“Well, don’t all leap at us at once,” I said to break the ice.
The first question was easy. A student asked if Iqbal’s killers were ever brought to justice. I told the class that in fact someone had been arrested, but that it was widely suspected he did not commit the crime.
Then, a student piped up. “If you eliminate child labour, won’t you send local currencies plummeting, causing unemployment and economic chaos amongst the countries?”
Marilyn looked at me. I stared back at her. She glanced at Adam, then said, “Craig, you take this one.”
An answer stumbled out. “I’m not really sure if that’s the case. I can honestly say I don’t really have an answer . . . .”
Another student asked, “What gives you the right to go to these countries and tell them what to do? Aren’t you simply white imperialists coming from a rich country, telling these people in the Third World how to raise their children?”
The questions came fast and furious. “What do you suppose happens to those children after they are taken out of child labour?”
“Wouldn’t the World Trade Organization stop any chance of a boycott of products made by child labour on the grounds that it would affect international treaties?”
Marilyn, Adam and I stood there and looked at each other after each and every question. Some of them we were able to answer, but most of our responses were simply lame and unconvincing. Often we had to say that we honestly didn’t have an answer.
Through it all, I found the room unbelievably warm. At times I thought I was going to faint. The three of us felt as if we were under attack, and shrinking more and more as the questions piled up.
I brought it all to an end and thanked the class. We walked outside for some fresh air. The teacher followed, asking if I was all right because I was sweating and had turned pale.
When the teacher had gone back inside, Marilyn turned to me and said, “That was torture.”
Adam added, “I wouldn’t want to have to go through that again.”
We sat on the steps of the portable, out of view of the students, although with the windows open we could hear that they were already on their next topic: global trade. We sat there, holding our posters with the pictures of the child workers, thinking to ourselves that maybe we were getting in over our heads. If we were going to get seriously involved in this issue, then we would have to know what we were talking about.
Later that day, after soaking in a long bath and watching some TV, I went into the office and began looking through our information. I wrote down every question that had stumped us, and I went looking for the answers. I called Alam Rahman and asked if he would go to the University of Toronto library and search out material for me on the issue. Our group did a systematic review of all the literature. Day by day, the answers began to build up.
I put together a three-page letter addressed to the class we had spoken to at Brebeuf College. It began: “Thank you very much for your challenging questions. We have undertaken research on the issues you raised and have found answers. If you have more questions, we will be more than happy to respond to them.”
And a few weeks later another invitation arrived from Brebeuf College, this time to speak to a class of Grade 12 students. And this time, when we were confronted with the questions, we had our answers.
We had learned that knowledge was our key, that the only way adults and students would take us seriously was if we knew what we were talking about and had a good response for every question. We had to be able to defend our views.
Of course there was still an attitude from some adults we met that we were just a “cute bunch of kids” who had started a club. They wouldn’t take us seriously, just flash that all-knowing smile of approval that usually comes before a pat on the head.
That didn’t deter us. We just pressed ahead.
Pinned to the wall of our Free The Children office was a large map of the world. We had sent dozens of inquiries to organizations located all over that map, and with each response the world seemed to shrink. Our neighbours were no longer simply the kids down our street in Thornhill. They were the kids in India, in Africa, in Brazil. More than ever I thought of us—all of us—as the children of the world.
Human rights organizations around the world sent us photographs of children released from bonded labour in carpet factories, newspaper reports of protest marches by children, and the ever-shocking statistics on child labour they had gathered from sources throughout their country.
It was through one such organization that we learned of an explosion in a fireworks factory in Rhotak, India, that killed twelve children and injured dozens of others. From our fax machine emerged the startling pictures and media reports. I immediately sent copies, with a covering letter, to Barbara Hall, the mayor of Toronto. Free The Children asked for permission to speak to city council. Permission was granted, and the council members were obviously moved by the material we placed before them. They were uncertain whether any fireworks brought in by the city were being made by child labour, but they promised to investigate, and they passed a resolution not to purchase for city events any fireworks made by children. There were no doubts in our minds about such a resolution. These were hazardous jobs. Many children had been killed or scarred for life.
As school closed for the summer, I was more enthused than ever about what we were trying to do. Besides the fireworks issue, our other major concern was the news from India that Kailash Satyarthi, one of the leaders in the fight against child bonded labour, was being harassed by police and threatened with imprisonment. Later we learned that he had been detained.
Was there anything we could do? We decided to write a letter to the prime minister of India, insisting that Kailash be set free, and we organized a three-thousand-name petition. Both were put in a shoebox, which we wrapped in brown paper and mailed to the Indian government in Delhi. We had worked very hard, and it was an action we hoped would have some impact. A year later, when Kailash came to Canada to speak about his humanitarian work, he recalled the shoebox containing all those names of Canadian children. “It was one of the most powerful actions taken on my behalf,” he said, “and, for me, definitely the most memorable.”
A highlight of the summer was the community garage sale we undertook to raise money for Free The Children and help spread our message. About fifty of our friends signed up to help.
I don’t think our parents knew what hit them. We had put out the word that FTC wanted to collect anything and everything we might be able to resell. Soon the donations started to arrive: old toys, books, furniture, clothes—you name it. They were heaped across our backyard and throughout our house.
We sat down and looked everything over.
“What we have,” one of us concluded, “are countless piles of junk.”
“Junk, but not useless junk.”
“Some of it needs a little fixing up.”
And for days we washed, cleaned, painted, sorted, and labelled. Of course, in between we played ball and cooled off in the swimming pool.
The night before the sale, a couple of us slept outside in a tent with our dogs to protect all of the merchandise.
At five-thirty the next morning, the first customers arrived. We weren’t quite prepared for what the following hours would bring; it was something a friend would later describe as “a character-building experience.”
To every person who showed up, we explained our purpose for having the sale. Many of them congratulated us, and added a donation to the price of whatever they purchased. Others were just out for a bargain, including one guy who tried to walk off with a computer after paying only two