Photo Source: Child Labor Photographs
In rural Guatemala, children are expected to work - or they and their families do not eat. Firecracker manufacturing offers the highest pay for the children. The work is repetitive, crippling, and extremely dangerous. Accidents and fatalities occur weekly. A careless bump against a gunpowder-filled circle, could cause it to explode, and kill all the children in the work area. Sparks are another danger and require extreme diligence (life Online).
Children begin to manufacture firecrackers at the age of 6. When demand for firecrackers is high, the children quit going to school in order to work longer hours. 9.9% of the boys and 5.5% of the girls never return to school once the demand ebbs (IPEC). A strip of firecrackers requires 3 days to manufacture. Middlemen pay fifty cents per completed strip. Then they re-sell them for 12 times that amount. There is no wage regulation within the firecracker industry. Nor are there any health and safety codes.
There are solutions being put forth to end, or at least reduce, the safety hazards faced by the children. One program extends new business credit to families in exchange for promises to keep the children in school. Another is working to build a safer firecracker factory. At present, there are 5,000 children working in the Guatemalan firecracker industry.
This makes me think twice about buying firecrackers during the 4th of July. So sad to hear about these places, although it happens all over the world. It is unfortunate that known "sweatshops" in some latin american countries are not immediately shut down by local law enforements and governments. But that just goes to show the extreme poverty and lack of control these countries have.
ReplyDeletePlease check out Mayan Rural Outreach at www.mayan-rural-outreach.org for ways to help the gunpowder children. Also "like" Mayan Rural Outreach on Facebook.
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