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Targetting "crimes against children"
The worst forms of work exploitation continue to plague children the world over. In a new effort to focus attention on this problem, the Government of the Netherlands, with active support and cooperation by the ILO, organized a Conference in Amsterdam on 26-27 February. After two days of testimony on what were termed "crimes against children," delegates issued a ringing call: forge global solidarity as a matter of "paramount urgency" to fight child labour.
AMSTERDAM - Slavery, trafficking, forced labour, bonded labour, serfdom, sexual exploitation, work in mines, factories and farms. A Dickensian vision of the industrial revolution past? Not at all. These are among the "most intolerable forms of child labour" as practised around the world today, and they afflict tens of millions of children.
Finding a means of building political energy toward ending slavery, bondedness and other such practices was the goal of over 250 delegates from 30 countries - including government ministers from both developed and developing countries - who gathered at Amsterdam's Koepelkerk Conference Centre on 26 to 27 February.
And when the meeting ended, the most abusive forms of child labour were unanimously condemned, with the delegates calling for solidarity on a global scale to meet the challenge of "eradicating child exploitation as a matter of paramount urgency." In addition, some US$1 million was pledged by the Government of the Netherlands, which also launched an appeal to other governments to join in funding a new worldwide, statistical and trend-spotting system for implementation by the ILO's International Programme on the elimination of Child Labour (IPEC).
Opening the meeting in the presence of Her Majesty, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Conference Chairman Ad Melkert, Minister for Social Affairs and Employment of the Government of the Netherlands, decried intolerable forms of child labour as "an inheritance from the industrial revolution," adding "It is high time to get rid of this inheritance."
He said that "prosperity is underpinned by adults who are thoroughly prepared, both physically and mentally," and not by "children who never received any education, who are badly, if ever, paid for work performed in miserable, unhealthy, hazardous and even criminal conditions." He called on delegates to avoid lecturing and finger-pointing and to "generate a partnership in place of provocation" and insisted that "the flagrant exploitation of children has to be banned."
"We must simultaneously offer alternatives to the children and their parents, including education, health care and employment," he noted.
"Those of us who remember what the situation was like a decade ago, remember a few individual voices crying in the wilderness... But now the issue has jumped to the top of the international agenda. I think it can be stated that the battle against child labour is being won."
- Assefa Bequele of the ILO
In his opening comments, ILO Director-General Michel Hansenne defined intolerable forms of child labour as work in slavery or slave-like conditions; forced labour; prostitution; ork in mines and factories, deep-sea fishing and commercial agriculture." He denounced the practice of employing millions of children in such sectors as "a veritable insult to human rights and an intolerable assault on the dignity of the individual."
Hansenne outlined a programme based on the proposed new ILO Convention forbidding all extreme forms of child labour. He also proposed that ILO and UN member States adopt a time-bound programme of action to eliminate child labour, focusing initially on degrading and particularly hazardous forms of work. He called for complete prohibition of work by young children (under the ages of 12 or 13) and protection for girls, who are frequently forced into paid domestic service or lured into prostitution and pornography.
"The challenge is for governments of developing countries to address the needs of the poorest of their poor, and for the governments of rich countries to back up their insistence on observance of universal standards with a commensurate commitment to increased resources to attack world poverty," Hansenne said. He also noted that concerted international action was necessary for stopping such exploitative activities as the cross-border sale and trafficking of children, and proposed that "a crime against a child anywhere be considered a crime everywhere."
The Conference Chairman, in his conclusions, called upon the ILO to expand the scope of its work, and to report regularly on global trends in the number of children removed and rehabilitated from exploitative situations and provided with alternatives. He said: "This systematic worldwide monitoring would be a mechanism to review periodically and to identify best practices in combating child labour."
The ILO estimates that out of 250 million children working, at least one-third work under exploitative and hazardous conditions.
Given the scale of the problem, the immediate target for action must be the most abusive forms of child labour, such as slavery, sale and trafficking of children, forced or compulsory labour like debt bondage, prostitution, pornography, drug-trafficking, and other illegal activities. The Conference highlighted in particular the alarming increase of sexual exploitation.
Child labour is a worldwide problem occurring in both developing and industrialized countries. In developing countries, 90 per cent of rural working children are engaged in agriculture-related activities, often in family-run businesses and in remote areas, and therefore difficult to track down. Exposure to pesticides, notably in agricultural sectors, is a major cause of infant mortality. An ILO-supported study in the Philippines revealed that over 60 per cent of child workers were exposed to chemical and biological hazards, and that 40 per cent had suffered serious injuries or illnesses resulting in amputation or mutilation.
