Approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year
June 5, 2008 – 8:15 am | by FICA | Briefing on the Eighth Annual Trafficking in Persons, Ambassador Mark P. Lagon, Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons said that “According to the U.S. intelligence community, approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year. About 80 percent of them are female. Up to half are minors. These figures do not include millions who are trafficked for purposes of labor and sexual exploitation within national borders as well.”
He also pointed out to China, where several slave labor scandals have recently been uncovered. Some of the cases reportedly involve the complicity of Chinese law enforcement officials themselves. All governments must act to ensure that cheap and efficient production of export goods does not come at the expense of the very dignity and fundamental rights of citizens.
A break up of global and regional law enforcement data was used to examine progress in sex trafficking or labor trafficking prosecutions. These statistics indicate that only a very small percentage of human trafficking prosecutions are convictions. Roughly 10 percent of them relate to labor trafficking offenses as compared to prosecutions and convictions related to sex trafficking offenses.
The report focuses on a number of vulnerable groups. They include North Koreans in China, Burmese in Thailand, stateless people, low-skilled migrant workers in general, and foreign domestic workers. One of the most common and desperate faces of modern day slavery is the domestic servant, locked and abused in a private home or apartment, cut off from the rest of the world. One of the highest profile cases in the U.S. this year involved two Indonesian maids who were trapped in a nightmare in a mansion in Long Island, New York. Victims of involuntary domestic servitude are often exploited sexually as well as exploited for their labor.
The Annual Trafficking In Persons Report covers 170 countries. 153 are assessed and ranked into Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 2 Watch List, and Tier 3; another 17 countries are considered special cases, often because of lack sufficient information to assess whether a significant number of trafficking victims exist in those countries.
In Brazil, some charcoal is produced by forced labor and some of that charcoal may be used to produce pig iron. Over half of the 5,800 slaves rescued by Brazilian authorities were found on sugarcane plantations.
There has been good news too. Glimmers of recognition among governments that this is an extraordinarily vulnerable population. For instance, the Philippines is a major source of female domestic workers. It recently decided to impose a ban on new maids going to one particular destination country because of the extremely high number of Filipino maids who were regularly escaping from the confines of abusive employers and seeking shelter in the Philippines Embassy. This development signifies a growing resolve on the part of the government to confront exploitation. Governments must start treating this form of slavery as a serious crime. Labor recruiters and brokers who facilitate trafficking through deceitful work offers, contract fraud, and outright force and coercion, they need to be prosecuted and punished with jail sentences.
India has made efforts on the child labor front, rescuing victims. But India still doesn’t recognize bonded labor as human trafficking. It has weak anticorruption efforts and prosecutions are too few.
For the last four years, the weak performance of several nations in the Persian Gulf has been a matter of great concern and disappointment. Saudi Arabia, for example, is ranked Tier 3 for the fourth time. As an update, I’m happy to report that the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain continue to make significant improvements; notably the United Arab Emirates as a model in the region.
WAITING TO WALK FREE: Several boys said they were inhumanly treated at the factory.
Mumbai: Seventeen-year-old Chandu works at a Mother Dairy factory in Goregaon. He left his hometown and came to Mumbai when a contractor offered him a summer job, but after he started work, he was forcibly kept there. He and several other boys, mostly from Vidarbha and Bihar, say they are inhumanly treated at the factory and also allege that they are fed inedible food. The boys also said that the promised salary of Rs 60 per day is rarely given to them.
“I want to go home. I am treated like an animal. I am being forced to work here,” Chandu said.
While another worker, Homer Soman, said, “We don’t get a holiday and the food is terrible.”
Ironically, this Mother Dairy juice factory is located on the premises of the government-owned Mahananda Dairy. The matter was brought to light when CNN-IBN’s sister channel IBN Lokmat visited the factory at the behest of an NGO.
When IBN Lokmat confronted authorities at Mother Dairy, they initially claimed they had no knowledge of child and forced labor at their factory. However, later they agreed to let the children go to their respective hometowns.
Nearly 61 children have now been released, but the incident is a reminder of how little is being done to deter child labor in India.
Latin American countries call for end to child labor
RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazil, Colombia, Nicaragua and Chile on Thursday marked the World Day Against Child Labor by appealing for an end to child exploitation.
Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed a decree that widens the scope of what can be classified as child labor in the country, including domestic work in the same category as slavery, sexual exploitation and drug trafficking. The president said the decree provided government inspectors with instruments to punish slavery. Lula, who worked as a bootblack on the streets of Sao Paulo in his childhood, added that many children in the country help their parents in their daily jobs. In Brazil, 15.1 million children and teenagers aged from five to 17 years old are employed in working activities, according to the National Household Sample Survey, held in 2006, which represents 11.5 percent of all Brazilians of that age group. The president urged adults to ensure the access to education for their children. It is necessary to treat each type of activity in a humanitarian and differentiated manner, said the president.
It is unacceptable, for instance, that an entrepreneur keeps a child as an employee. If he needs a child as an apprentice, then he may be careful so as not to hinder the child studies, he said.
In Colombia, the coordinator to eradicate child labor, Liliana Obregon, said 1 million children work in the country and that 1.4 million do not have access to education.
Obregon listed Monteria, Ibague, Bucaramanga and Cali as cities with a high rate of child labor, citing the National Department of Statistics. President of the United Center of Workers of Colombia Carlos Rodriguez said "this is proof of the poverty we have in the country, of their parents' precarious salaries that provoke many children to be obliged to work in the street and even sexually exploited." There are still about 253,000 children working in Nicaragua, a country of 6 million people, despite the government's efforts to bring street children back to school, according to Deputy Education Minister Milena Nunez. Nunez said it is important to give good education to those children and teenagers in order to prepare them to get a better job and future. The official vowed to intensify efforts to provide those children with access to education. Children are exploited in mining, agriculture, fishing, car shops and other areas in Nicaragua. An 11-year-old girl told reporters that she used to sell candies in the streets of Managua before being rescued by the government to go to school. The girl, who declined to give her name, accused her parents of sending her to work and taking her money for alcohol.
Chilean Labor Minister Osvaldo Andrade told the International Labor Organization (ILO) on Thursday that there are some 196,000 children working in Chile. Andrade, who was attending the 97th annual session of the ILO in Geneva, Switzerland, the number may be even higher as "all attempts of study or intervention are slinking." "The government believes that only from a community attentive to this problem will we be able to materialize a desire that concerns all the society, this is, our children and adolescents concentrate on the only matter that is a guarantee of their future development: studying," Andrade added. According to the ILO, up to 218 million children in the world are being exploited in a variety of jobs, including 72 million at the elementary school age and a bigger number at the secondary school age.
To watch the slide show of the programme click on the picture
A series of activities were conducted and reported by Global March National Coordinator Miriam Ines Gomez Gonzalez, Director of Mundo Mejor Foundacion. These activities were reported from the municipality of Geneva-Valle del Cauca: In the mark of the Mono Nuñez Festival (an Andean music festival) of great recognition in Colombia, a tent was settled by the Marcha Global to create sensitization on condition of child laborers in Colombia, unable to attend schools. In the city of Palmira the Mayor Mr.Raúl Alfredo Grove Márquez, the Municipal Education Secretary Mr. Santiago Betancourt and the Town Council President Mr. Guillermo Montalvo among others took part in the activity. In Bogota, the Young Christian Association carried out a painting day at its different educational centers and gave almost 100 folding posters besides sending emails 1000 folding posters with the Declaration of the South American Coordination for the Global March against Child labor oin June 12 were distributed in several places in Colombia.
To watch slide show of several Global March events in PERU, PARAGUAY, and
CHILE click on the picture
The International Labor Organization (ILO), the International Centre on Child Labor and Education (ICCLE) and the Education For All-Fast Track Initiative (EFA-FTI) organized a panel discussion on Education: The right response to child labor on the occasion of the World Day Against Child Labor on June 12th in Washington, D. C. Introducing the theme Sudhanshu Joshi Executive Director of the ICCLE said that Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor adopted in 1999 becomes the fastest ever ratified Convention by 165 countries and the Minimum Age (which must not be below 14 in any case) for Employment Convention has also been ratified by 150 countries. In the meantime, the international community has pledged for two other important sets of goals to make the world better for the 6.5 billion people living on this planet. In September 2000, 187 countries committed themselves to 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) along with some targets and indicators. The most important ones which are directly related to children are: poverty reduction by half, Education For All, gender equity in education and youth employment. 214 million children are trapped into various forms of child labor, and yet 72 million primary school aged children have never seen the doorstep of any school and never touched books and pens. The 2007 progress report of the MDGs has also observed that 56 countries out of 102 developing countries are seriously off-track on achieving education goals and another 38 countries lacking data are also supposed to be off-track. Altogether, 11 billion dollars are required annually to fulfill the budgetary gap for education, but little more then 3 billion is being delivered now. Remaining 15-25% of the children missing out of classrooms remain trapped in compelling environment and it requires moral obligation of the countries to give them visibility in their national plans on Education for All.
