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It
is time to outlaw child labour |
The Asian Age India | Shantha Sinha
It
is often said that a society can be judged
according to how its most vulnerable members
are treated. Consider this fact: fully 57
years after gaining independence, the Constitution
of India has no legislation (Act) for the
total abolition of child labour but it does
have laws which regulate child labour. The
continued presence of the Child Labour Prohibition
and Regulation (P&R) Act 1986 on India's
statute books is an indictment of the commitment
of the legislators to care for all the nation's
children equally. Instead of consigning
the exploitation of innocent children to
the pages of history by outlawing child
labour completely, the 1986 Act prohibits
children from working in certain hazardous
industries. This implicitly condones the
employment of children in other industries
but the Act does not stop there: it actually
regulates the conditions of employment for
those engaged in the so-called non-hazardous
industries. This Act both injures and insults
Indian children: it injures children by
its tacit acceptance of employers' right
to exploit child labour and insults them
by purporting to protect them from dangerous
working conditions. It is estimated that
only two out of every hundred working children
are covered by the provisions of the Act
as it excludes all children engaged in agricultural
and domestic work.
Millions
of children in our country live lives of
suffering, drudgery and gross exploitation.
The rural child tends goats and cattle from
dawn to dusk day in and day out. The entire
country reaps the benefits of their unrecognised
labour as they collect fire-wood, fetch
water, cook, rear siblings and attend to
domestic chores. There are many documented
reports of the hardships and the violence
they face. Some of their tasks entail inhaling
deadly pesticides and chemicals and their
families fear for their very lives. Most
working girls get married even before they
attain puberty and many are subjected to
sexual abuse and humiliation causing untold
damage to their psyche and well being. The
stories of children who are out of school
in the urban environs are just as pathetic.
They work in hotels, automobile workshops,
construction sites and sweat shops and form
a part of the teeming unorganised workforce
in this country. Many children are trafficked
for work and are forced to leave their homes
at a very young age as migrant labour. Children
engaged as domestic workers in towns, cities
and mega cities are locked up in the confines
of the home leading lonely and friendless
lives.
There
is an absence of shock and outrage in society's
reaction to this outrageous situation. Indeed,
it is argued that poor children have to
work to earn an income to keep the family
going. Furthermore, many of those who employ
children believe that they are doing the
children and their families a great favour
by giving them work. The employers of domestic
child labour often say that the children
are treated the same as their own since
they are allowed to watch television and
wear similar clothes as the urban middle
class. Many of those who own production
units or farms justify the use of child
labour on the grounds that they are contributing
to the local economy. Seldom have these
"charitable" employers been ready
to accept that they employ children because
they are a source of cheap labour and make
few demands. There is an all pervasive hypocrisy
in their justification of child labour on
the basis of charity linked to poverty;
they apply one set of values and standards
for their own children and another for the
poor.
The
policymakers have taken a similar position.
Instead of confronting the issue of child
labour, they have been overwhelmed by the
enormity of the problem and have decided
that it would be impossible to abolish child
labour. They regard the employment of children
as an inevitable consequence of being poor.
This "poverty argument" is reflected
in all policies regarding child labour.
If the argument were true, then it would
follow that the first child to drop out
of school and enter the labour market would
be the poorest child. However, rural schools
have many students from very poor families
while their relatively better off counterparts
are at work. A large number of factors that
have nothing to do with the economics of
the situation, govern the decision of the
family to send a child to work and not to
school: tradition, lack of confidence of
parents to negotiate with the school system
on account of illiteracy, lack of access
to schools and an insensitive administration.
Families are discouraged from engaging with
the formal education system because of its
complex admission, transfer and examination
procedures. Moreover, the day-to-day functioning
of schools is alien to the parents of first
generation learners. For instance, parents
are unsure about how to handle demands for
the child's homework and find it difficult
to support their learning in schools. The
"poverty argument" ignores all
these aspects and reduces a very complex
issue into one of simple economics.
