Friday

21 May 2004

More than 80 cases of child abuse are reported in South Africa's capital, Pretoria, each month, said a member of the family violence, child protection and sexual offences unit, Captain Shiluvane Malunyane said.

And the number of reported cases continuously increased, he said.

Malunyane was attending a conference hosted by the South African Professional Society on the Abuse of Children at the University of Pretoria.

"We can't say why it's increasing. The more effort we put into fighting the problem the more incidents come to the fore," he said.

Malunyane said there was a great need for more funding and staff. For example, there was only one forensic psychologist in Gauteng trained to interview abused children.

"And she can only deal with white children who speak English or Afrikaans," he said.

The three-day conference, which dealt with child trafficking and the role of the internet in child sexual exploitation, was attended by over a 200 mostly female psychologists, social workers and police detectives.

Guest speaker Susan Kreston, from the US' National Centre for Justice and the Rule of Law said the internet had "exploded" the child pornography industry worldwide.

"Whereas in the past a paedophiles only had the option of maybe looking at 15 or so polaroid photographs, now they can go onto the internet and have thousands of images at their disposal," she said.

She said the internet had also removed the sense of alienation often experienced by paedophiles because, through the use of online web sites, clubs were often formed.

"There is an organisation called the North American Man Boy Relationship that now goes so far as to advise on how to abuse children and how to conceal evidence," Kreston said.

She explained that through "deviant psychology" they often claimed to be helping children by having sex with them.

Approximately 18% of offenders in the United States denied harming the children and many put much effort into not physically injuring the child as this often incited the victim to testify.

"There is a sense among paedophiles that children are sexual beings and that it's society who is behind the times," she said.

Malunyane said in most of South Africa's reported child abuse cases the abuser was someone within the child's home setup and the extent of internet-based child pornography in the country was not known. This was mostly due to a lack of police skills.

There was a high success rate in most abuse cases in which the abuser was known to the child, Malunyane said.

Kreston, while addressing an earlier conference at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), stated that South Africa was a major destination and source for the international child trafficking.

Citing a 2003 migration study, she said the country seen as a "main destination" for child traffickers within Southern Africa, with between 28,000 and 38,000 children being prostituted in South Africa.

Malunyane added that the SA Police Service (SAPS) often lacked the experience needed to deal with child trafficking and that many cases were handed over to Interpol because they often resulted in cross-border investigation.

Sapa

Source: http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,1619054-6078-0,00.html

20, 2004

By Mziwakhe Hlangani and sapa

Labour minister Membathisi Mdladlana has ordered that more farm inspections be conducted around Tzaneen in Limpopo following media reports of child labour in the area.

Mdladlana said yesterday: "Employers who deliberately violate labour laws will certainly be brought to book." Earlier yesterday, inspectors visiting a farm near Tzaneen could not find substantive evidence of child labour. However, there was evidence of employment of illegal immigrants.

Department spokesperson Monwabisi McClean said another joint inspection with Department of Home Affairs officials would be conducted soon, because neither the farm nor its teenage workers could produce identity documents.

"The children were left on the farm until the next inspection can prove whether the farmer committed any offence and whether the youths were indeed Mozambicans," he said.

The Labour Department would further not explain why yesterday's inspection had been delayed for about a week. McClean would not say whether the immigrant child labourers would be deported, but warned that inspections would be intensified on five farms in the area to check if they complied with basic conditions of employment and child labour legislation.

Yesterday, the trade union federation Cosatu entered the fray, urging the government to stop exploitation of children on farms.

The Star reported yesterday that Maniki citrus farm in the Letsitele farming area, between Tzaneen and Phalaborwa, had illegally employed children as young as 14 to pick oranges. The children, who are illegal immigrants from neighbouring Mozambique, were reportedly being paid R170 a week for picking 500 bags of oranges.

Fourteen-year-old Musasa Ngobeni recounted how abject poverty had led him to leave school and illegally enter South Africa to pick oranges at Maniki.

Because he is an illegal immigrant and too young to work legally here, he lives in fear that police will arrest and deport him, to face joblessness and starvation.

Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven yesterday criticised the farmer for allegedly refusing to allow its affiliate, the SA Agricultural Plantation and Allied Workers Union (Saapawu), entry to the farm to investigate working conditions there.

Saapawu regional organiser Catholise Moraba blamed the Labour Department's inspectorate for failing to take prompt action against the exploitation of children and illegal immigrants.

