dos Direitos Humanos e Sindicais (São
Paulo, 1991), cited in Slavery in Brazil at 93.
13 Search of 1994 Journal of Commerce, Piers
Imports (US Ports) File 573 (June 1994).
14 Brasilia 09470.
15 Terri Lapinsky, The Place for Children
is in School: Child Labor in Brazil's Export Industries (May 1994) 12 [on
file] [hereinafter Lapinsky]. Information from an interview with Irandi
Pereira, a principal CUT researcher for IPEC (May 20, 1994).
16 Slavery in Brazil at 66.
17 Lapinsky at 22. From interview with Carlos
Ferrari, Vice President of CUT (May 22, 1994).
18 Slavery in Brazil at 69.
19 Search of 1994 Journal of Commerce, Piers
Imports (US Ports) File 573 (June 1994).
20 Country Reports at 382.
21 Antonio Carlos Gomes da Costa, The
Statute on Children and Adolescents and Child Labor in Brazil: Background,
Present State, and Prospects (ILO, forthcoming) [on file].
22 IPEC Report at 21.
23 Lapinsky at 38.
24 Conditions of Work Digest Volume 10
(Geneva: International Labor Organization, 1991) 35.
25 Lapinsky at 42.
26 Brasilia 02523.
27 State of the World's Children 1994
(UNICEF, Oxford University Press, 1994) 70.
28 Country Reports at 1403.
29 List of Ratifications by Convention and
by Country (as at 31 December 1992) (Geneva: International Labor
Organization, 1993).
30 Lapinsky at 41. From an interview with
Wilson Vieira dos Santos in Brasilia (May 25, 1994).
31 Slavery in Brazil at 22.
32 Brasilia 02523.
33 IPEC Report at 42.
34 Lapinsky at 11.
35 IPEC Implementation Report 1992-93
(Geneva: International Labor Organization, 1993) 10-11.
36 Lapinsky at 46.
37 Lapinsky at 48. Wilson Vieira dos Santos,
Director of ILO-Brazil, stated in an interview that most businessmen are "not
yet interested" in mobilization efforts against child labor.
38 Lapinsky at 49.
39 IPEC Report at 63.
40 Lapinsky at 45.
