GHAZIABAD : A swig is drowning their childhood. Street children, some as young as five years old, can be seen working as "bartenders" in front of liquor vends across Noida and Ghaziabad.

And officials claim they are not even aware of this form of child labour. These boys and girls slog for over 10 hours a day — buying liquor bottles and namkeen for customers waiting in cars.

Many of them start drinking at an early age, from the alcohol left in the bottles. Theirs is a story of future pick-pockets, thieves and drug peddlers in the making, right under our noses.

Picture an evening scene in front of any wine and beer shop at Noida's posh Sector 18 market or at Ghaziabad's Raj Nagar area — where both the district magistrate and the district police chief stay and work.

A car packed with youths screeches to a halt in a public parking lot in front of the liquor shop, with the intention of starting a drinking session inside the vehicle.

ttp://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1310031.cms

The recently published research report ‘The price of childhood’ shows that multinationals outsourcing cotton seed production to Indian farmers pay far too little to enable them to hire adults. This regards Bayer, Monsanto and Syngenta, all three of them companies operating on the European market. The farmers should get almost 40% more for their product to be able to pay adults the legal minimum wage of one Euro per day. Now they are using child labour. Children work about 13 hours a day, even while crops are being sprayed with dangerous pesticides. The farmers would loose money if they would hire adults at the legal minimum wage instead of children. That does not apply to multinational companies.

1. Does the Commission share the opinion that companies like Bayer, Monsanto and Syngenta, as well as Indian companies involved, are responsible for violating human rights, including those on child labour, forced labour, the right to health and the right to life?

2. Does the Commission have the intention to address the companies involved as well as the home countries ( Germany, Switzerland and the USA respectively) regarding their obligation to implement the fundamental labour rights treaties that have been agreed upon in the International Labour Organization?

3. Which initiatives does the Commission take to put the improvement of worldwide labour conditions and social standards on the international agenda, including that of the WTO?

For the background information on which these questions are
based, see: http://www.indianet.nl/pb051031.html

ttp://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/123025/1/1893

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, is promoting a corporate code of conduct that it calls one of the strictest in the industry. But an investigation by SRC, the French-language service of the CBC, casts doubt on the company's capacity to enforce that code in dealing with Third World countries.

Much of the clothing purchased by Wal-Mart is made in poor countries like Bangladesh. It was with the intention of preventing abuse in the workplace, especially the use of child labour, that Wal-Mart introduced its code of conduct. It specifically says the company will not deal with any supplier that employs children under age 14.

For less than $50 per month, workers in Bangladesh knit, sew and pack clothes for sale around the world, and some garments end up at Wal-Mart stores in Canada.

SRC journalists posed as buyers in the Canadian garment industry so they could videotape inside factories in Bangladesh with hidden cameras.

In one factory, typical of many in the country, children were busy with lower-skill tasks. In badly lit, dirty and overheated workshops, young boys were everywhere.

A label reading Simply Basic, one of Wal-Mart's in-house brand names along with the number CA 28885, the corporate ID of Wal-Mart Canada, was seen in the factory.

The same factory also produces Wal-Mart's corporate T-shirt for Canada.

The factory manager told SRC that the children are working on domestic production.

"They do not work on export garments, like Wal-Mart's," said Liakot Patwary. "I can give you [a] guarantee."

http://www.matamat.com/fullstory.php?gd=34&cd=2005-12-01

THERE are over two million children in manual labour in Uganda, with 80% under domestic labour, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) chief technical advisor has said.

Yuki Nose was on Monday addressing a workshop for child labour stakeholders, who included teachers, Police officers and district officials from Mukono district, at the district community centre.

Nose said a report done in 2003 showed that many children were employed in prostitution, which encourages the spread of HIV/AIDS. She said the number of children infected with HIV/AIDS is 1.8 million.

Meanwhile, Joel Ogwang reports that the growing rate of child labour and abuse is dashing Uganda’s hopes of achieving the UN Millenium Development Goals of fighting illiteracy and improving living standards by 2015, according to Nose.

