zescat

Ending Forced labor in Vietnam Drug Detention Centers

2011-11-24T08:35:00.000+08:00

Columbia Sportswear, Vestergaard Frandsen React Swiftly to Evidence of Forced Labor

November 16, 2011

“Involuntary labor of any kind violates our written contracts and policies and also our values. We do not and will not tolerate it.”

Peter Bragdon, senior vice president of legal and corporate affairs at Columbia Sportswear

Forced labor is not treatment, and making a profit is not rehabilitation.

Over the last three years, Human Rights Watch has researched conditions for people in drug detention centers in Vietnam. We uncovered strong evidence that these facilities force detainees to produce goods for local Vietnamese companies, some of which supply multinational companies, under dangerous and degrading conditions for little or no compensation.

Since its September release, our reporton the drug detention centers in southern Vietnam has already compelled two major multinational companies to cut ties with these facilities—US-based Columbia Sportswear Co. and Swiss-based Verstergaard Frandsen, which specializes in making mosquito nets and other disease-control products.

"Involuntary labor of any kind violates our written contracts and policies and also our values," Peter Bragdon, senior vice president of legal and corporate affairs at Columbia Sportswear, said in a statement. "We do not and will not tolerate it."

Meanwhile, we continue to push for the closure of these abusive facilities, and our advocacy continues to gain momentum with other companies whose supply chains involve forced labor, with the Vietnamese government, and with donor nations that fund these centers.

Former detainees described to Human Right Watch being forced to work in cashew processing, agricultural production such as potato or coffee farming, and construction work, as well as in garment and other types of manufacturing. Some weren’t paid. Others were paid well below the Vietnamese minimum wage, their meager wages reduced even further by center-levied charges for food, accommodation and “management fees.” In all cases work was mandatory, and refusing to work led to swift and sometimes brutal punishment.

Such abuses take place on a massive scale. The 123 such centers across the country hold 40,000 people. Between 2000 and 2010, 309,000 people passed through the centers.

When Human Rights Watch received information that mosquito nets for beds bearing tags with the company name Vestergaard Frandsen SA were being produced in “Rehabilitation Center No. 2” in Haiphong city, we reached out to the company with our findings. Vestergaard sent senior staff members to Vietnam to investigate the claim and to New York to meet with Human Rights Watch staff.

Vestergaard’s own investigation confirmed our findings, and the company has since terminated all relationships with the subcontractors that managed the abusive line of production. The company has also developed and implemented a tighter supply chain management system including a supplier code of conduct and regular site visits to ensure that labor abuses do not occur in its supply chain.

Colombia Sportswear Co. was equally responsive to our evidence and concerns, and is working on implementing effective systems that detect and respond to labor abuses so the company does not have to rely on outside reports.

Human Rights Watch is using these findings to press other companies that manufacture goods in Vietnam to ensure that their products are not being produced in detention settings, and to press the Vietnamese government to close compulsory drug detention centers nationwide. We are also talking with key international donors that fund programs and services in these centers to press the Vietnamese government to close them down.

Candidates need to divulge their positions on human rights

2010-02-12T12:11:00.001+08:00

Document - Philippines: Candidates need to divulge their positions on human rights

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

PUBLIC STATEMENT

AI Index: ASA 35/001/2010

9 February 2010

Philippines: Candidates need to divulge their positions on human rights

The worst pre-election violence in Philippine history – the Maguindanao massacre – has focused global attention on the human rights situation in the country. Now more than ever, candidates in the 10 May presidential elections need to clarify how they will address key human rights issues facing the country.

Today as the presidential campaign period officially begins, Amnesty International calls on all of the presidential candidates to make clear, public commitments on the actions they will take in the first 100 days of office to address serious human rights violations. In a public letter to the candidates, Amnesty International called on them to affirm their commitment to:

1) Revoke Executive Order 546, and ensure full accountability over all state-sponsored militias andparamilitary groups.