Film maker Len Morris introduced the film Rescuing Emmanuel a short documentary about a street kid in Kenya. Bob Prouty from the EFA-FTI Secretariat moderated the first panel on EFA: Progress, gaps, Challenges. The panel featured Nicholas Burnett, Assistant Director General, EFA, UNESCO who drew the attention of the world community on the desperate need for enhanced and continued funding for the Education for All. He mentioned that any complacency on our part will derail the progress made and education still remains the best investment to realize definite gains in all the other MDG’s. The Brazilian Executive Director Rogerio Studart at the World Bank emphasized the critical role of the World Bank in paying special attention to the child labor dimension in all its work and offered some good practices from Brazil on addressing the issue within the broader development interventions. Indian Executive Director to the World Bank Dhanendra Kumar emphasized the urgent need to reflect on the missing children from the classrooms and shared the progress made in India in addressing the issue of child labor in the state of Andhra Pradesh and the social protection schemes like the mid day meals offered to all the school children to allow parents to send them to school instead of work. Gene Sperling, Council for Foreign Relations mentioned that the best gift to the child is to provide quality education, to redeem from poverty and explained the proposal presented for longer term road map for US funding to the Education for All. Reg Weaver, President of the NEA mentioned that there is much talk and it is time now to act and to deliver.
To watch the slide show of the programme click on the picture
The Second panel was moderated by Armand Pereira, Director, ILO Washington office. He introduced the panel and informed about the Round tables on education, child labor and poverty led by combined efforts of ILO, GM, World Bank, UNESCO, UNICEF and the creation of the Global Task Force on child labor and education which is to bring a greater coordination on the ground in policies and actions. The speakers in this session were Tim Ryan, Head of Asia, Solidarity Center, Ms. Linda Golodner, Patron, Child Labor Coalition, USA, Ms. Marcia Eugenio, Director, Office for Child Labor, Forced Labor, Human Trafficking, U.S. Department of Labor, Ms. Aud Kolberg, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Norway, H.E. Mr. Mark P. Lagon, Ambassador at Large, Trafficking in Persons Office, U.S. State Department and Mr. KailashSatyarthi, Chair, Global March. Aud Kolberg reiterated the commitment of her Government to the children that are hardest to reach and informed that Norwegian Government is supporting another conference in conjunction to the Education for All High level Group meeting in Oslo where the Global March is partnering with FAFO and UCW to discuss innovative ways in which national governments have attracted children from most compelling environments to attend full time schools. Kailash Satyarthi reminded about the fierce urgency for meeting the political, financing and moral deficit by the donors and the national governments in meeting their full obligations towards the hardest to reach children who are being trafficked for forced work and leading life of misery in slave conditions. Ambassador Lagon reflected on the linkages of forced child labor and trafficking for labor, citing from the exemplary work being done by several organizations in brining difference to the lives of the children and suggested progress to be made still in prosecution and delivery of justice to the victims. Mr Siddharth Dev Verman, Joint Secretary Labor, Ministry of Labor, Employment and Training, Government of India remarked about the progress made in India - 8887 special schools under the national child labor program scheme in 250 districts where 340,000 children are enrolled . He mentioned that the program has benefited approximately 450,000 children who have been withdrawn from child labor. He also informed that are 72 activities where employment of children is banned and another 9 activities have been approved for inclusion in the list. He however mentioned that still a lot remains to be done and India is open to cooperation in this regard to meet the challenges. The programme ended with the screening of the Video film made by the National Education Association for Union Educators 'No to Child Labor – Yes to Education'.
Education the Right Response to End Trafficking and Child Labor
Free and Compulsory Education to become a Reality, claims Arjun Singh
Historical announcement on World Day Against Child Labor
To watch the slide show of the programme click on the picture
12 June 2008, New Delhi: On the occasion of the World Day Against Child Labor, 12 June 2008, in New Delhi, Shri. Arjun Singh, Honorable Minister of Human Resource Development made the historic announcement that “The Right to Education Act will be tabled in the next session of the Parliament.” This will impact the lives of millions of children for whom free and compulsory education remains a distant dream. The announcement came during the South Asia Congress on Child Labor and Education labor by the Bachpan Bachao Andolan and Global March Against Child Labor.
Shri. Singh further elaborated that India’s leading civil society movement for the rights of the children Bachpan Bachao Andolan, and the his ministry’s flagship programme on Education for all, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan would have to work hand in hand to solve the problem of illiteracy and exploitation of children.
The civil society has been demanding to make education a fundamental right for years. After several campaigns including a 15,000 km long Shiksha Yatra, the 86th Amendment Bill was introduced in Parliament that incorporated Art. 21 A into the Constitution making education a fundamental right. However, this was far from achieving the goal of Education For All as Art. 21 A remained non-enforceable. This announcement is the result of tireless effort by Bachpan Bachao Andolan and Global March Against Child Labor, who have been demanding that Right to Education Act is enforced by the central government.
Suimali from Sri Lanka, Birija from Nepal, Prashant from Pakistan and Om Prakash, winner of the International Children’s Peace Prize shared the inaugural dais with Sheila Dikshit, Chief Minister of Delhi State. Smt. Dikshit alleged “It is a matter of shame for all of us that our civilization is 5000 years and we have not been able to eradicate this heinous and inhuman practice of child labor. It is our shame and we must invoke shame in those employers and trafficker and unscrupulous people who benefit from this practice.” She implored all those present in the Congress to come up with ideas and concrete solutions that can be implemented by the Delhi government and reiterated her governments’ readiness to adopt them.
Kailash Satyarthi, Chairperson, Global March Against Child Labor called for focus on the ILO Conventions 138 on Minimum Age of Employment and 182 on Worst Forms of Child Labor. He reiterated the need to respond urgently to the cries of children like Naushad, rescued on the eve of World Day Against Child Labor from a zari sweatshop in New Delhi. Naushad, 9 year old boy represents the millions of children trafficked for forced labor from poor regions wasting their childhood ill-lit claustrophobic sweatshops. Abused and beaten when the cry for their mothers, these children need the light of hope, air of liberation and power of education to overcome their traumatic situation, and they can not wait any longer for this.
Anees Jillani, Advocate and Chairperson of the NGO Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), Global March National Coordinator, Pakistan came up with the slogan of a “Child labor free Delhi”. He stressed that poverty, child labor and illiteracy form a vicious circle, 'which we need to break by spreading education'.
K Kekulandara, Education Secretary Sri Lanka elaborated on the situation of education in his country and emphasized the need for more inter-country exchanges like this for the benefit of children in South Asia, while Commissioner Gauri Pradhan of the Nepal Human Rights Commission brought focus to the need to greater policy coherence and coordination in elimination of child labor and education for all. He is the founder of CWIN, the organization which is responsible for the Global March South Asia regional coordination.
Representatives from Pakistan and Nepal joined India's officials and members of civil society groups here Wednesday to demand concerted efforts to curb child labor across the subcontinent. Dilli Bahadur Choudhary, celebrated human rights activists from Nepal said that his country has no law against child labor, sought help from NGOs and other countries to put an end to the scourge of child labor in the Himalayan nation.
A unique communiqué was drafted by the policy makers, media representatives and the children reflecting the demands, aspirations and hope of all to end child labor and ensure education for all. A unanimous call for a complete ban on child labor and exploitation of all children came from all groups, to ensure a child friendly world.
This high profile South Asia Congress was attended by 200 delegates from Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and India, including former child laborers, children affected by conflict, out-of-school children, children of marginalized and disadvantaged communities, country representatives of international organizations, UN bodies and several leading NGO leaders, eminent leaders from the media and academicians. The World Day Against Child Labor brought the most promising commitment for millions of children of South Asia and globally languishing in various forms of child labor and education as a tool.
Labor Minister Oscar Fernandes releases a book on trafficking of children for forced labor
11 June, New Delhi: On the eve of the World Day Against Child Labor, Oscar Fernandes, the Honorable Minister of Labor and Employment released a book- Standard Operating Procedure: Trafficking for Forced Labor.
The book is an initiative of United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the lead UN agency has the mandate to implement projects of human trafficking. The book is a guide on the procedure to be followed by the police and law enforcement agencies on cases of trafficking for forced labor. Formulated by UNODC and the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) team, the book was formally released by Oscar Fernandes at Constitutional Club today. Bhanu Pratap Sahi, the Minister of Labor of Jharkhand state, Gary Lewis, the representative of UNODC’s South Asia office, Kailash Satyarthi, the chairperson of Global March Against Child Labor and representatives from Nepal, Pakistan and other South Asian countries, were the other major participants of the function.
