SEND your gLOVE campaign update

Children Unite’s campaign ‘SEND your gLOVE’ was launched in March and is demanding that the UK Government protect child domestic workers around the world from exploitation and abuse.

On 16 June 2011, after years of discussion, the International Labour Organization (ILO) took a momentous step forward in the worldwide protection of adult and child domestic workers from exploitation and abuse. They adopted a new convention meaning up to 100 million domestic workers will finally receive the same rights as other workers, with special attention given to protecting children.

The Philippines on Wednesday became the second country to ratify the treaty, which was passed in June 2011, after Uruguay ratified it on June 14 this year, according to the ILO, which requires two countries to ratify a treaty before it can go into effect.

"Today's ratification by the Philippines sends a powerful signal to the millions of domestic workers who will be protected when the Convention comes into force," ILO chief Juan Somavia said in a statement.

"I hope it will also send a signal to other member states and that we will soon see more and more countries committing to protect the rights of domestic workers," he added.

But the British government won’t ratify the ILO convention, their objections to ratification are weak and do not reflect the long history Britain has of defending the rights of those most vulnerable to abuse and condemning slavery in all its forms.

Children Unite believes the UK government needs to take a stand and give a strong message to other countries that it will not tolerate the abuse or violation of children, wherever they may be, in situations of domestic work.

The SEND your gLOVE campaign targets Vince Cable’s department for Business, Innovation and Skills through postcards, an e-petition on Children Unite’s website and, innovatively, through messages of solidarity on rubber gloves.

The rubber glove is a symbol of the protection the legislation can give to domestic workers – in the same way that a rubber glove protects our hands when we are doing domestic chores.  Hundreds of gloves have already been signed by the good British public and are being collated by Children Unite.  A rally will be organized in July next year when the gloves will be presented to Vince Cable.  Here are some examples:

Children Unite is working with a coalition of NGOs and Trades Unions and have written to the Business, Innovation and Skills Department to demand why the UK Government objects to the ILO Convention.

Action you can take:

• Sign our postcard and send it to Vince Cable
• Write a message of support on rubber gloves and send them to us
• Sign our e-petition on our website
• Follow us on Twitter @ChildrenUnite
• Subscribe to us on Facebook 

IN PERU

Children Unite is working in partnership with La Casa de Panchita to lobby the Peruvian Government to ratify the ILO Convention and has produced a postcard that we are asking people to send to Peru.

Between March and July this year, 200 postcards have been sent from people in the UK to La Casa de Panchita to support the ratification of ILO Convention in Peru.

A big thank you to all the 200 people who sent postcards to Peru – please keep them coming, it is very exciting for the children of La Casa de Panchita to receive a message of support all the way from the UK.

La Casa de Panchita are sending these postcards to key people that they want to support the campaign. Sixteen postcards have also been delivered people who have then committed themselves to support the campaign and had their photograph taken to show their support.

These photographs are being displayed on a special page of the La Casa de Panchita Facebook Profile….click here to see the Facebook Page!

Additionally La Casa de Panchita is also part of a working group of advisors that includes Congressman Javier Diez Canseco and Eduardo Rodriguez of the ILO tasked with discussing the role and commitment of the Congress in ratifying the ILO Convention.

Caring for your assets

I’ve been putting off writing this as it’s a bit personal but I can’t justifiably write about anything else this month (May).  Children Unite was founded by myself and my partner Jonathan so it’s just the two of us really.  Jonathan doesn’t get paid for his work with Children Unite so he takes on other bits of consultancy work in the children’s rights field.  We have two daughters and cycle from our home in hackney to our office in hackney – it’s quite an insular existence I suppose except that we travel quite a bit with our work and are in communication with all sorts of people from all around the world (from street children I worked with 20 years a go to Jonathan’s sister in Ireland).  But Jonathan has been unwell for the past five months…particularly unwell for the last month and has not been able to work.  And, I’ve not been able to work much either so have been based at home; and between looking after Jonathan and running around after our girls it hasn’t left much room for anything but the priorities of Children Unite.  And while it’s been an exciting journey for us to set up Children Unite together, this kind of partnership has an obvious downside.  The good thing is that Jonathan’s illness will all be solved with an operation to remove his kidney (and his other kidney is fabulously strong) so it’s not a life-threatening or long-term situation we’re having to deal with.  But his operation has been cancelled three times so far and I’ve found that I’ve had to put all my energy into being Jonathan’s personal advocate – trying to get information out of the urology team at our local hospital has unfortunately required an unbelievable (and exasperating) amount of ingenuity and determination.

