ILO Says Criminals Make Billions From Forced Labor
By Lisa Schlein Geneva, 12 May 2009
The International Labor Organization says criminals are making $20 billion a year from forced labor and that figure is substantially higher when profits from sexual exploitation are factored in. A new report launched by the ILO in Geneva finds the impact of the global economic and jobs crisis is worsening the forced labor problem.
New data from the International Labor Organization finds criminals now are making five times more in profits from forced labor than they did four years ago. At that time, the ILO reported they were making huge profits of $32 billion a year. That included $28 billion from sexual exploitation. Roger Plant, heads the ILO's Special Action Program to Combat Forced Labor, tells VOA illicit profits from forced labor are likely to be much more now.
"In 2005, we looked at $4 billion of profits outside the sex industry. We are now saying, we have a loss to the workers of $20 billion outside the sex industry. So, we are likely to be dealing with a much more serious problem, "he said.
That would add up to $52 billion, if the profits of sexual exploitation were the same.
The ILO calls forced labor a global problem. It says this form of modern slavery operates in multinational companies in industrialized countries, not just in the informal sector of developing countries.
The U.N. agency reports more than 12 million people around the world are trapped in all forms of forced labor. Between 40 and 50 percent are children under the age of 18. Plant says child labor is a particularly serious problem in West African countries. He adds the whole issue of forced labor has not received enough attention in Africa.
"For us, forced labor is a serious crime," added Plant. "It has to be dealt with through adequate penalties and it has to be strictly enforced. Sometimes in Africa, we found that there is a strong focus on slavery. But, sometimes quite low and weak penalties for a slaver. We also have got countries in West Africa where there has been a legacy of slavery and slavery-like conditions. These are quite serious problems that need to be strictly addressed."
The report finds people are forced to work very long hours under bad conditions for no pay or very little pay in a wide range of industries. It says forced labor is appearing in electronics, automobiles and modern textiles, as well as in brick kilns, small fishing boats and backward agriculture in developing countries.
In times of economic and financial crisis, it says migrants, including young women and children are more exposed to forced labor. Under conditions of hardship, the study notes vulnerable people will take more risks than before.
Turkey: Child labor likely to increase in Turkey despite government’s best efforts
AYŞE KARABAT ANKARA, April 30th, 2009
Some children in Turkey work on farms or on the streets to earn money
Experts have warned that the global economic crisis may lead to a resurgence in child labor in Turkey even though the country has been exemplary in its struggle against the practice, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO). The Ministry of Labor and Social Security, which has implemented large-scale projects to curb child labor in recent years together with the International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC), has prepared another five years of plans to deal with the issue.
Gülay Aslantepe, from the ILO, said the effects of the economic crisis on child labor are not clear yet. But Ercüment Erbay, from Hacettepe University’s social services department, and various unions have warned about the possibility of child labor becoming a major problem once again.
Some children in Turkey work on farms or on the streets to earn money
“The unemployment rate is increasing and this situation makes parents seek ways to cope with economic problems. One of these ways is child labor. There are several forms of child labor and the biggest increase might be in the form of children working on the streets, because this generates high revenue,” Erbay explained.
According to figures released recently by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat), unemployment for January reached 15.5 percent, the highest in the history of the country. The number of unemployed people in Turkey in January increased by 1.59 million over the same month last year. The total figure now stands at about 3.65 million. On the other hand, when the Turkish economy was growing child labor was decreasing. Between 1994 and 2006 the percentage of children forced to work dropped from 8.5 percent to 2.6 percent. The number of working children in 1994 was 2.26 million, but this number has now decreased to 320,000. The elimination of child labor has been one of Turkey’s primary targets in recent years. With the cooperation of IPEC and ILO, Turkey implemented many projects, such as opening up education centers for working children, providing courses for their parents and helping them return to school.
Economist Erhan Bilgin, from the Confederation of Revolutionary Workers’ Unions (DİSK), stresses that recently there has been a drop in child labor throughout the country, but that the economic crisis may erase all of these positive developments. “In an economic crisis there are three tendencies. The first one is dismissals. But as the crisis lasts longer, despite the law, some firms choose unregistered labor in order to decrease their costs. Other firms also choose to buy materials from unregistered producers. This kind of situation leads to an increase in child labor. They can pay less for child labor and if they decide to dismiss child workers they don’t have to pay anything. The third tendency is to look for workers who are not union members, don’t have any experience and are ready to work for lower pay. This means apprentices. In Turkey this tendency is currently gaining ground,” he said.
A recent report on child labor conducted by Dr. Gökçe Uysal Kolaşin and Burak Darbaz of Bahçeşehir University indicates that out of the 320,000 children working in Turkey most of them are working in agriculture and only 109,000 of them are receiving pay for their labor. The report shows that 125,000 of them are not attending school currently and 30,000 have never been enrolled at any school. The research suggests that when these children start to work their success in school seriously decreases, underlining that this will affect the Turkish economy in the long run.
“By the year 2030 most of these children will be between the ages of 25 and 30. In the long run Turkey has to invest in its human resources. This is why these working children should be integrated into the education system,” the report warns.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Security, which has set itself the goal of entirely eliminating the worst forms of child labor by the year 2015, is planning to implement some new projects for the years 2009 and 2013. It has developed a project for increasing the capacity of centers that serve child workers. It is also planning to support the families of these children and introduce more restrictions on child labor. Over the next five years the ministry is planning on spending more than TL 30 million on such projects.
Tens of thousands of children in India are trafficked every year. The poorest families are at risk and they're most vulnerable after the floods in the rainy season when families can become separated - but child protection is far from the political agenda. So what do the elections mean for the country's children as another rainy season is soon to be upon them. In this film from Bihar, India's poorest state, we hear first hand from some of the young victims
NEW DELHI: The Election Commission has warned the District Election Officers and the Returning Officers that they would be personally held responsible if there was any report of employment of child laborers for poll-related works.
Taking cognisance of a photograph published by The Hindu on Thursday wherein children were seen carrying the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), prior to the third phase of the Lok Sabha polls in Bhagalpur constituency in Bihar, the Commission said the use of child workers was “highly objectionable.”
The Commission – Chief Election Commissioner Navin B. Chawla and Election Commissioners S.Y. Quraishi and V.S. Sampath – which went through the report about employment of child laborers, in a letter to the Chief Secretaries and Chief Electoral Officers of the States/Union Territories on Friday, said those violating the child labor laws would face the consequences of law and severe disciplinary action.
