Seven out of ten children in the world who are exploited work in the fields to produce the food that often reaches European tables without the citizens’ knowledge. This is what emerges from an analysis by Coldiretti on Ilo data released on the occasion of the World Day against Child Labourwhich occurs on June 12, promoted by the International Labor Organization.
“From bananas from Brazil to Burmese rice, from Turkish hazelnuts to Mexican beans up to Chinese fine tomatoes, strawberries from Argentina and Thai shrimp. There are many food products – they explain from Coldiretti – which every day end up on our tables accused of being cultivated and obtained thanks to the use of minors, from South America to Asia to nearby Turkey, according to Coldiretti’s analysis of the Department’s data of US labor. There is therefore also a lot of fruit among the products which sometimes end up being passed off as Italian after even minimal processing, thanks to the current customs code on the origin of foods which allows this real identity theft. A scandal against which Coldiretti has started a mobilization by collecting signatures in support of a popular European law to change the rules and affirm the principle of reciprocity in the EU, ensuring that behind the foods that arrive on the tables there is a quality path that concerns the protection of minors, as well as work, the environment and health”.
“A first response to Coldiretti’s requests came from the approval by the European Parliament of the regulation proposed by the Commission to prohibit access to the community market for goods obtained from forced labour, which also includes child labour. The agreement now awaits the approval of the EU Council. An important turning point – Coldiretti continues – which must now also apply to the trade agreements which in recent years – Coldiretti recalls – have favored the facilitated importation into Italy of agri-food products which are obtained from the exploitation of children such as rice from Vietnam or Burma. A danger also linked to Mercosur, the free trade agreement that the European Union is negotiating with South American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela) some of which are facing heavy charges for the exploitation of child labour. If for Argentina worrying cases have been reported from the production of grapes, strawberries, blueberries and garlic, for Brazil the shadows concern cattle and chicken farming, as well as bananas, corn and coffee, while for Paraguay problems they are there for the brown sugar, the beans, the lettuce.”
Coldiretti Ravenna invites citizens and consumers “to shop ethically, sustainably and with guaranteed origin by contacting directly the agricultural producers of the local Campagna Amica network, both at the farms and at the covered farmers’ market in via Canalazzo 59 where it is also possible to join the petition in support of the popular law for the protection of food transparency and safety”.
