BY DANA DiFILIPPO
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Amanda Rockett pulls graphics from a Web site on child labor at Hughes center.
(Melinda Rackley photo)
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It started as a school project.
But Amanda Rockett's and Sharmika Redding's research into child labor soon spawned a commitment to change, and the 15-year-old Hughes Center students are leading a boycott against several U.S. companies accused of using child labor.
"Kids in other countries -- as young as 4 -- carry tons of bricks on their heads. They don't have shoes. They go to work instead of school," said Sharmika, a Hughes freshman from Avondale. "They should be playing, eating candy, whatever. They shouldn't be working."
About 20 students in Hughes' High School for the Teaching Profession learned about child labor abuses during a four-month study intended to teach them about the lives behind the things they buy.
They were inspired to act after meeting David L. Parker, an author and child labor expert.
"Teens really are the ones who buy these products, and the companies target us in their advertising. So we could really make a difference," said Amanda, a sophomore from Price Hill.
Some Hughes students are circulating petitions against child labor to give to the International Labor Organization in Geneva. Others are raising money for a school in Pakistan named after Iqbal Masih, a 12-year-old killed after protesting abuses he encountered as a carpet weaver at age 4.
Hughes senior Kimberly Reynolds designed a Web page to voice students' concerns.
And other students have been researching the issue on the Internet and monitoring an international march against child labor on-line. The companies the Hughes students are targeting have been accused of paying their workers meager wages for long hours in wretched conditions, sometimes including abuse from bosses.
Public outcry already has persuaded some companies to adopt reforms.
Reebok, one of the Hughes students' boycott targets, last year ventured into the soccer ball business, which has long relied on child labor to stitch soccer ball panels. The company's factory in Sialkot, Pakistan, requires workers to be at least 15, the legal working age.
The company also built a school in Sialkot to educate the displaced child laborers.
"This is something we're very serious about," said Doug Cahn, director of human rights programs at Reebok.
Nike, another of the Hughes students' boycott targets, announced in May it would raise the minimum age for workers in Asia to 16 in clothing factories and 18 in footwear factories.
Such results reinforce the Hughes' students commitment to their cause.
For Amanda, the boycott merely means replacing her Reeboks with generic shoes. "I was never really into the brand names anyway, so I don't have much of that stuff," she said.
Sharmika plans to trash a pair of Nike sneakers she bought this month.
"My job is easy compared to what some kids go through," said Sharmika, who answers the telephones at a Domino's pizzeria.
"I figured this is the least I could do."
