It's the follow-up to another investigation in September which revealed that many of the same palm oil plantations made use of child labour and outright slavery.

Palm oil products have come under fire in New Zealand many times before, but usually, for the devastating environmental impact the plantations can have.

Clearing land for any tropical crop often necessitates clearing hectares of native forest, home to endangered species such as tigers and orangutans.

While a huge number of goods sold in New Zealand are potentially linked to these practices, there is no labelling or certification requirement for products which use palm oil, nor any real legal ramifications for companies which benefit from slave labour and other forms of abuse.

Tracking palm oil from the worst offending plantations all the way to supermarket shelves is extremely difficult, but there's no doubt that palm oil is a mainstay of some of New Zealand's most popular cosmetics and skincare products.

The reports also cast further doubts about the role of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an NGO which promotes "sustainable" palm oil products, but which was alleged to have ignored instances of worker abuse.

How palm oil came to be in everything

Palm oil is mainly extracted from the African oil palm, a tree which was brought by western colonists to many of the world's tropical climates. The reddish pulp is milled, refined, bleached and deodorised into an ingredient in a huge number of products.

Once just one of many oils used worldwide, western industrialists soon found palm oil had near endless versatility. T

he palms produce more oil per hectare than any other crop while delivering a product that stays solid at room temperature, rarely goes off, doesn't smoke when cooked, forms a lather in soaps, and even raises the freezing temperature of ice cream.

About a third of the world's palm oil is burnt by trucks as a component of biodiesel.

Needless to say, this cheaply produced oil generated huge demand, and western colonists in the tropics cleared vast swathes of forest for palm oil plantations throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

Nowadays, 85% of all palm oil is produced by corporations in Indonesia and Malaysia.

It has been estimated that each person on Earth consumes an average of just under 8 kilograms of palm oil every year, and much more if we consider cosmetics or fuel.

New Zealand is a major importer of palm oil, not only inside various products but also as a raw resource.

Dairy giant Fonterra imports more Palm Kernel Expeller, a palm oil byproduct and low-cost cattle feed, than any other company in the world.

Slavery and child labour on palm oil plantations

Millions of labourers work in palm oil plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia.

The first AP report focused primarily on workers who are undocumented migrants, often from the poorest corners of Asia, trafficked by their employers and living in fear of police raids.

One man, working for the state-owned Felda corporation in Malaysia, said his bosses confiscated and lost his passport, leaving him stranded and forced to sleep on the open ground of the plantation, constantly in fear of an attack by tigers.

His story was by no means unique: of the 130 workers interviewed in the report, nearly all reported similar experiences of being trafficked across borders. Many became indentured labourers, forced to work off debts to their employers for helping them enter the country.

However, the vast majority of palm oil workers are Indonesians who cross the porous border into Malaysia to take the low-paid jobs that Malaysians won't take.

The best-case scenario is to find a job making $2 a day, but many end up saddled with huge debts, or are forced to work for nothing under threat of having their passports destroyed.

Even under ideal conditions, working on the plantations is tough, dangerous work.

Workers must carry long sickles on poles to hack off palm branches large enough to injure or kill those below.

To meet the high quotas set by the companies, many workers bring on their families as helpers, where they act as unpaid labourers picking up the red pulp from the ground.

The first AP report was the most comprehensive investigation ever conducted into the industry, with workers from the majority of palm oil companies surveyed.

The report found that abuses and indentured labour were common in companies that had been given a seal of approval by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, a watchdog organisation which promotes environmental justice and better conditions for workers.

Women workers on plantations

The most recent AP investigation into palm oil plantations was much more specific in its goals, focusing on the treatment of women workers alone. The report found that women working in the palm plantations were much more likely to be abused by bosses, and found a slew of reproductive health problems endemic to the industry.

Investigators interviewed over 200 workers, government employees, activists and lawyers who confirmed that abuse, including sexual assault, was widespread across the industry.

An Indonesian official from the government's women and children's office in West Kalimantan province said the isolated location of palm plantations made sexual assaults common. In most cases, these were perpetrated by the plantation bosses and managers.

In addition to assault, many women workers reported health problems, often the result of chemicals used in tropical agriculture.

One woman said she suffered from fevers, coughing and nose bleeds after spraying pesticides without protective equipment.

Another woman mourned the babies lost through late-term miscarriages after being forced to carry heavy loads. Indeed miscarriages and infertility are alarmingly common, as women are forced to wade in the chemical runoff and carry loads so heavy that their wombs can collapse.

The report also notes that despite the enormous issues facing women workers, the RSPO has never investigated reports of abuse. Continue reading

She will be performing at the 25th annual Concerto di Natale next Saturday.

Others performing at the event include Patti Smith and Joaquin Cortes.

Funds raised will support two charities:

The Fondazione Pontificia Scholas Occurrentes, which works to counteract social network bullying, and the Fondazione Don Bosco Nel Mondo, which aims to free children enslaved in the Congo's coltan mines.
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Sadly, these children will never learn to read or write. They will not acquire computer skills. They will not experience singing in chorus, going on field trips, or playing at recess.

Their classrooms will be sweatshops, farm fields, and battlefields. Their days will be filled with long, dirty, dangerous work. And the lessons they will learn are that life is cruel and unfair.

