FIGHT AGAINST CHILD LABOUR
City student joins global campaign
Mira Gillis simply did the same thing as countless other high school students last summer vacation.
She wiled away hours searching the internet.
It’s her search that makes the endeavour rather unique.
She didn’t look for clothes or music or jewelry. Instead, Gillis typed in opportunities to be a teenage global ambassador.
Her travels through the web searching for “something where I could help other people,” led the 16-year-old Brennan student to World Vision Canada.
Each year, the Christian charity that tackles issues related to poverty and injustice seeks out 30 students from across Canada to serve as youth advocates.
Gillis was intrigued but didn’t bother applying on that day she found the site in mid-July. “It’s kind of a funny story,” she said. “I decided to do it later, and later happened to be the day of the deadline in early September.” Despite throwing together a lastminute submission, Gillis was selected as a youth advocate working on World Vision’s No Child for Sale campaign aimed at child labour. Of the 30 students chosen, a dozen are from Canada’s Central Region, which encompasses Ontario and Manitoba.
Gillis and the rest of the group are now part of an effort to gather signatures for an online petition calling on Canada to adopt supplychain legislation.
Such legislation would make it mandatory for corporations to report on their due diligence process to ensure forced labour and related labour rights abuses do not occur in their supply chains and business activities. “Unfortunately, companies exploit children to make their product much cheaper,” Gillis said. So far, the online petition has garnered 42,000 signatures in support.
Gillis and several other World Vision youth advocates from the Greater Toronto Area filmed a public service announcement about child labour in Toronto in early December.
In the PSA, a student notes how $34 billion worth of goods come into Canada annually that have a high risk of being connected to child labour. Another student warns your shirt, your coffee, your makeup could all have been made at the hands of exploited children in foreign countries.
“How will this legislation help find out how the work is done?” Gillis says, looking at the camera while sitting on a wall in Toronto’s Graffiti Alley.
“I’ve never been part of anything that big before,” she said of the experience where she and the others met with the videographer and helped hone the script. Justin Park, a member of World Vision Canada’s public engagement team, said the PSA will be shared with several coalition partners also seeking supply chain legislation, including UNICEF, Save Canada and Fair Trade Canada. Gillis admits her awareness of child labour exploitation has come into much sharper focus these past few months.
“We’re teenagers and we like the big brand names, that’s what everybody is looking for,” Gillis said. “But this has made me second guess what’s important to me in terms of buying. It’s difficult to do the research on your own, but with this legislation, it wouldn’t be the responsibility of the consumer to find out, it would be the responsibility of the federal government.” The United Kingdom, Australia, France and the Netherlands have all adopted similar supply chain legislation.
Now the cause is near and dear to Gillis who will continue to advocate for the legislation locally. Park said next year, Gillis will be considered a youth ambassador who gets to specialize in advocating for an issue she’s personally passionate about.
He said she will also be considered for a youth trip in August to a Third World country with a World Vision team to see firsthand the organization’s work abroad.