Thousands of children working as domestics

HONDURAS

Havana. October 19, 2004

BY MARIA VICTORIA VALDES-RODDA—Granma International staff writer

ILL-TREATED and enslaved children are a persistent problem in our region. The Honduran government’s disregard of these issues keeps reappearing. According to a recent report by the International Labor Organization (ILO), there are thousands of children working in the domestic labor sector, considered all over the world to be one of the worst forms of child exploitation.

Rosa Corea, an ILO official, pointed out that Central America and the Dominican Republic stuck out in contrast with the rest of the continent regarding poor working conditions and low wages paid to children who lack any kind of labor rights or social security. Corea stated that the situation was very serious in Guatemala, Panama and the Dominican Republic, but Honduras is the country with most disadvantages for its youth.

On September 25, Thaís Aguilar, director of the Women's News Service, corroborated this information, affirming that besides the high levels of juvenile delinquency, and sexually abused teenagers, the country should be ashamed of its 20,764 child domestic workers.

Even if there is a widespread belief that only girls are recruited by the so-called apron army, today in Honduras, indigent boys are also opting for this means of survival.

According to the ILO, the domestic labor sector employs 6.2% of children and teenagers in the workforce. Paradoxically, working in this sector comes almost as a relief for these young people, taking into account that 80% of the population lives in poverty in this Central American country.

Silence has not been maintained in this context. Many professionals in different areas: pedagogy, psychology, criminology, and sociology are asking why Honduras tolerates these levels of child labour without taking action.

Senior members of the child labour Eradication Program, CLEP, have repeatedly urged the higher Honduran authorities to concentrate on social labor issues and the most marginalized sectors. In their considerations, these officials affirm that child domestic workers receive the lowest wages, lose contact with their families indefinitely – an important environment for to shaping their personalities — and, as one would expect, quit their education.

But the worst, they claim, is that most of these children are beaten and even raped, and that police agents have failed to intervene until the damage done to these victims is almost irreversible.

The Public Health Ministry officially admits that six out of 10 girls under 19 have been pregnant at least once or have at least one child. Almost all these pregnancies, according to the source, are the result of rape.

The debate over the somber future of Honduran children heated up last month when her own family’s sexual abuse led a 14-year-old girl to commit suicide on September 10. Society was profoundly shocked since the suicide occurred on the day when Hondurans celebrate Children’s Day.

In reference to this, Aguilar stated: “the government should carry out institutional reforms complying with international agreements, and enforce laws regulating child and teenage labor and all their years of growth.” She emphasized that the authorities should no longer treat this issue superficially, but implement systematic approaches “putting into place social and educational policies to counter poverty, and allow children and teenagers to fully enjoy their rights.”

In 1994, the Honduran Committee for Children’s Rights and the spokesperson of the Children’s Convention, of which Honduras is a member, suggested that the country should implement mechanisms to protect children from the moment that they are born.

This assertion was based on the sad fact that a large number of newborn babies were not recorded in the civil registry, and these children will grow up without knowing their age or family, and be abandoned or sold into slave labor.

Source: http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2004/octubre/mar19/43honduras-i.html

Indian activists attack child labour

UPI - Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Tuesday, October 19, 2004 4:52:51 AM EST

NEW DELHI, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- Indian activists are tackling the problem of child labour in a campaign to get parents and employers to send working children back to school.

Child Age, a non-profit organization in India, has started a drive to break the cycle of illiteracy and poverty, but with mixed results, Channel NewsAsia reported Tuesday.

Unofficial figures say there are some 90 million working children in India alone, one-fourth of the number around the world. Children as young as 5, 6 or 7 years of age are working as shop assistants, domestic helpers, and doing odd jobs of all sorts.

Children working in a stone quarry in east India's Siliguri district were being paid $12 a month, the report said.

Zulfikar Khan, the president of Child Age, said that some employers prefer to hire children because they are easy to recruit and are paid less than adults. Parents don't see the value of education and would rather have their children working, a view shared by some children as well. Some would view taking their jobs away as a punishment.

India's labor laws forbid the employment of children under 14 in hazardous environments, but leave them free to work under non-hazardous conditions. The country does not have a nationwide compulsory education system.

Source: http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story.asp?StoryId=Cqxsrqeid
Aw5KAweTy2HPBgrSywjVCG#top

Pakistan’s educational policies impressive: Rocca

October 20 2004

ISLAMABAD: US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca on Tuesday appreciated Pakistan’s educational policies, and assured cooperation between the two countries for further improvement of education.

Talking to Federal Education Minister Lt-Gen (retd) Javed Ashraf she said the US Congress was likely to pass a $200 million bill for health and education sectors of Pakistan. She assured assistance of the Bush administration and USAID to country’s educational sector and termed the Pak-US cooperation in education a pillar of bilateral relations. Rocca, who deals with the South Asian Affairs, expressed satisfaction over the pace of progress of the ministry to improve education system in the country and for making it accessible to all, particularly those in the remote areas. She hoped Pakistan would soon achieve the "Education for All" target, owing to the revolutionary steps the country was taking. Javed briefed Rocca about the projects and plans evolved by the ministry and their implementation to the grassroots level. He said the government was making all efforts to improve basic education in the country.