Violation of child rights’ for any poll-related work “is in no way acceptable.” The Commission, taking “strong exception” to the practice, also sent a copy of the photograph published in The Hindu along with the letter to the officials.
The Child Labor (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, prohibits employment of children below 14 years in occupations such as transport of goods etc. considered unsafe and harmful to them and regulates the conditions of work of children.
The violators could face imprisonment from three months to one year and fine between Rs.10,000 and Rs.20,000 or both. Besides the violators had to deposit Rs.20,000 in the name of the rescued child to the Child Labor Rehabilitation cum Welfare Fund.
Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) Announces Recipients of the 14th Annual Defender of Democracy Awards
NEW YORK, 18 May 2009 - Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) will
present the 2009 Defender of Democracy Awards to Mr. Kailash Satyarthi of
India, Founder/Chair of the Global March Against Child Labor, and Ch. Aitzaz
Ahsan of Pakistan, Barrister-at-Law, Senior Advocate Supreme Court and. The
awards ceremony will take place on the evening of October 20th, 2009 at the
United States Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. in conjunction with
PGA’s 31st Annual Parliamentary Forum which is being hosted at the US
Congress by PGA’s International Councilor, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and its
congressional members, Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Washington), Rep. Carolyn
Maloney (D-New York) among others. For details please see PGA’s Forum
website: http://www.pgaction.org/PGAs31stAnnualForum.html.
Since 1996, PGA has held the Defender of Democracy Awards in conjunction with its Annual Parliamentary Forum. The Defender of Democracy Award is presented to individuals who, through their own commitment and active engagement, have made significant progress in strengthening democracy and democratic practices. Some past recipients include H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia, Ms. Mary Robinson, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi, former Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan.
PGA is honoring Mr. Satyarthi for his distinguished life-long work and commitment to end child labor in India and around the world and his global campaign for education rights for children. For nearly three decades, Mr. Satyarthi has campaigned courageously to end child labor in his own country and around the world, rescuing more than 67,000 bonded laborers, including more than 40,000 children. He is the founder/chair of the Global March Against Child Labor, and creator of the Rugmark label, the universally
recognized symbol of rugs certified as having been made without the use of exploitative child labor. Since September 2008, Mr. Satyarthi has been leading an effort under the Global Campaign for Education for children by 2015. Mr. Satyarthi also launched the Global March’s “World Cup Campaign” convincing the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) to agree to the elimination of child labor in the manufacture of soccer balls.
Mr. Ahsan is being honored by PGA for his distinguished life-long career as a constitutional law and human rights expert and former Minister and parliamentarian who has defended political prisoners from all parties in Pakistan and served on the legal defense team of Aung Sung Suu Kyi. Mr. Ahsan is one of Pakistan's leading constitutional and human rights attorneys. Educated at Cambridge University, called to the Bar at Gray's Inn, Mr. Ahsan has defended scores of political prisoners in military court trials including both former Prime Ministers - Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, lead counsel for Ms. Mukhtar Mai, gang-rape victim of village council "justice" whose resistance became a national and international cause celebre. He has most recently been the defense counsel for the Chief Justice of Pakistan while serving as Supreme Court Bar Association President. In a parallel political career, Mr. Ahsan served as Member of Parliament, provincial and national, 1976-2007; Minister for Law and Justice; Minister of Interior and Minister of Education.
Human Markets: Highly lucrative, life-destroying trade
Dimapur, Nagaland, May 18, 2009
A leading social activist from the North East working in the problem area of human trafficking has shed light on the practice of human trafficking in India’s north east, pointing out that this can no longer be ignored. Hasina Kharbhih, founder and team leader of Impulse NGO Network, in a recent interview given to Rachael Kilsby, currently working for Impulse NGO Network in Shillong, expressed concern that “the buying and selling of people generates a highly lucrative and seriously life-destroying trade” and that “thousands of men, women and children become entangled each year in this poorly understood and only recently acknowledged phenomenon”. Hasina who has done pioneering work in the area of human trafficking disclosed that during research into the problem, they had detected “unexplainably large numbers of missing women and children in Indian villages bordering Nepal and Bangladesh”. “The link to human trafficking slowly became evident, and more thoroughly explored, thanks to accounts from rescued survivors and interviews with family members”, Hasina states in her interview.
Illustration by Sandemo Ngullie
On the reason the North East remains a hot-spot for human trafficking, Hasina points out that the region shared many international borders, most of which are open and unmanned and these points provided an easy passage in and out of India for organized human trafficking syndicates to operate undetected. She also informed that Nepalese girls have long been in demand, owing to their fair complexion and oriental features. However, greater awareness and networking among Nepalese communities has forced traffickers to turn to alternative sources. Hasina disclosed that the solution has been to target north-eastern girls as there are close physical similarities and the greater socio-political climates are conducive.
Hasina also pointed out that the situation for each of the eight north-eastern states varies. For example, she states that Meghalaya is a major destination due to its coal industry. Estimates suggest that 40,000 children from Nepal and Bangladesh have been trafficked into the coal mines by landowners and exporters for the purpose of slave labor. Furthermore, the highway networks in the north east connect many national and international destinations. In the state of Assam, truckers have used the highway routes to transport drugs and traffic girls. “We have seen truck drivers from all over India deceiving young north eastern children into fake marriages, child labor and sex work”, Hasina says. Another contributing factor is the female sex ratio-decline in northern India.
Resulting from the cultural male child preference, this imbalance has sadly led to many girls being trafficked for marriage.
On the main source, transit and destination points for these victims, Hasina states that from her experience the destinations are usually New Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Goa, Kolkata and extend as far as Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. “There are likely to be many more locations throughout India and across the globe, we just haven’t learned of them yet”, she maintains. According to her, Siliguri is the main transit point as it connects many train lines and bus services. It has long been a convenient way to smuggle women and children across the Indo-Nepali border without detection, Hasina discloses in her interview.
While it was generally accepted that people below the poverty line with limited employment opportunities are the most vulnerable to being targeted by human traffickers, Hasina gave an interesting insight into the recent trend whereby young, educated girls seeking employment outside their local area have also been caught up in trafficking. These girls are generally duped / coerced into the commercial sex trade by ill-intentioned employers, she points out. Women and children are also commonly deceived by offers of fake marriages. There have been cases where non-Indian residents (NRIs) have married women as a cheaper alternative to paying domestic staff. Highly educated girls have been exploited and abused in these marriages.
