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IPEC action against child trafficking
IPEC's main programmes in trafficking are as follows:
West and Central Africa
The numbers of children reported being trafficked across borders for labour exploitation has steadily increased in West and Central Africa, mainly for recruitment in domestic work. The ILO has played a key role in advising and facilitating the planning for an effort to identify and address child labour practices in West African cocoa growing, together with US Senator Tom Harkin and leading global chocolate manufacturers.
In the most important IPEC project to combat child trafficking, the countries involved are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria and Togo, and the launch took place in June this year. Niger has also formally requested to join. The first phase mapped the problem and suggested measures required to combat it.
Phase II aims to prevent, rescue, repatriate and restore victims' rights by strengthening the judiciary and police in the countries involved, and by dismantling trafficking networks.
Demonstration projects will carry out awareness raising, mobilize social partners, enhance knowledge of the issue through surveys, and provide preventive and rehabilitation programmes.
The programme will last some three years.
In addition, two major surveys are being carried out in the region, both funded by the US Department of Labor, on cocoa production and other tree crops.
Southeast Asia
In the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), which consists of Thailand, Viet Nam, Cambodia, the Yunnan Province of China and Myanmar, children are trafficked mainly to Thailand (the economic magnet) for exploitation in a variety of jobs that include commercial sex. There is also internal trafficking within the countries mentioned. The overall strategy of the projects is to build up a process-based approach through three groups of interlinked interventions: capacity building, awareness raising and advocacy, and direct action.
Five major outputs are expected:
The subregional programme to combat the trafficking of children for exploitative employment in Bangladesh, Nepal & Sri Lanka, which is the result of a Regional Plan of Action, drawn up in the late nineties, is made up of four components:
Efforts are underway to involve India and Pakistan in the programme.
South & Central America
Commercial sexual exploitation of children is a serious problem on the border between Brazil and Paraguay, near the tourist area of the Iguacu Falls.
The project aims, among others, to rescue 1,000 children and to provide credit to 400 families and will last until 2004.
The problem of sexual exploitation in Central America is acute, but has gone largely unaddressed by most governments. In Honduras and Panama, the problem is barely recognized; in El Salvador, the Government has expressed concern, but there is a lack of inter institutional coordination. The situation is similar in Guatemala. Costa Rica has also expressed concern, but there is no clear policy.
The IPEC programme is in two phases, the first to compile information in order to develop a strategy.
The second phase will comprise an Action Programme that includes a regional component and national pilot projects based on a comprehensive approach, featuring activities such as law enforcement strengthening, enhancing public institutions to protect children and sanction abusers, media campaigns, legal improvements and monitoring. The Programme will last at least three years.