Articles

June 2008

1. 

   From entrepreneurship to education: how empowering women can help their children learn

   16 June 2008

   Women’s entrepreneurship helps reduce poverty, promote gender equality and empower women. But it has another impact – providing women with the means to improve the health of their families and finance the education of their children. Two ILO projects in Africa funded by Irish AID are showing how learning business knowledge and skills not only creates jobs, but also extends empowerment to the future, promotes decent work and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. ILO Online reports.

2. 

   In Kyrgyzstan, employment and training programmes help stem a rural exodus

   16 June 2008

   Providing decent employment in agriculture for young people is an immense challenge but mass migration from rural to urban areas has led to poverty in and around cities. Appropriate employment and training programmes can help regulate the rate of rural out-migration and ease pressure on urban centers, says a new ILO report on rural employment and poverty reduction issued at this year’s International Labour Conference in Geneva. ILO Online reports from Kyrgyzstan.

3. 

   Feature for World Day Against Child Labour, 12 June 2008 – Street children in Russia: Back to school, back to life

   12 June 2008

   The ILO has estimated that some 165 million children between the age of 5 and 14 are involved in child labour. Many of these children work long hours, often in dangerous conditions. Education provides a means through which economically and socially excluded children and youth can lift themselves out of poverty. ILO Online reports from the Russian Federation.

4. 

   Feature for World Day against Child Labour, 12 June 2008 – The road to school is a route out of child labour

   11 June 2008

   Asia-Pacific enjoys a reputation as 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. Guy Thijs, Deputy Regional Director of the International Labour Organizations’ Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, and former Director of the ILO’s global International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, reports from Thailand.

5. 

   The “Gateway School”, a way of eliminating child labour

   11 June 2008

   Education is a human right and a key factor in the reduction of poverty and child labour. Yet, over 70 million primary-age children are not enrolled in school and most of them are part of the 218 million children worldwide involved in child labour. The international community has committed itself, within the Millenium Development Goals, to ensure that by 2015 all children, boys and girls, complete a course of primary education. Special care has to be taken of children who are out of the school system, like Salimata, of Côte d’Ivoire…

6. 

   Feature for World Day Against Child Labour 2008 – When “voceadores” learn to SCREAM: Giving a voice to education instead of child labour

   10 June 2008

   Education is often seen as an empowerment right, that can lift economically and socially marginalized children and youth out of poverty. Yet in some developing countries, education remains more of a luxury than a reality for many poor children, who are forced to work instead. This year’s World Day Against Child Labour is promoting education as the right response to child labour. ILO Online reports on one example from Bolivia.

7. 

   Feature for World Day Against Child Labour - From muddy fields to the classroom: a boy’s journey out of child labour

   09 June 2008

   The international community has taken significant steps in the eradication of child labour and the International Labour Organization has recognized that the end of the worst forms of child labour is within reach. Still, it is an uphill struggle and much remains to be done. On this year’s World Day Against Child Labour, the ILO is highlighting the role of education as the right response to child labour. The story of Rafaelito shows how.

8. 

   Reaching the unreached: the child labour challenge in India

   06 June 2008

   “Every child counts…Over the last year, we have rescued more than 5,000 children from the streets of Hyderabad to enable them to regain their lost childhood”, says Leyla Tegmo-Reddy, ILO Director in New Delhi, India. The ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) has been striving to rescue and rehabilitate migrant working children in the age group of 5 to 14 years, saving them from being trafficked or from getting involved in drugs and crime. ILO Online spoke with the ILO Director in New Delhi and Rani Kumudini who is the Project Manager in Hyderabad.

9. The Best Story on Labour Rights: The Land of Karoshi, “The time I spent has been wasted.”

   04 June 2008

   On one early March day in 1999, even before the cherry blossom buds began to swell, a 23-year-old man named Yuji Uendan killed himself in the depths of depression caused by overwork. He was found in his apartment in Kumagaya City, Saitama Prefecture, on the outskirts of Tokyo, with these words scribbled on a whiteboard used for his daily workout menu.

10. 

    Decent Work for the Panama Canal

    02 June 2008

    Extension work on the Panama Canal began a few months ago. When the Canal was inaugurated in 1914 to link two oceans, thousands of workers had died. This shows the importance of the decision to carry out the new project respecting Decent Work principles, according to the Minister of Labour of Panama and President of the 97th International Labour Conference in Geneva, Edwin Salamín Jaén.