The armed conflict in the north east has only added to the problem, according to Hasina and points out that trafficking has become more rampant in this type of environment as people are more vulnerable. “Women and children are being forced to act as carriers of drugs and arms. This puts them at extreme risk of violence and exploitation”, she states. Hasina also informed that not all trafficked victims were used in the flesh trade and that those equal numbers was also found for the purpose of labor. Other purposes have included organ transplants, camel jockeys in Saudi Arabia and beer bar dancers.
It was also disclosed that the usual price offered for a victim varies depending on the age, the brothel buying the children / women, where the destination point is, the purpose intended for the victim, how young / pretty she is and her education level (a higher price can be asked for girls who speak a little English as they can be offered to wealthier customers). Generally speaking the price ranges from Rs. 15,000 – 30,000 in the flesh market (USD $300 – $600), whereas, child labors tend to be sold to middleman for Rs 5,000 - Rs 7,000 (USD $100 - $140), Hasina adds.
While acknowledging that HIV / AIDS and human trafficking are closely interlinked, Hasina points out that many of the victims are exposed to a far higher risk of contracting HIV / AIDS and other STIs. This risk is further exacerbated by the myth that sex with a child can magically cure AIDS. She also says that human trafficking is the symptom of a social problem; traffickers are merely instruments catering to already existing demands - free labor, sexual exploitation of others, etc. “Society needs to challenge these behaviors as they harm us all and hinder social progress”, Hasina says.
School dropouts in Kiphire district is on the rise – in the year 2008, there were 2009 school dropouts while this year, the number of school dropouts has increased to 2313. This was informed by the Assistant District Coordinator (SSA) during the daylong programme on Kiphire district ASER dissemination discussion organized by the Hills Club. The ADC (SSA) pointed out that the lack of teachers in the institute is the main factor contributing to dropouts from school.
Introducing ASER to the participants, Mohit Anand, Research Associate at ASER Centre, New Delhi, said, “As a stakeholder and taxpayer, we should know how our children are learning. So people initiative is needed.” Giving a handout of the findings of ASER, he informed that the scientific analytic format was used, and in a district where 20 households out of 30 villagers are assessed to comprise ASER report. Remarking on the ‘midday meal’, he said, “Right for child to midday meal is denied comparing to other parts of the country.”
Participating in the discussion on the topics including school dropouts, midday meal, substitute teachers and role and responsibility of the VEC committee, some teachers mentioned that students were getting their midday meal only twice a year. Others commented that the ‘midday meal’ is being misused and does not reach the students.
Honang M Jessuho, Regional Coordinator for ASER Regional Centre, while giving an overview of ASER, encouraged the participants to be active in bringing change in the education sector. SDO(C) Kiphire, chairman of KTC, SSA team and other NGOs also participated in the discussion. The programme was chaired by the joint secretary of ENSF.
IMF Combine Fiscal Stimulus with Broader Social Dialogue
Global March Statement on the IMF World Bank Development Committee Meeting
Statement from Global March Against Child Labor representing 2000 member organizations in 100 countries including ITUC and Education International representing the interest of the child laborers and the hardest to reach children worldwide
The global civil society has seen with interest the outcomes of the Development Committee meetings in Washington, D.C. The GLOBAL MONITORING REPORT 2009 - A DEVELOPMENT EMERGENCY OVERVIEW prepared by IMF and World Bank and released in Washington, D.C on April 26, 2009 reiterates the assessment made by the ILO that 30-50 million more people around the world will be unemployed, 23 million from developing countries and that extreme poverty and hunger will bear down heavily on the lives of nearly 90 million people as the crisis deepens and we feel the full impact of it on the poor worldwide and twice as many will be undernourished. In poor countries, education outcomes, such as school enrollment, also tend to deteriorate during economic crises—especially for girls. The report further draws the attention to the fact that even at the MDG halfway point, around 75 million children of primary school age were not in school; it further did not risk making a forecast that how many more children in the school going age will be pushed out of school, as an aggregate impact of this on child labor world wide.
Kailash Satyarthi, President of the Global March Against Child Labor, remarked that, “we demand to earmark at least $10 Billion immediately out of the fiscal stimulus assigned to IMF to protect childhood of millions. This must be spent on supporting a package of incentives to prevent children drop out from schools, eliminating child labor, investing in building the education infrastructure including training and hiring adequate number of teachers. He questioned when will the international financial institutions start thinking on a child centric financing for development which is the only way of futuristic sustainable development. Global March welcomes President Zoellick’s proposal that developed countries invest 0.7 percent of their stimulus packages, or about $15 billion based on the packages announced to date, in a Vulnerability Fund to help developing countries is in some measure as it gives the opportunity to restitute the spirit of the Monterrey consensus. The triple functions of this to strengthen the social safety nets, funding in essential infrastructure and supporting enterprise and micro finance institutions should all be further categorically qualified to bolster school attendance, prevent school drop out and fight child labor in quest to expand fair and decent work for adults.
Cleophas Mally the Regional Coordinator of the Global March for Francophone Africa lamented that, ‘at this moment there is not much clarity available on how this fund will be operationalized’. He said that "the challenge facing the IMF and World Bank is how to re-establish credibility in the eyes of the world's poor. These are the people who have suffered from terrible cuts to public sector spending inflicted by the demands of the IMF and World Bank while failing to act responsibly and decisively to curb the excesses and irresponsible behavior of financial institutions in industrialized countries which brought about the crisis we are in today." Both of these require very clear ground rules to be established on do’s and don’t in administering resources for countries so that it does not push children out of schools and turn them into child laborers in absence of teachers, payments of salaries, lack of classrooms, supplies etc. Andrew Tagoe from the Ghana Agricultural Workers Union commented that, ‘the ritualistic affirmation of the Accra Agenda for Action on Aid effectiveness, management and ownership is all symbolism till the time there is real acknowledgement to broadening the development partnership with Southern CSO networks and Social partners focused on addressing the credibility gap these two institutions face today. It makes it even more imperative for a stronger time bound oversight of the operational method, mechanisms and processes for servicing of the poor in a manner that demonstrates its readiness to embrace a governance system and scope for social dialogue to keep the focus on people centered development.” The thesis of Amatya Sen applies entirely on these twin institutions that the lack of transparency has led the poor poorer and the hungry impoverished and so the critical need is to establish meaningful social dialogue with non state actors; teachers union, trade unions and Southern NGO networks in the new governance architecture.