Speaking about the World Day Against Child Labor on the 12 June, Oscar Fernandes said- “Tomorrow is an important day for the world and we hope this day helps the world to realize the importance of the fight against child labor. Our work is to put toys and remove tools from the hands of children.” While he said that eliminating child labor completely may not be possible during his term, he added- “We are going to take all the positive steps in this direction. The most important thing is to punish the people who are employing children or pushing them into child labor. He assured that the Government initiatives like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (on universal primary education) and National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA) would help stop trafficking under the garb of migration. He requested the SAARC countries to join together and work on the issue of trafficking.”
Kailash Satyarthi requested Oscar Fernandes that the ILO Conventions 182 on worst forms of child labor and 138 on minimum wages be ratified by India during his official tenure. He also said- “alliances with UNODC, ILO and judicial agencies are required to end trafficking for forced labor. Similarly alliances between the source and destination areas are also very essential to root out this problem.” He announced that 62 child bonded laborers were rescued from Seelampur area today with the help of the Delhi Government by BBA.
Gary Lewis, The South Asia representative of UNODC said: “There are many player in this noble cause. But the key players- viz. law enforcers are not being used to full extent as majority of them who want to do the right thing are not trained to do so. We have collaborated with BBA to formulate a module to help them do so and this is the Standard Operating Procedure. The five states- Andhra Pradesh, Goa, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Bihar, where we have implemented it, have seen tremendous progress. We want it to be translated into local languages.”
World Day Against Child Labor is commemorated on 12 June every year to remind humanity of the pledge to abolish child slavery, child trafficking, prostitution of children, and forced and hazardous child labor. This came through the unanimous adoption of an international legislation, the Convention on combating Worst Form of Child Labor under the International Labor Organization. This Convention in turn came into being due to the global demand for such a process by the Global March Against Child Labor, a physical global march across 103 countries in 1998. Tomorrow is the 10th anniversary since the World Day Against Child Labor was first commemorated.
Save the Children, observed the World Day Against Child Labor from June 6 to June 12 for the first time this year. Radio talk shows were held in 7 districts where staff and government leaders shared information, current initiatives and challenges in identifying worst forms of child labor in Aceh. A video on child labor was also shown to students and other sectors to draw their attention on the worst forms of child labor seen in the community and mobilize actions to address these. The Governor of Aceh delivered a speech to support Save the Children’s education programs that aim to prevent child labor among at-risk children. A march was held where more than 1,000 children and other sectors walked to emphasize the importance of education, not child labor for the future of Aceh children. More concrete actions to address child labor in Aceh will be determined by government and communities as a result of these awareness-raising and mobilization activities.
West Bengal CII pledges to stop child labor in industries
Wednesday 11th June, 2008 (IANS)
West Bengal chapter of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) Wednesday joined hands with a child rights group, Save the Children, and pledged to stop child labor in industries.
The CII also decided to rehabilitate the affected children and help them in higher education.
'I request all industries under the CII to put up a board in front of their gates saying 'No child labor allowed'. Besides, the industries will come forward to help these children get higher education,' CII chairman of industrial relations in West Bengal S.S. Chawdhry said Wednesday, a day before the World Day against Child Labor.
'I myself will put similar boards in two days in front of my factories at Baruipur in South 24-Parganas district in West Bengal and Faridabad district in Haryana. Besides, I will sponsor one child for higher education,' Chawdhry added.
Save the Children state programme manager Manabendra Nath Ray said child labor has its roots in the factories and industries.
'Now with West Bengal CII's help, we will be able to eradicate child labor and stop child trafficking more efficiently,' he said.
Talking of sudden withdrawal of the government's drive to eradicate child labor in 2007, Department of Labor Principal Secretary S.N. Haque said: 'Parents whose wards were serving as child laborers complained to the top most officials against the drive.'
'We realized that the root cause of child labor is poverty and illiteracy. Eradicating these malaises is a gigantic task. And hence we have decided to go slow,' he said.
'But now with the CII itself taking the initiative, our work will become easier,' Haque added.
According to the government of India Census 2001, there are 12.8 million child laborers between the age group of five to 14 years in the country.
Evangelicals observe Anti-child Labor Day with prayers
NEW DELHI (ICNS): As the world is observed Anti-child Labor Day on June 12, Evangelical Fellowship of India Children At Risk (EFICAR) remembered the day seeking prayers for child labors. The Evangelical group requested prayers for the “stringent implementation” of laws that ban child labor in India. It said such prayers are need so that people become aware of the legal provisions “so that our nation will become a better and safe place for children to live in.” In a message it said child labor is “the biggest” issue in India as the nation has 12.7 million child labors aged 5-14, which is “the highest in the world.”
“Most of them work 10-13 hours a day. The number of child labors is increasing in the states like Sikkim, Nagaland and Himachal Pradesh where there was no trace of child labor some years back.”Indian Constitution says that no child below the age of 14 years shall be employed to work in any factory or mine or engaged in any other hazardous employment. India also enacted a law called child Labor (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, in 1986, which prohibits the employment of children below 14 years of age in hazardous industries, it noted. A notification issued in 2006 under the act prohibits the employment of children below 14 as domestic servants, in roadside stalls, restaurants, tea stalls, hotels, recreation centers. It also made provisions for punishing the violators. Yet the act remains ineffective effective in eradicating child labor from our society, the Evangelical Fellowship of India note said seeking prayers to create awareness in society.
18-yr-old cottonseed farmer shows life beyond labor
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, June 12
The neon lights at India Habitat Centre’s posh Jacaranda Hall did daze 18-year-old Swarupa a bit. For her, it was the first visit outside of Chitlaya, a tiny hamlet in Andhra Pradesh’s Ranga Reddy district where light and water don’t come easy, and poverty rules.
It was to fight this poverty that Swarupa, since she was 12, spent days and nights laboring in the cottonseed farms at her village inhaling dangerous chemicals sprayed to improve seed quality. Never mind her childhood was being robbed of quality in the process.
“Those were the days of abject struggle, but I was determined to move out of the fields and into school,” said the former child worker who was today the Government of India’s special guest on the occasion of the World Day against Child Labor. She defied destiny to become an operator with telecommunications giant Idea Cellular back home.
No wonder among top representatives from the ministries, UNICEF and the ILO, Swarupa stood the tallest, showing the way forward for the 12.7 million child workers of India which still houses the largest population of child laborers in the world.
At the end of the day, Swarupa added weight to the long-held view that education is the only and the right response to child labor.
“I was 12 when my father put me in the farms to work under the sun, sometimes for 18 hours a day. He wanted me to bring money. After the farms, I used to go to the employer’s house to weed cotton for another two hours. For all this, I got Rs 15 a day,” Swarupa said. She was bonded into labor as the employers paid advance to her family.
Finally, one day, she did the unthinkable. Without seeking her father’s permission, she joined the educational camp labor in the village by the MVF Foundation. “My father was mad at me, but eventually he understood what I was fighting for. I was only asking for my rightful space in the sun,” Swarupa said, sprinkling hope all around for those still trapped in tough situations. The gathering hailed her courage and called for treating violation of a child’s right to education as a violation of human rights. “We still have 12.7 million economically active children between 5 and 14 years. Children in workforce have increased from 11.3 million recorded in 2001,” Shanta Sinha, Chairperson, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) told The Tribune.
She said Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar topped the charts of child labor. For her part, women and child development minister Renuka Choudhury supported NCPCR’s stand and said states would be made accountable for violation of child rights.
The activists, led by Babu Mathew, country director, Action Aid, also demanded repeal of chapter 3 of the Child Labor Prohibition Act which deals with regulation of child labor. “You can’t both regulate and prohibit child labor. Abolition is the only right option,” he said.
8.6 Million children not attending schools in Bangladesh
DHAKA, June 12 -- Around 8.6 million children are not attending schools in Bangladesh and many of them have to start working at an early age, private news agency UNB reported Thursday. The figure was revealed at a national seminar on child labor held here on Thursday observing the World Day Against Child Labor. This year's theme for the day is: Education: The Right Response to Child Labor. International Labor Organization (ILO), the UNICEF and UNESCO jointly labor the seminar in collaboration with Ministries of Labor and Employment and Primary and Mass Education of Bangladesh. Experts at the seminar said the lifetime earning ability of children is reduced by 13-20 percent as they enter into the workforce at a young age. Dr Mahfuzul Haque, Secretary of Bangladesh's Labor and Employment Ministry, told the seminar that the government has already prepared the final draft of National Policy for Elimination Child Labor, aiming to reduce the number of child laborers from different economic sectors. Nabendra Dahal of UNICEF said only 2.5 percent of GDP is invested in education in Bangladesh, which needs to be enhanced significantly to create an impact, particularly on child labor.
Another survey conducted by ILO in 2003 showed some 1.3 million child workers, out of 7.4 million, at the age of 5-17 in Bangladesh are involved in various hazardous works.
Navendra Dahal of the Unicef said education can be a tool to prevent child labor.