As a consequence I’m feeling unmotivated about Children Unite and can’t think more than a week in advance but I took this week off (to paint our lounge shocking pink in an effort to cheer us all up!) and had a meeting in the middle of the week with someone who came to our launch event who I didn’t previously know – Victor Riega Garcia, who works in corporate responsibility at Aviva.  Although I turned up a day early for the meeting (oops!), Victor was charming about it all and gave me some very useful advice – and I found myself becoming re-motivated about the future of our fledgling organisation. 

I’m finding it hard to separate home and work at the moment but in many ways this is a false dichotomy anyway – as a woman, and I think I can afford to generalize a bit on this point, home and work are not so dissimilar. They aren’t ‘different worlds’ as they are for some people (men generally) in more traditional jobs.  Since setting up Children Unite with Jonathan I’ve become less troubled or embarrassed that we are a ‘couple’ and we’ve met a number of other couples in the same boat. But this is, perhaps also because I’m not trying to prove myself to anyone.  In my 20s when I was trying to prove myself to everyone Jonathan and I both worked in the offices of Anti-Slavery International and we were fiercely independent of each other, never referred to each other as a couple and, in fact, hardly spoke to one-another – to the point where a volunteer once asked me if I had a problem with Jonathan as I was so short and sharp with him!!).  But now, although it’s not the first thing I want people to know when I introduce Children Unite, I’m not embarrassed by our relationship, it has always been such a strong partnership that it feels quite natural to work together as professionals.

So, I guess when I write up the annual report for 2012-13 I could say that these past three months I’ve been focusing on caring for the key asset that Children Unite possess: (the wonderful!) Jonathan Blagbrough!

Street Children Special

I was lucky enough to have an experience in my early 20s that 'changed my life' and brought me to the world of children's rights.  It was when, as a backpacker travelling across Asia, I hooked up with a group of street boys in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.  So, as it is International Day for Street Children today I am writing a special post on street children - an issue that is close to my heart!  In fact it is also close to Jonathan's heart - he worked with street children in Mexico (JUCONI), I worked with street children in Indonesia (GIRLI) and that's what we talked about when we first met!

There is, of course, a connection between street children and child domestic workers. It's rather a sad and shocking connection.  Many child domestic workers are sexually abused by their employers and are kicked out of their jobs/homes onto the street.  They are destitute.  They often have a baby to care for and the stigma of being an unmarried mother and they turn to selling sex as a survival mechanism.  So, child domestic workers make up a large number of children who are 'at risk' of becoming street children and Children Unite is trying to persuade organisations working with street children to look at working with child domestic workers as a prevention strategy.

When Jonathan and I worked with street children in our respective countries we very rarely came across girls...I certainly didn't meet any girls on the street.  Actually, I didn't 'work' with street children I 'hung out' with them, listened to their busking band (explaining what the lyrics were to various Rolling Stones or Beatles songs!), drew their portraits, drank iced tea with them - I did attempt to teach the boys English at one point but lessons were quickly abandoned (no paper and pens, different boys turning up to each lesson). One of the reasons why my experience 'hanging out' with street children changed my life was that I so desperately wanted their respect that the whole idea of 'them' (the poor victims who need our help) and 'us' the rich foreigner who offers help and 'saves' the children) was turned on it's head for me.  And I'd like to share my favourite story of my time with the boys (there are many!).

I was at the end of my voluntary 'work' and had spent my last day buying lots of handicrafts from the boys (friendship bands etc that they made that I wanted to sell in the UK) and as I was about to leave I couldn't find my wallet, so I searched around a bit.  Then a few boys helped me search around a bit more, then all the boys in the 'house' searched for my wallet. I could see them looking a bit embarrassed, there was a slight urgency to their searching but after a while I abandoned the search, and, trying not to show my dejection that an unspoken 'theft' symbolised my departure (I was already getting emotional about leaving), I left the 'house'.  I arrived at my home and the leader of the street boys was sitting waiting for me with a slightly damp wallet.  He told me the following story.  After I had gone the boys had a big discussion which turned into a fight when no-one would own up to stealing my wallet.  To calm the boys down, one of the leaders, Harso, said he would consult the resident ghosts of the house (previously two of the street boys had been murdered and their ghosts appeared regularly to staff).  The ghosts told him who had taken the wallet and where it was.  Harso didn't reveal who the thief was but he went straight to a pile of leather scraps (that the boys were making into bags to sell to tourists) and found my leather wallet, slightly damp, with no money in it!  As the fighting and accusations about who had stolen the money continued between the boys, Harso told the boys it was the 'magpie ghost' (who likes shiny things and was responsible for rather a lot of thefts in the house!) who stole my money and that settled it for the boys.  And, I was happy, in fact I felt honoured, that they'd cared so much about my feelings that the boys had searched searched and eventually thought it worthwhile to consult the famous 'ghosts'.