“About 80% of these children are orphaned by HIV/AIDS and their relatives are too poor to cater for their needs. As a result, they end up doing petty jobs to sustain themselves and their siblings,” she said.

She said despite the Government initiating the Universal Primary Education scheme, many children stay out of school.

Yuki said the children work in harsh and hazardous conditions and are paid very little or not at all.

“They work in industries where they come into contact with dangerous chemicals and gases. They are not even availed with protective gear,” she said.

“This affects the children’s physiological development. Many are stunted and with a short lifespan,” she said.

http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/19/466893

Harare - Like every child his age Shamiso Mutete (not his real name), would love to play with the toys everyday after school. But life in Harare's poverty-stricken Kuwadzana suburb appears determined to deny the 11-year old Mutete the opportunity to be a child. For at the toll of the last bell everyday at the government-run Kuwadzana primary school, Mutete must transform from being a carefree child into a seasoned bread winner for his family. From school he dashes home to change from his school uniform and to eat a little lunch - if there is something to eat that day - before he rushes to the local supermarket to buy several cartons of cigarettes. The grade-six pupil is already good friends with shop assistants at the supermarket who always ensure they reserve enough cartons of the most cigarette brands for the youngster. Come the evening and the hard work begins for Mutete and his two friends at Sunset Nightclub in the suburb where they sell cigarettes to patrons, among them prostitutes, thieves, petty drug dealers and factory workers relaxing after a hard day's work in Harare's poor-paying industries.

"I help raise money to pay for my school fees and food for my family from selling cigarettes here," says the shy boy, who says he dreams of becoming a pilot one day - a dream the youngster may never nurture to reality if he continues plying beerhalls every other night. But Simba, the bar tender, is quick to defend Mutete and her friends. Simba says bars and nightclubs would normally not allow people below the age of 18 but according to the barman, Zimbabwe is no longer a normal country and neither are Mutete and his friends living up a normal child's life. "It's not a normal situation but we are not in a normal country either," says Simba, the emphasis in his words indicating his firm conviction that the rules and norms must be broken in order to help the poor children raise much needed cash. He continued: "Conditions in the bar are obviously not conducive for such young children. But we also know that they are not street children. They are from proper families too poor to fend for the children so they get their survival from here." You just need to listen to the young Mutete speaking to learn how true the barman's words are. Mutete's parents are all alive but they are among the millions of unemployed Zimbabweans and the little money his father raises as a part-time shoe cobbler is not just enough to feed the family let alone send children to school.

This is how the 11-year old narrates his situation: "I envy some of my classmates when they talk about their favourite TV shows because for me there is no time to watch TV. It is work and work, otherwise we will starve. My school fees is $280 000 a term. After raising the schools fees by selling cigarettes I try to raise some more money so I could assist my father to pay the rent and water bills as well as buy some food." Such is the plight of an increasing number of Zimbabwe's children as the southern African nation battles an economic meltdown described by the World Bank as unseen in a country not at war. The six year-old crisis has seen inflation shooting to beyond 400 percent while food, fuel, electricity, clean water for cities, hard cash, essential medical drugs and just about every basic survival commodity is in critical short supply. The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change party and government critics blame the crisis on repression and economic mismanagement by President Robert Mugabe. But Mugabe, Zimbabwe's sole ruler since independence 25 years ago, denies ruining the once prosperous country, saying its food and economic problems are because of sabotage by Western countries opposed to his seizure of land from whites and giving it over to blacks. Critics blame the land seizures - which Mugabe says were necessary to correct an unjust colonial land tenure system that gave all the best land to whites - for destabilisng the agricultural sector, causing a 60 percent drop in food output.

