MADRID (ILO News) - The Real Madrid football club and the International Labour Organization (ILO) are teaming up to raise a "Red card" to the child labour in its worst forms - a practice that traps one of every eight children - or some 180 million worldwide - in exploitative, often dangerous work.
Real Madrid and the ILO will bring the " Red Card to Child Labour" campaign to Madrid's Santiago Bernabéu Stadium on 18 December - World Football Day - when the football team marks its centennial anniversary with a match against a world selection team.
In a pre-game ceremony at 9.30 p.m, football players will enter the stadium accompanied by 22 children wearing T shirts with the logo of the Campaign and raise special red cards to demonstrate support for the campaign to end child labour.
A 30-second ILO video on child labour will be shown on the stadium's giant television screen at the beginning of the ceremony. Antena 3 TV will broadcast the campaign spot at half time of the match. As the only official match to be played in the world on that day, the match is expected to receive a large television viewership and extensive media coverage worldwide.
At a public ceremony in the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium at 12.30 a.m. on the eve of the match, Kari Tapiola, ILO Executive Director and Florentino Pérez Rodríguez, the President of Real Madrid, will sign an agreement of mutual collaboration on the Red Card campaign. The agreement has been facilitated by the International Organisation of Employers (IOE) and the Spanish Employers' Confederation (CEOE).
Representatives of the Spanish government and the social partners, including Eduardo Zaplana, Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, Miguel Angel Cortés, Secretary of State for International Cooperation and Latin America, José María Cuevas, President of CEOE, Cándido Méndez, secretary general of the trade union confederation UGT, José María Fidalgo, secretary general of the trade union confederation CC.OO., Antonio Peñalosa, General Secretary of IOE and Joseph S. Blatter, President of FIFA, will witness the ceremony.
About the campaign
The Red Card to Child Labour campaign was launched on 18th January 2002 in Bamako, Mali, at a ceremony chaired by Mali's Prime Minister and Minister of Integration. During the ceremony, ILO and the African Confederation of Football (CAF) signed a Cooperation agreement.
The next important phases of the campaign will be the FIFA World Youth Championship (U-20) in the United Arab Emirates (March/April 2003), the FIFA Women's World Cup in China (September/October 2003), the 2004 Copa America in Peru and the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany.
Facts and figures about child labour
According to the ILO, about 246 million children worldwide are involved in child labour. This represents six times the population of Spain or one out of every six children in the world. Here are some key facts and figures on child labour:
- Nearly three quarters of child labourers, about 180 million children, are exposed to the worst forms of child labour that is, work that is hazardous for children or for which they are too young. That equals one out of every eight children around the world.
- An estimated 8.4 million children are trapped in the most abhorrent forms of child labour such as slavery, trafficking, debt bondage, prostitution, pornography and other illicit activities. These forms are by their nature totally unacceptable for children under any circumstances and should be outlawed immediately.
- Most children work on farms and plantations. Some 70 per cent are in agriculture, commercial hunting and fishing or forestry. Most of the remaining 30 per cent are in manufacturing, wholesale and retail trades, tourism, and domestic work.
- Working children are divided almost equally between boys and girls, with boys making up a slight majority. Among children engaged in hazardous work, boys hold a majority of 55 per cent.
- The largest number - 127 million - of working children age 14 and under are in the Asia-Pacific region.
- The highest proportion of working children is in Sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly one third of children age 14 and under (48 million children) are in the labour force.
- 73 million working children worldwide are under 10 years of age.
- Child labour continues to be a global phenomenon - no country or region is immune. There are 2.5 million working children in the developed economies, where about two per cent of children age 14 and under are in the labour force. Another 2.5 million work in the transition economies like the former Soviet states, where about four per cent of the children are working.
A wide range of crises - including natural disasters, sharp economic downturns, the HIV/AIDS pandemic and armed conflicts - increasingly draws the young into debilitating child labour. Child labour is linked with many factors such as poverty, adult unemployment and lack of local educational opportunities. These problems must be addressed comprehensively. More working parents means fewer working children. So, the equation is simple: "parents to work, children to school".
National and regional programmes against child labour have flourished under the ILO International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), which began with six participating countries in 1992 with a single donor government (Germany) and has expanded to include operations in 75 countries funded by 26 donors. Spain is a major donor and supports ILO-IPEC activities, particularly in Latin America. In 2001, the ILO launched its first Time-Bound Programmes aimed at eliminating the worst forms of child labour in specific countries within 5 to 10 years. The first programmes are aimed at helping some 100,000 children in El Salvador, Nepal and Tanzania.