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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
Points of J. Brian Atwood
May 14, 1998
Broad Meadows Middle School
Quincy, Mass.
I would like to thank Rick DeChristopharo [Assistant Superintendent], Anne Marie Zukauskas [Principle], Ron Adams [Teacher Advisor to Campaigns] and most important -- the students of Broad Meadows for having me here today. Being a native son of Massachusetts, it is always nice to come back home again.
It is my privilege to be here today to present Broad Meadows with the U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID's) 1998 domestic partnership award. Each year we give this award to an American individual or organization who has made a great contribution to improving life in the developing world and furthering the understanding of the world around us.
Broad Meadows is a terrific example of how we can all make a difference in the lives of young people around the world. Your campaign "A School for Iqbal" has shown both your community and the world that we can turn tragedy into hope.
All of you know the story of Iqbal, both from his visit to your school, his outspoken advocacy, and later, because of his tragic murder. I know how hard it must have been for you to imagine how parents could sell a child to a factory for any price, much less for a meager $12 as Iqbal was.
But the sad fact is that Iqbal's story is an all too common one in many parts of the world. Every day poor parents and children are faced with horrible choices -- whether to send a child to school or have these children work to earn enough money for food; whether to have more and more children because so many will die from easily preventable diseases by the time they reach the age of five; whether to buy a child shoes or pay for their much needed immunizations.
Around the world today, we have more than 100 million children between 6 and 11 who will never attend school, in what UNICEF has accurately labeled a "silent catastrophe." Many of these children are toiling right now in dingy sweatshops and enduring backbreaking labor.
To see the world weariness in the tired features of a twelve year old who had already known a lifetime of work is to understand the crushing burden poverty places on children. It takes but a glance to understand the simple truth: child labor is simply wrong. Child labor is wrong because it robs children of their potential, swapping the meager wages of menial labor for any hope they might experience a brighter future.
Child labor is wrong in the eyes of the world because we know that children should be in school rather than at work. Child labor is wrong because it undermines the very core hope of securing lasting social and economic progress in the developing world.
It is our responsibility -- as a nation, as individuals -- to act to right these wrongs.
As the head of a development agency -- an agency who helps third world countries improve their economies and social conditions -- I believe deeply that development is a critical issue for the future of all the world's citizens, rich and poor alike. Understanding that fact, it is imperative we speak to the threat to this future posed by child labor.
Over the long run, a nation's greatest asset is its people. Smart, healthy and educated people do not simply materialize; they take years of nurturing through education and intellectual growth.
It is clear that child labor and basic education are deeply related. They are opposite sides of the same coin. Children who are at work cannot be at school. Children whose parents see the value of education, and who are afforded the possibility of learning in a safe and appropriate school, will not forced to make the devil's bargain of sending their children to work before their time. But in too many places this remains an empty hope; far too many parents see no option but to try and generate enough income to keep the wolf away from the door for another day.
Last year, USAID formally adopted basic education as one of our five fundamental goals. We have now made explicit our fundamental principle that no person should reach adulthood without the basic skills that come from a decent education.
This is more than just rhetoric: this year, we plan to invest more than one hundred million dollars in basic education in developing countries around the world. And we expect to maintain this commitment over the years to come.
When child labor is replaced with universal basic education, when intellectual growth and curiosity replace the closed box of repetitive drudgery in countries throughout the world, we will see a flowering of the human potential and the human spirit that will lift even today's poorest countries. And if we fail to act, and allow labor rather than learning to continue to be the norm among poor children, we will sow the seeds of generation after generation of dispossessed with little choice but desperation and violence.
Let me be clear: we can never end child labor without offering in its place universal and high quality education. But education alone will not be enough to end this problem.
Throughout much of the world we see children at work within a stone's throw of a public school. If education is available to them, why do they not take advantage of it?
Two words alone answer that question: poverty and exploitation.
We know that many families believe their children must work. They live at the margins of the economy, barely able to generate enough income or grow enough food to survive. Many, especially the youngest children, do not survive.
The answer to this problem is broad economic growth which allows the fruits of the economy to be widely shared among the poor. Without this growth, grinding poverty and the need to act for today rather than plan for tomorrow will remain the reality for millions.
This is why the United States invests heavily in support of economic growth in our development assistance programs. It is why we have made fighting hunger a basic issue of both foreign and domestic policy. And it is why we believe that the growth of fair and open global trade offers the best opportunities for all the world's people to prosper.
By reducing poverty around the world, we will reduce the pressures that drive parents to send their children to work. But that in itself will not end exploitation.
We hear pathetic arguments that children are employed because they have such nimble fingers, or other unique capacities that come from their size and agility. This is a lame excuse for an inexcusable truth: children are employed because they are more easily controlled, more readily exploited, and more handily discarded than adults who may be coming to understand the concept of their human rights.
The worst forms of exploitation -- child prostitution, slavery, work in life-threatening activities -- demand and have received universal condemnation. The United States government applauds efforts such as your own to bring these dark practices into the light of day where they can be seen by the international community for they are, a denial of everything that civilization values.
The truth is devastating: in many cases, children are exploited because some adult can strip-mine these children's inner resources for wealth or for pleasure, until there is nothing left of value. The shell of that child can then just be discarded.
We have sponsored programs to get children out of bonded labor and, again, into schools. We have worked with homeless children who live on the street to provide them with alternatives to begging and stealing.
In numerous meetings, the international community has spoken out against the most intolerable forms of child labor. The United States believes that we have an obligation to do more than speak. This is why USAID is supporting programs totalling more than six million dollars that work directly on issues of child labor. It is also why the United States moved last year to enact into law a provision that bans the import of products made by forced or indentured child labor.
We are not naive about this. We recognize that only a small percentage of the world's child labor goes into products imported into the United States. But this is at heart a moral issue, and while we cannot speak for other countries, we have the right and the obligation to speak forcefully for ourselves.
To quote First Lady Hillary Clinton, let us "work together to provide the tools of opportunity so that every girl and boy ... can look with confidence toward the future. That should be our promise to our children for the next century."
The work you have done shows the sparkling commitment not to look the other way when such injustices as child labor still exist in the world. Through your letter writing campaign, and "A School for Iqbal" you have refused to let the dream of safe and educated children die with Iqbal.
By raising a $100,000 and opening the School for Iqbal in November of 1996, you have demonstrated the energy and commitment that give me great hope for the future of this country. Today, Pakistani children, like Iqbal have the opportunity to receive an education through the hard work of the young people of Quincy, Mass.
By participating in the Global March Against Child Labor you are helping thousands of people understand parts of the world they know little about. I understand one of your students, Amanda Loos, is doing the actual march across the US, while the entire Broad Meadows Middle School is participating in "virtual miles." I am sure you will reach your goal of getting 3,000 e-mailed messages of support, approximately 1 message for every mile from the west coast to the east coast of the US. I strongly support your effort to have a student delegation take these messages to Washington on the 27th of this month for a March on the Senate, and then fly to Geneva for the ILO summit to get out their message.
In closing, let me just say again how proud I am to deliver this domestic partnership to Broad Meadows. Your activism is a terrific example of democracy in action, and you have all done a great service in making his world a better place in which to live. I salute you. Thank you.
This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
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Last Updated on: July 18, 2001 |