Holding on to the magic

I’m trying to live off the high from our launch…but it’s starting to wane now!  Anali left a week a go after 10 days of speaking engagements to help us launch our campaign on the ILO Domestic Workers Convention called ‘SEND your gLOVE’.  It was 10 whirlwind days!  Anali is from La Casa de Panchita - our Partner in Peru, she was a child domestic worker since she was nine but is now leading a group of younger child domestic workers called ‘my space to grow’.  I had met her before when I visited La Casa de Panchita in 2010 (to help run a film workshop – she was part of the workshop) but we didn’t really know each other well.   But by the end of her 10 days here I feel very close to her and to Johana her Guardian who translated for her.  Anali is naturally quiet and reserved but spoke with a deep conviction at all her speaking engagements.  We practiced her ‘speech’ a lot which was an interview where I asked her the same questions and she gave the same answers.  But each time she spoke, you could tell from the expression with which she answered that she was ‘back there’ in one of the houses where she was a domestic worker.

At the launch event itself she cried when she was talking about the way employers treat child domestic workers and I was really surprised by this.  Selfishly of course, I was thankful that it didn’t set me off (which I have a reputation for!) but I think, I was also caught out by this as Anali was not ‘emotional’  or overwhelmed at any other point.  I asked her later why she became upset – she said it was because she was thinking of all the similar stories from children she knew.

The launch event was the highlight for me….all Children Unite’s trustees had put so much effort into it – we had an exhibition of paintings from children around the world (thanks Jenni), a lovely spread of food (where Anali tried her first sushi!), delicious Argentinian wine (thanks Mariela!) and the atmosphere was fantastic – a real buzz.  So, thank you to everyone who came and everyone who helped organise it. 

One of the highlights for Anali was, I think, going to Parliament and meeting up with a  real live Baroness and an MP – she hadn’t expected them to be such warm and friendly people!  And for me, I was very interested by a small meeting with ECPAT UK’s Youth Group (a group of young women who have been trafficked to the UK). I was particularly interested by the questions of two of the girls from the youth group to Anali, they wanted to know how she was ‘rescued’ and whether women were encouraged to stop having too many babies in Peru!  In turn they told their stories (they were both from West Africa) which sounded, to be honest, brutal compared to Anali’s experiences – I think she was quite shocked that they hadn’t seen their parents for 5 years.  Despite the differences though, there was a very strong sense of connection and solidarity between the girls.

So, Children Unite is now officially here…and I’m working like a mad woman to try and follow-up all the leads from the launch….I have to hold on to all the ‘special’ moments from Anali’s visit for as long as possible….fortunately there are too many to write in my blog!

launch, London

Methodist Women in Britain, York

Cherwell School, Oxford

Baroness Miller & Russell Brown MP

Anali saluda a todos!

Hola me llamo Anali y estas son mis experiencias aqui en Inglaterra-Londres:

El primer dia de mi viaje fue emocionante, cuando tome el Segundo avion vi todo una ciudad me encanto, nunca imagine estar tan alto y ver las nuves debajo de mi. Visite muchos lugares de londres como el museo de arte, el parque de la reina Elizabeth y tambien fui a un teatro musical que trataba de la pelicula Mama Mia, al ver ese teatro me emocione mucho , fue la primera vez que asisti a un teatro musical.

El martes 20 de marzo hable con los parlamentarios, ellos se sorprendieron al  escucharme dijeron que esta bien que defienda los derechos de los ninos que trabajan en casa, y si queria ser una politica, yo dije que si, contal de denfender los derechos de un trabajador Infantil Domestico acepto. En la noche fue la presentacion de la campana de Children Unite donde yo hable sobre mi experinecia como trabajadora infantil domestica, al inicio me sentia un poco nerviosa, luego senti mas confianza en mi misma, senti que las personas me escuchaban y que tomaban interes de lo que yo hablaba. Todo salio bien ese dia, todas las personas me felicitaban por lo que habia hablado, me senti importante.