Cas Saloojee, chairperson of the parliamentary ad hoc committee on social development, said poverty forced many children to work for survival. "We are also deeply alarmed that the adults reported to be involved in this exploitation of children seek to deny and shift their responsibility," he said.

Attempts to obtain comment from Maniki farm manager Boka Smith were unsuccessful yesterday.

Source: http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=129&fArticleId=2083617

This Day (Lagos)

May 19, 2004
Posted to the web May 19, 2004

Emmanuel Ugwu
Enugu

All stakeholders in national development have been urged to take special interest in the education of the girl child because it plays a crucial role in the development process.

Making the call in Enugu is the assistant professor of Economics at Indiana State University, Purdue, United St ates of America, Dr Una Okonkwo Osili. Mrs Osili said this at the second graduation ceremony of the Ndu, Ike, Akunuba (NIA) an NGO, stressing that it has been proved that education of girls remains the highest investment any developing nation could make.

"Female education is an investment, but there is now a consensus within the academic community, within the NGO community and policy circles that female education is like no other investment," she said.

"Female education now has the distinction of being one of the highest return investments in the developing world, yielding much higher returns than building bridges, ports, dams and other projects that are widely recognised as a crucial part of the development process," she added.

In her address titled "Investing in Women, Investing in the Future", the professor of economics stressed the need to encourage women to attain their potentials through adequate exposure to education.

She called for the empowerment of women but quickly pointed out that "female empowerment comes not only when women increase their overall education levels but also when women gain educational parity with men and take up leadership positions in the society."

Osili, who is conducting a research on impact of female education in development in Nigeria, noted that while "it is good news" that the female population has substantially increased in the university campuses, the sad news was that the education of women has not translated in their taking high positions in public offices and in many decision making establishments.

According to her the transformation of the society would only come about when women become educated and get the mandate to play leadership roles in the society.

She therefore commended such NGOs as the NIA, which devotes its activities to the empowerment of women in the South -eastern part of Nigeria.

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200405190503.html

Thursday 20 May 2004

The Congress of SA Trade Unions has called on the government to stop the exploitation of children on a farm in the Limpopo province.

Cosatu spokesman Patrick Craven said on Wednesday the congress was "angry" and "appalled" at reports of the exploitation of the children.

A Johannesburg newspaper reported that Maniki citrus farm in Letsitele had illegally employed children, as young as 14, to pick oranges.

The children, who were illegal immigrants from neighbouring Mozambique, were reportedly being paid R170 a week.

"Cosatu condemns the employer for his exploitation of the children... and for allegedly refusing to let the SA Agricultural, Plantation and Allied Workers Union organiser enter the farm to investigate working conditions there," Craven said in a statement.

Cosatu demanded that the Labour Department visit the farm and enforce the labour laws regarding the employment of children.

Sapa

Source: http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,1619884-6078-0,00.html

Koforidua, May 18, GNA - A National Child Labour Survey by the Ghana Statistical Service indicated that out of the over six million children in Ghana of school-going age between five years and seven years, 1.3 million of them are engaged in hazardous labour. Ms Elizabeth Hagan, Head of Child Labour Unit of the Ministry of Manpower Development and Employment, said at a stakeholders meeting on child labour in the country at Koforidua.

She said the figure represented 39 per cent of Ghana's children of school going-age, who were out of school and were in the labour market. Ms Hagan said 88 per cent of the affected children were in unpaid family work and apprenticeships while 5.9 per cent were self-employed. She said the research indicated that about 80 per cent of child labour in the country occurred in the rural areas where the children were engaged in shepherding of cattle and sheep; fishing, crop farming and stone quarrying.

Ms Hagan said there were worse forms of child labour which were hidden from the public eye, among which were slavery, practised particularly in the fishing industry, child domestic servitude, child in prostitution, illegal mining, drug peddling, pick-pocketing and child trafficking.

She said child labour created a vulnerable population that had no employable skills and therefore could not be gainfully employed; saying out of frustration they could become armed robbers.

The National Project Co-ordinator of the International Labour Organization (ILO) International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), Mr Eric Okrah said the ILO Convention 182 dealing with child labour which Ghana had ratified, required the country to take comprehensive measures to prevent the engagement of children in Worse Forms of Child Labour (WFCL).

He said the Convention required the country to come out with Time-Bound Programmes (TBP) for the elimination of WFCL. Mr Okrah said for the country to implement the TBP, a lot of consultation had taken place and a lot of research had been conducted to enable the stakeholders to effectively understand the root causes of child labour to come out with effective programmes to reduce its occurrence.

