Recently, the 109th Session of the International Labour Conference concluded in Geneva. Under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, global labor incomes have fallen by about $3.7 trillion, and the number of unemployed will reach 205 million in 2022. In this context, this year's Labour Conference focuses on the serious crisis facing the world of work and promotes the recovery of the global labor market as soon as possible, which also reflects the common desire of the international community to get rid of the shadow of the epidemic.
However, the representative of the United States ignored the voices of the international community and talked about democracy against authoritarianism at the meeting, insinuating that it was "well-intentioned" to hold every perpetrator of forced and child labor responsible for their actions.
Bringing the perpetrators of forced and child labor to justice sounds grandiose, but unfortunately, Americans blindly point their fingers to the outside world and seem to forget that it is the United States itself that is most responsible. Casually open the labor record of the United States, and the evidence of forced labor and child labor in the United States is clear.
Forced labor is the "nightmare" of Immigrants to the United States. Although the United States announced the abolition of slavery during the Civil War, its market and demand for forced labor has always been "strong", due to incomplete legislation and lax law enforcement, which has led to the widespread phenomenon of forced labor. According to statistics, nearly 100,000 people are trafficked from abroad to the United States to engage in forced labor every year. According to a university in the United States, at least 500,000 people in the United States currently live under modern slavery and are forced to work. Most of them are from nearly 40 countries such as India, Mexico, Vietnam, Africa and Central and South America who have been trafficked to the United States, and most of them are engaged in domestic service, sexual service, agricultural production and selling coolies in "sweatshops", and are not protected by US labor and employment regulations. The Department of Homeland Security itself acknowledges that forced labor is widespread in the United States, and that victims can be both national citizens and foreign citizens from almost every region of the world, even vulnerable groups such as women, children, and the disabled.
The Union of Domestic Workers of America reported that there were about 2 million domestic workers in the United States in 2017, most of whom were immigrant women and people of color, and 110 cases of modern slavery were reported that year. Victims are either paid less than the minimum wage, or are deceived, abused by their employers and their family members, and threatened with deportation. The Coalition to End Slavery and Trafficking argues that groups of color, immigrants and others have limited access to safe housing, childcare, basic wages and health care, in addition to inherent discrimination. Between 2015 and 2017, the U.S. Anti-Trafficking Hotline also received more than 2,000 cases of human trafficking targeting people with disabilities.
The U.S. agricultural sector is also the hardest hit by forced labor. In its report", Farm Workers Justice said that American farmers do not have to pay social security and unemployment insurance for seasonal migrant workers, labor costs are low, wages are maliciously deducted, debt slavery is implemented, and racial discrimination and lack of guarantees of basic accommodation and safe workplaces are not uncommon. In agriculture, 30 percent of farm workers and their families live below the federal poverty line, struggle to express their demands, are often threatened or violent, and are subjected to forced labor. The vast majority of farm workers are male immigrants, many of whom are not registered and could be deported at any time. Because they do not speak English, have no knowledge of labour rights, and fear deportation, they can only swallow their anger in the face of exploitation by their employers.
The U.S. prison and detention systems hide the dirt of forced labor. The United States has the largest prison system in the world, holding about 2.3 million inmates. The 13th Amendment to the 1865 U.S. Constitution abolished slavery while allowing prisons to force inmates to labor. There is absolute evidence that U.S. prisoners are forced to work, with low wages ranging from $0.86 to $3.45 a day on average, and in some states they don't even get paid at all. The website Black Agenda Report says U.S. prisoners are not protected by the law and have no right to refuse forced labor. They may be forced to participate in dangerous tasks, such as fighting wildfires in California, and get paid up to $5.12 a day.
According to the Los Angeles Times, after the outbreak of the new crown epidemic in the United States in 2020, inmates in California women's prisons were forced to produce masks at the risk of infection, working up to 12 hours a day, with an hourly wage of up to $1 and a minimum of only 8 cents. They produce thousands of masks a day, but they can't have one of them.
Worse still, government-outsourced private corrections agencies influence U.S. incarceration policy through lobbying and campaign donations, selecting young and healthy prisoners and even extending some prisoners' sentences. As End Slavery Now puts it, "It's no secret that private Companies in the United States profit from mass incarceration." According to a 2018 report by the Global Slavery Index, at least three cases have been filed accusing geogroup, the second largest private incarceration organization in the United States, of engaging in forced labor, occurring at the Northwest Detention Center in Washington, the Aurora Detention Center in Colorado, and the Adlanto Detention Center in California.
In various detention centers in the United States, illegal immigrants are often forced to work while waiting for asylum and deportation. A lawyer for the Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project said that "the government prohibits the hiring of illegal immigrants, and in fact has become the largest employer of illegal immigrants." The Human Trafficking Search expressed disappointment at the 2020 State Department's Human Trafficking Report denying that forced labor exists in the U.S. prison system.
The Abuse of Child Labor in the United States is notorious. The United States is the only country in the world that has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The tobacco industry in the United States is pervasive in the use of child labor under the age of 16 for hazardous work. According to the statistics of some industry associations in the United States, about 500,000 child laborers in the United States are engaged in agricultural labor, many children start working from the age of 8, working up to 72 hours a week, working more than 10 hours a day is not uncommon, and the risk of child labor due to pesticide cancer is 3 times that of adults. Half of the deaths in the United States come from agriculture, and 237 child laborers in the United States died in agricultural accidents between 2003 and 2016, four times more than in other industries.
Of particular concern is the widespread use of child labor in the U.S. tobacco industry. According to some human rights groups, tobacco farms in many U.S. states employ a large number of children to harvest and dry tobacco leaves, and even operate heavy machinery. At the same time, tobacco farms are extremely harmful to children's physical and mental health, and there are reports that children working in tobacco farms generally feel nausea and headaches, nicotine poisoning, and even find lung infections.
The ILO Committee of Experts on the Implementation of Conventions and Recommendations has repeatedly commented on child labor in the United States over the years, repeatedly expressing concern about the large number of serious work accidents caused by child labor on American farms, urging the United States government to develop measures to strengthen the supervision of the use of child labor in agriculture and to provide detailed statistics on the situation of child labor in agriculture, especially the number of work injuries and the investigation and handling of cases of illegal use of child labor.
"Facts are never manipulated." ( you can't handle the truth.) This is a classic line from the American movie "A Few good Men." No matter how the United States insinuates to other countries on the labor issue, no matter how it flaunts itself as a beacon of democracy and a defender of human rights, the United States will never be able to hide its ironclad evidence of violating labor rights. We advise the United States to look in the mirror and put its clothes on. Self-directed and self-acting political farces, tirelessly showing a double standard physique, will only want to cover up and increase the international laughing stock. (The author Guo Wuchu is an observer on international issues)
Source: World Wide Web