Malama Meleisea of the Unesco said, "We need serious attention to address the issue."
Secretary General of Bangladesh Employers Federation CK Hyder said child labor is the result of poverty, and education can help stop it.
Skill development is an important component of education, which can help get rid of poverty, he added.
Secretary to the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan also spoke on the occasion.
At least 1.5 Million children are engaged in hazardous occupations in the country and the number is rising day by day due to the hike in food price. Moreover, most of them work with little or no pay but for three meager meals.
According to reports, there are 218 million child laborers between the age of five and 17 in the world. Of them, 126 million are performing dangerous tasks or working in hazardous conditions.
In Bangladesh, there are 79 lakh working children of whom 64 lakh are in rural and 15 lakh in urban areas. Of them 15 lakh are engaged in hazardous jobs.
Besides, at least 7.20 lakh primary school-aged children are not enrolled in schools globally, while the number of such children in Bangladesh is about 86 lakh, source said.
In the city at least 5 lakh female child work as domestic helps. They get only three meals a day and on an average Tk 300 per month. At the age of 16 to 17 they look for jobs in garment factories.
Rahmat is 9 years old and works as an apprentice in a Saw Mills in Khilgaon. "I get three meals a day here, plus Tk 70 a week," he said.
His father, Karamat Mia, 30, used to draw pushcart in the city. His mother Shahana Begum, 25, works as a domestic help. Rahmat used to go to the free government primary school but when Karamat had to have a surgery for a stomach tumor, the family's finances were decimated.
"With coarse rice selling at Tk 35 per kg Rahmat is better off at work than at home. The Tk 300 I earn is our only income. My employers keep me free from worries about my food," said Rahmat.
"I enjoyed going to school, but now I can't. I have to earn money for my family. I will go to school again after my father's recovery," Rahmat hoped.
Like Rahmat many children are involved in dangerous occupations at Dholai Khal area in the city in lathe machines or welding or in paint making workshops. Some of them make an early start as rickshawpullers or brick crushers.
The recent eviction drive of the law enforcers against floating population in the capital also displaced a number of families, who are employing their children to run make-shift shops in the city for longer hours to evade police harassment.
There are also a section of the street children, who are engaged in rag picking or litter collecting, both involve health risks but are very lucrative. This section is prone to engage in drug dealing and other anti-social activities.
In line with the UN theme of this year, "Education is Right Response to Child Labor," the government is pledge-bound to eliminate child labor and implement education programme for the children.
Along with the government, 30 non-government organizations are also working to withdraw children from hazardous jobs.
In addition, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), with the government, has established the Basic Education for Hard to Reach Urban Working children in six major cities.
In the first phase of the project, 11,550 centers nationwide offered two-year courses to 339,150 working children aged between eight and 14. Classes were held in two shifts to accommodate the children's work schedules, with a maximum of 30 students per class. Learning materials were provided, and there was no homework involved.
Phase two aims to withdraw 30,000 child laborers from hazardous jobs through a two-year non-formal education and six-month skill development programmes. It also provides micro-credit to parents.
"With very poor or no education, child workers become trapped in the cycle of low skills, low income and low education that further pushes them into the vicious cycle of inter-generational poverty," said a Dhaka University professor.
Lahore: City marks World Day Against Child Labor today
By Ali Usman
LAHORE: About 10 million children across the country are victims of child labor, and the World Day Against Child Labor is being celebrated with an aim to end it on Thursday (today).
Labor and Human Resources Department and International Labor Organization (ILO) will hold a seminar at Alhamra Arts Council in connection with the day.
Although the Punjab government had taken initiatives to make primary education free of cost, yet it had not proved helpful in combating child labor. The organizations working for children’s rights believe that it was the state’s responsibility to overcome child labor and take concrete steps against it.
Pakistan: Society for the Protection of Rights of the Child (SPARC), Global March national Coordinating office Regional Manager Aamir Hameed Mughal said that laws should be made and implemented to curb child labor. He said that the government should make a rule that bureaucrats could not employ child servants. He said that SPARC would organize media consultation at the district level to educate the people about the issue. A puppetry show was also labor for working children by SPARC at the Race Course Park on Tuesday. Mughal said that when the show was going on, many children of rich families accompanied the poor children and did not care about who they were sitting with. Had the parents of these children known that their kids were sitting with children employees, they would have never allowed them to see the show, Mughal said. He said, “There is a notion that poverty causes child labor, but in fact child labor causes poverty”. He said that a law should be made that a person, who employed a child, should also arrange his admission to a technical certified course so that he could learn some skill. Labor and Human Resource Minister Ashraf Sohna said that child labor data given by private organizations were not accurate. He, however, agreed that a large number of children were affected by child labor. He said that at many canteens of government departments, there were child laborers. He said that the government was taking steps to curb this practice, adding that a special quota would be reserved in institutions for child laborers.
KARACHI - "I am the victim of circumstances, I would have been in school but poverty compelled my parents to send me to work", said Aamir, a 13-year-old worker in a leather industry, while speaking at a child labor convention titled 'Let Us Live Like a Child Not Laborer' labor by Society for Protection of the Rights of Children (SPARC) in collaboration with All Pakistan Leather and Garment Workers Association here at Kornagi Park on Wednesday. Keeping in view the international efforts to combat child labor, SPARC has launched a weeklong countrywide campaign from June 6 against the child labor in hazardous occupations. With a view to highlight the worst impacts of work on the mental and physical health of child workers, an awareness-raising event was labor to involve parents, employers and workers at the industrial area of the city. More than two thousand families participated in the event and shared their views regarding child labor in leather garment, textile and chemical industries.
The child workers also shared their experiences and problems they face during work. It was revealed that child laborers are poorly paid and excessive work is extracted from them.
It was revealed during the discussion that most of the child workers in leather and chemical factories suffer from asthma, skin diseases and lungs infection.
Participating in discussion, the parents of the child laborers said that due to increasing unemployment and price-hike, they have been compelled to get back their children from schools and seek jobs for them in order to meet the household expenditures. Talking about child labor in the country, Salam Dharejo, Regional Promotion Manager SPARC, pointed out that number of child laborers is increasing in the province especially in rural areas.
Speaking on the occasion, Nasir Mansur, president of Labor Education Foundation, demanded the government to address the problems of child laborers through devising labor-friendly policies. Amjad Awan, president All Pakistan Leather and Garments Workers Union, said that proper safety measures have not been taken properly. He added that most of the laborers at the leather and garment industry are below eighteen years of age. Sadia Baloch, Regional Manager, SPARC, Baba Ghiyas and Mudassir also spoke on the occasion.
Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The UK-based Save the Children has called for an end to all forms of child labor on World Day against Child Labor on June 12.
This call for action follows the Child Rights Situation Analysis of Save the Children which indicates that child labor is pervasive, all over the country in both rural and urban areas, and the children laborers belong to marginalized and poor communities.
According to the Federal Bureau of Statistics 1996 child labor survey, there were 3.3 million children of 5 to 14 years involved in child labor. The Labor Force survey 2006 shows that the absolute number of child laborers in the 10-14 age group was 3.05 million while that of 'idle' children was 4.13 million; these idle children were unpaid domestic girl servants.
Children are found working in almost every economic sector in the country. A large proportion of these children is invisible and is working in the informal sector. Many of them are traditionally and economically bonded and work in hazardous occupations including work with chemicals and pesticides in agriculture, with machinery, and in mines. Children are also working in the industries and constructions work. Many are engaged in forced labor like debt bondage or armed conflict. Furthermore children are used as labor for commercial sex and are trafficked for various purposes.
With the formal sector shrinking and informal sector growing, children are seen taking up employment in new occupations. This puts children at a higher risk as they continue to toil with no access to education. NGOs are running projects which are not sustainable and do not trace the children once the project is completed. Many of these projects are based on education and vocational training and do not address family poverty resulting in children falling back into child labor. These children are extremely vulnerable and at high risk of physical, verbal abuse. Scolding, verbal abuse, beating and withholding of payment has been reported by children themselves.
Save the Children UK is working in Sindh, Balochistan and NWFP and reaching out to 36,000 working children to provide education and vocational training. It is also facilitating the communities to improve their incomes through livelihood support and market their products directly.
Since child labor is mainly an outcome of poverty, poor families which depend on the economic inputs of their children opt for the child to work when choosing between education and work.
It is also alarming to see that many of these children drop out of school due to poor quality education. According to the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2007, there are 7.78 million children out of school in Pakistan who are either in child labor or at high risk of entering child labor. Profiles of child laborers show that they are either uneducated, dropouts or are unable to access education. Therefore in view of the importance of education as the most viable tool to combat child labor, Save the
Children on the World Day against Child Labor calls for action on the following:
Access to free, compulsory and quality education for all children Alternative education for children who have missed out on formal schooling, addressing the shortage of teachers, training of teachers and of school buildings in remote areas.