United States: Build-A-Bear Workshop fined for violating child labor laws
May 18, 2009 (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX)
Mon. May 18, 2009
The Labor Department reported Monday that Build-A-Bear Workshop Inc. has paid penalties for violating child labor laws following investigations at five locations, including at Mayfair Mall in Wauwatosa.
St. Louis-based Build-A-Bear paid $25,600 for violations involving employees ages 16 and 17 regularly loading and operating trash compactors. In addition, three employees younger than 18 operated and rode a freight elevator. The department said the incidents are prohibited by regulations meant to promote safety and prevent workplace injuries among employees who are minors.
Other Build-A-Bear outlets included in the investigation were in Wichita, Kan.; Grandville, Mich.; West Des Moines, Iowa; and Aurora, Ill.
Build-A-Bear issued a statement Monday that said the violations involved 14 minor employees at the five stores over a 28-month period ending in April 2008.
"Importantly, no one suffered any injuries from performing these tasks," Jill, Saunders, the company's director of bear and public relations, said in a statement. "Following receipt of the results of the audit, in September 2008 Build-A-Bear Workshop implemented a policy of only hiring individuals who are 18 years of age or older."
South Africa: Child labor ban increases poverty, but raises hope
RAWSONVILLE, 20 May 2009 (IRIN) - It took the loss of an 11-year-old farm worker's leg for farmers in South Africa's Western Cape Province to belatedly heed legislation outlawing child workers, but the consequences of respecting the law has had adverse and unintended effects on those it seeks to protect.
Child labor on farms was outlawed in 1996, two years after the demise of apartheid, but it was only in 2002 that farmers appreciated the cost of flouting the law, after Waronice van Wyk severed her leg and subsequent legal action forced a farmer in the Ceres district to pay R25,000 (US$2,500) in compensation, sending a message to other farmers that employing workers younger than 16 carried a heavy price.
However, the unpalatable truth is that child labor was a much needed additional source of income in the deeply impoverished region. "The money in the family is small now, if children aren't working," said Monica, a mother of three living in Rawsonville in the Breede River Valley, whose husband works on one of the numerous wine producing farms in Western Cape.
Susan Levine, a children's rights lecturer and researcher at the University of Cape Town, told IRIN: "Children will go to farmers and say, 'Please can I work the season, I really need the money,' and they [farmers] will say, 'No'."
Rigorous implementation of the legislation had decreased child farm workers significantly, but "Taking children out of the productive sphere has deepened childhood poverty and overall household insecurity in many instances," she commented.
"[It] surely should have been predictable that without a radical restructuring of the political economy of farm life, including land dispensation for subsistence agriculture and a living wage, survival has become untenable," Levine said.
"Many of the kids I worked with would talk about how [the harvest] was one of their favorite times of year because they got some money, and they felt valued by their parents, so there was a lot of pride and a feeling of community and belonging. For a lot of children, being taken out of that yearly family seasonal labor has been quite devastating - they felt a real lack of contribution, and quite wayward and lost during school holidays."
Yet Levine said children also complained about the work environment and abuse by farmers. "You have a contradictory discourse from children weighing up the benefits and hazards."
After consulting children, police, clinicians, nurses, and social workers in the area, "the general direction is that children are looking for other ways to support themselves now that formal wage labor has been made illegal," she said.
Turning to sex and alcohol
"So they are working in the sex industry, selling liquor, selling drugs, and maybe stealing food from people's homes ... children are looking for other ways to supplement what they see as the disempowering effect of the laws."
In 2008, Levine's research found children in Rawsonville were allegedly "having sex ... for money with truck drivers", although Constable Hurling Jordaan, a former social worker, now a police officer based in Rawsonville, denied any incidents of child prostitution, but conceded that older men "get involved" with underage girls.
The vacuum left by greater adherence to the law is not necessarily being filled by education or extramural activities. "Most of the kids here drink and do drugs because of problems in their homes. Some are still in school, but many end up on the streets," Jennifer, a 15-year-old high achiever at school in the nearby town of Worcester, who would like to be a lawyer, told IRIN.
"The problem is the government should pay the child grants until matric," said Aletta, an unemployed resident in the Rawsonville township of De Nova, and explained children leave school because of the lack of money. Government pays child grants until the age of 15.
Ending child labor has slowly begun to have an effect, despite the poverty and hardship endured by most people in the area. "I've lived here for 22 years, and I've seen how people have changed," said Rovellen Elbrink, who was raised on the farm his parents worked on as laborers.
"People want to achieve new goals, like having their own business, and many farmers don't want children to work on farms but to find something else, to think bigger."
Lynette Haai, a social worker employed by the Graham Beck wine estate, told IRIN that "In the old days [during apartheid], there were only three posts for colored [mixed race] people: teaching, nursing, or police/social work. Now, with South Africa moving in a new direction, the opportunities are opening."
Amid the contradictions and problems, it is clear that by diminishing the demand for their labor, the laws have helped children with the will and support to stay in school to do so.
Jonathan, 14, from Rawsonville, told IRIN. "I feel positive about my future. My grandparents and parents worked on the farms, but I won't because I want to make something of my life. I want to go to university and be a doctor to help children and give them good medicine."
Fiji: Child labor law and policy to be scrutinized
Y19-May-2009 10:53 A.M
In its bid to deal with child labor issues more effectively, the Ministry of Labor is working towards scrutinizing the child labor laws and policies in the country.
Permanent Secretary for Ministry of Labor, Industrial Relations and Employment Taito Waqa has reiterated that the Employment Relations Advisory Board (ERAB) along with the Ministry would work towards ensuring that Fiji had appropriate laws and polices to deal with child labor issues.
“Child labor issue is a priority area for the ministry and thus are working closely with International Labor Organization (ILO) to ensure on the laws and policies,” he said.
Waqa said there is one special ILO /EU project to research the extent of child labor in Fiji and also to check whether the policy and laws are adequate in addressing the contemporary problems in Fiji.