The
86th Amendment to the Constitution of India
passed on December 12, 2002, recognises
the need to legislate in favour of young
people. Under Article 21A of the Chapter
on Fundamental Rights, the State is mandated
to "provide free and compulsory education
to all children of the age of 6-14 years
in such manner as the State may, by law,
determine." The forthcoming Bill on
"Free and Compulsory Education,"
which is being drafted on foot of the Amendment,
must therefore unambiguously render the
Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation)
Act of 1986 null and void as it is in contravention
of children's right to education.
Important as the conceptual framework is,
legislation is only as effective as the
commitment to its implementation. Through
exerting a systematic social pressure the
State will be compelled to abide by the
constitutional mandate to protect children's
right to education. Unless this is done,
the policymakers will continue to justify
the existence of working children and keep
on arguing that it is impracticable to totally
abolish child labour.
No
society can boast of being advanced, modern
or civilised if it continues to tolerate
the exploitation of children. The issue
of total abolition of child labour is inextricably
linked to the universalisation of formal
school education. Children must be free
to attend school. It is only when children
are liberated from the shackles of oppression
that they can begin to seize the opportunity
to participate in a democratic society as
equals. Guaranteeing all children their
right to education paves the way for a truly
democratic society. Enshrining this right
in the Constitution is a crucial first step.
http://www.iht.com/getina/files/226858.html |
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Fiji:
Catching Them Young |
By
Nidhi Dutt
SYDNEY (/CPU Online/Pacific Media Watch/):
The Fiji Times has launched Kaila!, the
country's first youth newspaper, and the
children of Fiji are loving it.
Fiji Times managing director Tony Yianni
highlighted the importance of giving children
a forum of their own in which they can actively
learn and communicate.
"It's become the voice of Fiji, very
quickly, rather surprisingly because they
trust the paper," he told the Commonwealth
Press Union editors forum in Sydney this
week.
In nations such as Fiji where technological
uptake is slow and in some areas non-existent,
newspapers act as an important tool for
national development.
For a nation like Fiji, with a population
of 800,000, Kaila! serves as an educational
resource with 30 to 40 per cent of the newspaper's
content based on a standardised curriculum.
"Now all of sudden Kaila! is bought
in some islands where the Fiji Times doesn't
even go," he said.
As the creators of Kaila! have found, children's
newspapers bridge the gap, in terms of resources
and knowledge, between children from rural
and urban areas.
"The difficulty we have is that a lot
of them (children from rural areas) not
only do not have the internet, they do not
have electricity, they do not have water,
they do not have windows, and they do not
have libraries. Kaila! has become their
library," said Yianni.
The creation of an all encompassing medium
for young people allows for the forging
of a unique identity and method of communication.
Newspapers in other countries have experimented
with youth editions, and most have featured
newspaper in education sections.
Yianni highlighted the importance of content
control due to the sensitivity and vulnerability
of children to media material.
Such issues also highlight the important
social responsibility editors and journalists
have to their readers, Yianni said.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0502/S00633.htm |
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World
Day Against Child Labour 2005 to Focus on
Child Labour in Mines and Quarries |
International
Labour Oranization (Geneva)
Posted to the web February 25, 2005
The plight of children who work in mines
and quarries that are often dangerous,
dirty and can post a grave risk to their
health and safety will be the focus of
the fourth World Day Against Child Labour,
scheduled for 12 June 2005, the International
Labour Organization (ILO) said today.
The ILO estimates that some one million
children work in small scale mining and
quarrying around the world. What's more,
ILO studies show that these children work
in some of the worst conditions imaginable,
where they face serious risk of dying
on the job or sustaining injuries and
health problems that will affect them
throughout their lives.
In both surface and underground mines,
children work long hours, carry heavy
loads, set explosives, sieve sand and
dirt, crawl down narrow tunnels, breathe
in harmful dusts and work in water - often
in the presence of dangerous toxins such
as lead and mercury, the ILO says. Children
mine diamonds, gold, and precious metals
in Africa, gems and rock in Asia, and
gold, coal, emeralds and tin in South
America.
In rock quarries located in many parts
of the world, children face safety and
health risks from pulling and carrying
heavy loads, breathing in hazardous dust
and particles and using dangerous tools
and crushing equipment.
