BANGKOK (ILO News) – Children ensnared by slavery, debt bondage, prostitution, pornography, dangerous work and forcible recruitment for armed conflict are the targets of a global ILO campaign that begins in Asia this week for ratification of its new Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182).

The Convention was adopted unanimously at the International Labour Conference in June 1999 and represents a global consensus to tackle and eliminate the worst forms of child labour. It calls for immediate action to prohibit and eliminate the worst forms, which it defines as: all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage, serfdom and forced or compulsory labour; forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict; use of a child for prostitution, production of pornography or pornographic performances; use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs; and, work which is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.

The three-day Asian Regional Meeting on the Worst Forms of Child Labour which opens in Phuket tomorrow marks the beginning of the campaign in Asia. Supported by the Government of Japan, the meeting will bring together representatives of governments, workers and employers from 13 countries.

Countries that ratify the new Convention will have to act to prevent children becoming involved in and remove them from the worst forms of child labour; adopt plans of action for rehabilitating children, particularly through education; establish monitoring systems; and engage in international cooperation.

The ILO estimates that some 250 million children between the ages of five and 14 work in developing countries alone, and of these, some 61 per cent live in Asia. Worldwide, almost half of these working children, or 120 million, work full time, while the rest combine work and schooling. In Asia, as elsewhere, reliable child labour data are scarce. However the ILO estimates that more than one in five, or 22 per cent, of the children in the Asian region are working.

Immediately after the new Convention’s adoption, the ILO Director-General Mr Juan Somavia announced a worldwide campaign for ratification.

“With this Convention, we now have the power to make the urgent eradication of the worst forms of child labour a new global cause,” Mr Somavia said. “This cause must be expressed not in words, but deeds, not in speeches, but in policy and law.”

The ratification campaign will be given urgent priority by the ILO’s International Programme on Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC).

Established in 1992, IPEC now has activities in 60 countries, including 10 in Asia. Programme manager Werner Blenk said IPEC could count among its achievements phasing out child labour in some specific cases and providing educational alternatives. Successes included helping children working in football stitching and the garment sector, withdrawing children from mines and quarries, and saving young girls from sexual exploitation.

In the Asian region, IPEC’s work to end the worst forms of child labour includes programmes to tackle the commercial sexual exploitation of children, the sale and trafficking of children, and child slavery including family bondage, and contractors who paid advance sums to rural families. Other hazardous occupations include children working in mines, quarries, brick-making, glass-making, fireworks manufacture and match-making. Child domestic workers also needed special attention – isolated from the outside world in individual homes, they are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

The ILO’s new Convention provides a rallying point for global efforts to help these children. Support for the campaign for ratification and implementation includes a decision by the International Parliamentary Union to launch an information campaign targeting parliamentarians, while some countries have already made moves to put the ratification process into action – among them, in this region, Indonesia, Nepal, and the Philippines.