He said ERAB was part of this research and fully supports the development of right policies and laws on child labor. Waqa said the essence of child labor is basically to alleviate poverty in families through education.
“Alleviating poverty through education is the thrust. Go away from child labor to school, basically that is our thrust and to ensure the policies and laws are there. Children should not be working when in fact their age is for education and learning,” Waqa said.
He said a consultant had been hired to look at child labor policy and practice and the findings of that would be tabled to the board for discussion and endorsement and than to the cabinet for approval. “The child labor law is already integrated in Employment Relations Promulgation (ERP), however we also need to re-visit the law,” Waqa added.
Workers at a Chinese shoe factory say they are underage, and that officials switched their identification papers to make them seem older HONG KONG—Members of a Chinese minority group sent to work in a shoe factory thousands of miles from home include children, with some parents allegedly coerced into letting them go, workers at the factory have said.
In Tianjin, a Uyghur factory worker speaks to a journalist while sitting on her dormitory bed, July 2007.
The workers, from China’s largely Muslim Uyghur ethnic group, are employed at Longfa Shoe Factory in China’s southeastern Guangdong province.
The facility currently employs 660 workers through a program known as “Transfer Surplus Workforce Outwards.” More than half of the workers are female, and some 300 are under the age of 18, employees say.
Longfa Shoe Factory is owned by Taiwan-based Dean Shoes Co. Ltd., which supplies Oregon-based U.S. footwear giant Nike, Inc.
While the legal working age in China is 16, Nike’s code of conduct states that its contractors do not “employ any person below the age of 18 to produce footwear.”
Spokesmen for Nike and for Longfa Shoe Factory denied the allegation and said hiring underage workers would violate company policies.
But some workers at the factory say they were sent to work at age 15 or 16. They were supplied with fake identification papers showing earlier birthdates, they said.
Sawut and Abide, Uyghurs originally from China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), said that most of the girls were brought to Longfa at age 16 or 17 in three separate groups during March, April, and September of 2008.
“Most of the girls here are 16 or 17. There are many of them like that. You can hardly find girls who are 18—maybe only five or 10 of them,” Sawut said.
“There are more 16-year-old girls here than older ones,” Abide said.
Others working at the factory who asked not to be identified also said they were under the age of 18.
“Today is my 17th birthday. I came here when I was 16, right after junior high,” said one girl.
Another said that she was 16. “I came here April 28 [2008]. It has been nine months and 10 days,” the girl said.
‘No workers under 18’
Longfa Shoes Corp.’s headquarters are located in Longxi town, in Bolo county, near Guangdong’s Huizhou city.
An official of Longfa’s human resources department refused to provide his name when contacted by telephone but denied that the company employed underage workers.
“According to our factory’s hiring policy, workers should be 18 or over. We do not hire workers under 18,” the official said.
“We are a shoe factory, and in terms of working conditions it is not suitable for us to hire child workers. In addition, our customers require the same standards of us. Therefore, we do not hire child workers when possible,” he said.
Nike’s response
“Nike takes these issues seriously and has a code of conduct that all contract factories must sign and adhere to, including a firm policy on age limits and working conditions,” the company said in a prepared statement.
“Nike has visited the Longfa factory in Huizhou, China, and after reviewing monitoring, audits, and interviews with Xinjiang workers we did not find evidence…that Longfa has employed workers under Nike’s minimum code of conduct age of 18 for footwear contract factories,” the statement said.
Kate Meyers, a spokeswoman for Nike Inc., said the company sent staff to investigate the claims about breaches of Nike’s code of conduct.
Meyers said interviews were conducted with approximately 50 workers at the factory from Xinjiang who are bilingual and speak fluent Mandarin, making the use of translators unnecessary.
“While monitoring and audits are not the only way to detect issues, they do give a real time indication of factory conditions,” Nike’s statement said.
Swapping IDs
Officials at companies connected to the labor transfer program may be unaware that they are hiring child laborers, or that they may be complicit in illegal hiring schemes orchestrated by local authorities in the workers’ hometowns, according to some girls.
Meryem, a Uyghur girl worker at Longfa, said government officials arranged for her to swap identification cards with her older sister.
“They told us that 16-year-olds cannot work, so they changed our names. I came here with my older sister’s name. We didn’t want to come here and would rather have stayed with our parents,” she said.
Meryem’s father, Emet Sawut, also says that the local government swapped his daughters’ identification cards. “I said, ‘My daughter is only 16 years old. She is not eligible to work.’ But the village party secretary Emetjan Yantaq came to our house and said it was okay to change her identification card with her older sister’s,” he said.
When contacted by telephone, Emetjan Yantaq refused to comment.
Emet Sawut said the local government in Opal town, where his family resides, eventually forced his daughter to swap her identification with the threat of cutting off farming subsidies.
“They pressured me, saying, ‘If you do not give us your daughter, we will cancel your government poverty aid,’” Emet Sawut said.
“My older daughter in Karamay city filled the form out for my younger daughter. Then my younger daughter set off [for Guangdong] on April 20, 2008. It [is] one year this April,” he said.
Pashagül, party secretary of Opal town in the XUAR’s Kashgar prefecture, is responsible for transferring local laborers for the program.
She voiced surprise when questioned as to whether the identification cards of children had been swapped with those of other, older residents to increase the town’s number of viable workers.
“Where did you get this news? These questions make me feel uncomfortable. How do you know we did that and how did you get this news?” she asked.
Pashagül declined to comment further.
Labor programs
The U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China said in its 2008 annual report that the Chinese government continues to fill local jobs in Xinjiang with migrant labor, while maintaining programs that send young ethnic minorities to work in factories in China’s interior under conditions reported to be “abusive.”
“Local officials, following direction from higher levels of government, have used ‘deception, pressure, and threats’ toward young women and their families to gain recruits into the labor transfer program,” it said.
According to a report by Radio Free Asia, by the end of 2007 hundreds of Uyghur girls, most of them underage, had been forced into labor programs far from their homes in Xinjiang by local officials.
The girls were enrolled in training programs at factories and told they would be paid during their training, but they never received wages.
Most girls were unable to afford the cost of a return trip home, and those who did go back faced fines from hometown officials upon their return, the RFA report said.
Uyghurs constitute a distinct, Turkic-speaking, Muslim minority in northwestern China and Central Asia. They declared a short-lived East Turkestan Republic in Xinjiang in the late 1930s and 40s but have remained under Beijing's control since 1949.