The experience of the ILO International
Programme on the Elimination of Child
Labour (IPEC) - which has conducted pilot
projects in Mongolia, Tanzania, Niger
and the Andean countries of South America
- demonstrates that it is feasible to
eliminate child labour in dangerous conditions
by helping the mining and quarrying communities
acquire legal rights, organize cooperatives
or other productive units, improve the
health and safety and productivity of
adult workers, and secure essential services
- such as schools, clean water and sanitation
systems - in these often remote regions.
The ILO launched the World Day in June
2002 as a means of raising the visibility
of the problem and highlighting the global
movement to eliminate child labour, particularly
its worst forms. This year, on and about
12 June, local and national organizations
and many children's groups are expected
to join with ILO constituents around the
world to observe the World Day, which
occurs during the annual International
Labour Conference in Geneva, and to emphasize
the need for the immediate removal of
child workers from small scale mines and
quarries.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200502250586.html |
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Colombia : Armed Groups Send Children to War |
U.N. Security Council to Discuss Colombia 's Child Soldiers
( New York , February 22, 2005 ) — Colombia 's armed groups are among the worst violators of international norms against the recruitment and use of child soldiers, Human Rights Watch said today. The Colombian government should ratify and implement the United Nations treaty prohibiting this practice.
Tomorrow, the U.N. Security Council will discuss the Secretary General's Report on Children and Armed Conflict, which names Colombia as a country in which child soldiers are used. Three of Colombia 's armed groups—the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the paramilitary groups—are singled out for censure in the report.
“The United Nations has recognized that both guerrillas and paramilitaries violate fundamental humanitarian standards by relying on children to fight,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director for Human Rights Watch. “These horrific practices are causing immeasurable damage to Colombia 's children, and to Colombian society as a whole.”
Human Rights Watch estimates that more than 11,000 children fight in Colombia 's armed conflict, one of the highest totals in the world. At least one of every four irregular combatants in Colombia is under 18 years of age. Several thousand of them are under the age of 15, the minimum age permitted for recruitment into armed forces or groups under the Geneva Conventions.
To help address the problem, Human Rights Watch called on the Colombian Congress to ratify and implement the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict. The treaty, which Colombia signed in 2000 but has not yet ratified, establishes 18 as the minimum age for direct participation in hostilities, for compulsory recruitment, and for any recruitment or use in hostilities by irregular armed groups.
Approximately 80 percent of child combatants in Colombia belong to one of the two left-wing guerrilla groups, the FARC or ELN. The remainder fights in paramilitary ranks.
In 2004, UNICEF undertook informal exploratory talks on ending the use and recruitment of child soldiers with the ELN and with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a paramilitary coalition. According to the U.N. Secretary General's report, these groups showed a willingness to engage in dialogue but did not make any commitment to halt the practice.
The FARC continues to recruit and use children, and have made no commitment to stop this practice. By Human Rights Watch's estimate, the FARC has the majority of child combatants in Colombia . A conservative estimate is that 20 to 30 percent of all FARC combatants are under 18 years old.
After declaring a ceasefire in December 2002, paramilitary groups promised to release all children in their ranks. More than two years later, this has not happened. According to the Secretary General's report, paramilitaries have released nearly 180 children to the Colombian authorities. But thousands of other children continue to be used as combatants, even as paramilitary leaders engage in negotiations with the government for the demobilization of their troops.
The Colombian Congress is currently debating legislation to govern the demobilization of paramilitary groups. Human Rights Watch urges the Congress to include the demobilization of children from paramilitary forces as a priority item in the current debate. The Congress should also ensure that those responsible for the recruitment of children are held accountable.
“The demobilization bill must send a clear message to all armed groups using child combatants,” said Vivanco. “If Colombia does not bring to justice those responsible for exploiting these children, these heinous crimes are likely to continue.”
In a 2003 report, “You'll Learn Not to Cry: Child Combatants in Colombia ,” Human Rights Watch documented how both guerrillas and paramilitaries exploit the desperation of poor children in rural combat zones.
Many children join up for food or physical protection, to escape domestic violence, or because of promises of money. Some are coerced to join at gunpoint, or join out of fear. Others are street children with nowhere to go. Children as young as 13 are trained to use assault rifles, grenades and mortars.