According to the International Labor Organization's (ILO) latest report "Global child labor trends 2008 to 2012," approximately 168 million children aged 5-17 were involved in child labor - that is, labor not in legal accordance with ILO Conventions - in 2012.

And even worse, nearly half of all child laborers - 85.3 million - work in hazardous conditions, or what the ILO terms as the worst forms of child labor.

According to the ILO, "Hazardous work includes night work and long hours of work, exposure to physical, psychological or sexual abuse; work underground, under water, at dangerous heights or in confined spaces; work with dangerous machinery, equipment and tools, or which involves the manual handling or transport of heavy loads; and work in an unhealthy environment which may, for example, expose children to hazardous substances, agents or processes, or to temperatures, noise levels, or vibrations damaging their health."

Selling and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom, forced recruitment of children for armed conflict, child prostitution, pornography, and drug activities are among the worst forms of labor millions of children are trapped in.

And according to the ILO every year about 22,000 children are killed while working.

Globalization is a key factor to child labor. Children are cheap to employ; they are docile and easily controlled, and do not organize to defend their human rights.

To unscrupulous corporate executives, child labor offers an attractive incentive to keep labor costs down in a highly competitive global market.

When money is the bottom line - as is virtually always the case in the corporate world - children are simply tools to be used and abused.

Many companies like Disney and Wal-Mart either know, or don't care to know, that their products are often made at the expense of suffering children.

In a Maryknoll Magazine article "Stunting child labor," We read how "Girls of 16 sew Disney garments for subcontractors in China and Bangladesh, getting paid 12 cents an hour for 15-hour days, seven days a week. In Honduras, 14-year-old girls get 43 cents an hour, far below a living wage, in miserable conditions to make Wal-Mart clothing."

Let's work to change all of this injustice against millions of children.

We can vote for compassionate politicians, and urge sitting legislators to: greatly increase international poverty-focused assistance, establish fair trade policies with all poor nations, pass loophole-free legislation severely penalizing corporations that take advantage of sweatshop workers, give tax incentives to companies that financially help their suppliers provide a living wage and decent working conditions for their employees.

And we can patronize Fair Trade certified companies.

Furthermore, we can visit www.freethechildren.com to learn about kids helping kids, and how we can help their efforts.

Let's tirelessly work for the day when cruel and dangerous children's work gives way to school work and homework!

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated social justice and peace columnist.

Suddenly Durga heard screams and huddled on the floor. Acting on a tip, police stormed the apartment in the heart of Bangalore. When they broke the door down, Durga crossed her arms in front of her chest and closed her eyes. She was only wearing a pair of panties — that's all the clothing that her owners had allowed her to have. Durga says: "I was ashamed."

One of the men wrapped the small girl in a sheet and brought her to a hospital. Doctors treated her for a number of days. In addition to her burns, she was malnourished, infected wounds covered her fingers and her lips were scarred. "I dropped a glass once," says Durga, "and the woman got angry and pulled my fingernails out, one by one." Sometimes they poked her in the mouth with a needle. Durga was supposed to work, not speak.

It's estimated that millions of children in India live as modern-day slaves. They work in the fields, in factories, brothels and private households — often without pay and usually with no realistic chance of escaping. The majority of them are sold or hired out by their own families.

According to an Indian government census from 2001, this country of over 1 billion people has 12.6 million minors between the ages of 5 and 14 who are working. The real number is undoubtedly significantly higher because many children are not officially registered at birth — and the owners of course do their best to keep the existence of child slaves a secret. Aid organizations estimate that three-quarters of all domestic servants in India are children, and 90 percent of those are girls. Although both child labor and child trafficking are illegal, police rarely intervene — and the courts seldom convict child traffickers and slaveholders.

'She Told Me I Would Be Well Treated'

Durga grew up in Calcutta. When she was seven, her father died, followed two years later by the death of her mother. Her grandmother took in Durga and her three elder sisters, but she couldn't manage to feed all four of them. One girl had to go, so she sold off the youngest. Via an intermediary, a family of total strangers paid 80 rupees for Durga — roughly the equivalent of €1 ($1.33).

Durga traveled alone by train the nearly 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) to Bangalore. She can't remember the journey, but she recalls her arrival. "The woman picked me up at the train station," she says. "I was afraid but she told me that I would be well treated."

From that day onwards, she cleaned the couple's apartment every day, cooked, did the laundry and the dishes. Durga was never paid, was never given time off and was never allowed to leave the building. The woman beat her often; the man hit her less often. Durga didn't try to defend herself. "Grandma told me I should always be nice," says Durga.

Today, Durga is 12 years old. Her weight has returned to normal, and she has large eyes and full lips. She wears her black hair tied in a knot behind her head. Her white teeth shine as she speaks, lighting up her soft face. Durga lives in Rainbow Home, a children's shelter run by the Catholic organization Bosco. Fifty-six girls live here in two empty rooms, with no chairs or tables. The children play, sleep and do their homework on the floor. They eat together in the hallway.

The home takes up one floor of a school building. The walls in the old building are painted blue and pink, and the caretakers teach the children to wash themselves on a regular basis, and not to immediately hit someone whenever there is a conflict. "It's hard work," says a nun named Anees. "For many children this is the first home that they have ever had," she points out, adding: "They all come from very disadvantaged families and have already experienced too much." Continue reading

Sources

• Spiegel Online
• Image: Akemi Gardens