Committee: GA3:SOCHUM(Social, Cultural, and Humanitarian Committee)

Agenda A: Ensuring labor rights for plantation workers

Agenda B: Finding measures to alleviate racial conflict

Student Officers: Chaewon Kim, Yesong Jung

Agenda A: Ensuring labor rights for plantation workers

I. Committee Introduction

The Social, Cultural, and

Humanitarian Committee,

also referred to as the

‘ T h i r d C o m m i t t e e ’ ,

discusses agenda items that

touch upon a wide range of

global issues regarding

social, humanitarian affairs

and human rights.

Questions that are frequently discussed within the committee are those relating to

gender equality, the protection of children, indigenous issues, the treatment of

refugees, the promotion of fundamental freedoms via eliminating racism and racial

discrimination, and the right to self- determination. The Committee also discusses

issues regarding critical social development questions that are related to youth,

family, ageing, the disabled, criminal justice, and management of drug transaction.

II. Agenda Introduction

i) Definition of key terms

● Plantations

A plantation is a large farm which is specialized on farming a sinlge crop.

Pantations grow cash crops, mostly for export, and less for local use. Crops grown

on plantations include banana, sugarcane, coffee, tea, cotton and tobacco.

The traces of plantataion goes back to the latifundia of the Roman Empire. Mostly

for the purpose of export, they produced mass amounts of wine and olive oil. It

was when international trade increased, along with the decline of subsistence

farming, that plantation farming rapidly developed. Like every economic activity,

it has changed over time. Problems with these plantations that were, and are

prevalent in the global society are the large disparities of wealth and income,

foreign ownership and political influence, and exploitative social systems such

as indentured labor and slavery.

ii) Urgency & importance of this agenda

Both the key contribution of plantation workers to global food production as well

as their discrimination and vulnerability to malnutrition and hunger is largely

ignored in the current debates on food security and rural development. Although

global efforts have been ongoing for quite a while, they have been excluded from

rural development schemes. The low wages and poor working conditions on many

plantations go to the extent as to threaten the lives of the workers, making

malnutrition a common among the workers. However, the dependency of working

households from plantation corporations in the providing basic necessities such as

housing, food, and health could possibly lead to hunger and other human rights

violations, especially when workers lose their jobs or when the plantations are

closed down or abandoned. This implies the urgent need of States and the

international community to take immediate action.

III. Status Quo

The problem of ensuring labor rights of plantation workers has been an ongoing

issue in the global community for quite a long time. But it seems that it is still

prevailing in our society. The problem in tea, cacao, textile plantations are the most

well known, but they sure are not the only areas with problems. The infringement

include working for long hours with wages far below the minimum, poor working

conditions such as working under the sun without rest nor protection, and working

with poor thus dangerous machinery. The problem seems to exacerbate as the issue

of ‘child labor’ also has been raised. Children no longer than 8 years old are

working in plantations without proper nutrition, and thus cannot receive any proper

education.

Measures have been made at state-scale, and the United Nations has also been

working to solve the problem. To address the problem of labor abuse as a whole,

the United Nations general assembly has passed the ‘International Covenant on

Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’, also known as the ICESCR. In accordance

with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it believes that the ideal of free

human beings enjoying freedom from fear and want can only be achieved if

conditions are created whereby everyone may enjoy his economic, social and

cultural rights, as well as his civil and political rights.

IV. History

In the past, Africans imported as slaves were used to work on early plantations

such as tobacco, rice, cotton, and sugar plantations in the colonized areas. Many

experts believe that the global capitalist economy was largely founded upon these

massive slave labor camps in colonial plantations, via exploiting African slaves.

In modern times, most plantations made profit with the low wages paid to

plantation workers. In more recent times, though, slavery is gone, but para-

slavery or slavery-in-kind, still exists. Many workers are in "debt bondage",

meaning that to pay off their debts with skyrocketing interest rates, they are locked

up with the plantations. They cannot leave unless they pay their debts, but many

times it is impossible. The plantation workers work under unbelievable conditions.