Whatever the causes of Zimbabwe's economic and food crisis, the children have been the hardest hit according to Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) president Lovemore Matombo. Matombo, who was last week arrested for organising anti-poverty demonstrations, says child labour was on the rise as many under-age children were being forced to work to help their parents raise cash for survival. "Some of the cases are of children who have been forced to head families because of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. But we are now witnessing a growing trend where children, whose parents are still alive are forced to work part-time and supplement family incomes. It's an unfortunate trend that is on the rise," says the union leader. Thomas Chitewe, from Help Our Children, a local group formed to mobilise assistance for children from poor families, concurred with Matombo. He said: "The economic climate has had devastating and horrendous effects on Zimbabwean children. Many no longer enjoy their childhood because they are forced to become adults at an early age. Many families can't afford to give their children the life that they deserve because of poverty." But Mutete and his friends must consider themselves lucky that they can sell cigarettes and still go to school. Not so for 14-year old Mavis Rukuni, who says she was forced to abandon school altogether and become a housemaid for a richer family in town so she could raise money for her parents and siblings. She told ZimOnline: "My parents did not have money to send me to school. I had to look for work and I send some of my money back to the village so that my parents and remaining younger sister and brother can use."

http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=13236

In the present-day context, many countries in the world are in the grip of conflict in one form or the other. Peace has now been a will-o’-the-wisp. Although conflict is an ill wind that blows nobody any good, a handful of people who have vested interests of their own indulge in conflict at the cost of others. Conflict has a multifarious effect on all the people, young and old and even children. It is due to conflict that many people lose their lives or get maimed or get displaced. The effects of such a scourge are all the more pronounced on women and children.

Child soldiers
It is reported that children are entangled with conflict around the world. They are hired as child soldiers by both the state and rebels. It may be noted that involvement of children in conflict is against the spirit of international human law. International law stipulates non-involvement of children in conflict and rescue of those so involved.

Landmines are a great threat to people, especially children. Children cannot distinguish between landmines and other objects. They may treat landmines as playthings. Many children are killed or maimed due to landmine explosions every year. That people are getting killed or crippled due to the explosion of landmines of the World War era is a matter of concern. International law has forbidden the use, storage, production and transportation of landmines.

Children are used as soldiers in many countries both by the state and rebels. A variety of reasons account for the recruitment of child soldiers. Child labour is cheaper. It is easy to train children in soldiery. Similarly, deployment of soldiers in peace missions for various countries in the world, lack of manpower and poverty and deprivation are other reasons.

Nepal is a signatory to the Convention on Child Rights-1989. The convention gives prominence to child saving, protection, development and participation. It is the duty of the state to honour human rights relating to children.

As per international law, children below the age of 18 are not to be recruited as soldiers in any armed struggle or conflict. The state should see to it that no children are recruited as soldiers, and if any children are found so recruited the state should rescue them. The state should help such rescued children in their physical and mental rehabilitation and socialisation. The state should also enlist international support for the protection and rehabilitation of such children.

In the context of Nepal, it is reported that the Maoist insurgents have recruited children for their forces. They are used as porters and messengers and in hazardous work. It need not be reiterated that most of the children residing in the countryside of Nepal are poor. They would prefer to work as labourers. In some cases, the parents themselves would make their children work as labourers due mainly to poverty and deprivation. Such being the case, it is comfortable for the Maoists to recruit children for their forces. Children are the future builders of any nation. When they are engaged in conflict from their early age, what future will there be in store for them? This is a very important question, which must be addressed by the state.

Nepal lacks a national policy on the prevention of use of children as soldiers in armed conflict. The need for such a policy is all the more urgent in the present-day context. It is high time such a policy were formulated for the benefit of the children across the country.

Kidnapping
There are many NGOs, INGOs and other social organisations working for the upliftment of children in Nepal. They are involved in the welfare of children. Despite this, there are many children involved in the Maoist insurgency. Kidnappings of children, especially schoolchildren, are rampant in recent days. There have been cases where forcibly recruited children have fled the Maoist camps. It is, therefore, imperative that all concerned make concerted efforts to preclude the recruitment of children in the armed forces and rescue the children already recruited from the clutches of the Maoists, thus giving them a new lease of life.

http://www.gorkhapatra.org.np/pageloader.php?file=2005/11/19/editorial/editorial1

SIALKOT Nov 13 : In the wake of forthcoming World Cup, being played next year, the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) has decided to further support the initiatives of Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI), namely elimination of child labour in soccer ball industry.

According to a press release of the SCCI, the FIFA, World Federation of Sporting Goods Industry (WFSGI) and International Labour Organisation (ILO) are putting together a mission to visit Sialkot.