A National Legislative Framework should be in place, seeking unification of existing laws on child labor and development of legal instruments to address the implementation of ILO Conventions 138 and 182.
The National Policy and Action Plan on Child Labor should be reviewed to include education parameters and milestones.
National Child labor survey must be conducted to determine the magnitude of the problem
Pakistan's Bait-ul-Maal's social safety programme for the families of child laborers should be expanded.
A ten year integrated education (Non-formal education/ literacy and skill development) programme should be introduced to prevent and progressively eliminate child labor
Resources for the education for working children should be earmarked.
Girls' education should be made compulsory to prevent them from unpaid family work and low paid invisible child domestic labor.
Responsive Child labor monitoring and referral mechanisms should be put in place at district level.
Pakistan: NWFP renews pledge to eliminate child labor
By Akhtar Amin
PESHAWAR: Like other parts of the country, World Day Against Child Labor was observed in NWFP on Thursday with the commitment that child labor will be eliminated through education and training.
The NWFP government labor a programme in collaboration with the International Labor Organization (ILO) to observe the day at Nishtar Hall. Men, women and children participated in the event from across the province.
Addressing the occasion, NWFP Minister for Information Mian Iftikhar Hussain said that militancy has not only endangered our children, but our places of worship, hujras and homes.
Today, he said, girl’s schools are being targeted and burnt in Darra Adam Khel and some parts of northern districts of the province. But, the minister said they would not allow anyone in this region to shed blood of innocent people and started peace agreements with militants to restore peace.
About child labor, the Minister said that protection of human rights and particularly elimination of child labor and child abuse was at the top of the provincial government's agenda. He said strict implementation of the existing laws would be ensured and necessary amendments and work on draft legislation would be carried out for this purpose.
Khalid Hussain from ILO said that his organization has started, combating child labor in NWFP through education and training project. He said that the first and second phases of the project have been completed while the third phase, launched in January 2007, will be completed in December 2008.
On the occasion, laborer children presented tableaus highlighting the worst forms of child labor including working at brick-kilns, coal mines, domestic child labor and among others.
On the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) World Day against Child Labor, the Pakistan Institute of Labor Education and Research (PILER) expressed deep concern over the state of Pakistan’s children.
The last government survey on child labor in Pakistan dates back to 1996. It estimated the number of working children to be just 3.3 million. According to other independent sources, this figure is expected to be over 10 million today.
Other indicators paint an equally grim picture. Some 23 million children of school-going age are out of school. According to the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2007, the drop-out ratio in primary schools of Pakistan is 50 percent which is the highest in the entire world.
The infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births has also been one of the highest in the regions (79 per 1,000, as against 54 per 1,000 in Bangladesh, 56 in India and 23 in China).
“We at PILER believe that the children are forced to work because their parents’ monthly income is too low for the entire family to subsist. The minimum wage even after recent increase stands at only Rs6,000 per month, which many do not receive. Ironically, the minimum wage is not applicable to agriculture sector which employs a majority of the 50-million-workforce. With prices of basic food commodities rising sky-high, it is small wonder that how workers with meagre informal earnings are supposed to make both ends meet,” said a PILER statement issued Thursday.
The only option left with them is to send small children to work, it added.
PILER believes that without ensuring adequate income for adult workers and universalizing social protection, addressing the issue of child labor is not possible.
“Who is to blame? The unskilled laborer, who survive on uncertain meager daily wages in urban areas and sharecropping in rural economy; or is it our chosen representatives who still choose to spend 296 billion rupees on “Defense Affairs & Services” in the fiscal year 2008-09. A sum that is 60 times more than what is allocated to Social Protection and about 12 times higher than allocation for Education,” the statement added.
Are we not supposed to look forward and actually work to change the depressing situation that our nation faces today? With the federal budget announced, it is quite clear what remains high on the government’s agenda, the statement added.
Nepal: International Day against Child Labor being observed
The International Day to Fight against Child Labor is being observed all over the country by organizing various programmes Thursday. With the slogan "Education: The Best Answer to Fight Child Labor", Child Workers in Nepal (CWIN), a non-governmental organizations working for the rights of children in the country, is holding interaction and organizing various other programs to mark the day. CWIN is also the regional coordinator of Global March Against Child Labor.
Similarly, United Trade Union Coordination Center also took out a rally in the capital city to mark the occasion today morning. Those participating in the rally demanded that "economic oppression" and atrocities against child laborers be immediately stopped and a separate ministry for children be formed to fight child labor and work for their welfare.
According to figures provided by International Labor Organization (ILO), an estimated 26 00,000 children are involved in labor job in various sectors in Nepal. Similarly, according to another statistics, 71,500 children work in restaurants while 56,000 work as domestic help, 46,000 work as porters and more work in hazardous places as brick kilns and stone quarries. Children also make 25 percent of the total labor force in Nepal, according to statistics. nepalnews.com
Cambodia: Cambodian children march against child labor
Posted Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:18pm AEST
Cambodian school children have taken to the streets to mark World Against Child Labor Day, calling for parents to send their kids to school, rather than forcing them to work.
About 500 children marched through the capital carrying placards and banners with slogans such as "Work is not necessary for children, but schooling is," and "Child labor is unjust for children". The demonstration was labor by the International Labor Organization with the Cambodian Government.
One of the marchers, 15-year-old student Roeun Ra, said his parents used to make him work by scavenging through garbage. "Many of my friends cannot go to school because their parents ask them to work for money," the boy said.
The World Bank said that last year about 1.5 million Cambodians under the age of 14 were forced to work, often in hazardous conditions. Chey Chab, undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Education, told marchers the Government was working to prevent the children from being exploited. "Children are like bamboo shoots and are the [future] strong force for the country," he said in a speech, calling on all people to "take care, protect, and think of the interest of children". Following years of civil unrest and Government mismanagement, Cambodia remains mired in poverty, with more than 30 per cent of its 14 million people living on less than 50 US cents per day.
Philippines: Fewer child laborers in RP--UN official
Agence France-Presse
MANILA, Philippines -- Fewer children are being drafted into the Philippines labor force, but keeping them in school remains a major challenge, a UN official said Thursday. The number of Filipino children aged between five and 14 who are in the labor force has fallen from 913,000 in 2003 to 774,000 in 2005, said Keiko Niimi, a regional official of the UN's International Labor Organization. "Despite all efforts, the fight against child labor remains a challenge," she said during a ceremony in Manila to mark World Day Against Child Labor. "We have to ensure that child laborers are successfully integrated in schools and that they do not return to work until they grow up and acquire education and training," she said. While the figures signal improvement, Niimi cited troubling education department data that showed the school participation rate dropping to a seven-year low of 38.22 percent in the 2006-2007 school year. The poor must often choose whether to educate their children or send them to work to help support the family, she said. In some cases, children attending schools must walk long distances, lack quality instruction and study materials, and often have to study in poor physical facilities.
Teachers may receive little support, training or poor salaries, while parents cannot always afford to pay for textbooks and uniforms as well as other school fees, she said.
"When families have limited resources, children as young as five are forced to work at the cost of dropping out of school, risking their health or even their lives," Niimi said.
Labor Secretary Marianito Roque said the government will implement a four-year project to raise school enrolment levels in areas of the country that have a high incidence of child labor.
Authorities seek greater enforcement of child labor laws
By Guan Xiaofeng and Wang Qian (China Daily)
China must strengthen enforcement of its legislation against child labor, legal experts said on the eve of the World Day Against Child Labor, which falls today.
Director of the Beijing Juvenile Legal Aid and Research Center Tong Lihua said the central government's determination to wipe out child labor is "clear and beyond doubt".
Tong added: "We have excellent legislation on child labor. The Regulations on Prohibition of Child Labor, adopted by the State Council in 2002, is by far the best and most practical law dealing with children's rights and interests in China."
The regulation stipulates that employers will be fined 5,000 yuan ($720) for every child laborer they hire for one month. If they continue to do so, authorities will rescind their licenses. Tong said illegal use of child labor "does exist" in the country - a fact that cannot be denied. In the slavery scandal in Shanxi province last year, for example, some unregistered brick kilns were discovered using child laborers. Local media reported in April that hundreds of children from Liangshan, Sichuan province, were swindled into working in Guangdong province.
The center's deputy director and lawyer Zhang Wenjuan said the government should pay closer attention to dropout students and junior high school graduates. "Dropout children are easy targets of child labor," she said, "Under the current nine-year compulsory education system, some junior high school graduates are younger than 16 and are easy to coerce into becoming child laborers if they choose to work rather than to further their educations." Zhang provided statistics showing that from 2001 to 2005, local authorities in Zhejiang province cracked down on 2,263 cases of child labor, involving 2,318 child laborers. The children's employers were fined 21.6 million yuan in total. "Although the nation has achieved substantial economic development, there are still many poor families in remote rural areas," Tong said. "And poverty is one of the major causes of child labor."