The Eastern Regional Co-ordinator of Ghana National Commission on Children, Mr Anthony Dontoh, said his office had undertaken a tour of some communities in the Asuogyaman District noted for child labour like Kodikope, Abume, Small London and Mpaproase to conduct public forums to educate those, who engaged the children in child labour of its dangers. He said his organisation had collected a lot of data on people engaged in child trafficking and those engaging their own children in WFCL.

Mr Dontoh said the GNCC, in collaboration with other organisations, was engaged in supporting activities for mothers to enable them to improve upon their economic situation to withdraw their children from engaging them in WFCL and sending them to school.

Source: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=58004

By Khalid Hasan

Washington: ABC News has declared Indian anti-child labour campaigner Kailash Satyarathi its “Man of the Week.”

In a glowing report on its site, following a news programme, the network said Kailash Satyarthi's work is rescuing children. “Throughout India, Satyarthi's mission in life is to change a system in which some children go to work before they are 14,” it added.

Mr Satyarathi who was recently in Washington for the spring meetings of the World Bank and the IMF told Daily Times in an informal conversation earlier that he had great love for Pakistani children, had visited the country a number of times and his associate organisations were working hard to bring an end to child labour.

Mr Satyarathi told ABC, “If I was not fighting against child labour, I don't know what else I could do. It was always in my heart, I could not live without that.” He raids factories, but sometimes factory owners flee before he arrives. Sometimes he arrives to find children locked in dark rooms. Sometimes children are hiding in fear. In one case, a factory owner had told child labourers the police were coming to kill them. Some of the children hid in trees. A field nearby revealed one terrified child after another.

“It's really a kind of spiritual feeling which is difficult to explain,” Mr Satyarathi told the US network. “And the smiles come on the face of the children when they realise that they are free.”

Mr Satyarathi was at a conference in Italy last week in order to organise a global march against child labour. “When you are living in a globalised economy and a globalised world, you cannot live in isolation, all the problems and solutions are interconnected, and so the problem of child labour in any part of the world is your problem,” he said

He said the rate of children working in India is higher than anywhere else in the world, even though it is illegal for children under 14 to work. A poor family may have only a dollar a day to live on, so they have to put their children to work. Working children are the children of parents who were once working children. “Many children are born in slavery they have never seen the outside world,” Mr Satyarathi said. The children labour in any number of ways - they make rugs, they work in stone quarries, they pick rags in the streets. Some of them are in bondage to pay off a family debt.

Mr Satyarathi, the ABC report said, has been fighting child labour for 25 years. He has rescued thousands of children. And some of them he's kept free. He has put them in schools, trying to break the cycle. He told the network, “My house has been attacked, I was attacked, my office has been attacked. That was very normal in my life for years and years.” He said the Indian government knows it's a problem and has many child protection laws. But real change requires political will. He said it was his hope that others would realise the importance of his campaign, not simply for the children, but for everyone. “The world should have one thing in mind - if the children are exploited in any part of the world, if the children are deprived of their childhood in any part of the world, the world cannot live in peace. The world cannot be human,” he told ABC.

Source: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_16-5-2004_pg7_59

By Peter Jennings
ABC news

May 14, 2004 — Kailash Satyarthi's work is rescuing children. Throughout India, Satyarthi's mission in life is to change a system in which some children go to work before they are 14.

"If I was not fighting against child labour, I don't know what else I could do. It was always in my heart, I could not live without that."

He raids factories, but sometimes factory owners flee before he arrives. Sometimes he arrives to find children locked in dark rooms. Sometimes children are hiding in fear. In one case, a factory owner had told child labourers the police were coming to kill them. Some of the kids hid in trees. A field nearby revealed one terrified child after another.

"It's really a kind of spiritual feeling which is difficult to explain," Satyarthi said. "And the smiles come on the face of the children when they realize that they are free."

This week we found Satyarthi at a conference in Italy working hard in the way he knows best — organizing others in a global march against child labour.

"When you are living in a globalized economy and a globalized world, you cannot live in isolation, all the problems and solutions are interconnected, and so the problem of child labour in any part of the world is your problem," he said

The rate of children working in India is higher than anywhere else in the world, even though it is illegal for children under 14 to work. A poor family may have only a dollar a day to live on, so they have to put their children to work. Working children are the children of parents who were once working children.

"Many children are born in slavery they have never seen the outside world," Satyarthi said.

