I. Overview

A 1992 report by UNICEF revealed that over one million Guatemalan children aged seven and up are working.¹ Despite a reported decline in employment of children under the age of 14 in Guatemala's garment maquiladoras that produce apparel for export to the United States, evidence suggests that a small amount of children are still employed. Remote factories and subcontracted garment manufacturing enterprises appear to be more likely than urban factories to employ children. Further investigation of these areas is needed.

II. Child Labor in Export Industries

Garment Maquilas

In 1993, Guatemala exported over $545 million in apparel to the United States.² The vast majority of garments exported from Guatemala are produced in maquiladoras, or "maquilas," which assemble garments from imported materials and ship them to foreign destinations without being subjected to any duties.³ A large percentage of Guatemala's maquilas are owned by U.S. or South Korean investors and employ a largely female work force.⁴

In recent years, a great deal of attention has been focused on child labor in Guatemala's maquiladora sector. Kurt Peterson, who researched and wrote on Guatemala's maquiladoras in 1992, has described the working conditions of children employed in these factories. Peterson profiled one child worker named Maria as follows:

Only thirteen years old, "Maria" works at Sung Sil S.A., a five-hundred-machine shop . . . [which] is located in a recently constructed maquila factory park ten miles outside of Guatemala City. Maria lives with her two brothers, her parents, and her grandmother in a two-room shack on a dirt road near the modern factory. She does not attend school and cannot read. But Maria can sew -- for eleven hours a day, six days a week she sews. When management requires, she works until 3:00 a.m., and then rises four hours later to begin again.⁵

Many observers, including Guatemalan NGOs and U.S. Embassy officials, assert that, as a result of the negative publicity given to child labor in the textile maquilas, employers have greatly reduced their use of child labor.⁶ A recent study by the Guatemalan think-tank Asociacion para el Avance de las Ciencias Sociales en Guatemala (AVANCSO) found that nine of forty-nine maquila workers were between the ages of 14 and 17 and that this group represented the youngest group of workers.⁷ Nevertheless, there is evidence suggesting that at least some children under the age of 14 are still working in the textile factories.

A Guatemalan woman who had conducted extensive interviews with workers in garment maquiladoras that were producing for export to the United States testified at a June 1994 U.S. House Subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations Hearing that, "(t)here are many children as young as 11 or 12 working in maquilas."⁸ Kenneth Klothen, a children's rights expert who visited Guatemala in May 1994, reported that although there has been a decrease in child labor in Guatemala's export industries, there is still reason for concern. Klothen claims that, "those maquiladoras located outside the capital city may be more likely to employ younger children both because the pool of adult workers is smaller and because they are less likely to be exposed to scrutiny by independent observers."⁹ He supports this argument with evidence given by AVANCSO investigators who recently observed children as young as 12 entering a maquila in Chimaltenango, several miles from Guatemala City, but were denied access to the factory by management.¹⁰ Other sources, including Peterson, echoed Klothen's argument by claiming that more child labor exists in the remote maquilas than in those found in the cities.¹¹

Klothen also noted the continuing trend to subcontract garment sewing in small shops and homes in Guatemala. This practice, which is commonly found in Latin America, allows a factory to boost its production while turning a blind eye to child workers who are employed by these sub-contractors or who assist their mothers working out of their homes. An example of this sort of arrangement is given by Peterson, "in the village of San Pedro Sacatepequez, where [a U.S. owned garment company] contracts large volumes of cheap flannel shirts to dozens of small household shops, children as young as six work alongside their siblings and mothers, usually snipping excess threads from finished garments."¹² Although there has been no recent written documentation of child labor in this area, sources in Guatemala have continued to report its existence.¹³

Further investigation is needed to determine the extent to which children under 14 are working in the maquila factories, or involved in the subcontracting, of Guatemala's garment industry today.

Other Export Industries

Labor Ministry and staff from non-governmental organizations working with indigenous children allege that child labor violations also exist in the agricultural processing sector that ships both fresh and frozen products to foreign markets.¹⁴

III. Laws of Guatemala

A. National Child Labor Laws

The basic minimum age for work in Guatemala, as established in the Codigo de Trabajo, is 14. However, the Inspector General of Labor (IGT) has authority to grant a work permit to an underage child if that child is an apprentice, "extreme poverty" warrants the child's contribution to the family income, or if he or she is engaged in work that is light in "duration and intensity."¹⁵ Children under 16 are prohibited from engaging in "unhealthy or dangerous" work, as established by regulation or upon inspection by the IGT.¹⁶ All minors are prohibited from engaging in night work.¹⁷

