GENEVA – In a message distributed globally, ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said, “We must work for every child’s right to education so no child has to work for survival. The goal is quality education for children and decent work for adults.”
The ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) published a new technical report on child labour and education based on surveys of child labour in 34 countries from all regions of the world. At the same time, as part of a new year-long campaign on “Gender Equality at the Heart of Decent Work”, the ILO Bureau for Gender Equality also highlighted combating child labour through education with the slogan “Formula for progress: Educate both girls and boys!”
Mr. Somavia called for an “educational dimension” in the struggle against child labour, saying “let us pledge to work together for education for all children at least to the minimum age of employment, education policies that reach out to child labourers and other excluded groups, properly resourced quality education and skills training and education for all children, and decent work for adults. I urge you to lend your voice and action to the worldwide movement against child labour.”
As part of its efforts to strengthen action to tackle child labour by boosting access to education, the ILO is coordinating the work of an inter-agency partnership, the Global Task Force on Child Labour and Education for All, which brings together UN agencies, teachers, and civil society representatives, to strengthen measures to help child labourers. In addition, 12 UN agencies through the UN Inter-Agency Coordinating Committee on Human Rights Education (UNIACC) have issued a joint Statement for World Day which can be found at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/education.
Child labour and education: Evidence from SIMPOC surveys, by F. Blanco Allais and F. Hagemann. Geneva: IPEC/ILO, 2008. http://www.ilo.org/ipecinfo/product/viewProduct.do?productId=8390