Chile

Between 10 and 12 of July, 2003 networking and consultative meeting of the South American Region of Global March against Child Labor was held in Punta de Tralca, Chile. All the National Coordinators were present on the occasion from Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, Paraguay, Columbia and Chile. The Coordinator of Nicaragua was also invited so that they know the process of the meeting and can report back to the committee in Central American region. This meeting was requested by the International Center on Child Labor and Education based in Washington, D.C. for networking and broadening the alliances in the region and convened by OPCION, the regional coordinator of Global March.

It was a broad consensus that in South America the economic model and its crisis affected directly children and young people in the region. The states have been cutting its health and education budget. With the industry bankrupt, there is high rate of adult unemployment, poverty levels are growing and it gets every time more and more difficult to maintain the school going children in classrooms. The enrolment numbers in the school are not an indicator and it is important for South America to focus its efforts on the retention of the children in schools and to ensure that the children are able to complete primary school education and are subsequently enroled in Middle School. It was reported that the situation particularly in Brazil has deteriorated significantly as children are being compelled to work in extremely harsh situation. Also the situation in Peru and Ecuador is heading to crisis. The particular problem reported was of the extremely low level of salaries for the teachers and low social respectability and motivation. As Blanca Emeric from Uruguay said “Our school are transformed in public dining rooms, children are eating grass on weekends because they don’t have anything else to fill their stomachs."

From Argentina, Carola Abrales representing the Global March from the Teachers Union said that after the terrible crisis, the number of children working have increased three times of what was before, and 50% of the population or more in the country is facing abject poverty. Andres Dueñas told that the dollarization of Ecuador economy has compelled and made life more expensive/harsh which is a factor that pushes children to work. It was also proposed that there are specific countries in which organized groups are promoting children’s right to work, in other words, NATS groups. They don’t want the eradication of child labor they only fight against worst forms of exploitation and to improve conditions of working children. There was serious concern expressed with this approach and the overwhelming suggestion was that the group is damaging the interest of the children.

In the meeting participants had a substantive opportunity to understand the development environment on child labor particularly in relation to ratification and implementation of ILO C 182 and 138 in Southern America. The National Coordinators and the Chair of Global March and Executive Director of International Center on Child Labor and Education from Washington, D.C. discussed about what are the opportunities for Global March against Child Labor as a movement and how it could strengthen the work of the partners, establish close collaboration with the national Governments, ILO-IPEC, UNESCO, World Bank, IADB and forge new alliances with the trade unions and the teachers unions and other civil society elements to strategically position itself and mobilize political commitment and financial resources for the governments that are committed and have the resolve to address the issue.

It was reported that specifically in South America because the international help is being redeployed to other regions with deeper problems and understanding that the situation is not alarming. South America though represents worst case scenario on distribution of wealth and the inherent structural disparities are too sharp. On the one hand people are very educated and on the other hand children are dying of hunger.

The group got into the conclusion that the South American region has been successful in the common process of ratification. Paraguay is the only country in South America that has not ratified ILO Convention 138 about minimum age to work. In all the countries now the preparatory work is in progress on implementation plan on Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor. In most of the countries the committee’s have been constituted for the plan preparation. Global March partners are members of this group. Only in Venezuela it is still not progressing. Colombia has recently ratified the C 182 and it is just the first step in the process. That shows about the dedication and conviction of all National Coordinators for a future without child labor.

In Paraguay a comprehensive strategy has been considered for following up the issue with the Government and involving the partners from the South American countries. It is proposed that since waiting for two months the GM partners in South America will be converging on the streets of Paraguay to undertake mass education and awareness on children in worst forms and minimum age at work for drawing attention of the Government. It was also informed that in the process of networking visits to Brazil, Peru and Ecuador the governments and the civil society has expressed its complete assurance for the speedy preparation of the national action plan in time bound manner. However the governments in these countries are desperately in need of additional financing from the rich countries towards its fullest implementation.

One major decision for the region was to make the participation of the children affected in this more intensive, central and broad base the networking with different sections of the civil society to deepen the stake holding and ownership of the issues within the mass of community. This will enhance awareness, build more participation of children inside the movement, help enable the children to develop for their rights. World Congress is a tool to mobilize former child laborers in the defense of their own rights. It was also discussed that the process towards the World Congress should be viewed as to create a common consensus towards the issue of child labor perpetuating poverty and prevailing illiteracy.

It was also felt strategic to sensitize public opinion on the issue of child labor. This is because in some countries as Chile, Uruguay and Argentina the public opinion believes that child labor doesn’t exist, they don’t see in a boy that is juggling in streets corner on midday hour and asking for money. This is viewed as a cultural show. It is necessary that this common perceptions should be contested and the myths perpetuated by the pro-child labor groups be countered comprehensively. These children should be found in the schools and not playing and juggling in the streets.

It was also resolved that the partners will be preparing a status report on the specific actions of the national Government annually focusing on the implementation of ILO C 182 and 138.

It was resolved that as more and more children are going to work it will result in increased un-employment for adults, children will be employed at one sixth of the wages that the adults will be employed, children will not be able to attend schools and will remain eternally low skilled, low paid workers who will remain exploited by sheer ignorance and lack of any opportunity to find meaningful employment later when they grow up. Continued use of child labor weakens the employment of the adult work force and results in weakening of the trade union movement and the workers will remain powerless as their collective ability to negotiate fair wages and undertake collective action will considerably erode.

