Cartoon Santa Klaus (Schwab) and Fernando Morales-de la Cruz, created by Paco Baca for Cartoons For Change
Image: Paco Baca
Davos, December 23rd 2024
By Fernando Morales-de la Cruz
Dear Santa,
I write to you with a very special request. I believe I have been a good boy, at least during the last ten years. I am a 64-year-old journalist and human rights activist and have dedicated 100% of my time in the last 10 years pro bono to investigate misery, child labour and forced labour in corporations and in the supply chains of developed nations. I have also done my very best to get top politicians, top business leaders, major investors, churches, editorial cartoonists and journalists in all continents to pay attention to irrefutable evidence of the exploitation for profit of defenceless children and to 21st Century slavery.
As you know, the world committed to the Sustainable Development Goals at the United Nations in 2015. Nearly a decade later, misery, hunger, malnutrition, child labour and forced labour have all increased. The total number of children that work today is not 160 million like UNICEF and the ILO claim but closer to 400 million. Read study by Lichand and Wolf, universities of Zurich and Pennsylvania.
Unfortunately UNICEF, the ILO, the UNDP, etc. are conflicted. They are co-funded by many corporations that use child labour and even slaves to reduce costs and increase profits.The UN has not implemented #ZeroChildLabor or #ZeroSlavery in its own supply chains.
As you also know, Dr. Klaus Schwab, the Santa Klaus for corporations, wealthy investors and billionaires, founded the World Economic Forum nearly 54 years ago bringing together the leaders of nearly 1,000 top corporations that supply what some children receive as gifts from Santa Claus. You, as the real Santa Claus who does no harm, and the parents of these children must keep in mind that there are more than 75 million children working in the supply chains and in the labour force of 2,500 WEF participants that meet in Davos claiming that they are Committed to Improving the State of the World. Hundreds of corporations have business models that are the opposite of the Sustainable Development Goals.There is child labour and forced labour in brands from A to Z, from Apple to Zara.
My request is very humble, I would like you to commit in 2025 to #ZeroChildLabor and #ZeroSlavery in all the gifts that are given in your name to the children who are lucky to receive gifts. I am not asking you to give gifts to the poor children, I am respectfully but strongly requesting that you help me defend the right of all girls and boys to education and demand all governments and all corporations #ZeroChildLabor and #ZeroSlavery.
Today nearly 300 million children do not go to school and close to 140 million children work for corporations or in their supply chains. Infant malnutrition in children aged 0 to 5 in some communities that produce (what corporations dare to call) "Fairtrade" coffee, tea and cocoa has reached 90%. This has to stop!
Cartoon ESG Investment Class at World Economic Forum by Maarten Wolterink for Cartoons For Change
Image: Maarten Wolterink
Cartoon ESG Investment Class at World Economic Forum by Maarten Wolterink for Cartoons For Change.
The Santa Klaus for corporations and billionaires claims to have "Improved the State of the World" but 54 years after he started the WEF there is still misery, hunger, malnutrition, child labor and even slavery in the supply chains of the WEF in Davos and also in its headquarters in Geneva. There are many WEF Member corporations that exploit hundreds of thousands of children, while the mountain high journalists in Davos look the other way.
I asked Dr. Schwab and the Board of Trustees of the WEF in January, see video above, to commit to #ZeroChildLabor and #ZeroSlavery among WEF members. They have not replied until now. I want all WEF Member corporations to fire all the children and hire adults and pay them a decent wage. Everyone of those «Working Girls, Working Boys» should be going to school if we really want to improve the state of the world. Please listen to our Christmas song Working Girls, Working Boys.
And lastly, I dare to ask you to please have a word with your neighbours from Norway. Norway, the single largest investor in the world, with $1.7 trillion in AUM and investments in nearly 9,000 corporations profits from the exploitation of tens of millions of children by investing in hundreds of corporations that use child labor to reduce costs and increase profits.
Please read my complaint to the Prime Minister of Norway and my letter to Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management.
I believe that it will be you, the real Santa Claus and not the Santa Klaus from Davos who can actually Improve the State of the World if you commit to #ZeroChildLabor and #ZeroSlavery by 2025. Dr. Klaus Schwab is too proud to admit that the WEF has overlooked hunger, infant malnutrition, slavery and child labour among its corporate members. I already had a big fight with him about the lack of women at the WEF.
I apologise to you and to everyone who reads this letter for calling my self a boy. I still dream of a world where every child everywhere in the world will eat three nutritious meals a day, go to school and be a free child, and where no one will be a slave. There are nearly 50 million slaves in 2024.
If you want to support our efforts to help eliminate child labour and slavery, and us defend the right to education of all children, please make a donation via paypal or credit card to our #ZeroChildLabor #ZeroSlavery campaign
I wish you a Merry Christmas and #ZeroChildLabor and #ZeroSlavery in 2025.
* Fernando Morales-de la Cruz is an activist and campaigner for an end to child labour and slavery worldwide.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.