Child soldiers are often ordered to participate in summary executions, torture, murder, kidnapping and attacks on civilians. They are also exposed to disease, physical exhaustion, injury, sudden death and torture at the hands of the enemy. Children who try to escape and return to their families risk execution.
The Secretary General's report also describes other abuses against children by Colombia 's illegal armed groups, including rapes and killings. In particular, the report highlights the FARC's killing in September 2004 of a 15-year-old girl kidnapped the previous year.
“The FARC have shown no willingness to stop harming and exploiting children,” said Vivanco. “To the contrary, their abuses seem to have worsened.”
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From child soldier to rap superstar |
A Sudanese former Childs soldier who has become a chart-topping rap star in Kenya is set to launch his first album, calling it a "prayer for peace."
Emmanuel Jal, who fought in the south of Sudan 12 years ago - having been trained to use a gun at the age of eight - hit number one in the Kenyan charts earlier this month. Now he is following up that success with a new album - launched this weekend in the capital Nairobi - entitled Gua.
"It's a sort of prayer for peace in my motherland," Jal told BBC World Service's Outlook programme. "There has been war, so it's talking about if there was peace in my land, it would be so good everyone would come back home, there would be no tribalism, no racism, no girls being forced to marry, no child soldiers."
Healing music
Jal is originally from southern Sudan , where he was trained to fight for the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in the civil war that raged for many years before the recent peace agreement. He survived frontline action after a dramatic and traumatic escape from the rebels' ranks, finally making it to Nairobi , where he currently lives.
He first started making rap songs shortly after he arrived, in his late teens - having no knowledge of music at all. "I found that music helped with healing my soul, and all the trauma that I've gone through," he said. His music often features lyrics detailing experiences as a child soldier.
Jal was among thousands of young people collected by the SPLA in 1987. Their parents were told they were to be sent to schools in Ethiopia . "When we reached Ethiopia , we actually went to school - but only for a while," Jal said. "Then we were trained how to use guns." Jal was first trained to use gun at age of eight, and sent to the front line three years later.
"I remember clearly how people used to die; how the tanks used to crush people, how the helicopters used to come and chase us," he recalled. But in his fourth year as a child soldier, he escaped.
"I had a desire to study... as a young person you get convinced by whatever idea comes into your mind," he told Outlook. "We decided, with some friends, to do it - and we escaped." The friends thought their journey would take one month - in fact it took three months to complete just half of it, because of minefields and ambushes in enemy territory.
Helping others
The group ate dry maize to survive. Jal said many died on the journey. "There was no water for them to drink," he explained. "Other friends, soldiers told me what other soldiers did was put their guns at the head of their fellow soldiers to force them to urinate in a cup so they would drink."But none of them survived who did that. "When we saw many skeletons and skulls, it was a sign that we were all going to die - there was no water there. "Other soldiers would just shoot themselves and die. So I prayed to God, if he existed, to provide water for us - and it rained during the dry season."
Jal is now planning to put his earnings from his musical career towards raising funds for other child soldiers, to allow them to have an education. He also hopes to help some of the worst-off in Kenya , his adopted home. " Kenya has been nice to me, and there are many others suffering, like the street children," he added. "So I must admit I would also like to supply somewhere for them."
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Child labour shame revealed |
From correspondents in London
February 22, 2005,
From: Reuters
MORE than 211 million children worldwide aged between five and 15 are working full-time, half of them in appalling conditions and some as prostitutes or miners, according to UNICEF.The British branch of the United Nations Children's Fund says huge aid increases are needed to help them.
In a scathing report published yesterday, it says the only way to end child labour is to end poverty and for rich industrialised nations to give far more in development aid to poor countries. "A huge amount still remains to be done to protect children's rights all over the globe and to prevent their exploitation," UNICEF UK executive director David Bull said.
From unregulated chemical plants in Asia to the giant open-cast mines of Latin America and the stone quarries of West Africa , child labour is a scar on the conscience of the world in the 21st century, the report says.
Children are forced to work not only as soldiers in African wars or in the sweatshops of Asia, but also as cheap farm labour in North America and prostitutes in Europe. "Estimates of the number of young people working on farms in the US vary from 300,000 to 800,000," the report says.