It was also the shared perspective that children should not be carrying the burden of poverty by working in extremely dangerous situations and all efforts should be made to ensure that the children get the opportunity to free quality universal primary education. The poverty situation is the making of the conspiracy of circumstances for which people are not responsible. Children should not be punished for this by working in compelling situation. It is to a large extent making of the forces of globalization unleashed. The search for cheap raw material and the eternal search for cheap labor had an impact in perpetuating child labor and poverty. This has made the children victims in the process. Children are forced to work and they can’t go to schools and do not have normal childhood. These children are voiceless and their rights are violated every day.

Instead of being victims of the forces of globalization poor countries should view this globalization as unique opporuntity to invest in education and build knowledge capital. It is only through this that the nations can use globilzation for fighting poverty and illiteracy. It was pledged to continue the awareness and education of the rich industrialized countries to fulfill their obligation to educate the children of the world and to offer supprt to them for rehabilitating children in worst forms of working conditions.

The governments and the international community should bear the cost of bringing these children to school. The speedy ratification of the ILO C 182 and 138, the unanimous adoption of the Dakar goals of Education for All has demonstrated the unprecedented political will of the national governments to be able to rectify this situation. Our effort is that the governments which are committed, transparent, meaningfully relate with the civil society and have established credible monitoring mechanisms to implement the above conventions should be provided with support so that the children can go to schools and can live normal childhood. Education alone will create the level playing ground for the poor countries to stand up, build knowledge capital and use the forces of globalization to their advantage. This will make the world much safer and secure for all.

It was also stressed to inter-link between various efforts on poverty alleviation, education and child labor eradication. It was informed on the ongoing efforts in trying to triangulate the efforts between the different agencies working on these issues both at the national level and in the international level. UNESCO is responsible for Education, ILO is responsible for Child Labor and UNDP/World Bank is responsible for poverty alleviation. There is lack of co-ordination, integration and cohesion in the working of the different agencies. Similarly there is poor coordination between the Ministries of the Labor, Education, Social Affairs and Finance in most countries. It is normally the Ministers of Labor and Education who do possess limited political clout in the distribution of resources. Our effort should be to relate with these governments, multi-lateral institutions and try to mobilize and bring the issue of education and child labor as central concern in any development work. Constant support, collaboration with the civil society and visibility is required for them to be able to show case the positive side of development and access more resources locally and from the rich industrialized countries.

It was shared that we are relating closely with the ILO, World Bank, UNESCO and UNICEF to facilitate and develop a shared understanding on how to interlink on these critical cross cutting issues. The investments in the Education sector will not yield any results if the children are still working in compelling environment and they do not have the ability to come to attend schools. We are on the one hand undertaking education and awareness on this critical link at the highest level in the IMF/World Bank Development committee to bring the issue of child labor in core agenda and to get systemic funding for the national governments of the southern countries that they do get resources for the implementation support of ILO Convention 182 and 138. That if this is realized then the Fast Track Initiative on EFA will succeed.

It was also informed on the meetings with the various southern governments to come forward with the national action plans and strategies for EFA that integrate the issue of child labor, asking them to provision costs for strengthening the enforcement and rehabilitation for the children who are withdrawn from the worst forms of labor. That these costs should essentially be distributed over the complementing efforts on Education and PRSP’s to achieve measure of success.

To achieve this objective it was stressed that we are working at the grassroots level with our partner organizations in Asia, Latin America, Africa and Europe. We have close to 2000 organizations comprising of NGO’s and trade unions that are part of our movement. This gives us the strength and the ability to intervene on the basis of the cumulative experiences of our partners and their communities. At another level we relate with the national governments as they respect our movement and value the depth and breadth of our relationships in these places. We have personally tried to meet the Governments representing the IMF/World Bank Development Committee so as to educate and create awareness for addressing these issues at the policy level and bring issues on board. Our efforts in this direction are also guided with the European Union, the Inter American Development Bank, the Organization of American States, NEPAD, the ADB and various regional Ministerial grouping viz ASEAN, SAARC and CHOGM. UNESCO, High level Group on EFA and ILO’s International Labor Conference.

It was also informed that the next agenda for the GM will be to organize the side event during the November, 2003 High Level Group meeting at New Delhi. Our effort is to cohost the event with World Bank, ILO, UNESCO and UNICEF. We have already been in touch with the Dutch Executive Director in the World Bank, the offices of the Human Development Network and Social Protection Unit, ILO, UNESCO. We ahve already got confirmation from the Labor Minsiters from Brazil, Costa Rica and Philippines for their participation. We are expecting articipation from the Dutch Executive Director who has kindly consented to Chair the side event. We have also been in touch with the Development Cooperation Ministers from Germany and Norway. We are hoping that this side event will be able to generate cohesiveness between various efforts of different agencies and Ministeries of the National Governement, multilateral agencies and UN on PRSP’s, Education for All and initiatives on implementation of C-182 and 138. It is also hoped that this meeting will prepare the ground for developing better understanding on the issues within the IMF/World Bank Development Committee to view the issue of child labor in worst forms and non implementation of minimum age as remaining biggest hurdles to poverty allieviation and achieving the Education for All goals by 2015 and gender parity in schools by the year 2005 as distant dreams. That the Develoment Committee will take this issue on board for speedy integration within the overall policy framework.