He said many poor parents want their children to make money to support the family. Laws, however, prohibit employment of children younger than 16. "The government needs to improve the enforcement of existing laws," he said.
"They should especially crack down harder on unregistered, small, private workshops and plants, which are more likely to employ children to reduce production costs."
Song Wenzhen, an official with the National Committee on Women and Children under the State Council, said the government had made great efforts to ban child labor in recent years. She also said the National Program of Action for Child Development (2001-10) released by the State Council set detailed standards protecting children's rights and ensuring their healthy development.
Thailand: Importance of education in ending child labor
Bangkok Post
‘Today marks World Day Against Child Labor. This year’s theme focuses on education as the right response and the key to breaking the poverty cycle.
In the vast food processing sector of Thailand, a little girl stands with her father, toiling for 12 hours a day, six days a week. For this work she will be paid 800-900 baht per week.
“I sometimes get tired because I have to stand all day,” she says.
For young Noy and thousands of other migrant children in Thailand, working long hours is just part of daily life. Sadly, going to school is not. “I have to help my family earn income so I cannot go to school like other children,” she explains.
The problem of child labor is obviously not limited to Thailand. The Asia-Pacific region enjoys a reputation of a vibrant economic region, but it is also home to more working children than any other region in the world - an estimated 122 million children aged 5-14 years are compelled to work for their survival. Some try to balance school with their long hours of work, but millions of these children are not enrolled in school at all. Today marks World Day Against Child Labor, which annually serves as an international day of action to raise awareness of child labor. This year’s theme focuses on education as the right response to child labor and the key to breaking the poverty cycle.
In the last 15 years Thailand has been a leader in the region, successful in reducing virtually all forms of child labor amongst Thai children. However, the problem has taken a different face. While according to official figures an estimated 300,000 children aged 15-17 years are legally employed, these statistics do not include the many migrant children under 15 who work illegally. Many of them are poor, un-registered or falsely registered children whose families are originally from hill tribe areas, Laos or Burma.
These children are likely to be exposed to dangerous situations that leave them open to exploitation, such as begging, domestic labor, manufacturing, the fishing industry, agriculture, and entertainment venues. Throughout the region, migrant families, and especially migrant children, face many difficulties. Living conditions in their communities are often basic and unsanitary - sometimes with contaminated water, no proper toilet or waste disposal facilities. Because many migrant children lack registration documents, they cannot access a range of health services, including post-natal care for newborns, vaccinations, and the prevention and care of HIV/Aids and other illnesses.
Fortunately, free basic education is a legal right for all children in Thailand. However in practice many migrant children cannot attend full-time education. The reasons include inadequate facilities and budget allocations for schools in their areas, a distrust of the authorities, fear of deportation, and imbedded negative attitudes towards migrant children among the general public.
Noy has recently been able to attend classes run by the Labor Rights Promotion Network (LPN) on Sundays - her one day off each week. It’s no substitute for full-time schooling but Noy is still enthusiastic and grateful for the opportunity that LPN has provided.
“One day while I was at home, a teacher walked into the village to tell all the children that there would be a Sunday school to teach Mon, Thai and English languages. I asked my mother if I could go to the school as I didn’t have to work on Sunday. Mom agreed because it did not interfere with my work. One day I want to be a vegetable seller. If I can understand the Thai language and make calculations I will be able to sell vegetables.”
Without access to free, compulsory, basic and good quality education, child laborers grow into young people with poor employment prospects. They cannot lift their families out of the poverty trap, cannot become parents who can give their children a better life through education, and cannot contribute effectively to the development of their country.
Noy’s aspiration to use her newly learned language and math skills to start her own business selling vegetables may seem like a modest goal, but it is an example of how education can open children’s eyes to future possibilities and help them escape an inter-generational cycle of poverty.
Today, on the 2008 World Day Against Child Labor, we ask all those involved to recognise the importance of education in ending child labor, and to focus on helping those children who currently are kept out of the classroom, and in poverty, because they are forced to work for their survival.
As World Day Against Child Labor is marked as part of continuing efforts to stamp out the practice around the globe, there are hundreds of thousands of underage children in Central Asia skipping school to work as unskilled laborers in cities or on farms.
While some children toil out of necessity for their families, in some countries the use of child labor is a state policy.
Children, some of them as young as 7 years old, can be found working at virtually every bazaar in Central Asia. They sell anything from food to clothing and cosmetics, and preteen boys often push carts in outdoor markets while young girls from the countryside offer to work as housekeepers.
The money they earn is often a lifeline for their families. Poverty is the main reason these kids leave school and work.
"I am proud that I work and get paid; I distribute bread," says 13-year-old Safar from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, adding, "I wish I could go to school together with my classmates, but life is hard and I have to work."
Officials in Central Asia have long denied that children are forced to work. Many contend that the kids are helping their parents after school and that it is rural residents themselves who send their children into the fields to earn much-needed cash.
Firuz Saidov, an expert on child labor at the Center for Strategic Studies under Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, admits that there is no way to stop child labor because many Tajiks live in poverty and children are crucial for families to have enough money to survive.
"Children work mostly in trade, agriculture, and in the street -- they wash cars. It's hard to stop this in Tajikistan," Saidov says. "Their rights are violated both by employers and police."
But in many rural areas, particularly in places like Uzbekistan, it is the government that forces children to pick cotton. The practice has existed since the Soviet era and continued when the Central Asian countries gained independence in 1991 -- even after they joined international agreements banning child labor.
Not An Official Priority
Human rights activists say that cotton brings cash to the state coffers as well as to the pockets of the ruling elite in some countries.
Jovid Juraev, of the international organization Save the Children in Dushanbe, is critical of the Tajik authorities' stance on the use of child labor. He says there is no political will to end it despite official pronouncements to the contrary. "The use of children in cotton picking has become a national catastrophe -- some 200,000 Tajik children are forced to do hard and harmful work [with the number increasing during the main harvest season]," Juraev says. "It amazes me that despite the decrees made by the president and the government, children are still subject to economic exploitation. And no one dares to fight it."
In neighboring Uzbekistan, the world's third-largest cotton exporter, the use of child labor in the cotton sector is a state policy. As the cotton harvest begins in September, schools are shut down and thousands of children are bused to fields, sometimes with a police escort. They pick what is dubbed the "white gold" that brings around $1 billion in annual exports for Uzbekistan. Uzbek authorities have been under fire from international human rights groups to stop using forced child labor in the cotton industry. A campaign launched in November brought some results, as major clothing chains including Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Gap, and H&M -- as well as textile producers in South Asia -- resolved to stop buying Uzbek cotton fiber.
The Long Haul
Nadezhda Atayeva, who heads the Paris-based Association on Human Rights in Central Asia, says that "noticeable progress" has been made in the campaign to boycott Uzbek cotton. She says the Uzbek authorities seem to have stopped denying the use of child labor and are willing to hold a dialogue with human rights groups and international organizations. The Uzbek parliament adopted a law in January on "Guarantees of the Rights of the Child." It was followed by ratification of the International Labor Organization's (ILO) convention on the worst forms of child labor and minimum age.
Atayeva praises the moves but adds that it is crucial for the Uzbek government to give greater economic freedom to farmers and thus reduce the incentive to use the low-paid or unpaid labor of children. She also says the coming cotton harvest will be a litmus test for the Uzbek government. "Despite those positive changes, it is important that international organizations have the possibility to monitor the situation in the autumn," Atayeva says. "Every interested party should be able to go to [Uzbek] cotton fields and check if there are children below the age of 15 working there and, if so, what their working conditions are."
History Of Ambivalence
In Turkmenistan as well, child labor is widely used during the cotton harvest, although the country is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It also passed laws in 2002 and 2005 prohibiting the employment of children under the age of 16 and regulating a child's right to protection from exploitation. The late Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov frequently issued statements on the necessity of ending child labor, but the situation remained largely unchanged throughout his presidency. The U.S. State Department estimated that more than 1 million children were part of the labor force in 2000. More recent statistics are hard to find.
Last year, Niyazov's successor, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, made a similar statement. But human rights activists say children are still widely used for labor in Turkmenistan.
In Kazakhstan, children work in cotton and tobacco fields and as unskilled laborers in urban areas. In recent years, children from neighboring Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have been working in Kazakhstan along with their parents.
Dana Zhandayeva, Kazakh project coordinator of ILO's child-labor project, tells RFE/RL that the situation with forced child labor has improved since the Kazakh government ratified two ILO conventions (one on a minimum employment age and the other on the worst forms of child exploitation) and asked for international organizations' assistance to stop the use of child labor.