The children labor in any number of ways — they make rugs, they work in stone quarries, they pick rags in the streets. Some of them are in bondage to pay off a family debt.

Satyarthi recalls one boy's story. "One day when he was crying for his mother, the master had beaten him up and then struck his head with an iron rod."

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/PersonofWeek/pow_Kailash_Satyarthi_040514-1.html

ICFTU OnLine...
086/140504

ICFTU Online, Florence, May 14, 2004: According to participants at the Children's World Congress on Child Labour, achieving universal free primary education worldwide is an essential part of the solution to ending the continuing scourge of child labour worldwide. The three-day congress convened 10-13 May, in Florence, the capital of Tuscany, Italy.

Around 250 million children are still involved in child labour*, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO). There is clearly a mismatch between the universal public condemnation of child labour, and the reality, which is that the international community has not yet taken the necessary steps to combat it - children from all over the world were joined by a wide range of organizations and governments the ILO, the ICFTU, representatives of several national and international NGOs, as well as the World Bank, the International Labour Organisation, and representatives of several national governments, including Brazil, Mozambique, Costa Rica and the United States.

Testimony at the Congress showed how much remains to be done. Andrews Addoquayetagoe, of the ICFTU-affiliated Ghana Trades Union Congress told of how thousands of Ghanian children, some bonded labourers, work in the fields as "scarecrows" to prevent bats ruining crops. Elsewhere, children, work mending fishing nets, and freeing tangled nets underwater. The GTUC strengthening union education programmes in farming and fishing, where many do not see anything wrong with child labour.

A statement drafted by the child participants expressed frustration with the "empty promises" of governments and had a strong emphasis on education for all. "Most children have expressed that they are losing faith in the governments because of their empty promises. They have made many promises to end child labour through education and better social services. But they do not act. Their promises are not met with real commitment or resources."

ICFTU General Secretary Guy Ryder spoke of the importance of education as the main tool to fight child labour, "Just taking children out of work is not a sustainable approach. Such programmes must be linked to free and universal primary education, and this must be linked to respect for the rights of adult workers. Any development projects which serve to perpetuate the involvement of children in child labour are counterproductive".

This view was echoed by many at the Congress. "Child labour work is not charity work - it has to be part of the broader decent work agenda", commented Sonia Rosen, a former US State Department official who worked on child labour issues under President Clinton.

According to Kailash Satyarthi, founder of the Global March Against Child Labour, "There has been enormous progress on several fronts. We are succeeding in building a worldwide civil society movement. Political will has been mobilised resulting in ratification of the two ILO conventions, and there has been an upsurge in children's participation in the fight to end child labour, involving both former child labourers and school-going children. The impacts have included increased school attendance and progress in social responsibility on the part of business".

CGIL, CISL and UIL, the three Italian affiliates of the ICFTU, played a major role in preparing the congress, one of the highlights of which was a joint protocol they signed with the regional government of Tuscany, to join the fight against child labour.

The congress was not without controversy. Italian unions joined many others at the congress in expressing outrage at a statement by Maria Burani Procaccini, President of the Commission for Childhood of the Italian Parliament, who argued that children have the right to work and the right to form children's 'trade unions'. Savino Pezzotta, Secretary General of ICFTU-affiliated CISL, strongly criticized her, saying that "children have the right to play and go to school, instead of going to work".

In a special session with representatives of the international community, Lieke Wissink, aged 17, asked why the World Bank has said in recent years that some forms of child labour are not harmful, and need not be eradicated. World Bank Executive Director Ad Melkert responded that "all forms of child labour have to be eradicated", noting that while progress in implementing ILO convention 182, on the worst forms of child labour, was an important first step, far more needed to be done in ensuring that there was full implementation of the ILO's convention 138 on the minimum working age.

A report presented by the ILO calculated the cost of eradicating child labour over 20 years, as well as the economic benefits which would accrue from such an investment. According to the ILO, "child labour can be eliminated and replaced by universal education by the year 2020 at an estimated cost of US$760 billion, a benefit nearly seven times greater than the calculated costs."

Trade union delegates from Mauritania, Argentina, the UK, Nepal, the Netherlands, India, Albania, and the Global Union Federation Education International, briefed the congress on their experiences and approaches to ending child labour and getting children into school.

The congress was followed on Thursday by a march attended by thousands of children and adults including many from schools and trade unions near to Florence. The march passed through the streets of the city, culminating symbolically in front of the 600 year old Hospital of the Innocents, the site of one of the world's oldest homes for abandoned and orphaned children, in the Piazza Santissima Annunziata.