For unreasonably long hours under extreme conditions, they are paid minimal

wages that, often times, may only be spent in the company store.

V. Stance of involved nations/organizations

- Nations

• India

Although India remains to be well known for its mass population of tea, the

working conditions of the plantation workers are still poor. According to a 2016

report on the 155,000 people who work on the plantation of the second largest tea

company in India, it has gone to the extent that the low wages and poor living and

working conditions are causing high levels of malnutrition and ill health. Although

efforts have been made to ease the problem, many have failed to correct serious

lapses in the use of pesticides, exposing the workers to extremely hazardous

chemicals.

• Ecuador

Ecuador is the world’s largest banana exporter, having consumers all around the

globe. However, it turns out that banana workers in Ecuador are the victims of

serious human rights abuses. The problem is especially severe in that children as

young as eight work on banana plantations in hazardous conditions, while adult

workers fear firing if they try to exercise their right to organize.

• Indonesia

Indonesia is the world's second largest palm oil producer; together with Malaysia

they account for about 80 percent of global palm-oil production. But during the

process, numerous plantations exploit its workers. The problem is especially severe

for women. They are more easily abused, and even receive lower wages than most

of the men.

• Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic is the world’s second larger producer of Fairtrade

bananas, earning producers an estimated US $10 million extra in 2014. In the past,

the working conditions in this nation were very problematic. But since the fair

trade international started to act to solve the problem, conditions could not have

been better. Nearly 300,000 people have applied to regularize their status in 2014,

and since then, 90% of these applications have been accepted.

• Bangladesh

After the deadly collapse of the Rana Plaza textile factory, which killed more than

1100 and injured 2500, there has been ongoing demands for better protection and

working conditions for workers in such factories. However, little has been going on

to solve the issue, and workers still have to endure dangerous conditions and low

pay.

• Malaysia

In 2009, the Plantation Workers Support Group (PWSG) strongly disputed the data

of the Government of Malaysia which overestimated the wages of the plantation

workers. The reality turned out to be much worse, far below the international

poverty line as defined by the Worldbank.

- Organizations

• The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

(OHCHR)

OCHCR is the principal human rights official of the United Nations, representing

the world's commitment to universal ideals of human dignity. The High

Commissioner heads OHCHR and spearheads the United Nations' human rights

efforts.

• FLO- fair trade international

Fairtrade International (FLO) is an international organization that promotes fair

trade, and fairtrade labeling. Its purpose is to take measures to solve poverty and

inequality in the impoverished nations. FLO produces and promotes Fairtrade

products and have developed the fair-trade labeling system, or the fair-trade

certification system.

• IUF- The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant,

Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations

The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering,

Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) is a global union

federation of trade unions , representing workers employed in agriculture, food and

beverages, hotels, restaurants and catering services and in tobacco processing.

The IUF has its headquarters in Switzerland. There are smaller, sub-organizations

within the IUF in Africa, Asia/Pacific, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America and

North America.

VI. Future Outlook

Unless further measures are taken on both local, state, and global scales, the

problem will not get any better. The situation is getting worse any minute, as the

terms of trade for agricultural commodities have declined, leading to downgrading

of working conditions. This has also led to massive competitive pressure on

plantation companies and the weakening of trade unions. And the expansion of the

plantation sector in low value crops, and the food price inflation over the last years

is only exacerbating the problem. It also turns out, during the past decades,

plantation workers have been completely ignored by development policies.

VII. Possible solutions

Most importantly, there is a dire need for further recognition of the necessity to

make a human rights based agreement, on a global scale. Delegates must keep in

mind that the human right to food, like all the other important, fundamental rights,

poses obligations on first and foremost- the nation. Those responsibilities include

the obligation to respect, protect and fulfill the right to food of plantation workers

and their families. The employers of the plantations have a duty as well, even

where laws are insufficiently protective of agricultural workers or where the

legislations that are existing are poorly monitored or implemented in plantations.