"Many are from minority groups, particularly Spanish-speaking immigrant families." The report cites prostitutes as young as 15 working on the streets of English cities.
The report says children are born, sold or trafficked into what amounts to domestic slavery in many countries, some earning barely $US1 ($1.27) a month.
The incidence of child labour is highest in Africa where 41 per cent of those aged five to 14 are known to work, compared with 2 per cent in Asia and 17 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean . But Asia accounts for 60 per cent of the world's working children because of its higher population.
UNICEF stresses that not all working children are at risk, but notes that if school-age children are at work they are missing the education needed to lift them out of poverty and drudgery.
It says the only way to end child labour is to end poverty, and called on the rich industrialised nations to boost aid by $US50 billion a year and meet a decades-old pledge to raise annual aid budgets to 0.7 per cent of national income.
Aid should be better targeted to help the poor directly and support should be given to help developing nations take charge of their own budgets and development programs.
Mr Bull said that 2005 held "unprecedented opportunities for the UK Government to use the G8 summit and its presidency of the EU to drive forward the fight against poverty, debt and trade injustices".
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UN
in action call on child labour |
Huge
aid increases are needed to help more than
210 million children around the world who
are working full-time, the UN children's
fund Unicef has said.
Its latest report says many children aged
five to 15 are working as slaves, miners,
prostitutes and soldiers. Unicef argues
the only way to end child labour is to end
poverty - and called on rich industrialised
nations to give far more in development
aid. It says child labour is a scar on the
world's conscience in the 21st Century.
Children are born, sold and trafficked into
what amounts to domestic slavery in many
countries, the report says, some earning
as little as $1 a month.
Sex workers
Others are exploited in unregulated chemical
plants in Asia, giant open cast mines in
Latin America and stone quarries in West
Africa. Children are also used as cheap
farm labour in North America and sex workers
in Europe, the report said, citing prostitutes
as young as 15 in UK cities.
The highest incidence of child labour is
in Africa, where 41% of those aged five
to 14 work, compared to 21% in Asia and
17% in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Asia accounts for 60% of all child workers,
however, because of its higher population,
the report says.
The richest nations have already committed
themselves to halving poverty and hunger
and reducing child mortality by 2015. Unicef
says even if these goals are met, it will
be too late for the tens of millions of
children who are currently being exploited
or forced to carry out destructive and demeaning
jobs. "A huge amount still remains
to be done to protect children's rights
all over the globe and to prevent their
exploitation," Unicef's UK executive
director David Bull said. The report calls
on industrialised nations to boost aid by
$50m a year, and ensure the help is better
targeted to help the poor directly.
The BBC's Jannat Jalil says the world's
richest nations are already discussing an
ambitious plan put forward by the UK to
reduce the debt burdens of poor countries
and give them more aid and trade opportunities.
But, she says, some observers argue the
solution does not just lie in giving more
money. They say action must also be taken
to tackle the widespread corruption and
lack of democracy that exists in many countries.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4282715.stm
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Central
Asia struggles to end child labour |
By Sarah Shenker, BBC News
President-for-life
Saparmurat Niyazov last month announced
his intention to ban child labour in Turkmenistan.
The move was broadly welcomed by aid agencies
and human rights groups, who have been pressing
for action since the country gained independence
from the former Soviet Union in 1991. But
there are concerns that the practise is
so central to the country's economy that
a ban will not be enough. "Any official
announcement is only as good as the implementation,"
said Acacia Shields, a researcher with Human
Rights Watch. "Mr Niyazov is prone
to making arbitrary announcements... We
need more time to see if this is going to
be carried up on the ground," she said.
As Unicef published a report calling child
labour a scar on the world's conscience,
aid agencies and analysts said they were
increasingly concerned about the extent
of the problem in Central Asia. According
to the International Labour Organisation
(ILO), child labour is a concern in all
five Central Asian states - Kyrgyzstan,
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
In Turkmenistan alone, US State Department
figures estimated that more than one million
children were part of the labour force in
2000.
Mobilised
Enter any city bazaar in Central Asia, according
to the ILO's Klaus Guenther, and you find
the most visible sign of child labour -
large numbers of school-age boys working
as porters. Young girls from the countryside
are also sent to the city to work as domestic
helpers. The money they earn is a lifeline
for their families.
