Slavery, child labour persists one year after G7 commitment in Elmau, Germany
By Fernando Morales-de la Cruz
For more than 9 years I have campaigned as an editorial journalist and a human rights activist to demand the political leaders of the G7, the European Union, Switzerland, Norway, the G20 nations and all other governments, the World Economic Forum and the top executives, board members and shareholders of all corporations to commit to #ZeroChildLabour.
Last year in June I travelled to Elmau, Germany to continue demanding that the G7 leaders and the European Union finally commit to work together to eradicate forced labour and child labour in their countries and in the supply chains of their nations. I sent this letter to all G7 leaders.
While travelling by train to Elmau (Garmisch Partenkirchen) in June 2022 to meet journalists covering the G7 Summit, I received a call telling me that the G7 leaders had decided to include my demands in their final declaration. I could not believe it.
The person who called me said that the White House was going to publish it on its website in a few hours. The White House published it! I read it over and over again to try to find the small print. There was not any.
This was a watershed moment for all of us who demand the elimination of forced labour and child labour. The question in my mind was: When will the G7 governments and the European Union have a real action plan with very clear milestones?
This is an English translation of that the Spanish news agency EFE published one year ago:
“The G7 includes in its conclusions the fight against slave labour in supply chains. That is to say, to exclude from global trade those products manufactured under exploitative labour conditions.
“This is considered a milestone, since until now no such declaration had ever been made by the seven major powers, apparently determined to combat, by extension, the scourge of child labour, since slave labour mainly affects children in the most disadvantaged world.”
To my great disappointment, most of the media covering the G7 Summit did not report this historic commitment by the G7 leaders. Until now, not a single major news organisation in Germany has even published that the G7 leaders committed in Elmau, Germany, to the elimination of child labour and forced labour. This is absolutely unacceptable, as Germany profits from the exploitation of millions of non white children and every German journalist knows that.
I have even been told by German journalists that Germany and the EU did not commit to that in Elmau. Unglaublich (Unbelievable)!
One year after the Elmau G7 Summit, the world today has more slaves than ever and child labour has increased. More than 300 million children work worldwide and nearly 100 million children work in supply chains.
Despite the commitment of the G7 and EU leaders at the Summit in Elmau, Germany, in June 2022 to fight to eliminate slave and child labour in their supply chains, and reiterating that commitment at the G7 Hiroshima Summit in May 2023, none of the G7 governments nor the EU have implemented a strong action or created an action plan to eliminate exploitative forced labour or child labour in their countries or in their supply chains.
One year after the Elmau G7 Summit, the G7 and EU governments have failed to combat child labour or forced labour even within their own borders. One million children work in the United States, more than one million children work in the European Union. The government of Italy recently admitted that 336,000 children work in Italy.
To date, the EU has been unwilling to conduct a study on the true extent of child labour in all its 27 member states. It is impossible to solve the problem of child labour in the EU or in EU supply chains without knowing, or not wanting to know, how many children work, where they are and for whom they work.
As if child labour within the G7 and EU borders were not bad enough, tens of millions of children continue to work today in the supply chains of the United States and of the European Union.
The other G7 countries, Japan, the United Kingdom and Canada, also continue to have millions of children working in their supply chains.
The German supply chain due diligence law (Lieferkettengesetz) and the EU due diligence directive under discussion in Brussels lack the instruments for states to punish the economic beneficiaries of forced or child labour.
In addition to making it more difficult for victims to claim civil liability from exploiters.
The European Union is discussing in Brussels a directive that will continue to allow the annual import of hundreds of billions of euros worth of goods produced with child labour and will only prohibit the import of some goods with forced labour leaving the member states the freedom to decide at their discretion. This is despite the fact that EU member states have committed to eradicate child labour by the end of 2025.
Despite the commitment made by US President Joe Biden at the last two G7 summits, at least 10 US states have bills to "legalise" some forms of child labour.
Arkansas and Iowa have already passed laws that allow child labour in many industries, risking the safety and well-being of children. Child labour for 12 year olds remains legal in the United States, a historical legacy of racism in that nation.
Despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's commitment at the G7 Summits, and at the Three Amigos Summit in Mexico in January 2023, the Canadian Parliament passed this year Bill S-211, misnamed “An Act to enact the Combating Forced Labor and Child Labor in Supply Chains Act and to amend the Customs Tariff”.
This Canadian law, like the laws in Germany and the United Kingdom to the same end, is nothing more than a paper tiger, clawless and toothless, that protects companies that use forced or child labour in their supply chains by requiring them only to file a report.
The Province of Quebec passed a law in May that allows 12-year-old children to work in agriculture. This violates Canada’s obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The real numbers of child labour in the world
Today, more than 300 million children work around the world and not only 160 million children as estimated by UNICEF and the ILO. UNICEF and the ILO underestimate the numbers of child labour by more than 100 million children in Asia, more than 30 million in Africa and more than 20 million in Latin America.
A study by Lichand and Wolf, academics from the universities of Zurich and Pennsylvania, estimates that the total number of children working is 373 million.
Slave labour situation in the G7 countries and the EU
According to the 2023 study on modern slavery by the Walk Free Foundation and the International Labour Organization, the world today has more slaves than ever before. The G7 countries and the EU have more than two million slaves (modern day slaves) within their borders. Slavery in the supply chains of the G7 and EU countries is a much more serious problem. These 30 rich countries have almost 20 million slaves in their supply chains. This in clear violation of their State obligations to protect human rights, children’s rights and labour rights.
This is the number of people living in slavery by G7 country:
United States 1,091,000
Italy 197,000
Japan 144,000
France 135,000
United Kingdom 122,000
Canada 69,000
Germany 47,000
Modern slavery is also a serious problem in the rest of the European Union (partial list):
Poland 209,000
Romania 145,000
Spain 108,000
Greece 66,000
Hungary 63,000
Bulgaria 59,000
Slovakia 42,000
Portugal 39,000
Croatia 22,000
Lithuania 17,000
Austria 17,000
Belgium 11,000
Netherlands 10,000
Slavery also exists in Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, etc.
The key questions in my mind are:
1. Why have not the German media and most of the EU media published that the G7 and EU leaders committed in Elmau, Germany, in June 2022 to the elimination of forced labour and child labour? More than one million children work in the EU and tens of millions of children work in the supply chains of the EU.
2. Which of the thousands of top journalists that cover the G7 and EU leaders will dare to ask the heads of government:
- When will the G7 governments and the European Union have a real action plan with very clear milestones to eliminate forced labour and child labour?
- When will the G7 and EU conduct serious studies to determine, at least: How many children work? Where? And for whom do they work? It’s impossible to solve this extremely serious problem without knowing its true dimension.
3. When will Mr Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, UNICEF, the ILO, UNDP and all UN organisations eliminate child labour and slave labour at least in the supply chains of their own cafeterias? All nations and the UN committed to eliminate child labour by 2025.
* Fernando Morales-de la Cruz is a journalist and ardent campaigner for the end to child labour and slave labour worldwide. Follow him on Twitter.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.