A Kashmiri boy plucks flowers during saffron harvest in a field in Pampore on the outskirts of Srinagar on Nov. 5, 2022.TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP/Getty Images
Canadians might be unwittingly contributing to a pandemic-related rise in child labour worldwide by buying more imports produced by children, a report from an international aid charity is warning.
Canada imported $48-billion in “risky” goods in 2021, an increase of almost 30 per cent since 2016, the report by World Vision Canada says.
The report said “child labour has risen for the first time in 20 years,” with the increase partly attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced children into the work force to make up for lost wages in their families.
Among the products – or their component parts – identified as being at risk of being gathered or produced by children are cane sugar, palm oil, Christmas decorations and lobsters.
A supply chain risk analysis found a “surge in imports of risky goods of over 50 per cent in the last 10 years,” including a 71-per-cent increase in electronics, a 67-per-cent rise in clothing and more than an 800-per-cent jump in imports of protective rubber gloves.
It noted a sharp rise of “risky imports” to Canada in 2021 – far faster than before the pandemic in the previous four years.
Michael Messenger, president of World Vision Canada, said the rise in child labour was one of the “aftershocks” of the pandemic. He said many Canadians may be unaware the products they are buying might have been made wholly or in part by children.
An estimated 160 million children worldwide are forced to go to work, with 79 million in dangerous, dirty and degrading jobs, including in dangerous factories without safety protection, he said.
The pandemic meant many children had been pushed to quit school and earn a wage if their parents fell ill or if family businesses failed, or they couldn’t get their goods to market. Mr. Messenger said the rise in child labour was exacerbated by conflicts and climate change.
“We are seeing really challenging increases in the number of girls and boys in child labour. It’s a disturbing rise,” he said.
Among the jobs children are involved in are fishing; making garments and shoes; and picking vegetables, fruit and flowers.
Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne, whose bill to make companies publicly report on their efforts to prevent the use of child and forced labour, said in Mexico fruit and vegetables, such as tomatoes, are frequently picked by children.
Her bill – known as the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act – would make medium-sized and large Canadian companies scrutinize their supply chains with the aim of protecting workers. They would have to publish annual reports on their efforts, as well as report to the federal government.
She said her bill was not the “end of the road” when it came to tightening the law but a “first step” that would enable consumers to check more easily where goods were coming from and how they were produced.
The bill has support from MPs from all parties, including Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan, and is expected to become law by this summer. But it has been criticized by some groups as not doing enough to force companies to police their supply chains or clamp down on human-rights abuses.
Several groups have been urging the government to ban the import of products from China’s Western Xinjiang province in protest against the treatment of Uyghurs, and other minority Muslim communities, who have been forced to work in factories and on farms, including picking cotton, a major export.
But Liberal MP John McKay, who is sponsoring the bill in the House of Commons, said passing it would transform Canada from a “laggard to leader” in combatting forced labour. He said the report showing the rise in imports of risky goods showed its urgency.
The goods in the World Vision report were identified by the U.S. Department of Labor’s 2022 list of goods produced by child labour or forced labour.
The report names 158 items – including emeralds, surgical instruments and vanilla – from 77 countries with documented risks of child or forced labour. Every product would not necessarily have been produced by children.
The report found that Canada imported at least 98 risky goods from more than 50 countries in 2021. They include $22.1-billion in electronics, $10.7-billion in garments, $2-billion in textiles and $804-million in rubber gloves.
“Canadian consumers’ postpandemic spending on risky goods could unintentionally contribute to the problem,” the report says.