Original reporting by Mamatjan Juma for RFA’s Uyghur service. Director: Dolkun Kamberi. Written for the Web in English by Joshua Lipes. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.
Sierra Leone: Harvard Study Criticizes Child Labor in Diamond Mines
By Scott Stearns, Dakar, 01 May 2009
Harvard University's human rights program says children are being exploited as a source of cheap labor for diamond mines in Sierra Leone. Concern about Sierra Leone's so-called "blood diamonds" used by rebels to finance years of civil war led to industry reforms known as the Kimberly Process certifying the origin of diamonds as "conflict free."
But the end of fighting in Sierra Leone has not improved the lives of children working in the mines.
"Even in the aftermath of the Kimberly Process, diamonds still are funded by exploitative labor," said Matthew Wells, a student in the human rights program at Harvard University's law school.
Diamond seekers work in mine outside Freetown, Sierra Leone (File)
"It's destroying an entire generation. It's alienating a generation. It's back-breaking labor with severe health consequences. The mining pits are grounds for malaria because they are mining in the shallow waters," he said. "The pits, as they are digging deeper and deeper, are collapsing and people are being seriously injured and killed. And so it is a very dangerous industry, especially for small children who are forced to do very difficult labor."
Wells helped write the university human rights program's new report on child mining in Sierra Leone entitled, "Digging in the Dirt."
He says many children came to the mines after their parents were killed during the civil war. Others are working to help provide for their families. Child mining is not only illegal, Wells says, it is also not a sustainable source of income.
"They are paid a pittance. They are paid $1, $2 max a day for their labor. So it is not something that is actually benefiting them in terms of being able to provide for their household," Wells said. "So instead, they need to be provided the education that the government of Sierra Leone is obligated to provide them under domestic law because that will give them real opportunities to get out of the mines and provide sustainable money for their family."
The Harvard report has two broad recommendations.
It wants the government in Freetown to spend more on education. While primary school fees are covered by the government, Wells says there are other costs including uniform fees, exam fees, and payments to teachers that still make primary education prohibitive for many families.
"The government needs to redirect more resources to education because the children and the youth of this country are the future of this country," he said. "If Sierra Leone is going to move in the direction that I think we all want it to, then the government needs to take these children's rights far more seriously."
The report also calls on President Ernest Bai Koroma's government to improve mining regulations so more of the profits that come out of diamond-mining villages return to benefit those doing the work.
While researching the report, Wells says he heard many people complain about government officials illegally obtaining mining licenses either for themselves or for business associates. He says Sierra Leone's anti-corruption commission should be more active in investigating illicit involvement in the country's diamond trade.
Ghana: Committee on child labor in cocoa growing areas inaugurated at Agona Swedru
By GNA
Social Affairs, Fri, May 8, 2009
Agona Swedru, May 8, GNA - An 11-member committee has been inaugurated to work under the Agona West Municipal Programme for the Elimination of Worst Forms of Child Labor in Cocoa Growing Areas.
The Committee, under the Chairmanship of Mr Eric Bediako Oppong, Agona West Municipal Coordinating Director, has five main objectives to be implemented in the 10 selected cocoa growing areas in Agona West.
It would seek to improve the knowledge base, occupational safety, health of the children of school going-age and access to basic education for the children to eliminate child labor.
In an address, Mr Oppong said child labor was a phenomenon in the Ghanaian society which constituted suffering, exploitation and abuse of the rights of children and resulted in poor health, education deprivation and social disadvantages.
He noted that every nation's assets were its children so it was imperative to develop mechanisms towards their protection and enhancement of their wellbeing.
Mr. Oppong said it was against this background that the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment initiated the programme for cocoa growing communities, including the Agona West Municipal Assembly.
He said the committee has been designed to involve all relevant stakeholders to fight, prevent and monitor all kinds of child labor issues, particularly the cocoa sector.
Mr. Oppong expressed the hope that members of the committee would work hard to improve the lives of those who become victims so that they could contribute their quota to towards nation building.
Mrs. Monica Siaw, Agona West Municipal Officer of the Department of Social Welfare, said farmers and opinion leaders in the 10 selected communities had been sensitized and educated about the dangers of child labor.
She stated that each community would be given a bicycle to be used to monitor the children who had become victims, adding that durbars, radio talk shows, drama and workshops would be organized for the parents in the selected communities.
Mrs. Siaw pointed out that children in the cocoa growing sector would be given school uniforms, books and other teaching materials to facilitate their studies.
She called on the chiefs in the cocoa growing areas to enact bye-laws to check the cruel and inhuman treatment being meted out to these innocent children.
Mrs Siaw charged the stakeholders in the fight against child labor to work hard to ensure that the programme works to perfection to solve other related problems.
Philippines: The world of RP’s 4 million child workers
“PROSTITUTION” to pay for school fees is just one of the many guises of children in the Philippine flesh trade.
Child prostitution takes many appearances, from stripping and indecent dance; massage; guest relations; mobile sex trade in streets and malls; on board docked ships or boats; and outright sex slavery in sex dens.
Nobody really knows how many Filipino children are in the sex trade, but they could number up to 100,000, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO).
Most are girls, but the number of boy prostitutes is increasing.
Many are recruited from the provinces, their appeal is the “freshness” factor.
These children are exposed to the AIDS virus and sexually transmitted diseases, while many risk physical violence and failing health from long and unholy work hours.
They suffer from harmful psychological stresses, development of distorted values, economic exploitation, lack of love and affection, breakdown of family ties, loss of self-worth and endangered lives if they decide to quit.
Shocking it may be but there is more to child prostitution than meets the eye. It is just one facet of the horrors daily served to children working in what the ILO calls the worst form of labor, be it on the street or in the sea.
Children fishers
Loneliness at sea and dangerous daily work during fishing months take a heavy psychological toll on more than 200,000 Filipino children 5 to 17 years old who are fisherboys.
A typical day lasts up to 15 hours. And because they do not use protective gear, they suffer from decompression symptoms, harsh weather, cuts, bruises, skin diseases, sore eyes, body burns, hearing impairment and paralysis.
Many of the child fishers are exposed to physical, chemical and biological hazards—and maltreatment at the hands of cruel masters.