Al dia siguiente fui a un colegio de secundaria de Oxford donde tambien hable sobre mi experiencia como trabajadora infantil domestica, al hablar me senti mas segura al expresarme, los alumnos me escuchan e hicieron preguntas. La estoy pasando muy bien en este pais, me tartan muy bien, son muy amables y me siento como en familia. Gracias por todo............Anali

SEND your gLOVE LAUNCH

I'm still on a bit of a (exhausted) high from the success of our launch event last night!  The star of the show was Anali...earlier in the day she met up with Baronness Miller of Chilthorne Domer and Russell Brown MP both of whom are Chairs of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Street Children.  I think they were both much warmer and more friendly than Anali was expecting!  They quizzed her on what it is like to be a child domestic worker in Peru and were impressed enough with her answers to suggest she would make a good politician!  Going inside parliament was very exciting for all of us...so a big thanks to the Consortium for Street Children for organising this meeting for Anali!!  And I'm proud of myself for tweeting while I was in the House of Commons - that's a first.


So, Anali is here until Sunday, speaking about her experience as a child domestic worker in Lima to help us launch our campaign for governments to ratify the ILO Domestic Workers Convention.  The campaign is called 'SEND your gLOVE' - it uses the humble rubber glove as a symbol for protection.   Rubber gloves protect our hands from the hazards of domestic chores and we see the ILO Convention in the same way - as a 'protective glove' for children from exploitation in domestic work.

Yesterday was the big launch day.  We had an exhibition of paintings from child domestic workers, we showed our 10 minute film (shot with children in Togo, Peru and India).  Jonathan and I both spoke about child domestic work, Children Unite and our 'SEND your gLOVE' campaign...and Anali spoke about her experience as a child domestic worker in Peru.  It was a moving speech, Anali is an eloquent, passionate campaigner - and yes, yes, I had a tear in my eye as she spoke.

After the speeches there was a great buzz in the room as everyone wrote their messages of support on rubber gloves or on postcards.  The gloves were hung up on a washing line we'd put up and people were chatting to Anali, giving their postcards to her (she will take them back with her to Peru and will use them in a campaign event targeting the Peruvian Government to ratify the ILO Convention). It was a wonderful evening - particularly for those of us that have been planning it for so long; a team effort from the trustees, staff and volunteers of Children Unite.

And it was the first step for us in building a community of people who are united in their concern for child domestic workers and who are prepared to take action to protect them from exploitation and abuse.

Angels in Tanzania

Angel (on left)

Angelina

I've been in Mwanza in Tanzania for the past 12 days and instantly fell in love with the place and the people there. I was working with Kivulini our local Partner in Tanzania who are trying to help an organisation called Wote Sawa (meaning all are equal) to set up by themselves.  Wote Sawa is led by 24 year old Angel Benedicto - a former child domestic worker who came to Geneva in June last year to lobby for the rights of children in the ILO's Domestic Work Convention.  It was wonderful to see her again - and her colleague 17 year old Angelina (yes Tanzania is full of Angels!).  Both these young women have grown in confidence since I last met them, Angel's English is really coming along.  We spent every day together in one way or another - we're developing a project together so we had 4 days of meetings discussing the activities, budget, outcomes, I watched her facilitate a workshop with other child domestic workers, she organised a photo shoot for me of children working (for use on our website and publications), she participated in a workshop that I was facilitating, we ate together, even danced together!

Angel and Angelina are inspiring young women.  When I was hearing about a baseline survey that Wote Sawa had just made, the list of 'key issues' was astounding - it is slavery.  Child domestic workers in Mwanza very often don't get paid for their work, they don't even get given enough food to eat, they don't have a private place of their own in their house (have to sleep in a store cupboard or on the floor in the kitchen), their parents are not allowed to contact them, they work 365 days a year - and particularly harder at festival times because they have to serve all the guests, many of the girls (95% are girls in domestic work) are raped by their employers, made pregnant and then kicked out.  This is one of the issues Wote Sawa wanted to address urgently as they are 'fostering' the girls themselves - Angel has of these girls and her baby living with her at the moment.  All the staff of Wote Sawa are young - in their 20s, yet they displayed such responsibility and dedication I was humbled. As you can imagine after hearing this (and although I have heard of and read this stories often enough I'm a big cry baby when I hear it first hand) I felt a bit weak at the knees - but I wasn't in tears.  To be honest, I was surprised I by this, but in fact I didn't cry the whole time I was there (which if you ask my kids you'll know is quite an achievement)...and I think that's because all the people I met were so focused on the solutions not the problems: on the empowerment of children. And we had such a laugh during everything we did - the workshops, the meetings - even the discussions on budget!!  Perhaps this is what Angels are really all about - the power of positivity?!

I'm going to ask Angel to write a blog post for Children Unite, so you can hear for yourself what she's up to.  But for the moment here is Wote Sawa's own blog

And on a final note a huge ASANTI SANA (thank you very much in Swahili) to the Angels of Tanzania.