From September to December, many rural schools
are closed by local officials so that tens
of thousands of young children in Uzbekistan,
Turkmenistan and Tajikistan can be sent
into the cotton fields to bring in the harvest.
In October last year, a minister with Uzbekistan's
public education department admitted that
at least 44,000 senior pupils and students
had been mobilised to help pick the country's
cotton. Local rights activists say the figure
does not take into account the number of
young children forced into the fields -
they say they have seen children as young
as seven working there.
"If you go to the cotton fields, the
only people working are women and children,"
said regional analyst Michael Hall from
the International Crisis Group. Children
from the ages of 10 upwards help adults
to pick cotton by hand for between two and
five US cents a kilogramme. A small child
might be able to pick 30kg a day.
Often, employers deduct food and housing
costs from what they earn, leaving them
with very little. A BBC reporter who visited
an Uzbek cotton field met a 12-year-old
boy who said he was paid in kindling.
'White gold'
The three countries' economies are agrarian
and rely heavily on the cotton industry.
Uzbekistan's exports last year were thought
to be worth at least $1bn - it is the country's
most important cash crop, known as "white
gold". In some parts of the country,
cotton is a virtual monoculture.
Most governments in the region have signed
at least one of the ILO's two conventions
banning the use of child labour. Uzbekistan
has not, but has legislation banning children
under 15 from working. All three governments
deny accusations that children are forced
into work, saying it is the parents from
rural communities who send their children
into the fields to earn much-needed cash.
A spokesman for the Uzbek embassy in Britain
said: "There is no child labour in
Uzbekistan."
But less guarded officials will say they
empty out local schools because they lack
machinery and have no viable alternative
to bring in the harvest. "We are concerned,"
said Andro Shilakadze, Unicef's programme
co-ordinator in Uzbekistan. "We need
to do more advocacy work, we need to do
more with families and communities to make
them understand the negative consequences,"
he says.
Momentum for change
Mr Hall said there was no single cause of
the problem, and no easy solution. The pace
of economic reform in some parts of Central
Asia has been painfully slow, and living
standards are among the lowest in the former
Soviet Union. Some families rely on seasonal
work, taking their children with them wherever
there is a living to be had. "Very
often, the children come from poor rural
areas where there are no opportunities to
earn cash, so the children are taken out
of schools to work for money," he said.
Young teenagers working as manual labour
in cities may be their family's only means
of support, he added.
He also believes the pressure to meet production
quotas is partly to blame and that land
reforms are overdue. "Each region has
state quotas on cotton that come from above.
As long as these are in place, and as long
as local, appointed administrators feel
their survival depends on meeting them,
this will continue," Mr. Hall says.
The ICG is trying to get support from the
international community put pressure on
governments to abide by the ILO conventions
and implement the law. It also wants to
raise awareness among consumers that the
cotton picked by forced child labour is
winding up on clothing racks in the west.
Besides the severe implications for children's
education, Mr. Hall said the use of forced
labour has long-term consequences for political
and economic stability in the region. "This
is part of a bigger picture, where rural
communities are being pushed to the brink,"
he says, through lack of opportunities for
work for a fair wage.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4267559.stm
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Child
labour rampant in Pakistan: HRCP report |
By Shahid Husain
KARACHI:
The constitution categorically says that
“no child below the age of 14 years
shall be engaged in any factory or mine
or any other hazardous employment,”
but as many as 3.5 million children are
employed in Pakistan according to official
figures and 10 million according to unofficial
sources, says the Human Rights Commission
of Pakistan in its “State of Human
Rights in 2004,” released recently.
“There
was little evidence during the year of improvement
in the plight of the millions of children
in the country, with 42 percent of the population
of 149 million people aged below 14 years.
Nearly 51 percent of the population was
under 18 years of age.
“Economic
and social deprivations, coupled with rising
physical and sexual abuse, constituted the
most serious threats to children. The absence
of policies to alleviate these problems
meant a majority of children remained unable
to access basic rights, including the right
to sufficient food, shelter, education,
safe water or medical care,” the report
said.