The processors, retailers, and the buyers of the plantation produced food also have

a responsibility to respect the right to food of agricultural workers in their supply

chain and market sourcing, and in their pricing and wage policies.

To achieve this, the states and the global community need to implement and

enforce national legislations and human rights based agendas that address

structural violations of and discrimination against plantation workers. And as the

power imbalances within the plantation turned out to be one of the causes, it is

necessary that measures are taken to address this issue as well.

VIII. Conclusion

Throughout the session, delegates must keep in mind the following- ways to

protect workers’ right to food in a larger framework of workers’ right at home,

ways to engage internationally for an appropriate agenda, and ways to further

develop the framework that ensures that transnational companies meet their

responsibilities. Coming up with solutions based on these three factors will lead to

a much fruitful debate and a better resolution.

IX. Questions to Consider

There are few questions that the member of SOCHUM should consider in order to

make national stances and resolutions.

• What are the ways to solve the power imbalances within the plantations?

• To what extent should the autonomy of the corporations, or the plantation

companies should be respected?

• How can free trade be a solution?

• How can we solve the problem of child abuse?

• Under the situation where children have to go to work to support their

family, how can we ensure their rights to education?

• Could there be ways to create an international funding, or any other ways to

provide economic aid, for the purpose of enhancing poor working

conditions?

Agenda B: Finding measures to alleviate racial conflict

I. Agenda introduction

1. Definition of the key terms

- Racial conflict

Racial conflict refers to the implausible relationship involving different races. The term can be replaced by Ethnic conflict. Racial conflict, historically, was mostly violent. People fought against each other for the protection of themselves, by using any method. However, in current society, racial conflict doesn’t necessarily mean only violent measures to attack against the other. It can be called as a racial conflict even when the non-violent struggles occur.

Racial conflict has its root of the problem in many different fields in our society. From politics to religion, its range is really wide. Without the understanding of the background of different identities between races, the possibility of the occurrence of the problem will inevitably rise.

2. Urgency & Importance of the agenda

Racial conflict, which can also be called ethnic conflict, has long history. Although it can be inferred that a lot of examples regarding conflict between different ethnic groups did involve violence, the essential part of racial conflict is that it does not necessarily have to be violent. Especially in a current society where people can express ideas without much restriction, different races can face racial conflict through public speech, political campaigns and so on.

Even without the action of violence, racial conflict itself can be a detrimental aspect in a current society. As the entire globe is living in the century of

globalization, and as it requires harmony between different races, the need for solving problems of racial conflict is becoming more crucial.

When we look out for status quo, we will be able to find out how ethnic conflict can pose threats to every single country which was not meant to be involved in. As racial conflict occurs due to many different reasons, if the root of the problem is not solved, the concerns regarding the expansion of the conflict into the violent attacks from non-violent actions are likely to happen in reality. These actions will indeed cause harms to the world peace which the United Nations works, we do feel a dire need to find solutions to the agenda.

II. Status Quo

When regarding the problem of racial conflict, we can still find out that the root of the problem isn’t being solved in many nations. As mentioned in the importance

of the agenda, globalization is contributing to one of the factors that increases diversity of races. And in this situation, this can actually exacerbate implausible perception towards different races.

Still, conflicts that involve different races are easy to find. The conflict between Palestinian and Jewish in the territory of Palestine has continued for a long time, involving both violent and non-violent methods.

A more recent e x a m p l e , t h e

conflict in Transnistria, is in a ‘frozen’ state. There are no ongoing attacks, however, the conflict with the surrounding countries is actually enforcing the country to integrate to Moldova. Although this case hasn’t been recognized by much people around the world, it indeed is a serious conflict which involves an

entire nation.

We can say that the ongoing attacks which we can see with our own eyes have decreased, compared to the records in our history. However, the frozen state triggered by the racial conflict is posing threats to the peace of the entire globe, and sometimes leads to the extreme attacks also. We should be clear about what is actually happening in the current world to find out solvencies to handle the problem.