He said the current budgetary allocations for the education sector were a record in country’s history and were aimed at introducing new concepts in the system. The minister urged both the international partners and the donor agencies, including the USAID, to continue their support and assistance for Pakistan’s education sector. Javed said all international donors, including the Unicef, Jica, DFID, Unesco and USAID were satisfied with the disbursement of grants and aid given to the ministry. He briefed her on the steps being taken by the government to eliminate child labour from the country, and to bring the out-of-school children back to schools.

He said that under the Education Sector Reforms, it was the objective of the government to make education accessible to all in the country and hoped to meet the target of Education for All by 2015. He also briefed the envoy on the introduction of human rights education in schools and establishment of science labs in Fata schools. The envoy said the US would continue cooperation by granting scholarships and other assistance packages to Pakistan. She also appreciated the performance of Pakistani teachers who got training in the US.

Rocca said the Pakistani-Americans were very pro-active during the forthcoming US presidential elections.

Source: http://www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en
72983&F_catID=&f_type=source

UN body urges Pakistan to improve child rights by 2007

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has asked the Pakistani government to improve its ‘extremely unsatisfactory’ child rights record by the year 2007 with the implementation of Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

Casting doubts on the educational system of residential madrassas, the committee called for strengthening madrassa reforms to ensure that children are not admitted forcibly. The UN committee accused the government of making children in Pakistan more vulnerable to insecurity, sexual exploitation, bonded labour, maltreatment in schools and seminaries, and malnutrition.

The UN committee discussed Pakistan’s second periodic report on the CRC at its 34th session recently and gave recommendations and assigned many tasks to the government to protect children’s rights, sources in the Law and Justice Ministry’s Human Rights Division said. Although the committee praised Pakistan’s ratification of the International Labour Organisation Convention 182; the 2002 ordinance to combat child trafficking, Compulsory Primary Education Act 1995 and the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000, it identified many areas where children were vulnerable. The UN body urged the government to review the Zina (adultery) and Hudood Ordinance to ensure their compatibility with the CRC. It has also called upon Pakistan to ratify protocols on the sale of children, child prostitution, child pornography and the involvement of children in armed conflicts.

The committee has also prescribed minimum age of marriage of girls 18 years and also called for raising the minimum age for criminal responsibility and for employment according to the ILO convention. The UN committee called upon the government to ensure the CRC was implemented in Northern and Tribal Areas. The committee reiterated its demand that the government should scrutinise carefully the laws to ensure that the provisions and principles of the convention were implemented throughout Pakistan.

It also recommended free primary education for all children and introduction of human rights in curricula. The committee stressed an independent mechanism to monitor the implementation of the CRC. It asked the government to give priority to increase budget allocations for children, especially for health, education and child development.

The committee identified the status of street children as one of the main areas of concern and called for an effort to save them from violence, torture, sexual abuse and exploitation. The UN meeting criticised lack of registration of missing children and stressed protecting refugee families and children in refugee camps and elsewhere in Pakistan. It called for giving special attention to unaccompanied refugee children. The committee also showed concern over increasing drug abuse among the Pakistani children and called for developing a national drug control plan.

Source:http:www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_18-10-2004_pg7_26

Activists in India start drive to stop child labour

19 October 2004 1148 hrs (SST)

By Channel NewsAsia's India Correspondent Vaibhav Varma

Children forced into manual labour to make a living for their families is a grim reality in some developing countries.

The problem is a deeply rooted one, often because some societies simply take working-children for granted.

The children are at most 5, 6 or 7 years old. But all they know is a life at this stone quarry in East India's Siliguri district.

Thirty of them have been sent here by their parents to earn a living for the family. Every month, the children get 600 rupees each, the equivalent of 12 US dollars.

A small amount it may seem but it represents a valuable contribution to the household income.

Working day and night, they've all but forgotten what it's like to have a carefree childhood.

Urvashi, Child Labourer, said: "I break stones for money because there's no food at home."

His name was withdrawn from the school register 4 years ago. Unofficial figures say there are some 90 million working children in India alone, one-fourth of the number around the world.

Odd-job mechanics, shop assistants, domestic helpers - these are some of the other types of jobs children have been made to work as.

Zulfikar Khan, President, Child Age, said: "Some employers simply prefer children. They are easy to source and are paid less. Why will they want to hire adults who demand so much more?"
Child Age, a non-profit organisation in India, has started a drive to get these children to go back to school.

It's an uphill battle though, as many of these children come from poor families who do not recognise the value of having an education.

Rather than plan for the future, parents and sometimes the children themselves, choose to earn for the present.

The biggest problem that needs to be addressed is the cycle of poverty and illiteracy passing down the generations.

In fact, some go so far as to say that forcing these kids out of work is a punishment rather than a favour. - CNA

Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/southasia/
view/112348/1/.html

Girls as young as 13 found selling sex

Posted on Mon, Oct. 18, 2004

BY KARL FISCHER

Knight Ridder Newspapers

RICHMOND, Calif. - (KRT) - Elizabeth shivers beneath her denim micro-mini and halter top. A sly cartoon woman on her shirt winks at customers, inquires "Lookin' for me?" in the caption.