Besides, the experts from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the mission will include FIFA head of Corporate Responsibility Federico Addiechi, Development Programme's head Urs Zanitti and WFSGI Secretary Andre Gorgemans.

The mission, during the SCCI visit from November 22 to 25, will determine the programme with soccer ball manufacturers in Pakistan and with the Independent Monitoring Agency of Child Labour.

The FIFA is likely to provide a substantial funding for the programme, which will include activities for the rehabilitation of children and programmes for sports development in Pakistan.

To formulate a programme for the mission in Sialkot, the SCCI held a meeting of soccer ball manufacturers and other businessmen and decided to form an organising committee under the convenership of M. Sanaullah Khan, which will prepare detailed programme and agenda for discussion with the visiting mission.

http://www.pakistanlink.com/Headlines/Nov05/13/11.htm

Parents are to blame for the poor academic standards in Pallisa district due to failure to provide children with learning materials and lunch, the headmaster of Namirembe Boarding Primary School, Mr Wilson Lyadda, has said.

He said the big numbers of children in Universal Primary Education schools compared to the number of teachers leads to limited concetration thus causing poor performance.
Lyadda said this while addressing parents at the school during the blessing and confirmation of P.7 pupils at the school.

H e commended the government for spearheading the UPE programme that has enabled children to access primary education and appealed to parents to support the government by providing learning materials.

http://www.monitor.co.ug/news/news111021.php

The new Government of Albania has improved the legal framework necessary to reduce the flow of trafficked children, but it must develop a national child protection system aimed at combating the poverty that drives exploitation, a United Nations human rights expert said after completing his visit to the Balkan country yesterday.

Want, lack of opportunities and social services, stigmatized minorities, discrimination against women, and an inadequate educational system are at the root of the scourge, the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography of the UN Commission on Human Rights, Juan Miguel Petit said.

“This is what makes children leaving their communities, in most cases in dangerous conditions. This is what puts them at risk of exploitation and trafficking. This is the disease we have to treat.

“A strong child protection system needs to be put in place, with a firm investment in education and social services, together with strengthened child protection component of police, health and justice,” stressed the expert, who serves in an independent personal capacity.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been providing a good range of social programmes funded almost exclusively through international aid, he said. “It is time for the State to take up responsibilities in social matters, capitalizing on the experiences of NGOs and supporting their activities and programmes.”

Among the important achievements of the Government in the past five years, he cited legislative and policy frameworks, societal awareness, improved police training and border controls and strengthened prosecution capacity.

The expert also emphasized that child trafficking is a global problem. “Countries of destination have their responsibilities as well. It is time they assume them,” he said. “Albanian victims of trafficking are exploited in Greece, Italy, and other European States. These countries have legal obligations and duties vis-à-vis these victims and victims have rights that too often are not respected.”

Mr. Petit carried out his official visit to Albania from 31 October to 7 November, visiting Tirana, Korca and Elbasan and conducting more than 40 meetings with over 100 persons, he said. The Albanian office of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) facilitated the visit, which will be followed by a week-long trip to Greece.

In related news, UNICEF yesterday praised the United States for becoming the 95th country to ratify the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, a supplement to the UN Convention against International Organized Crime, which entered into force in 2003.

The protocol calls for specific measures to prevent human trafficking, prosecute traffickers and protect victims.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=16480&Cr=UNICEF&Cr1=albania

High school students raised a record amount of money for Operation Day's Work yesterday. The money will be sent to a project helping to educate young people in Kyrgyzstan

Thousands of teenagers worked the streets of Denmark yesterday, selling their labour for under the minimum wage. Just another story about child exploitation? Not quite.

The students were part of Operation Day's Work, an annual event now in its 20th year that raises money for projects in developing countries.

Over 35,000 students from 156 schools donated their labour yesterday, collecting a record amount of DKK 7.8 million (EUR 1 million). The money will be donated to the Kyrgyzstan organisation Centre for Protection of Children, which seeks to help 2000 children forced to take jobs in the former Soviet republic make their way back to the educational system.

