10 Worst Countries for Child Labor

A new report by risk analysis firm Maplecroft, which ranks 197 countries, identifies Eritrea, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Yemen as the 10 places where child labor is most prevalent.

(CNN) — Where in the world are children toiling dangerous and dirty conditions, missing out on education and other basic rights?

A new report by risk analysis firm Maplecroft, which ranks 197 countries, identifies Eritrea, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Yemen, Burundi and Nigeria as the 10 places where child labor is most prevalent.

Countries with high poverty rates fare badly in the index due to the need for children to supplement their family income, the report said, but economically important countries like China, India, Russia and Brazil were also found to have extreme risks because child labor laws are often poorly enforced.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Eritrea, Somalia top the latest list for countries where child labor is most prevalent
• High poverty rates a similar theme across countries where child labor is most commonly used
• China fares poorly on the latest index, slipping from 53rd to 20th place
• Globally, the report says there’s been an improvement in the risks of child labor

Trafficking of children into forced labor or sexual exploitation remains a big problem, the report added.

Despite its fast-growing economy, China has witnessed a substantial increase in child labor risks over the past year, ranking 20th compared with 53rd a year earlier.

The report said that unofficial estimates suggested that 100,000 children are employed in the country’s manufacturing sector.

“The use of vocational work and study schemes, along with the continued use of children in factories, present significant supply chain risks to companies even in the more economically developed provinces,” the report said.

Last year, electronics supplier Foxconn admitted that interns as young as 14 worked at one of its Chinese plants.

However, the report pointed to minor improvements in the risk of child labor, with South America now ranked as “high risk” rather than “extreme risk.”

In September, the International Labor Organization estimated that the rate of five to 17 year olds engaged in child labor had decreased to 10.6% in 2012 from 13.6% in 2008. The number of children involved in the worst forms of child labor has decreased to 85 million from 115 million during this time.

The company compiles the ranking by evaluating the frequency and severity of reported child labor incidents, as well as tracking how governments prevent child labor and ensure perpetrators are held accountable.

The index has been developed to help companies understand the risks of children being employed in their supply chains.

Egypt’s Chaos Fuels Africa’s Human Trafficking

Egypt’s political unrest has brought suffering not only to its own people but also to hundreds of African refugees. Their goal is Israel but many end up as hostages on the Sinai Peninsula.

Egypt’s political unrest has brought suffering not only to its own people but also to hundreds of African refugees.

By Adrian Kriesch / cm

Kahassay Woldesselasie simply wanted to get away from Eritrea. He planned to begin a new life in a country where citizens are not as brutally suppressed as in his East African homeland. Eritrea, located in the Horn of Africa, is one of the world’s most secretive and repressive regimes.

Woldesselasie initially fled to neighboring Sudan. While there he heard rumors of good jobs being offered in Israel. A human trafficking syndicate offered to take him there. Woldesselasie agreed and fell into their trap. The traffickers abducted him and took him as a hostage to the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.

On the journey they blindfolded him, there was little food and water. The gangsters threatened to kill him if he did not pay ransom. “You have no choice but to call your relatives,” Woldesselasie told DW in an interview. “If they agree to pay, you might be lucky. But if they don’t, you’re dead.”

The lucky and the unlucky

Israel refers to asylum seekers from Africa as ‘infiltrators’

Woldesselasie was one of the lucky ones. Family members living abroad agreed to pay for his release.

He was set free and finally managed to cross the border into Israel.

Not many are as lucky as Woldesselasie, says Hamdy al-Azazy, an Egyptian human rights activist who lives in al-Arish, the capital of the North Sinai region. He has met Eritrean refugees who had been held captive for weeks in torture camps.

While their families are listening over the phone, the victims would be subjected to burnings or have their limbs broken. Such painful experiences would then push even the poorest of families to send money. Those who don’t comply risk having their relatives being buried in the desert. According to al-Azazy, more than 500 remains of dead bodies of Africans were discovered in the desert in the past years.

The Sinai equation

The Sinai Peninsula has long been a powder keg. The indigenous population consists of Bedouin Arab tribes who settled there several hundred years ago. Today, they only represent about half of the approximately 500,000 inhabitants.

Israel withdrew from the area back in 1982 and left it to the Egyptian state. Egypt then took the best land from the Bedouins, says Günter Meyer, director of the Center for Research on the Arab World at the University of Mainz. “This goes back to a long period of discrimination against the Bedouin population.” According to Meyer, the Bedouins were seen by Egyptians as Israeli collaborators, drug smugglers and illiterate.”

Meyer however emphasizes that only a small minority of the Bedouin is involved in the criminal gangs that deal in human trafficking.

According to Human Rights Watch over 1,500 Eritreans flee the country every month. Several men who are refugees in the Sinai are seated on the ground .

Following the Arab Spring which began in 2011, security forces have been weakened in the Sinai Peninsula giving the traffickers more leeway. The situation has “escalated dramatically,” Meyer warns.

There are no known figures for the number of refugees detained in torture camps in the Sinai or how many of those hostages have perished. According to the Israeli government, more than 10,000 illegal immigrants crossed the Sinai border into Israel in 2012. Most of them came from Eritrea and Sudan. But in Israel, a nation once founded by immigrants, the refugees are not welcome. They have little chance of obtaining political asylum. Instead Israel has built a more than 200-kilometer – long (124 miles) fence against them. In the first five months of 2013, only 33 refugees managed to cross the border.

Little international support

The world, including the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), has turned a deaf ear to the plight of these refugees, says human rights activist Hamdy al-Azazy. “They write their reports from their air-conditioned offices in Cairo,” he laments.

“Nobody is on site to assess the real situation. I’m the only one here in the midst of all these dangers.” There have been several attacks on him, he adds.

His office was ransacked, his children have been attacked.

African asylum seekers meet with harsh reality in Israel. The few meager belongings of a refugee lie scattered around the area of the park which he has made his home.Ashley Gallagher, Tel Aviv May 2013via: DW/ Robert Mudge,

Al-Azazy also raises serious allegations against the Egyptian security forces. According to him victims who manage to escape from the hands of the traffickers are detained as criminals because they are in the country illegally. But the perpetrators of human trafficking enjoy a life of luxury in large villas. He believes the traffickers are supported by Egypt’s security agencies.

“Traffickers pay a lot of bribes so that they can freely bring refugees to the Sinai.”

Kahassay Woldesselasie does not feel at home in Israel. He hopes that one day peace and freedom will reign in his East African nation so he can return.