PAKISTAN-LABOUR: U.S. Football Firms Try to Fight Child Labour

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Feb 17 1997 (IPS) - U.S. activists are praising an agreement by the major football manufacturers to fight child labour in Pakistan, but warn that the steps taken so far may do little to prevent thousands of children from stitching balls for export.

Fifty-six football manufacturers — including noted conglomerates like Adidas, Mitre, Nike and Reebok — agreed Friday in Atlanta to a voluntary programme by which they would commit themselves and all their subcontractors to eliminate stitching work by children under 14.

More companies are expected to sign in coming days, says the Soccer Industry Council of America, which represents the U.S. football industry.

Kari Tapiola, deputy director-general of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), called the Atlanta agreement “an important first step in linking the energies of international organisations, industry groups, workers and governments in the battle against the scourge of child labour.”

But Dan McCurry, director of FoulBall, a Washington-based campaign against child labour in football, cautioned that the project is limited to only a small part of Pakistan’s football trade and will need effective monitoring.

The main thrust of the campaign is to ban child labour and provide educational opportunities in Sialkot, a district in the Punjab where, according to the ILO, some 75 percent of the world’s hand-stitched footballs are made. The ILO estimates some 7,000 children under 14 work in the industry — often being paid only 60 cents for each ball stitched, while working from 10 to 12 hours daily under grueling conditions.

Under the plan, all football manufacturing would be monitored independently to ensure that no-one below 14 is working in the trade in Sialkot.

Over the next 18 months, Pakistani and U.S. industries are to chip in some 460,000 dollars for monitoring and funding social programmes for Sialkot workers. The ILO has received 500,000 dollars from the United States to support the project, while the U.N. Children’s Fund is spending 200,000 dollars for education to help children dismissed from stitching jobs.

The companies represent most of the major firms involved in the soccer ball export market, which generates one billion dollars a year worldwide, and their collaboration has been praised by industry and activist groups alike. But even their unified stance may not be enough to ensure the end of child labour in football, experts warn.

“Monitoring is not an easy issue,” Tapiola told IPS after attending the Atlanta meeting. The industry still has to develop its plans for independent, external monitoring, and for ensuring that contractors and subcontractors will comply with their regulations against child labour, he said.

More importantly, the ILO official contended, although compliance by firms is expected to be “sufficiently airtight,” many football manufacturers have yet to join the voluntary programme.

The monitoring task is made difficult by the nature of football manufacturing in Sialkot, McCurry argued. Much of the work is done on a per-piece basis in workers’ homes, which could render adequate monitoring arduous.

Pakistani producers may also not be reliable in verifying the existence of child labour, he added: “Up until last year, the Pakistani soccer (football) industry denied that children were being used (for stitching) at all.” Now, he said, the industry concedes that some 17 percent of balls for the U.S. soccer market are stitched by child workers in Pakistan.

In fact, football stitching is just one of many businesses in Pakistan that involve child labour. Others in the Sialkot area, Tapiola said, include surgical goods and construction — also the targets of ILO programmes to wipe out child labour.

As world interest in football rises, however, the demand for a high rate of production is likely to ensure that children will remain a valued part of the labour force, McCurry warned. In World Cup years, he noted, demand for production can rise from a normal average of 20 million balls to 35 million balls — with children still the cheapest option to take up the slack.

Still, the industry is under heavy pressure to police labour conditions following months of complaints from consumers over the reports of child labour. Following those complaints, the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA), the world football governing body, last Aug 28 proposed a labour code banning child labour in football manufacture.

Under the code, which is to be finalised in the next few months, FIFA would only label balls guaranteed to be made by adults or children over 14. Faced with the prospect that parents would boycott any balls that lacked FIFA labels, the sporting goods industry in recent weeks has adopted its own commitment to ensure a quick end to child labour.

McCurry cautions that the Atlanta plan may be a weaker version of FIFA’s own efforts, which were intended to push a broad range of human rights concerns — not simply child labour — in the manufacture of all football-related goods. But Tapiola said that, although “the FIFA draft code was broader,” the U.S. companies and FIFA both are converging to develop “a code of conduct that is broader than child labour.”

Some labour rights experts are also worried that focusing only on children could also ignore the low wages and poor working conditions of the industry as a whole, which has itself been a main factor in ensuring that children perform much of the work.

“Many of these children are the third generation of their families (who are) stitching balls,” said Pharis Harvey, executive director of the International Labour Rights Fund. “Until their parents are paid a living wage, guaranteed freedom of association and other globally recognised workers’ rights, these families will remain trapped in poverty.”

“Adults simply cannot live off of 60 cents a ball,” agreed McCurry. Either the wages in the industry rise, he said, or the temptation to hire children anew to meet production demands will be immense.