III. History

Throughout history, racial conflict had its numerous causes, and some of the experts who were focusing on this topic had even divided the causes into three schools of theory: Primordialist accounts, Instrumentalist accounts, and Constructivist accounts. Although these thoughts can provide the basic background of the occurrence of racial conflicts, the actual causes require more than that.

The fundamental cause might involve the conflict between ethnic groups in order to gain state resources. Not only the pursuit of these resources among citizens itself but also the politicians controlling the mindset of the citizens for the purpose of making their regime easier became an effective way to motivate the citizens to fight for their own benefits. This indeed was a great method to trigger the people to engage themselves in violence.

What some people think is that the racial conflict might have occurred one side discriminated the other and tried rule over the other race. Take the United States of America as an example. In the past United States, where the Americans brought Africans to their land and treated as slaves, the segregation was so extreme that all of sudden the Africans started to resist. Their action started to become violent, and it indeed brought up the result of a huge conflict. The problem did actually end up with numerous laws to prevent US from further conflicts and discrimination regarding races, however, that action could not get rid of the root of the problem in the first place.

Another example that can bring us to the other reason for racial conflicts is the Kosovo War. This war was caused since the border of the Kosovo didn’t match with the ones of other ethnic groups, and it has led to political conflict as well. This war became much larger, causing numerous people to die.

In order to do away with the problems regarding the issue of racial conflict, people, from when the term of ethnic conflict appeared, started to come up with resolutions to deal with the problem.

One of them was Non-territorial autonomy. This method tries to give individual ethnic group its own right to rule themselves. By giving minority groups the rights to protect their own culture including languages and lifestyle, the people believed that they could decrease the possibility of the occurrence of ethnic conflict.

Including this mechanism, here were also many other methods that included the idea of recognizing the value of different ethnic groups to prevent and solve the discord among them. People, at the very beginning, thought that power-sharing methods could be effective and will be useful.

IV. Stance of Involve Nations / Organizations

1) Nations

- United States of America (US)

US, as a country which faced numerous times of ethnic conflict, is now expressing their critical opinions towards other nations which are now in the

danger of attacks regarding similar issues. Taking the example of the ethnic conflict in Burma, US expressed their critical stance. As one of the nations that lead many other countries in terms of economy and culture, the United States of America today are trying to deal with the issue.

- China

As the country with the highest rate of divergent ethnic groups, the nation once tried to make political intervention on Sudan in 2014, by asserting that Sudan should stop the racial conflict right away. Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, said that he is deeply concerned with the idea of Sudan. The country’s stance was that any and all violence should be ceased.

- South Sudan

Sudan went over a huge ethnic conflict in its size and the aftermaths. The country is still suffering from all the happenings and destruction. Compared to the prior hostile manner, the country started to soften their stance. With the United Nation’s request to negotiate in its number, size and weapons of the army in 2016, the nation has decided to accept it. It shows that the country is starting to change their behavior.

2) Organizations

- United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs, who was taking care of the conflict occurred within Central African Republic, clearly stated t h a t s u c h action is what c o n c e r n s t h e m . T h e y believe that

the aftermaths actually shows the ugly face of the conflict. They state that the conflict between different ethnic groups can manipulate people, make the people move out from the country and divide the country more into pieces.

- United Nations Security Council (UNSC)

UNSC, dealing with the problems regarding the issue of territorial conflicts between different races, state that there must be a force involved in the nations. They believe that such act, can actually decrease the likelihood of occurrence of further civil wars.

V. Future Outlook

Regarding current status quo, it is clear that ethnic conflict may continue in 21st century. Some experts, like Jerry Muller, state that ethnonationalism might be one of the ways for the future of the ethnic conflict might flow. Ethnonationalism basically means that people will be divided into smaller, independent states. In this independent state, people with same race will gather and live in their own culture. Since there will be an endless ongoing disruption, people will actually try to achieve such a goal. What people will be doing by achieving this goal is to protect themselves from being evaded their own cultures and own territories by other group of races. They do not have to spend much time on bringing more attention to the conflicts.