Child ‘sacadas’
Then there are child sacadas in plantations. These have the highest number of child laborers numbering over two million. According to the National Statistics Office (NSO), 1.4 million are below 15 years old and seven out of 10 are boys.
They clear and prepare land and do the weeding, harvesting, applying fertilizers and hauling of produce.
They handle poisonous chemicals and motorized equipment without the proper training and without protective gear. These children are exposed to brutal weather and highly toxic pesticides.
No wonder, they suffer from malnutrition, retarded physical development, skin diseases, wounds, bruises, dehydration, headaches, fever and respiratory problems.
Children miners
Over 18,000 children are also in mining and quarrying. Half of them are 10 to 14 years old.
Most are in small mines—working long hours from extraction to processing that use low-tech methods that don’t follow safety standards. Cave-ins, landslides and falling rocks are part of the job description.
Body pains and exhaustion are the least of their worries. They are exposed to large amounts of dust and mercury-based chemical that cause brain damage. And for carrying excessively heavy loads, their growth is stunted.
Children domestics
Closer to home, there are over 230,000 minors working as household helpers, eight out of 10 of them girls, according to the NSO.
“The monotony of their work deprives them of the opportunity to learn skills that would make them grow into productive adults,” the ILO says.
On call 24/7, they normally gave a 15-hour work day. Day offs, if granted at all, are about once a month. All for an average measly sum of P800 a month, they risk verbal, physical and even sexual abuse.
“Child domestic workers have virtually no freedom of movement, as they are able to venture beyond the gate only when sent out on errands,” the ILO says.
“Some 2.4 million of these children labor under some of the most risky and inhumane conditions just to survive another day or get through another meal,” the ILO points out.
“These working conditions violate children and damage their physical, mental, spiritual and psychosocial growth and development to such an extreme that they end up injured or, worse, dead.”
This is the world of four million Filipino child workers.
A Karachi-based group bent on eradicating child labor is offering school lessons outside working hours.
By Sarah Stuteville - Special to GlobalPost, May 12, 2009 , Pakistan (Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting) — Sher Shah is a hard-working neighborhood — a confusing knot of cramped lanes offering up a riot of rattling power looms, puttering motors and booming furnaces. This rough suburb, with its garment factories, machine shops and scrap metal smelters far from the imposing cement skyscrapers of the city center, forms the industrial gut of Karachi.
It is where Nadeem Awan, a 16-year-old laborer, begins his day. He pulls up to an open storefront, parks his bike under a sky crowded with tangles of pirated electrical wires and faded political flags, and changes into his work clothes of a black T-shirt and jeans.
Nadeem has worked at this small machine shop, which produces tractor parts, for three years. Here he bends over a whirring lathe machine 10 hours a day, turning metal slugs into hundreds of bolts for domestic use as well as well as for export to Europe and the Gulf States.
The recent recipient of a raise, he now earns 60 rupees (75 U.S. cents) per day. This year he’s been joined at the shop by his brother, Naveed, who is 13.
And the Awan brothers are far from alone. Despite legislation outlawing the employment of children under 14, Pakistan is home to one of the largest populations of child laborers in the world. But just how many children are working remains a controversial number, especially as many of these kids are employed in informal sectors such as domestic work or agriculture.
“A government report says 3.3 million children are involved in child labor in Pakistan, of course that’s from 1996,” says Salam Dharejo, Regional Manager of SPARC, a Pakistani organization intent on eradicating child labor. “We think there are more than 10 million child laborers in Pakistan right now.”
For most of these underage laborers, getting a job — in most cases to provide for their families — means forgoing an education, but a small school in Sher Shah, the Children’s Development Center, is trying to change that.
“When we started the Development Center, we had a school in Sher Shah but we discovered that a lot of kids couldn’t attend it because they were working,” says Professor Anita Ghulam Ali, head of Sindh Education Foundation, the organization that runs the center. “And so we thought, ‘why don’t we start a proper center which is only for working children?’”
The Center provides a new model of education designed specifically for 130 working kids. Flexible classes held in shifts that begin early in the morning and run until late at night accommodate manufacturing schedules.
A de-emphasis on truancy means that children are encouraged to show up simply as often as they can, to learn to read, write, even study English and develop basic computer skills. Showers and changing facilities are available to students who spend hours a day in hot, grease-smeared workshops before coming to class.
In addition, the center reaches out to employers, arguing that it is in their interest to help educate their underage workers. “Though I am a technically minded person, I want these kids to go to school as well,” says Mubashir Zubair, owner of the machine shop that employs the Awan brothers as well as his own two sons.
The reality for the majority of Pakistan’s millions of child workers is a fair deal more harsh. Whether laboring in brick kilns, carpet factories, or even the kitchens of wealthy households, underage workers suffer abuse and other forms of exploitation, with employers paying little mind to their education or developmental needs.
International scandals — most famously, exposés in the 1990s revealing that soccer balls meant for European sports federations were being sewn by underage Pakistani kids — have led many to call for tougher action on child labor.
But in a country where nearly half the population is under 18, opportunities are few and acute poverty common, child labor seems inevitable even to those fighting for its abolition.
"There are laws in place that outlaw child labor, but the reality is that if these children aren't working, their families are not going to be able to subsist," Ali says. "If they implemented the laws tomorrow these poor families would be demanding compensation from the government for the lost wages of their children."
For Awan, one of seven children in a family just scraping by each month, these motivations are painfully clear.
“I receive my salary at the end of the month,” Awan said, adding that “we have to use that money to pay for groceries we’ve bought on credit throughout the month.”
At 16, Awan is still just a seventh grader, having only attended three years of school, and balancing work and an education — which stretches his 10-hour day out another 3 hours at least. The pressure, he says, is worth it to become literate and have the chance to own his own machine shop someday.
However, he does think about how little free time he enjoys each day.
“After school my friends and I walk together. We have some juice and get to talk for 10 or 15 minutes,” he admits with a shy smile. “Then we go our own ways — they go home and I get back to work.”
Are loans from the IMF preventing the poorest countries from spending on children's education?
Jessica Shepherd The Guardian, April 28th, 2009
In the last year, Americans and Europeans have bought fewer cars. This has led to job losses among the migrant workers of Malawi who work in South African mines, where the materials for car parts are found. And one of the first responses of these workers has been to withdraw their children from school and send them to earn money, the charity Action Aid says.