The Kazakh government's initial position was ambiguous: officials denied the problem. Then they started saying the problem exists only in the cotton industry. Now, they admit this phenomenon exists in Kazakhstan, although not as acutely as in neighboring countries," Zhandayeva says. "They admit the need to tackle the problem although they try to say that only the kids of migrants from Uzbekistan work. In general, I cannot say the government is not acting and not taking measures [against child labor]."
There are bright spots. Zhandayeva says that in Kyrgyzstan, for instance, the government has been at the forefront of the fight against child slavery. She says the Kyrgyz government is the only one in Central Asia that not only cooperates with international organizations to fight child labor but also allocates funds to stop it.
RFE/RL Tajik Service correspondents Zarangez Navruzshoeva in Dushanbe and Mirzo Salimov in Prague contributed to this report
Child laborers mark World Day Against Child Labor: Turkey
AYŞE KARABAT, TODAY’S ZAMAN ANKARA
Children yesterday gathered in Ankara's Abdi İpekçi Park, known for demonstrations demanding freedoms and rights, to call for an end to child labor -- an urgent message that came on this year's World Day against Child Labor. Apprentices working in Ankara's industrial zones, children working in agricultural fields as seasonal workers and primary school students were all present, carrying a banners that said "Send children to school, not to work," "Do not give money to child beggars" and "I don't want to spend my life in the field but in school."Their demonstration supported by the International Labor Organization International Program of Elimination of Child Labor (ILO-IPEC), the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, the Confederation of Revolutionary Workers' Unions (DİSK), the Confederation of Turkish Real Trade Unions (Hak-iş), the Turkish Confederation of Employers' Union (TİSK) and the Social Services and Child Protection Agency (SHÇEK). Child labor remains a serious problem in Turkey but policies and programs to eliminate it have shown promising results. Within 12 years the number of child laborers has decreased from 2.6 million to 958,000.
Ufuk Güçlü, a child laborer participating in the demonstration says he is 16 years old and has been working since last year as an apprentice in Ankara's Ostim industrial zone.
"I work six hours a day, five days a week in addition to being an apprentice," he says. His friends are in a similar situation. They say: "I am 17 and work six days a week," "I only earn YTL 250 a month" and "My job is not easy."
When asked how their relations were with their employers, they smiled. "If they weren't good, do you think we could be here now?" they reply.
They say they have formed an unofficial group in Ostim of around 70 children. One of them is Ramazan Yılmaz, who says he left school when he was in ninth grade because he did not like school. But he adds that he regrets that decision. The rest of them also began to speak up, saying: "Children who drop out of school come to Ostim and regret having done so their first day here. We wish it was possible for us to return to school."
When they asked why they do not return, they say, "We don't want to go to school with children younger than us." One of them also adds, "Our families will not be happy if we return to school because we are helping out financially now."
This is the main problem institutions working for the elimination of child labor are dealing with. "For us one of the most important tasks is to prevent children from joining the labor force because once they join, they begin to think they are adults and no longer children. Also, for some of them, their families do not allow them to return to school. This is especially true for girls," says chief labor inspector Olcay Aydın.
One of the main reasons for the decrease in child labor is the extension of the compulsory education to eight years. Also, the Ministry of Education has established a system to monitor children dropping out of school and joining the work force. The ministry and related institutions for those kinds of children are trying to take preventive measures. There are also vocational training courses with an employment guarantee for the children's families.
"It does not matter how economically in trouble you are, don't take the most basic rights of your own children from them," said a girl in a speech she gave at the demonstration.
Child labor is one of Turkey's biggest problems, primarily in the form of seasonal work in the agricultural sector. According to figures of the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat), 40.9 percent of the working children are in the agriculture sector. Comparing the statistics from 1994 with 2006 the most significant drop in the child labor took place in the agricultural sector, with 74 percent.
One of the participants of the demonstration, Ali Osman Kozbek, the project director of the program "From field to school," says that it is actually very difficult to know the exact numbers because agricultural work statistics are not recorded properly. It is also difficult to reach children who are working on their family's lands.
"Children working in the agricultural sector miss school either when it begins in September or they leave school before it ends in June in order to work. Of course not to attend school seasonally leads them to leave school altogether. We are trying to increase the academic success of children under risk because if they are successful in school, their families will not take them out of school in order to put them onto the fields," he says.
ejat Kocabay, the national program manager of IPEC, says Turkey is decisively fighting against child labor and that it had in the past implemented 112 projects to address the subject. He says the ILO thinks efforts to prevent child labor in Turkey have reached a certain point and that it has stopped supporting the projects financially, but civil society organizations and public institutions are working on the subject very seriously.
"At the beginning the concept of fighting against child labor came from the top but now public awareness on the subject has increased and also the state officials are taking this problem very seriously. Turkey has a national program for it and is implementing it," Kocabay says.
European Union: World Day Against Child Labor will this year be marked by thousands of events in scores of countries around the world on 12 June with a focus on the need to improve access of children to education as the right response to child labor.
On the occasion of the World Day Against Child Labor, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, EU Commissioner for External Relations and Neighborhood Policy, has said: “I am pleased that this year the day is dedicated to raise awareness of the importance of education in fighting child labor. I am convinced that improving access of all children to education is the right response to this evil. Fight against child labor is for me a core commitment in our human rights agenda and I will continue to raise it in my political dialogue with other countries.
"Child labor is exploitation and must be tackled at all levels," added Employment & Social Affairs Commissioner Vladimír Špidla. "This is part of our broader agenda to promote decent work for all and we strongly support both the ratification and effective implementation of the International Labor Organization's core labor standards."
“The fight against child labor requires a concerted response from governments, industry and the international community. For the EU, sustainable development, including labor standards, are a core objective of our dialogue with trading partners. We are not forcing standards on countries, but believe as they do that it is in their interest. We do not want to stop legitimate trade that will help countries trade their way out of poverty, but are looking for the best way to address the issues, whether by agreements, incentives, or cooperation”, said Peter Mandelson, EU Commissioner for External Trade.
Background
The International Labor Organization (ILO) has estimated that some 165 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are currently involved in child labor, of these, 74 million are exposed to hazardous work.
Therefore, the ILO launched the first World Day Against Child Labor in 2002 as a way to highlight the plight of child workers. The day, which is annually observed on 12 June, is intended to serve as a catalyst for the growing worldwide movement against child labor, reflected in the huge number of ratifications of ILO Convention No. 182 on the worst forms of child labor and ILO Convention No. 138 on the minimum age for employment.
Child labor is prohibited in all EU Member States by European legislation, itself inspired by Convention No. 138. In addition, all Member States have ratified Convention No. 182. The EU works with the ILO to promote ratification of the eight ILO core labor standards at a global level and has established a number of structured dialogues on employment and social affairs with countries such as China and India.
The Commission supports various actions worldwide to strengthen children’s rights and prevent child labor. Through the European Initiative on Democracy and Human Rights, the Commission has supported the implementation by NGOs of a series of projects in Brazil (‘Empowerment of the Waste Picker’s Associations and Protection of their Rights’ and ‘Stock Market-School Citizen - Income and Education to Prevent Child Labor Exploitation’), Cambodia (‘Utilizing the Buddhist monks and school students to prevent sexual abuse and child labor’), Egypt (‘Campaign Against Child Labor in the Egyptian Agrarian Sector’) and Morocco (‘Awareness to Fight Against Child Labor’).
Moreover, the “Project for Eradicating the Worst Forms of Child Labor” – supported by the European Delegation in Turkey (the budget allocated was 5.3 million euros) – aimed at enhancing the capacity of the Child Labor Unit in the Ministry of Labor and Social Security and providing approximately 3000 Turkish children and their families with education, rehabilitation and support services in seven different provinces.
Most recently, the European Commission, the ILO's International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) and Pakistan’s government signed an agreement to implement a project to combat child labor in Pakistan. The Commission's contribution (€4.75 million) will help Pakistan's government and IPEC to tackle child labor in the formal and informal economies, for example domestic work, car repair workshops or recycling of waste. The project, due run until 2013, aims to take children out of the worst forms of work immediately and rehabilitate them. It will also involve prevention work.
Finally, the European Commission also supports initiatives by the business community to promote decent work through corporate social responsibility (CSR).
World Day against Child Labor marked in Madagascar
ANTANANARIVO, June 12 Various activities were held here on Thursday over the island country of Madagascar to mark the World Day against Child Labor.
The Madagascan government had made great efforts to fight against child labor including the enforcement of laws, education in line with international norms, and the set-up of national and regional committees in charge of anti-child labor, the Minister of Public Service, Labor and Social Laws, Abdou Salame, told a gathering here. He promised that his ministry would help the non-governmental organizations, civil societies and government institutions to safeguard the rights of children and youth in the Indian Ocean island country. Various activities including seminars and children show were labor in the capital city as well as eight regions out of 22 over the country on the day, with the theme "promoting education as a route to reducing child labor." According to the law of Madagascar, anyone who employs children will be punished by a fine of 1 to 3 million ariaries (570 to 1,700 U.S. dollars) and by an imprisonment of one to three years at the same time.
