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I witnessed child laborers in the offshore BPO industry
The BPO industry has a dark secret.
I witnessed child laborers at a major offshore BPO (business process outsourcing) company.
Many years ago when I was much younger, I spent years traveling the world working with the offshore BPO industry. At that time, the industry was in its infancy. Companies were just beginning to move their operations to places like Latin America, India, the Philippines, and elsewhere to take advantage of cheap labor.
My job was to go into these offshore companies to ensure business processes were being handled correctly and to train the new BPO managers on acceptable procedures and quality assurance.
Very early on, I went to a new, very large BPO center in Asia. The massive multi-story building was brand new and still in the final phases of construction. The windows sparkled and the iron gleamed. No process work had commenced, and only a few management personnel had been hired.
I arrived unexpectedly. One day, I went outside for fresh air. I walked around the building out of curiosity to an area behind the facility, hidden from view. It was there that I first saw children in an area of the building that was under construction. The children were working, carrying building material and serving the other workers food and water.
Were my eyes deceiving me? Surely I didn’t see what I thought I saw. Did I?
The next day, I again encountered children in a construction area. They smiled and waved at me gleefully through a glass window where they worked. They were playful and full of energy and life. They should have been in school or on a playground, not in a dangerous construction zone.
I was in shock and overcome with grief. My eyes had not deceived me.
Suddenly, the strict rules against cameras in and around the facility made sense.
I notified management back in the home country and an investigation was launched. The company admitted that child exploitation had been identified and stopped. Or, so I was told.
Months later, I travelled to another business center in the same country, owned by the same company. I again observed children in construction areas. I again reported it.
Local management knew full well this was happening, but turned a blind eye to it.
As long as I live, I will never forget the sight of those children crawling around on wooden scaffolding made of what looked like logs and sticks.
I hope they stopped it. I did what I thought was right at the time. But as I have lived with this for so many years, I realize that I was not aggressive enough. I should have resigned and contacted the authorities where the company was headquartered. But I didn’t. That haunts me.
Three things…
1.) The next time you pick up the phone to call customer service and find yourself speaking to someone in a foreign country, remember those children who were exploited in the early days as the industry took shape.
2.) If you see companies engaging in exploitation or wrong-doing. Report it to the authorities. Do not rely on the company to stop it. There is nothing worse than living with the knowledge that you could have done more, but didn’t.
3.) There is an award-winning documentary and expose’ that could be made on this topic for any journalists willing to dig into it. The world should know what happened so that it never happens again.
Some kids in this world have it bd. They get sold to pedophiles, raised from infancy to work in a bordello and overall I'm surprised that there aren't more serial killers in the world today. Being treated like that is soul destroying. They are seldom rescued and even if they are they are scarred for life.