The Danish students raised money in a number of ways from cycling with advertisements to creating street theatre to raking leaves. Hiring a student cost a start fee of DKK 250 (EUR 33) with an additional DKK 50 (EUR 6.50) per hour charged.

The money raised would go a long way in Kyrgyzstan, according to Kirstine Nordentoft Mose, one of the board members for Operation Day's Work.

'Over half of the population in Kyrgyzstan lives in poverty, victims of the extreme social crisis the former Soviet republics struggle with,' said Mose. 'This year's collection campaign is a distress call to Western countries to take the crisis in these new developing countries seriously.'

The head of the Centre for Protection of Children, Mira Itikeeva, was on hand to witness Operation Day's Work.

'I'm deeply touched by experiencing the incredible commitment among Danish youths. The money from Operation Day's Work gives us the possibility to work long-term with problems for working children in Kyrgyzstan and to support children in fighting for their rights,' said Itikeeva.

High school students will choose the focus for next year's Operation Day's Work project at the end of November. Projects in Mozambique, the Philippines, or South Africa are among those under consideration.

http://denmark.dk/portal/page?_pageid=374,610572&_dad=portal&_schema=
PORTAL&ic_nextitemno=1&ic_itemid=882080

 

The Ministry of Gender, Child Welfare and Community Services has unveiled plans to introduce a hotline for whistle-blowers to report people who abuse children in the country.

The Ministry’s Director of Finance and Administration Tresfore Kang’ombe said during a day-long function organised by Plan Malawi in Kasungu to sensitise people on the importance of registering children at birth.

He said his ministry is concerned with rising cases of child abuse going on in the country when the Constitution provides for their rights.

Kang’ombe observed that because of the child abuse going on in different parts of the country, some children are unable to go to school and are likely to become destitute when they grow up, he lamented.

In this regard, Kang’ombe said the ministry is in the process of implementing a project called “Zero Tolerance on Child Abuse and Exploitation” to involve other stakeholders including community-based groups.

Plan Malawi, Unicef and other NGOs are working with the government to have all the children registered so that the government can plan properly its programmes.

Sam Sande, Plan Malawi Programme Unit Manager for Kasungu, said they decided to organise the function to sensitise people on the ongoing children’s registration exercise.

The activities included a big walk, demonstrations by organisations involved in family planning, HIV and Aids prevention and a football match.

Speaking at a similar function on Friday, Secretary for Labour Andrew Daudi commended the Creative Centre for Community Mobilisation (Creccom) and Together Ensuring Child Security (Tecs) for the work they are doing in Kasungu and Dowa to eliminate child labour.

http://www.nationmalawi.com/articles.asp?articleID=13508

The Special Rapporteur of the Comission on "Human Rights, on sale of children, child prostitution and child pornografy" - Juan Miguel Petit - is visiting Albania. After he will visit Athens and prepare a report that will be presented to the UN Human Rights Commission.

The United Nations have started an investigation of trafficking of children in Albania. The children are often victims of trafficking for prostitution. Juan Miguel Petit, the UN Special Reporter, held a meeting with the Minister of Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, Koco Barka, to discuss this issue. The investigation will also include Greece.

Minister Barka expressed his willingness and the willingness of his Ministry to integrate these children back into the society, to help them avoid the danger presented by the trafficking rings.

“We have no reliable figures, but according to unofficial data, there are 8,000 Albanian children in Greece and Italy without there parents at this very moment. The children are the main target of trafficking rings”, said Kosta Barjaba, the Ministry’s Chief of Cabinet, and added that the Government has made the cooperation with the immigrant hosting countries its priority, in order to solve this problem.

During his visit to Albania, Pettit will meet with state officials, politicians and NGO representatives that work on this field. After Tirana, he will visit Athens and prepare a report that will be presented to the UN Human Rights Commission.

http://www.terrelibere.it/terrediconfine/index.php?x=completa&riga=01658

When social workers found the starving children at the Hannah B. Williams orphanage in Monrovia, they were eating frogs because the owner had sold the food donated by aid agencies at a market in Liberia's capital.

"Sometimes, we went into the swamp to eat chicken green weeds (swamp weeds) because of hunger," said 17-year-old Michael, who was beaten if he was caught outside the orphanage.

