In a recent Harper’s article, Mark Shapiro chronicles the chemical lobby’s gutting of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), and the US government’s continued badgering and undermining of the EU’s attempts to protect people from dangerous chemicals.

In 1976, the United States passed the first bill anywhere to regulate the safety of chemicals. While this was a potentially revolutionary act, it was undermined by chemical industry lobbying that fought for an exemption for 62,000+ chemicals that were already in use. Today, that means that only 5% of chemicals in products we consume and are exposed to have been tested for safety.

In a disturbing study from 2005, the World Wildlife Fund tested three generations of European woman. As you might expect, the oldest generation had the highest level of chemicals in their blood. However, in a close second was the youngest group-their grandchildren. This generation, on average, had 59 different toxic chemicals in their blood.

When the European Union moved to test and regulate the huge quantity of untested chemicals because of this study and others, the US has used its muscle to block any attempt to do so.

Furthermore, US toy companies are quick to scapegoat China for their own errors. In their drive for profit, they turn a blind-eye to dangerous design flaws, not to mention safety and workers’ rights in production abroad. And in one of the largest recalls, Mattel apologized to the Chinese government after it turned out their was not high levels of lead in the toys and the recall was because of US-side design flaws. A recent study by Hari Bapuji and Paul W. Beamish concluded,

…that the number of recalls and the number of recalls of Chinese-made toys have shown an upward trend. However, an examination of the reasons for the increase shows that the number of defects related to design issues attributable to the company ordering the toys is far higher than those caused by manufacturing problems in China.

A recent NPR report (I couldn’t find the link) mentioned, in passing, that many of the workers at a particular Chinese toy factory had no idea that the products they were making contained lead. And why would they? Management certainly doesn’t want them to know that they are inhaling toxic fumes on a daily basis. Although we view China as a monolithic, repressive state, workers‘ and peasant struggles occur, often over environmental issues. Supporting workers’ rights in China and other places our toys and clothes are made would go a long way to making them safer. Strong, independent trade unions would be a first-line defense against toxic chemicals.

If we’re serious about toy and product safety for our children, we should pay attention to what happens in China. Perhaps more importantly, though, are the chemicals that our government doesn’t want to test, for fear of hurting chemical companies’ profits. We should demand that the NSCA is strengthened, that EU chemical legislation is not gutted, and that Chinese workers are able to freely organize for safer workplaces.

Just this month, in Ohio, an undocumented Honduran woman was arrested during a house search and separated from her exclusively breast-fed baby for 11 days. Her baby, who would not take a bottle, did not eat for three of them. Anyone who breast feeds or has a partner that does also knows what happens when you stop suddenly-It is an extremely painful.

About an hour’s drive from my house, in Taylor, TX, is a prison run by Corrections Corporation of America, a for-profit company. Hutto prison is notable because, aside from being a “non-Mexican” facility, they incarcerate immigrants and their children who are not accused of any crime. Even worse, Hutto was given a childcare license exemption by the state, allowing the prison to care for children 24/7 without any childcare expertise. Kids get only one hour of recreation a day and rarely enjoy the outdoors. I recently designed a website for a documentary about the prison, Children in Jail. Please check it out for more information.

As an Alternet article points out, conditions in Texas are particularly bad, where the state has only one attorney for 500 incarcerated immigrant children. Many just fall through the cracks, often separated from their families by INS agents at their time of arrest.

In Texas, there is a growing movement to close Hutto. You can visit the “What can I do?” section of the Children in Jail site here. There is also an upcoming demonstration at Hutto on December 16 at 2:00 at the prison. This is certainly an issue that parents should care about.

But let’s try to look at this dispassionately – not as a human rights issue but as a PR disaster, ranking right up there with the 1982 discovery of cyanide in Tylenol capsules. Think of this as a case study in a corporate Crisis Communication course: How is The Gap handling the problem, and could it do better?

This is not the first time The Gap has been caught using child labor, but CEO Martha Hansen went on the air to state that the situation was “completely unacceptable” and that the company would “act swiftly.” Two problems here: One, she failed to detail the actions. It would have been nice, for example, if she had announced that some of the top-producing child slaves would be reassigned to manage Gap outlets in American malls, and that the under-performers would be adopted by Angelina Jolie.

The other, more serious, problem is that she got defensive about child labor. This is the mistake Kathie Lee Gifford made in 1996. When accused of using child labor in Honduras to manufacture her Kathie Lee line of clothing, Gifford broke into tears on TV. Maybe Hansen meant to cover herself by saying that The Gap would not “ever, ever condone any child laborer making our garments” rather than saying the company does not condone child labor itself. We already knew, from the rubber pipes and oily cloths, that The Gap does not condone much from its child laborers.

Hansen underestimated the potential support for a full-throated defense of child labor. More and more American children are tried and punished as adults today. And the ubiquitous conservative pundit William Kristol will surely be enthusiastic, considering his recent – though possibly facetious– statement that “whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it’s a good idea.”

The core of the argument, though, is that anyone who opposes child labor has not witnessed its opposite, which is child unemployment and idleness.

Hansen claims to be a mother herself, but I wonder how often she has returned home from a hard day in the C-suites to find her unemployed offspring Magic Marker-ing the walls and crushing the Froot Loops into the carpet. This is what jobless children do: They rub Crazy Glue into their siblings’ hair; they spill apple juice onto your keyboard. Believe me, I see this kind of wantonly destructive behavior every day. Vandalism is a way of life for unemployed children, and they do not know the meaning of remorse.

In fact, corporate America should go further and make a strong statement against the sickening culture of dependency that has grown up around childhood. Why are jobless children so criminally inclined? Because they know that whatever damage they inflict, the Froot Loops will just keep coming. The Gap should portray its child-staffed factories as part of a far-seeing welfare-to-work program, which will eventually be extended to American children as well.

To appeal to American parents, our own child factories should be run more like Montessori schools, where the children are already encouraged to regard every one of their demented activities as “work.” If they’re going to pile up blocks and knock them down all day, then why not sew on buttons and bring home a little cash? But even American families will have to brace themselves for the inevitable cost cutting measures. First the cookies and milk may have to go, then, as in India, the toilets and beds. Wal-Mart has already pioneered the price-cutting defense of human rights abuses, and The Gap should follow suit.

The company can of course expect some lingering opposition. Just as there are vegetarians and pacifists, there will always be some men, for example, who would rather wear skirts than blue jeans impregnated with the excrement and tears of ten-year-olds. Well, let them shop at American Apparel or some other “sweat-free” vendor, and if they can’t find anything there, let them wear dhotis. In a nation that cannot bring itself to extend child health insurance (SCHIP) to all children in need, child-made clothes make a fine fashion statement. And why not accessorize your denim jacket with a scarf derived from one of those oily cloths stuffed in weeping workers’ mouths?