However, some say that it is highly unlikely. The ones who are against this idea, asserts that the method is too extreme, as there are over 6800 different languages around the world (including dialects). If the nations decide to divide their territories into smaller groups in order to decrease the conflict between other race groups, we will end up with having a small fragmentations of lands with different people trying to deter themselves.

VI. Possible Solutions

In order to find out the solvencies to the problem, we are in dire need to look for the main causes once again. Ethnic conflict occurs when minority groups get their right violated by the other groups and try to resist. Sometimes, it happens when different race groups pursue the same profit such as resources or territories.

First, acknowledging the difference between different races seem to be crucial. As the minority group is feeling pressure by their surrounding countries in some case, there needs to be a worldwide action to protect the diversity of different culture, and to make everyone admit this fact. Without regarding the differences, this problem of a majority group putting a strain on the minority wouldn’t end. Then, possibly, this will lead to numerous resistance of the people in the minority group.

Also, worldwide effort, especially the peace treaty can be done. As in case of South Sudan, where the peace treaty created by the United Nations played a big role in keeping the equilibrium between two different parts of the territory, we need to have an action that can keep the boundaries of different races in some kind of form of legal acts. This is why the United Nations works for.

VII.Conclusion

Indeed, it is really hard to guarantee that the action we will be making will get rid of every racial conflict all around the world. As the history is so long, and the world cannot evade the situation in which people with different race would have to live in a same boundary. However, the United Nations’ goal is not simply letting the territories to be divided and let different races live in each one’s territory. What we try to achieve through debating under this agenda will be a true way to help different races to live in peace and harmony. Although it will be hard for the UN to find an excellent way to achieve this goal, it is really important to pertain to the main motto of the organization as a whole. We cannot stand to leave this situation where a lot of people are dying out due to conflicts, and threatening peace by ‘Frozen state’. There are few questions we need to ask. What will be the best way to achieve our goal without further sacrifice of innocent people? Under what premise would the people be satisfied, and regard that their ethnic diversity is

being respected?

X. Bibliography

World Rainforest Movement

http://wrm.org.uy/oldsite/bulletin/47/rights.html

https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/04/24/ecuador-widespread-labor-abuse-banana-plantations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantation

http:/ /www.iuf.org/w/sites/default /f i les/2014%20Harvesting%20Hunger.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantation#Slavery

http://www.downtoearth-indonesia.org/story/abuse-workers-human-rights-oil-

palm-plantations

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/AboutUs/Pages/WhoWeAre.aspx

https://www.fairtrade.net/new/latest-news/single-view/article/cotton-failing-

millions-of-farmers-in-asia-africa.html

https://www.fairtrade.net/new/latest-news/single-view/article/new-fairtrade-textile-

standard-and-programme-aim-to-protect-workers-in-the-textile-industry.html

https://www.fairtrade.net/new/latest-news/single-view/article/change-for-the-

better-in-dominican-banana-industry.html

http://www.laborrights.org/sites/default/files/publications/Brewing%20Misery

%20-%20A%20report%20on%20tea%20plantations%20in%20WB.pdf

http://wrm.org.uy/oldsite/bulletin/134/Indonesia.html

Map (West bank & Gaza)

http://blog.naver.com/rakio2005/90142984859

Transnistrian Conflict

http://www.fpri.org/article/2017/07/transnistrian-conflict-destabilizing-status-quo/

China’s stance

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/06/presidents-sudan-south-sudan-

meet-juba-discuss-conflict

South Sudan’s stance

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/08/south-sudan-softens-stance-peacekeeping-force-160814085940136.html

Kosovo Kids

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_War#/media/File:Kosovo-metohija-koreni-duse029.jpg