Exposure to dangerous chemical materials is also to be found in manufacturing sectors, like carpet weaving or mines, where children are also subject to long hours, heavy lifting and machinery. By nature, children are more likely to have more serious occupational accidents than adults.
"At work, we suffer maltreatment, hunger and illness, and are in danger of being raped. We do not get any type of protection from society."
- a 17 year old girl from Central America
In the service sector, tens of millions of children, the majority girls, work long hours as domestic servants, often receiving no more than boardand lodging. Child workers are also more vulnerable to physical and psychological abuse. In domestic service, beatings, insults, punishments and sexual abuse are common.
It is believed that long hours of work not only impair physical and emotional development, but also the childs learning ability. A US study demonstrated that the academic performance of teenagers between 12 and 17 is adversely affected if they work 15 hours a week. The consequences on children from developing countries who work at earlier ages and for longer hours are likely to be far worse. Moreover, although many children who work continue to study, many others do not go to school at all.
There is a strong analogy between statistics of the ILO on child labour and UNESCO's on school attendance. According to UNESCO, 128 million children were excluded from education in 1990. The ILO figure of some 120 million children working on a full-time basis seems to indicate that many of the children excluded are now engaged in an economic activity.
In many cases, child labour costs little or nothing. If paid at all, children often get little more than pocket money, and in most cases less than adults' legal minimum wages for unskilled labour. It is not known how much children earn in the sex industry, but it is likely that the organizers get the bulk of the revenues.
"There is no protection, the food is bad, and we have to work all day breaking stones to look for minerals."
- A Latin American miner, working since age 12
Poverty is clearly the main reason for the supply of child labour. Children of landless peasants or of underemployed parents are at greater risk since, by working, they can contribute between 20 and 25 per cent of the family income.
Poverty is, however, not the only cause. Children working in exploitative or harmful conditions often come from disadvantaged and economically vulnerable population groups, including female-headed households, lower castes, indigenous or tribal people and migrant families. Many cultures also favour the education of sons over daughters, thus placing girls at higher risk of becoming child workers.
Child labour is also generated by deficiencies in educational systems. School is regarded as too expensive and attendance represents a loss of earning to poor families. Globalization of the economy and liberalization of international trade can also be seen as factors contributing to child labour.
"I am from a village and most of my family are, or have been, working children. It is unthinkable that one could prohibit child work without abolishing poverty."
- a 21 year-old girl, former child labourer from West Africa
In order to eradicate this problem the Conference delegates insisted on development and enforcement of international and regional cooperation regarding existing ILO instruments on the elimination of exploitative and hazardous child labour in order to set up alternatives for working children, especially in education, health care and employment.
The ILO-IPEC programme, which runs some 700 action programmes in 27 countries, has three main aims: prevent and combat child labour through the development of support services; assist in the withdrawal of children from work in selectd villages to become "child-labour free"; and to provide alternative income sources for children and their families. It also seeks to change community attitudes towards child labour.
IPEC, in partnership with the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Pakistan) and UNICEF, is working to eliminate child labour in the soccer ball industry in Sialkot, (see World of Work No.19, March 1997). Children removed from the workplace are provided with rehabilitation, education and in-kind assistance.
The Amsterdam Conference highlighted that all aspects of child labour should be covered, including prevention and monitoring at the national level, the provision of assistance to potential victims and their families, awareness-raising campaigns, and the social protection and rehabilitation of exploited children.
In his concluding statement, Melkert urged participating countries and ILO and United Nations member States to "launch a time-bound programme of action to eliminate child labour and to immediately put an end to its most intolerable forms - slavery and slave-like practices, forced or compulsory labour, including debt bondage and employment in any type of work that is dangerous, harmful or hazardous or that interferes with their education." He said that "there must be a total prohibition of work by the very young and special protection for girls," and warned of the increasing risks posed by criminality.
"This systematic worldwide monitoring would be a mechanism to review periodically and to identify best practices in combating child labour."
- Ad Melkert, Minister for Social Affairs and Employment, The Netherlands
The Amsterdam Conference is one of the major international meetings on child labour foreseen in 1997, the other being the Oslo Conference, organized by the Government of Norway, to be held in October. The Amsterdam Conference, in collaboration with the ILO and international agencies, is part of an increasing international effort to find equitable and enduring solutions to the problem of child labour in all countries.