Delvin, Novesa and Dixon take the long road to school near Arusha, Tanzania Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images
An important study, shown to international economists in Washington last weekend and seen by Education Guardian, concludes that the prospect of world leaders fulfilling their promise to educate the 75 million children out of school by 2015 is looking "increasingly remote". The target was set in Senegal in 2000 as part of the Education for All goals. It is also the second of the millennium development goals.
No one denies that dramatic progress has been made - 25 million more children are in school than were in 2000. But the onset of a global recession has sparked fears that "progress may be stalled", the Global Campaign for Education's (GCE) study - Education on the Brink - argues.
This is despite last week's budget, which confirmed that the UK would not be cutting its international aid supply this year or next, and President Obama's promise to double US aid to $50bn (£34bn) in his first term of office. The problem, as the GCE sees it, lies predominantly with the International Monetary Fund, which tries to help countries achieve economic stability.
As the effects of the global economic crisis start to impact on the poorest countries, more of them will go to the IMF for loans. But these loans come with conditions. The IMF pushes countries to bring down their inflation to a single digit, limits fiscal deficits and government borrowing, and encourages the build-up of foreign currency reserves. All of which leaves little room for a low-income country to invest in its education, says the GCE.
Dire need
"From the IMF's perspective, spending on education is like pouring money down the drain," David Archer, one of the study's co-authors and the head of education at ActionAid, says.
"The dire needs of education systems in low-income countries are an essential investment that, in the context of the financial crisis, will also reap immediate short-term gains by generating employment and building a skilled and educated labor force," the study argues. "It makes sense to invest more in education now in order to reap returns in the future, but tight deficit targets make this impossible."
In remote villages, investment in schools stimulates economic activity in a way that would otherwise be hard to achieve, the GCE says. But the report's authors see few signs that the IMF is trying to reform.
At the G20 London summit this month, the fund became more powerful. The G20 leaders agreed to treble the size of the IMF's available resources from $250bn to potentially $750bn. But they did not make this on the condition that the IMF was reformed.
Archer says: "In the build-up to the G20 meeting, the IMF claimed it was perfectly placed to be given the responsibility to help poor countries deal with the recession. It claimed that it had changed and no longer imposed unreasonable conditions that prevented countries investing in education. But our report proves conclusively that in the past six months it has not changed. It is still imposing conditions to this very day and these conditions continue to block spending on education."
The effect of this, charities such as ActionAid say, is the withdrawal of pupils from school - and a restriction on the number of teachers being trained and recruited across the world. This is at a time when the world needs 18 million extra teachers by 2015, charities say.
We have an "education emergency" on our hands, says Kevin Watkins, director of Unesco's Education for All Global Monitoring report. "While the IMF has a key role to play in the financial crisis, it is not the most effective source of support for key social sector budgets," he says. "Its loans are far less concessional than those of the World Bank and they come with more loan conditions attached than strings on the average marionette. Poverty reduction is not the IMF's core business - and it doesn't do it well."
IMF denial
Hugh Bredenkamp, the IMF's deputy director of strategy, policy and review, denies the organisation is preventing low-income countries investing in education.
"On the contrary," he says, "we never put conditions that limit education. A third of our programmes in low-income countries have targets to increase health and education. The IMF has called for more aid to prevent low-income countries from having to cut expenditure as we go into recession. Far from imposing cuts, the objectives of our programmes provide for higher spending."
Meanwhile, the latest figures from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development show total aid commitments to basic education dropped more than 20% between 2006 and 2007, to $4.3bn.
"Education budgets will face a severe squeeze, caused by lower domestic revenues and exacerbated by falling aid flows," says Lucia Fry, a policy adviser at the GCE. "Countries that are already struggling to get all children into school for free, reduce class sizes, pay teachers and build classrooms will face the prospect of making cuts to already inadequate funding. It is likely that the squeeze will be particularly acute for the teaching profession, as the teacher salary budget typically makes up a large portion of overall spending."
Fry anticipates a reintroduction of school fees in some countries and an even deeper neglect for children in remote areas, who need extra help to get to school.
"We know from past crises that when incomes in poor households fall, education spending gets cut and children are taken out of school," says Watkins. "We also know that hungry children do not make good learners."
In this global recession, sub-Saharan countries such as Tanzania, Malawi and Ethiopia face the prospect of a sharp rise in budget deficits, he says.
Archer thinks the answer is to remind rich countries that they need to keep their international aid promises - as the UK has so far done - and to lobby for the IMF to change its loan conditions for poor countries.
If the world raised £11bn, every child could go to school. Does it really seem all that much when the UK government manages to raise hundreds of billions to rescue its banking sector?
Here is a unique opportunity to help rescue, rehabilitate and educate children engaged in the worst forms of child labor, this academic year. Please consider giving a one-time donation of $300 to make possible the raid and rescue of 10 children from forced labor in India! With a 'recurring donation' of $55/month, you can provide 1 child rescued from forced labor with food, shelter, education and vocational training in a rehabilitation center.
Or, send a child from the brick kilns or shoe factories to school in Pakistan. With a 'recurring gift' of only $33/month (or a one-time donation of $396/year), you will provide a child with school supplies, textbooks, a daily meal, and a uniform! Do you know that some Americans spend more than $30/month on dyeing their hair?! With a generous recurring donation of $132/month, you can support 1 teacher of these children.
Please share this letter with friends or family members who might be interested in donating to this very just cause.
Global March remains the most recognisable global alliance against child labour and for universal education, but our profile in Europe has diminished in recent years. The Sofia consultation concluded that we need to adapt to the new legal, constitutional, political and economic realities of Europe; to coordinate more effectively across borders; and, in some cases, to rebuild national networks that have become weak or even inactive. The GM International Council and the ITUC - as the key international and pan-European trade union constituent of the Global March - wish to support a stronger regional alliance between NGOs and trade unions that can deliver a reinvigorated programme of work.
Agenda of the Meeting
To establish a new Pan-European/Euro-Mediterranean structure including all 51 states of the ILO’s European Region (EU and non-EU members; the Commonwealth of Independent States, Georgia and Turkmenistan; and Turkey) plus Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. Nothing prevents us from seeking to enlarge our Euro-Mediterranean reach if we wish. We noted the benefits of continued sub-regional coordination and the need for more effective national coordination among effective and active member organisations.
To establish a permanent office in Brussels (or possibly the Netherlands).