According
to a study by UNICEF and local NGOs, the
results of which were made public in August,
nearly eight million, or 40 percent of children,
under five years of age suffered malnutrition.
The growth of at least 60 percent of children
between six months and three years was stunted
and 42 percent were anaemic or underweight.
Poor nutrition left children susceptible
to disease, the report said.
According
to official statistics, at least 23 million
children in Pakistan had never been to school,
and the youth literacy rate, according to
the UNDP, remained among the lowest in the
world, the report said.
The
Edhi Foundation stated that by the end of
2003, the rate of runaway children had increased
by 30 percent over the past two years. Poor
economic conditions most often led to children
leaving homes. More than 10,000 children
below the age of 15 were living on the streets
of Karachi alone, the report said.
The
report said the state of health of children
in the country, their access to education
and other basic facilities were poor. Mortality
rates for children were among the worst
in the world. According to a survey by the
health services directorate in Peshawar,
in February, of every 1,000 live births
in the NWFP, 79 children died before the
age of five due to lack of health care.
The
lack of access to safe drinking water contributed
to many major health problems, including
the high rates of diarrhoea, gastroenteritis
and other complaints. Children in more than
70 percent of the schools under the control
of the City District Government
Lahore
were forced to drink contaminated water
supplied through dirty tanks at schools.
Other reports indicated safe drinking water
was an increasingly rare commodity across
the country, the report said.
According
to health experts, 44 percent boys and girls
between six and 12 years in Sindh were found
to be moderately deficient in iodine. The
rate was thought to be even higher in Punjab
and the NWFP, where the consumption of sea
fish, the major natural source of iodine,
was extremely poor, the report said.
“Partially
as a result of worsening air pollution,
17 percent of children suffered from asthma
and other respiratory complaints, whereas
hereditary diseases such as thalassaemia
continued to increase. Pakistan’s
failure to eradicate polio meant children
faced continued threat from potentially
fatal disease. Millions of children across
the country remained outside classrooms,
whereas persisting gender inequalities caused
denial of education to girls,” the
report said.
The
report said even after the provincial education
department in the NWFP imposed a complete
ban on corporal punishment in schools late
the previous year, teachers continued to
beat children. Some of the most appalling
incidents of physical abuse were reported
from madrassahs, the report said.
Citing
a report from an NGO Sahil, the HRCP report
said 823 cases of crime against children
were reported over the first six months
of 2004. Of these, 376 cases were of sexual
abuse and 447 of physical abuse. 432 victims
were boys and 391 girls. Complaints were
registered in only 361 cases. 321 children
were murdered, 152 sexually assaulted and
then killed, 47 minor girls gang-raped,
107 girls raped, 76 boys sodomised, 53 children
injured and 67 subjected to bodily mutilation.
A
report by the Islamabad-based Society for
Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC),
released in September, stated that children
in the country were recruited to fight in
Afghanistan or Kashmir, political factions,
religious sects and national movements were
cited as the groups mainly responsible for
such recruitment, the report said.
The
report said despite the promulgation of
the “Prevention and Control of Human
Trafficking Ordinance” in 2002, the
trafficking of children continued, with
children most often taken to the UAE for
use as camel-jockeys.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_15-2-2005_pg7_34
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Turkmenistan
Puts Clamp on Child Labour |
Ashgabat,
2 February 2005 (nCa)
--- One of the first laws passed by the
newly elected parliament of Turkmenistan
puts a clamp on child labour in the country.
As the Turkmen parliament went into session
Tuesday morning, the draft law “About
Guarantees of the Rights of Youth to Work”
came up for vote. The parliament passed
the law unanimously.
Here is the full text of the law:
The Law of Turkmenistan
About Guarantees of the Right of Youth to
Work
The present Law embodies the fatherly concern
of President of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat
Niyazov, about the education [upbringing]
of the future generations, which should
have high spirituality and strong health,
and is directed at strict and exact implementation
of the Convention on Rights of the Child,
law of Turkmenistan “About Guarantees
of the Rights of Child”, Code of Turkmenistan
“About Labour” and other laws
of Turkmenistan regulating children’s
right to work, conventions of the United
Nations regulating protection of child against
economic exploitation through violence,
and also to prevent the situations that
could represent danger to their health or
serve as an obstacle to their education,
or cause damage to their health, physical,
intellectual and spiritual development,
or interfere with realization of the principle
of freedom of conscience.