The Guatemalan labor code's provisions concerning the work of children under 14 have not effectively limited the number of children working. The United States Department of State reports that 5,000 children have the authorization to work but thousands more children are working without permits.¹⁸ The Ministry of Labor's inspection system for enforcing child labor laws is widely viewed as inadequate.¹⁹ The shortcomings are largely due to the shortage of labor inspectors and the structural weaknesses in the labor court system.²⁰ Courts are backlogged and understaffed and defendants may select the judge they will appear before. Moreover, maquila owners frequently deny entrance to labor inspectors. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) currently has a program in Guatemala to assist with the hiring and training of labor inspectors with the aim of doubling the existing number of labor inspectors, increasing their salaries, establishing regional inspectorates, and providing technical training.²¹

B. Education Laws

Education is compulsory in Guatemala until age 14.²² Article 74 of the Guatemalan Constitution provides that:

Citizens have the right and obligation to receive initial education, pre-school, primary and basic education, within the age limits established by the law. The education is free. The State shall provide for and promote scholarships and educational credits.²³

In practice, this law is not enforced. The overall national illiteracy rate is 52 percent with the rate as high as 85 percent in rural areas.²⁴ A 1989 SODIFAG study found a 90 percent illiteracy rate among indigenous children.²⁵

C. International Conventions

The Government of Guatemala is party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.²⁶ Guatemala has also ratified ILO Convention No. 138 Concerning Minimum Age for Admission to Employment and Convention No. 59 Concerning Minimum Age for Admission to Employment in Industry.²⁷

IV. Programs and Efforts To Address Child Labor

The administration of President Ramon de Leon Carpio has attempted, since it came into power in 1993, to improve the work of the Ministry of Labor. The number of inspectors has been increased and there has been substantial decentralization in the ministry. The Labor Ministry has also created a Task Force for Protection of Child Workers which has jurisdiction over the issuance of authorizations for work by minors, distributes materials on workers rights to child workers and provides them with alternative Sunday school programs, as well coordinating the visits of counsellors with young workers. The Labor Ministry is also currently translating child worker rights materials into indigenous languages for wider distribution.²⁸

A number of Guatemalan NGOs are involved in advocacy work, research, and social programs designed to address the problems of child labor. Many of these programs deal exclusively with street children and the extreme conditions under which they work and live.

¹ Cited in "Children Bear Brunt of Guatemalan Civil Strife," Notimex Mexican News Service, June 8, 1992.

² U.S. Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration, Office of Textiles and Apparel, Major Shippers: Textiles and Apparel (June 11, 1994).

³ Kenneth L. Klothen, Child Labor in the Export Manufacturing Sectors of Central America and Mexico (May, 1994) 5 [on file] [hereinafter Klothen].

⁴ Cindy Forster, "Organizing in the Maquila Factories," in Report on Guatemala (Spring 1991) 6.

⁵ Kurt Peterson, The Maquiladora Revolution in Guatemala (New Haven: The Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School, 1992) 170 [hereinafter The Maquiladora Revolution].

⁶ Klothen at 7.

⁷ El Significado de la Maquila en Guatemala (Guatemala City: AVANCSO, 1994).

⁸ Hearing on Leslie Fay Closure in the United States, U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations (June 7, 1994) (Statement of Flor de Maria Salguero de Laparro).

⁹ Klothen at 7.

¹⁰ Id. at 7.

¹¹ Telephone interview with Kurt Peterson, author of The Maquiladora Revolution in Guatemala, by U.S. Department of Labor official (April 14, 1994).

¹² The Maquiladora Revolution at 92.

¹³ Minutes of Briefing by Rosa Delia Galicia Lopez of INEXPORT Union to the Guatemala Coordinating Committee (November 11, 1992).

¹⁴ Klothen at 8.

¹⁵ Codigo de Trabajo, Article 150.

¹⁶ Id. at Art. 148.

¹⁷ Id. at Art. 148 and 149.

¹⁸ Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1993 (U.S. Department of State, February 1994) 459 [hereinafter Country Reports].

¹⁹ Klothen at 8.

²⁰ Country Reports at 459

²¹ Klothen at 8.

²² Conditions of Work Digest, Volume 10 (Geneva: International Labor Organization, 1991) 36.

²³ The Guatemalan Human Rights Commission, "Children and the Right to Education," Monograph No. 10 (November 1987) 2.

²⁴ Country Reports at 459.

²⁵ Cited in Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) Subcommittee: 1990 GSP Annual Review, Cases" 006,010-CP-90, Guatemala (GSP Information Center, Office of the United States Trade Representative, August 1990) 15.

²⁶ Country Reports at 1403.

²⁷ List of Ratifications by Convention by Country (as at December 1992) (Geneva: International Labor Organization, 1993).

²⁸ Klothen at 9.