Despite the mass killing of 63 civilians on 23 November in Maguindanao, members of state-armed local groups and private armies are still free to operate in other parts of the country The Philippine government’s continued failure to establish accountability for members of these armed groups undermines the rule of law and denies human rights protection for civilians.

Within 100 days, the new Philippine president should revoke Executive Order 546, which allows for militia and paramilitary groups to provide active support in counterinsurgency operations. In practice, these groups have been ill-trained, unaccountable, poorly integrated into the military chain of command, and responsible for serious human rights violations. In some provinces, Civilian Volunteer Organizations (CVOs) effectively function as private armies for local politicians, heightening the risk of pre-election violence.

2) Establish a presidential commission aimed at preventing and prosecuting enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions.

In the last decade, at least 200 Filipinos have been subjected to enforced disappearance, and as many as 1,100 have been executed in political killings. The incoming president needs to establish an impartial and independent commission to review these cases, with the aim of enabling timely and effective investigations and, where warranted, prosecutions.
The new president should initiate legislation that specifically criminalizes enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions. He or she should sign the UN Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances.

3)Order the administration to fully implement the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement in order to ensure the safety and well-being of the displaced.

Despite the ceasefire in Mindanao, more than 125,000 people remain displaced by the 2008 armed conflict alone. To address this grave humanitarian situation, the incoming president should publicly instruct the administration to ensure that policies comply with the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.
Under the Guiding Principles, the government must ensure that the displaced are provided with adequate food, water, shelter, and clothing, as well as essential healthcare and sanitation. It must also guarantee unimpeded humanitarian access to areas under its control. In addition, the government must implement a sustainable plan of action so that the displaced can return to their villages, safely and voluntarily.
As commander-in-chief, the new president will be directly responsible for ensuring that the armed forces comply with international humanitarian law. As a core principle, this law explicitly prohibits direct or indiscriminate attacks against civilians, and this includes displaced persons and all other non-combatants.

/END

Nomad Plane

2010-01-30T22:02:00.001+08:00

Death-Trap Nomads a $1 Million Drain

By Ian McPhedran
January 27, 2004

AUSTRALIAN taxpayers are paying more than $1 million a year to support faulty Nomad aircraft given to the Indonesian military.

About 18 of the controversial Australian-built Nomads, including one damaged in a landing incident, were sold to the Indonesian military for surveillance duties in the mid-1990s.

Australian military pilots had refused to fly the plane after its maker, the Government Aircraft Factory, refused to correct major aerodynamic faults that caused a number of fatal and near-fatal accidents.

In 1975, factory chief test pilot Stuart Pearce, father of actor Guy Pearce, and the acting chief designer were killed in a crash on take-off at Avalon airport in Victoria.

An army pilot died when the tailplane failed in flight in South Australia in 1990.

In one fatal crash in Indonesia's Irian Jaya province, a Nomad plummeted 4800m and its tailplane was never found.

Confidential army documents seen by theHerald Sun include a damning list of safety concerns on the Nomad, which first flew in July 1971.

They include:

STRENGTH calculations used by engineers were wrong.

STABILITY and airworthiness problems.

MAJOR concerns over fatigue and cracking in the tailplane.

"The Nomad has fundamental handling deficiencies affecting safety of flight," one report said.

"These deficiencies were identified at the point of introduction into service and have never been corrected."

A new T-shaped tail was designed but never accepted because it would have amounted to an admission of failure.

"Doors were closed on solutions because they were expensive and an admission of guilt," a former Nomad design engineer said. "Political rather than engineering decisions were made."

A May 1995 report recommended that the Nomad be removed from military service.

Concerns about the planes led to them being virtually given away to neighbouring countries for military use rather than risking a commercial backlash.

This included the sale of 18 planes to Indonesia for $2 million.

The helicopter engines used on the planes were worth close to that and at least $20 million had been spent bringing them up to army specifications.

Documents show that in 2001-02 almost $2 million was devoted to helping the Indonesian navy with its Nomads, including three Australian staff posted to Surabaya in east Java to support the Indonesian fleet.

Those staff are still in place and last year more than $1 million was spent supporting the Indonesian Nomads.