1. Conclusion of labour contracts with children
under 16 years of age is not permissible,
and children up to 15 years of age can be
accepted for work only with the written
permission of one of the parents or guardians,
and labour activity should not interfere
with their school education.
2. Employer, irrespective of the pattern
of ownership, is forbidden to use the workers
of lower than the age of majority for heavy
work, harmful or dangerous work, and also
work under the ground.
3. Parents or guardians are forbidden to
employ children on work connected with permanent
labour employment, especially on work that
would disrupt [discontinue] the education
of the child, that attracts infringements
of the rights and interests of the child,
as prescribed in the normative legal documents
of Turkmenistan, and also as [understood]
under the conventional norms of international
rights.
4. The legislative norms connected with
prevention of child labour should be observed
not only by legal persons (enterprises,
establishments, organizations) but also
by the private individual businessmen, and
also by other persons.
5. The labour activity of the children,
irrespective of the form, whether permanent
or temporary, should not create any obstacles
against school education.
6. The infringement of the work rights of
the child attracts responsibility as established
under the legislation of Turkmenistan. The
President of Turkmenistan
Saparmurat NiyazovAshgabat,
1 February 2005
http://www.newscentralasia.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1167
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International
Law Enforcement Effort Targets Child Exploitation |
Law
enforcement agencies from Australia, Canada,
the United Kingdom and the United States
are creating a new Web site as a tool to
help in the campaign against the online
exploitation of children.??
Announcement of the initiative was made
in London, according to a January 26 press
release from the U.S. partner in the effort,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The site, http://www.virtualglobaltaskforce.com/
instructs visitors in reporting suspected
child exploitation and provides other safety
and resource information about organizations
involved in the international effort to
protect youngsters from sexual predators.
ICE participation in this task force is
in line with its ongoing campaign Operation
Predator, which works to protect children
from sex offenders, child sex tourists,
Internet child pornographers and human traffickers.
The 18-month-old operation has resulted
in more than 4,800 arrests.
The text of the ICE press release follows:
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
News Release
UK, US, AUSTRALIAN & CANADIAN
LAW ENFORCEMENT BAND TOGETHER TO TARGET
ONLINE CHILD EXPLOITATION
International law enforcement partnership
launches new website for reporting, resources
LONDON ·Law enforcement and technology
industry officials in the UK unveiled today
a new international website created by the
Virtual Global Task Force, a partnership
lead by the UK National Crime Squad (NCS)
that includes NCS, U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police, the Australian High Tech
Crime Centre, and Interpol.
The site, at www.virtualglobaltaskforce.com,
includes information on how to report suspected
child exploitation in the UK, US, Canada
and Australia; as well as related safety
and resource information from partner organizations
such as the National Center for Missing
& Exploited Children in the United States.
Jim Gamble, Deputy Director General of the
UK National Crime Squad, and Chair of the
Virtual Global Taskforce, said, the Virtual
Global Taskforce is a unique partnership
in the history of law enforcement. Internet-users
access a worldwide service so we must tackle
abuse from a worldwide perspective. Strategic
partnerships such as this are vital to our
success.
ICE participation in the Virtual Global
Task Force is part of Operation Predator,
a Department of Homeland Security initiative
to protect children from criminal alien
sex offenders, child sex tourists, Internet
child pornographers, and human traffickers.
Since Operation Predator began in July 2003,
more than 4,800 individuals have been arrested
nationwide. Foreign law enforcement, acting
on ICE leads, have arrested more than 860
individuals.
Additional information about Operation Predator
is available on the Web at http://www.ice.gov/.
ICE encourages the reporting of suspected
child predators and any suspicious activity
through its toll-free hotline at 1-866-DHS-2ICE.
This hotline is staffed around the clock
by investigators.
Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing
children may be reported to the National
Center for Missing & Exploited Children,
an Operation Predator partner, at 1-800-843-5678
or http://www.cybertipline.com.
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