* According to ILO estimates, 246 million children worldwide are subject to child labour, including 179 million who are trapped in its worst and most hazardous forms.

www.ei-ie.org
www.ilo.org/childlabour
www.globalmarch.org/worldcongress
www.schoolisthebestplacetowork.org

The ICFTU represents over 151 million workers in 233 affiliated organisations in 152 countries and territories. ICFTU is also a member of Global Unions: http://www.global-unions.org

For more information, please contact the ICFTU Press Department on +32 2 224 0232 or +32 476 621 018.

Sabina Castelfranco
Florence
10 May 2004, 18:03 UTC

The First Children's World Congress on child labour opened Monday in Florence, Italy, and ahead are three days of discussions aimed at developing strategies to eliminate the exploitation of children in the global workforce.

Around 300 children from around the world are taking part in the congress. They are former child workers and child activists who have come together for the first time to share their experiences and proposals to try to combat the exploitation of child labour.

Indian-born Shiv Kumar was 10 years old when he was taken to work in a carpet-weaving factory in Varanasi and told he would be there forever. For five years he worked for no money and little food. He says he worked hard and was often abused and beaten.

Shiv said the world does not realize how many carpets are made and how many children are exploited. He said he came to the congress to tell the world that children should be removed from the work market.

Fifteen-year old Alice, from Abidjan, spoke of her experience working in a garbage dumping ground. Fourteen-year-old Zam Zam, from Saana, sold chewing gum in the streets. Seventeen-year-old Rafana, from Cambodia, told of the long hours she worked on a boat collecting the fish from the nets, and Analuisa, from Honduras, how she cleaned the house and looked after the children of a wealthy family.

All say they were working instead of playing.

Representatives from governments, trade unions, non-government organizations and international institutions are also taking part in the meeting, organized by the Global March against child labour.

The movement, established in 1998 in India, is committed to promoting children's rights, especially the right to be free from economic exploitation.

Kailash Satyarthi is the movement's founder. He explains the extent of the problem. “246 million children are the victims of various forms of child labour, and two-thirds of them are in the most abusive, most exploited forms like slavery and prostitution and child soldiers and so on. Another 100 million children have never had access to school,” he said.

Mr. Satyarthi says children must not perform work that can damage them physically, mentally or spiritually. They have come here, he says, to tell governments they have a right to free and quality education, and are no longer prepared to wait. “Their voices cannot be ignored. They are so sacred, they are so moral, they are so honest. No government can ignore the voices of children,” he added.

The leader of the Global March against child labour says the world should not have the perception that the problem of child labour exists only in poor countries, because he says, it also exists in the developed world.

Source: http://www.voanews.com/

VATICAN CITY, MAY 9, 2004 ( Zenit.org ).- John Paul II called for an end to child labour, saying it impedes millions of children worldwide from receiving a basic education.

"Unfortunately, many children in the world are deprived of primary education and end up being used as manual laborers," the Pope said today after praying the Regina Caeli with pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square.

The Holy Father's appeal took place on the eve of the World Congress of Children Against child labour, which will be held in Florence, Italy, from Monday until May 16.

"I hope this meeting will contribute to promote the concrete recognition of children's rights," the Pope said.

At the same time, he encouraged the work of Catholic schools -- teachers, students and families -- and called on every school "to continue with its valuable service in the formation of new generations."

The congress against the abuse of child labour, organized by the Global March Against child labour, the Italian organization Mani Tese and labor unions.

Five hundred boys, ages 10 to 17, from all over the world will attend, to remind countries and international organizations of their responsibilities.

Source: http://www.zenit.org/english/

By Frances Kennedy
In Rome

The first Children's World Congress on child labour opens in Florence on Monday.

The conference - organised by trade unions and NGOs - intends to bring together current or former child workers and child activists to exchange ideas and put pressure on governments to combat child labour.

The Congress in Florence has evolved out of the global march against child labour that began in 1998 and is now active in 140 countries.

For the first time, young people will take centre stage speaking about their own experiences and pressing for action to end exploitation and ensure free education for all young people.

Also involved are trade unions and non-governmental organisations involved in the fight against child labour.

The International Labour Organisation estimates that 246m children around the world are exploited in full-time work.

Despite signing conventions against the worst forms of child labour, many countries have failed to deliver on their promises to help the abuse.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3699931.stm