"The Indonesians flew them away and the problem disappeared," one former Nomad pilot said.

"It was a total disaster for taxpayers."

A survey of 22 army pilots in April 1995 showed all but two thought the Nomad was not airworthy.

2008-10-09T14:25:00.000+08:00

http://ihlforum.ning.com/video/video/show?id=2125226%3AVideo%3A8888

My Gratitude to all Women

2008-10-03T09:48:00.000+08:00

A gratitude to all WOMEN

It was awhile that I was left alone with my two daughters. My wife work for a humanitarian organization and assigned away from home. We agree on things that I should take care of the children. The thought of things will just be easy for reasons that I have been taking care of children and my sibling way back then. It never crossed in my mind how crucial is the virtue of PATIENCE.

It was really an unusual days. I am doing the things I don’t usually do. I do household and domestic chores. I woke up early in the morning to prepare food breakfast and lunch box for my eldest daughter to school. Take her to bath and prepare the uniforms and school things. Attend to the needs of my one (1) year old daughter who will also wake up as soon as I am. Send the kid to school and proceed to the office. I work early in the office for me to get out early to fetch my eldest from school. There were times that I ask for the help from my in-laws to fetch my daughter and send home.

I need to go to the grocery stores to buy the kids needs and the household especially food. Plan for the week’s menu and do the laundry for my kids’ clothes, mine, linens and curtains.

There are nights that I cannot sleep well because the baby needs attention especially if they are sick. “Things will be better for you if only one child is sick what if two, it will be hell”.

My daughters were sick at the same time. I need to see them to the doctor. Here come the doctor’s prescriptions and its instructions. I need to wake up in the middle of the night, in the middle of my sleep just to give the dose of their medicines. The hardest part is that they are still asleep while taking the medicines and the baby cries without you knowing the reasons why. You do anything and yet there seems nothing is happening.

When my one year old daughter was admitted to the hospital was quite painful. It is just me and my sister who take turns to take care of the baby. My sister attended my baby in day time. I still work during the day and am awake at night to attend to the needs of my baby. The baby will just cry for no reasons at all. Understand the pain she is going through needs more PATIENCE.

PATIENCE… is just a simple word and most of the time misunderstood. The virtue of PATIENCE is innate to women especially to mothers. I am attesting to it for I have experienced what a mother is going through. She felt the pain in every single moment her baby cries and understand. Patience is a real test of endurance. I can say I have patience but, for how long. A woman shows her endurance in everything but, never can a man endure patience like a woman.

No Ordinary Shelter

2008-09-12T14:51:00.000+08:00

NO ORDINARY SHELTER
Zandro Escat

I went for an assessment in one of the identified evacuation camp in Pikit together with some staff from Oblates of Mary Immaculate-Integrated Rehabilitation Program (OMI-IRP) one of our partner organization and the social welfare officer. On our way to Pido Pulangui, the staff informed me that the river is rising and will be impossible for us to visit the camps. I also observed makeshifts made from leaves of coconut lined up on the roadside. This is not a farm hut. These huts are shelter of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). Some of it were abandoned because of the flood.

Maam Grace a social welfare officer of Pikit told me that they have a hard time reaching these IDPs. These IDPs slept on dirt with just leaves from coconut as their mats. When it rain, they are all wet. And now that the area is flooded, they left nowhere to sleep. Some slept on a “karusa” (a cart pulled by carabao/water buffalo). We try to reach them through medical missions and other relief activities. We have a problem in this area because, people won’t leave and the river overflows. Water may reach up to waist level. The IDPs won’t leave their belongings or maybe tired of packing their things. They prefer to stay than go anywhere else. They also found comfort here even in this situation. ZCE

Displaced IDPs

2008-09-03T10:17:00.000+08:00

It was our first travel to Shariff Aguak one of the Municipality of Maguindanao to have our courtesy visit to the Integrated Provincial Health Office (IPHO). This is after we were restricted to travel using this route since the fighting in Maguindanao errupted. Along our way we noticed evacuation camps and groups of uniformed military men after every five hundred (500m) meters. We saw people in groups walking along the National Highway. Together with them are their belongings, children and farm animals. Many of them use their farm animals to carry loads basic stuffs like food, clothing and cooking wares and mostly are walking. We wonder where this people would go. Are they going back to their villages or to the evacuation centers?