"Some children, seven or older, would go outside to ask for help from anybody," he added.

When authorities closed the building earlier this year, 89 of the 102 so-called "orphans" were reunited with their families. Many parents believed they had sent their children to a boarding school and some were even paying fees.

Such tales are becoming increasingly common as a U.N.-backed task force tries to clean up Liberia's orphanages and reunite thousands of families across the West African country, crippled by 14 years of sporadic civil war.

The war displaced nearly a third of Liberia's 3.4 million people and caused more than 250,000 deaths. As terrified families fled bush battles, children were lost. Some joined the ranks of drugged-up child soldiers, either by choice or coercion; others were taken into orphanages, but there, too, some were exploited.

Many rogue orphanages are "recruiting" Liberian children from their families and keeping them in appalling conditions in order to increase the aid they receive, authorities say.

"We have this problem all over the country," said Vivian Cherue, Liberia's deputy minister for health. "So far, we have only assessed two out of 15 counties and we have found 35 orphanages that need to be closed."

Children from closed orphanages would be moved to accredited institutions if their families could not be found, Cherue said.

Laurie Galan, a child protection worker in the north of Africa's oldest independent republic, said she had had problems with two out of three orphanages where families had been traced.

"I've come across orphanages that have just taken kids and the families have no idea what happened to them," said Galan. "They know the task force wants to do family tracing, but some are deliberately obstructing it."

POST-WAR CHAOS

Last month, Liberia held its first elections since the 2003 peace deal, a vote meant to bring stability to a country founded by freed American slaves in 1847.

A presidential run-off on Nov. 8 pits soccer star George Weah against former World Bank economist Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

Slowly, people are rebuilding their lives in a country where the capital is still without piped water or mains electricity.

However, some children in orphanages are still waiting to start new lives. Some institutions are reluctant to give up children they cared for when their parents were missing.

United Nations police intervened earlier this year after a nun, who ran an orphanage in the northeastern town of Saclepea, refused to give back children she gathered from refugee camps in neighbouring Guinea. Eventually 57 of 61 children were reunited with their parents.

In another institution in the northern city of Ganta, Galan said she saw severely malnourished children forced to sell bulgur wheat by the side of the road. Bulgur wheat is the staple food supplied to the orphanages by the U.N. World Food Programme.

"It's a shame because there are genuine orphanages that are losing out (on aid)," Galan said.

LIVED IN GRAVEYARD

Sometimes, it is difficult to tell whether conditions are the result of poverty and years of war or corruption.

At the Teemas Orphanage on the outskirts of Monrovia, 46 boys sleep in one room on a urine-stained concrete floor with six thin foam mattresses between them.

Conditions are barely better in the girls' room. The roof of the derelict building has collapsed and plastic tarpaulins stretched over sticks protect the children from the rain and fierce sun.

In a tattered tent outside, an epileptic girl lives by herself. She says she is 15, although she has the high fluting voice and the stature of an eight year old.

"I thank God for this," said the orphanage's director, Doris Weefar, gesturing to her shabby surroundings. "For three weeks we lived in a graveyard. It was terrible."

The children have been displaced four times by war, most recently by the battle known by local residents as "World War Three" where rebel LURD forces and child soldiers loyal to then- President Charles Taylor laid waste to central Monrovia.

Yet here, too, many of the "orphans" were left by their parents. Weefar found at least two of them wandering the street while Monrovia was under attack and collected them as she fled.

The orphanage has records for 57 of its 79 children. Of those, half had a living relative, often their mother or father.

"Father left in war," reads one hand-written form. "No assistance." "Needs educational help," says another.

Weefar insists that, despite the poor living conditions, her children are fed three times a day -- more than many families can afford -- and she is doing her best to educate them.

She says she is using a grant from the former U.S. ambassador to build a new institution. But the Ministry of Health is not satisfied: the orphanage is slated for closure.

"She has had a year since we first inspected her," said Cherue. "Ten other orphanages have made improvements in that time and the point remains, an orphanage is not a school. If these children have parents, then they belong at home."

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L28620663.htm