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How GoodWeave is Stopping Child Labor

Stop Child Labor
GoodWeave has a long history of empowering workers globally and stopping child labor by providing health care and education to children. The GoodWeave seal goes on rugs and textile products to indicate that no child labor occurred during production.

History of GoodWeave

GoodWeave started in 1994 when Kailash Satyarthi had a vision for a world free from the chains of child labor in the rug industries around the world. GoodWeave is an internationally recognized organization with a dedication to stopping child labor across the globe by telling the stories of those who have lived through child labor. Since its beginning, GoodWeave has expanded its mission to include industries like fashion, textiles, bricks and tea in addition to rug production.

Statistics of GoodWeave

With 8,950 children saved from child labor and more than 44,000 children provided with educational opportunities, GoodWeave is making strides to stop and prevent child labor in current businesses. End Slavery Now states that GoodWeave has made an impact in the carpet-making world since its inception. End Slavery Now remarks that since GoodWeave’s establishment, “more than 11 million certified carpets have been sold in Europe and North America and the number of children trapped in exploitative carpet-making work has dropped from [1 million] to 250,000.”

The GoodWeave Seal

The GoodWeave seal is the seal that GoodWeave created and is a significant symbol for one to see on top of a rug that one plans to purchase. It serves as a symbol that a company upholds workers’ rights and human rights. The seal proves that a company produced an item with fair and equal conditions for workers. This includes worker safety, stopping child labor, proper training for factory staff members and fair wages for makers.

The seal of approval is extremely important for workers as the symbol will not end up on products if employers do not achieve appropriate conditions for workers. In May 2021, GoodWeave had seven new companies on its roster for rug products that are free of child labor and worker exploitation, including its first Japanese company, Jensin Okunishi Studio. Similar companies take pride in their craft and want to make rugs with sentimental value while also stopping child labor. GoodWeave has 175 companies that continue to expand markets around Europe, Asia, Australia and the United States.

Why Stopping Child Labor is Important

The International Labor Organization (ILO) states that around 260 million children are under some sort of employment globally. Global child labor often occurs in low-income countries where households require more income through any means. Experts state that child labor hinders individual development through the obligation to work instead of receiving an education and experiencing childhood.

Many kids end up with no choice and must go to work in often unsafe conditions and are paid little for their services in the textile and other industries. Some employers enslave or abuse children in the workplace, which leads to trauma and separation of children from families. This strips away a child’s youth and deprives children of positive futures, especially if injury ensues during child labor. Stopping child labor is key for an equal and fair economy where people can make a proper living.

– Kyle Swingle
Photo: Flickr

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How One Man Is Fighting to End Child Slavery

end child slaveryKailash Satyarthi has devoted his life’s work to one goal: to end child slavery. In 1980, Satyarthi quit his job as a teacher and founded Bachpan Bachao Andolan, which translates to Save the Childhood Movement. Bachpan Bachao Andolan is an organization that has freed over 87,000 children from slavery to date.

Achievements

In 2014, Satyarthi won the Nobel Peace Prize for the “struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.” Additionally, he has been working at the United Nations to push governments to prioritize goals focusing on children and their needs, as part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Satyarthi also founded the Global March Against Child Labor in 1998. It is “the largest civil society network for the most exploited children.” The march stretches across 103 countries. Moreover, it resulted in “the unanimous adoption of the [International Labor Organization] Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor.”

Fight for Freedom

Alongside his team, Satyarthi works in the field on dangerous missions. These missions involve physically going into factories where children are forced to work and attempting to liberate them. The team regularly faces a large amount of backlash from factory owners who want to exploit children for increased profits. At times, clashes have turned violent. In these cases, those on Satyarthi’s team suffer injuries, with Satyarthi himself having ended up in the hospital on occasion. However, the team believes this risk is worth it to end child slavery.

Once liberated, Satyarthi and his team bring the children to the Bal Ashram, where the children are cleaned and fed. The children’s parents are then contacted. Parents are only able to take their child home upon providing documentation to prove their relationship to their child.

If they choose to, children can also return to the Bal Ashram to receive a proper education. In offering this, Satyarthi ensures children have the opportunity to get a well-paying career and not return to child labor.

Mobilization

On top of his work in the field, Satyarthi began a letter-writing campaign. His campaign involved over 15,000 people writing to the top 100 American retailers and asking them not to sell products created by child labor. Unfortunately, retailers in Western countries continue to exploit child slavery in developing nations to maintain lower prices. However, these retailers hold the power to fight child slavery should they demand their manufacturers to stop child labor.

In 2016, Satyarthi started the 100 Million campaign, an initiative that pushes for 100 million children around the globe “to speak out for the world’s more than 100 million child workers.” Satyarthi hopes that an empowered youth can enact positive change. As such, empowered youth can raise awareness of and fight to end child slavery in their respective nations.

Kailash Satyarthi has not only devoted his life to an incredibly noble cause but has actually enacted the positive change that he desires to see in the world. While there are still millions of children in slavery, the number has been steadily declining. With the efforts of the brave men, women and, most importantly, children who are helping Satyarthi in his goals, child slavery may one day become a thing of the past.

– Anish Kelkar
Photo: Flickr

Malala Yousafzai: Nobel Peace Prize Winner

Fighting for one’s own education in this world is an honorable feat that many aspire for but sadly do not accomplish. At the age of seventeen Malala Yousafzai did just that. She is known for being the youngest person to receive a Nobel Peace Prize for her activism for right for women to have access to education.

Malala was born in 1997 in Mingora, Pakistan, where she was not banned from the opportunity to have an education. Yousafzai attended a school that her father founded. Once the Taliban began attacking their rights to education, she knew she had to say something about it. She gave a speech in 2008 entitled “How dare the Taliban take away my right to basic education?” This was just the start of her growing platform of writing and speeches in activism towards girl’s education.

In 2009, Yousafzai made her first BBC blog post that exposed the daily hardships that girls faced daily in the Swat Valley of Pakistan. Her posts were under a pseudonym that eventually was discovered. At the time the Taliban in the area was banning all girls from attending school, this did not stop Yousafzai from her protests. Even after her name was discovered, Yousafzai continued to post blogs about the daily violence, intimidation, ridicule and suffering that the girls faced.

As her popularity grew, the Taliban began to view Yousafzai as a threat. The uprisings built up and on October 2012, as Yousafzai was boarding her school bus, she was shot three times. The injury was so serious she was sent to Birmingham, England for further care. Even after the attempted assassination, Yousafzai continued to be an activist for women’s rights, especially education.

The United Nations petition for all children to have access to education by 2015, was inspired by Yousafzai. She has been honored with countless awards, including the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize along with Kailash Satyarthi of India, who is fighting against child slavery around the world. Both individuals were awarded because of their efforts towards “their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.”

Malala Yousafzai is a perfect example that if you have a strong enough belief in something, you do have the power to enact change. She stood up for not only herself, but girls all across the world who were told that they would not be given an education.

The power of one voice is truly strong enough to rattle the world.

– Charisma Thapa

Sources: Optimist World, A&E, USA Today

Photo: Flickr