Ndalatando
The northern Kwanza Norte Province's branch of the National Children Institute (INAC) promotes, this Thursday in Ndalatando City, a meeting to discuss matters relating to the fight against the exploitation of child labor. The event, to held under the 12 June Date (World Day Against Child Labor), aims at mobilizing society for the prevention and eradication of the practice of using minors in activities that are not suitable for their age, reads a document received by ANGOP on Wednesday.
The workshop will also analyze the migration of families from the countryside to the city, in search of better social conditions, whereby many children are used for heavy tasks or peddling in the streets. Other topics to be discussed are the consequences of dropping out of school, combining minors' work activities with their schooling and social exclusion of children. Participants to the meeting will learn some aspects relating to the Angolan Constitutional Law, the General Labor Law and the conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO).
Ghana: Strengthen implementation of children’s policies – NGO
Mr James Kofi Annan, Founder of Challenging Heights, a non-governmental organization committed to defending the cause of children, on Thursday called for better implementation of children’s policies to end the child labor problem.
While commending government for the introduction of policies such as the capitation grant, the school feeding programme and the impending free health care for children, he noted that the policies were not enough and stressed the need for effective implementation.
“Government must back policies with practical commitment to fight against child labor. Policies themselves cannot prevent child trafficking and labor,” he said.
Mr. Annan was speaking at a press conference to commemorate the celebration of World Day against Child Labor which falls on June 12 every year.
He also urged the Ghana Police Service not to shirk its responsibility of prosecuting perpetrators of child labor and pointed out that as a nation there was the need to keep all children in school because education was the right response to solving the child labor problem.
He commended the Police Service for setting up an anti-child trafficking unit but called for strengthened surveillance at weekends and during funerals and festivals along the coast as well as lorry stations and bus terminals.
Mr. Annan, who was a victim of child labor at the fishing town of Yeji, said his engagement in such ventures brought him nothing but illiteracy, bilharzia, anaemia, physical and psychological abuse in addition to social problems.
He said: “Today I am blessed to know that at the time of my abuse, I had the potential to become a university graduate, a senior banker and a highly talented entrepreneur.
“It is sad to note that 21 years after my liberation, we still have several hundreds of children in bonded labor in both poor and affluent homes. We still have hundreds of working children on the Volta Lake killing their energies, talents and being deprived of their right to education.”
Mr Annan also expressed concern about the capacity of institutions such as the Department of Social Welfare, Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs and the National Commission on Children to deal with the problem.
Mr John Manu, Deputy National Youth Coordinator in-charge of Administration and Finance at the National Youth Council, mentioned poverty, illiteracy and broken homes as the main causes of child labor and child trafficking.
He emphasized the need for firm action against parents who sent their children into slavery and other perpetrators to help curb the menace.
Ghana: Commit yourselves to ending child labor – Minister
Ms Akosua Frema Osei-Opare, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment (MMYE) on Friday, called on both National and International stakeholders in the welfare of children, to join forces and increase their commitment to ending child labor.The Minister said education must be made accessible to all children of school going age.
She noted that children were forced to stay out of school and work, mainly because of poverty, but said, government on its part had put in place many measures to reduce poverty and also make it possible for all children to go to school.
Ms Osei-Opare, made the call when she gave the keynote address on the occasion of the National Celebration of World Day against child labor on the theme, ‘Education, The Right Response to Child Labor’, at Tongo, Talensi-Nabdam District in the Upper East Region.
She said the MMYE was developing a seven year National Plan of Action to serve as an integrated framework for linking relevant actions by different partners in different sectors, with a view to tackling child labor in a coordinated and sustainable manner.
According to her, child labor had also been mainstreamed into the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy Two (GPRS Two) and the guidelines of the Medium Term Development Plans of all Ministries, Departments and Agencies for adequate Government support to implement interventions to effectively deal with the worst forms of child labor.
She said programmes like the Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty (LEAP), designed to help poor, excluded and vulnerable households, money on regular basis, to help them gradually improve their living standards.
The programme also demanded that children in such households refrain from work that would keep them out of school. The Capitation Grant that takes care of all school fees and the free lunch programme were all meant to encourage children to go to school, she added.
Ms Osei-Opare explained that the unacceptable child labor was one that gave the child too much work and kept them out of school, saying, “however, all the partners in the fight against child labor, national and global have commonly agreed on the importance of children participating in work activities that are beneficial to their development and does not prevent them from benefiting fully from education.”
Mrs Angelina Baiden-Amissah, Deputy Minister of Education, Science and Sports (MOESS), noted that, situations where the child or parents is coerced or induced to give the child out to work for exploitative purposes, was also an unacceptable form of child labor.
“Day in day out, the public sights children performing difficult tasks like pulling heavily loaded trucks, breaking stones at quarry sites, selling wares and engaging in fishing activities, whilst these children are supposed to be in school”, she said.
“Children in the northern part of the country are often trafficked to cities like Accra and Kumasi to work as house helps, prostitutes, farm hands, fisher boys and all sorts of odd jobs.
Children are also trafficked to other countries like Togo, Burkina Faso, Mali, Ivory Coast through ‘Pimps’, who promise them greener pastures, only for them to suffer conditions and services that are too much for their age”, she added.
Mrs. Baiden-Amissah cautioned parents to refrain from indulging their children in labor or giving them out to be sent to other places to work, saying, “the government is very serious with the enforcement of laws on trafficking for exploitative purposes and has empowered the Police and Interpol to arrest parent, pimps and children being trafficked”.
Mrs. Agnes Chigabatia, Upper East Deputy Regional Minister, stated that the high number of children in the region engaged in labor was appalling.
“Majority of children aged between five and seventeen are engaged in child labor, with the young girls being the worst affected”, she said.
She called on Chiefs, Opinion leaders and the literates to spread the message on the effects of child labor and educate the people on the need to give every child formal education.
Mrs. Chihgabatia said good quality human resource base was needed to eradicate poverty and put the children in better positions to live normal and acceptable lives. “We must therefore espouse education as the major tool for liberating the Region from poverty”, she said.
This year’s event was ceremoniously celebrated in the Talensi Nabdam District of the Upper East Region Of Ghana it is between 16-18 hours drive from the capital Accra. Partnerships made up of the Government of Ghana, The ILO/IPEC, The Global March Against Child Labor Anglo Africa, UNICEF, The Employers Association and the Ghana Trades union congress, the local District Assembly and an NGO called AFRIKIDS –Ghana. Ironically this district almost famine stricken had not had rainfall for nearly a year until the day God heard the voices of children on the fateful 12 June. The District experienced over three hours of rainfall igniting further community interest in the celebration.
Over 2000 school children including about 300 ex-child laborers rescued with support from the ILO participated in the event, 150 children rescued from mining by AFRIKIDS Ghana and the rest by GAWU OF GTUC from rice farms in the Kasena Nankana ICOUR rice fields. Their parents who have also received various training graced the occasion.
Solidarity messages were also presented by deputy ministers for labour education and also from the President of Global March, trade Unions, The ILO, UNICEF , Employers ,Ex child laborers amongst others. School children participated in football matches, debates, brass band route marches, dancing contest, community sensitization programme and stakeholder joint action
The Celebration that was week long saw the Global March facilitating and donating prizes for winners of the debate. The GM was also a member of the institutionalized national WDACL planning committee and with the status of a main partner for the celebration.
Story by SILAS NTHIGA
Publication Date: 6/17/2008
More than 1.7 million Kenyan children of school-going age are out of classrooms despite the free primary education programme introduced five years ago.
Most of the children were engaged in activities which hindered their participation in education, among them child labor, the minister for Gender and Children Affairs minister, Ms Esther Murugi Mathenge, said on Monday.
But she said her ministry would ensure that all children were enrolled in schools.
The minister decried the increasing number of child laborers in the country, saying it currently stood at 700,000. She said cases of child labour were especially rampant in miraa-growing areas of Meru North District and asked the provincial administrators to work with children’s officers to curb the vice.
The minister was speaking at the Embu Agricultural Staff Training College during this year’s celebrations to mark International Day of the African Child.
Ms Mathenge said child labor and sexual abuse were the biggest challenges facing her ministry.
“Cases of defilement are rising daily despite efforts to eradicate them.
“The Sexual Offences law needs to be enhanced to give total protection to the children,” she said.
In addition, the minister talked of the need to involve children in formulating policies affecting them.
Earlier, while paying a courtesy call on Eastern provincial commissioner David Jakaiti, Ms Mathenge said her ministry was too understaffed and poorly equipped to cope with the many issues affecting children in the country.
Lack personnel
She said some of the newly created districts lacked personnel and facilities to handle children affairs.
Unicef country representative Olivia Yambi called for the enforcement of the Sexual Offences Act to ensure that those who abused children are brought to book.