We talked to the Administrative officer of IPHO Jamila Amba. She told us about the displacements going on. I have (Jamila Amba) experienced being held by the military for about two hours because of the on going fighting near the national highway. In one of my experience, the evacuees don’t know where to go they are really messed up. They will be in one evacuation camp for a day and gone the following day. Some host community also left their homes for unknown reason when evacuees arrived in their village. “We really have a hard time documenting the evacuees because they are very mobile” and this conflict now are very different with what we have experienced in 2000 and 2003 she said. In the previous conflict health services were easily delivered and accessed. Our Director and Rural Health Officers are now staying in the evacuation camps for monitoring and documentation. They were there day and night.

Women Have Voice

2008-08-21T14:28:00.000+08:00

Women have Voice in Decision Making

(Zandro Escat)

Datu Paglas Municipality Barangay Mangadeg more women are participating in community meetings. After attending community re-echoes conducted by Protection Pool of Trainers (PPOT) which, aim to inform community members of their rights and entitlements according to the law of the land. So sure of themselves after knowing their rights. They demand from their leaders great concerns on women and children.

I showed enthusiasm in assuring that the concerns and issues of women are included in every aspect of the community plan. I speak for women’s needs and concerns and involved in the decision making especially on the welfare of women and children told Noraida Daud. She is involved in most community activities.

Women are more diverse in building their communities. Some are involved in backyard gardening which gives them income and food while others are joining their male counterparts in the farm. This is far beyond their domestic responsibilities.
In community activities, more women participated in community discussions and have influenced in the formulation of community plans particularly the Disaster Preparedness Plan. ZCE

Philippines: displacement increases

2008-08-21T11:14:00.000+08:00

Philippines: displacement increases as Mindanao’s peace process stumbles on

Fighting and displacement in the Philippines have increased in the past two years. From less
than 100,000 in 2006, the number of people displaced by conflict reached 170,000 in 2007 and has exceeded 290,000 during 2008. Most are in the southern region of Mindanao, where the government has been fighting secessionist Moro (Muslim) rebels groups for the past 30 years. Although hopes of an imminent formal peace agreement were raised in July 2008 as the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) reached a consensus on the issue of Moro territory, strong opposition to the deal by Christian groups and growing Moro frustration led to intense fighting in early August in North Cotabato Province, resulting in the displacement of more than 160,000 people. Further violence, affecting mainly Lanao del Norte, forced an additional 60,000 people to leave their homes in Mindanao in mid-August.

The government’s “war on terror” against groups and people suspected of links with the al-Qaeda network is another important cause of displacement, mainly in the south-western Provinces of Sulu and Basilan, stronghold of the Abu Sayaff Group (ASG) and also of the second-largest Moro rebel group, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). At the same time, government efforts to root out the communist rebels, the New People’s Army (NPA) has led to an increase in confrontations and in extrajudicial killings of leftist leaders over the past years. Military-NPA confrontations continued to displace people all over the country during 2007 and 2008. A peace agreement with the NPA remains elusive.

The displaced often live in inadequate evacuation centres or with relatives. While many are able to return home quickly, a consistent group of several hundreds of thousands of people remains displaced without sufficient access to clean water, food or education and job opportunities. The continuing conflict in Mindanao contributes to its continuing status as the poorest region in the Philippines. Increased food prices and the impact of Typhoon Frank in June 2008 have only made matters worse for Mindanao’s poor.

National and international agencies continue to have difficulties in their humanitarian response, due to financial constraints, coordination problems, and insecurity on the ground. Increased international interest in human rights violations in general, and the fate of the displaced in particular, would be necessary in improving the human rights situation in the Philippines. Greater engagement in the peace process would contribute to putting an end to the cycle of violence and displacement. IDMC