"Every first time is scary," the 16-year-old explains, eyeing a pair of police cadets as they prepare her booking papers on a cold October evening. "I mean, the first time, the first trick, you know. Everything."

Elizabeth, not her real name, first bared baby fat and acne-dusted cheeks on 23rd Street about two weeks ago.

This night brought a new flurry of firsts: First undercover officer, first arrest, first ride to City Jail. "I got into the car so ... oh well, that's what happens," she said sheepishly. At this time last month she worked at a Stockton pizza joint.

Nobody here bats an eye. Vice detectives have encountered Elizabeths by the bushel since kicking off a sting program in this emerging red-light district a few weeks ago - the youngest so far was 13.
"There are a lot of girls working out here from out of the area," said Detective Alvin Parker, cruising the heart of Richmond's Latino district in an undercover car. "There's all kinds. What's been kind of surprising is the number of really young girls."

Police began publicizing their prostitution-sting campaign last week in response to complaints about a sharp increase in streetwalkers from merchants and residents this year.

"What we think happened was that one or two girls started working here for a while and we didn't see them. So they put the word out," Parker said. "Suddenly, they're all here."

Prostitutes here earn $50 to $150 per "date" and, thanks to all-hours traffic, upwards of $500 to $800 in an evening, according to seven women arrested last Wednesday night. A rainbow of ages and ethnicities come here, though customers prefer the young.

The girls stroll at dusk, peeking from side streets where pimps leave them. They circle colorful storefronts, past bus stops and stroller-pushing mommies, calling to drivers or swaying at the curb.

They attract swarms of slow-rolling cars and undercover law enforcement, which takes notes and video-tapes while waiting for the subtle cues that signal probable cause to arrest.

While police tend to focus on the women, Sgt. Ron Berry said the department will soon begin forwarding the names of arrested johns to local media in hopes of shaming prospective customers into staying home.

A business community that complained long and loud about streetwalkers should embrace the public enforcement campaign, City Council candidate John Marquez said.

"It's gotten much worse lately. Merchants have been bringing it to my attention as well as residents," said Marquez, a face long associated with Latino interests in city politics. "They're doing their business in cars right in front of people's houses."

Scantily-clad women wave to the 65-year-old when he drives. A pair of hookers walked into a restaurant and propositioned him as he ate dinner a few months ago.

But local prostitutes generally prefer younger Latino men, especially recent immigrants, Marquez said. Avenues bordering the street are full of blue-collar immigrant workers far from home. Loneliness, disposable income and ethnic stereotyping by prostitutes make these men ideal johns.

Several women arrested during police stings last week said they prefer Latino men because they don't rob, assault or "lowball" them and almost never turn out to be police. They ascribed those negative attributes to johns of other ethnicities.

"What's happening is a lot of these women who are being brought in are concentrating on young Latinos who work hard and have money," Marquez said. "And a lot of the hookers won't get into cars with anyone but Latinos because they're afraid it's a sting."

Heather, 27, sounds like a middle-school dance chaperone beneath the layers of eyeliner, atomic red lipstick and tight tube top with the phrase "Playgirl" across the front.

"Half of these girls are underage. If you're 14, you need to go home," she said as police prepared to book her. "I wish I could tell them to go home."

For Heather's part, she does not intend to return home to Miami. She's running from a pimp, whose name she sports on a tattoo across her neck.

She traveled a long way to work here, as many do. Street prostitution is transient work.

"The money is not good here," Heather said. "I've been everywhere in the Bay Area, San Francisco, it's not hard. But here everyone wants to give you, like, $15."

Pimps ferry women between red-light districts in the Bay Area, influenced by word-of-mouth estimations of customer volume and police enforcement. A girl working this street tonight may pop up tomorrow in San Francisco, Oakland or even Sacramento.

Detectives often arrest women from out of state. One 18-year-old in pink Capri pants said she was from Tennessee, and cried about her three children when officers led her to their car. A second 18-year-old, from Parchester Village, says she's been arrested 11 times.

"They were up front about it," said detective Parker, talking about a recent bust that netted a 13-year-old prostitute. "There was another (22-year-old) girl out there chaperoning, telling guys, `If she goes, I go too.""

Police arrested 22-year-old Donald Lamar Lee on suspicion of pimping that girl. Detectives arrested a 14-year-old prostitute two weeks earlier.

"To seduce a girl that age, to charm her, that's not hard for a lot of these pimps," said Barbara Loza-Muriera of the Interagency Children's Policy Council of Alameda County, who compiled a report about Bay Area child prostitution last year.

"Many girls identify these young men as lovers or boyfriends. It seems romantic or glamorous. Think `Pretty Woman"" Loza-Muriera said. "They think, `He's not in it for the money, he wants me.""

The 13-year-old who Richmond police arrested last week told a surprisingly empty story: She simply got in the car with a stranger who propositioned her and "willingly" went to work.

Three nights later, Parker spotted her on the corner. "She looked just like a school kid," he said. The girl, in fact, was a middle-school student.

Police use undercover stings primarily to pressure adult sex workers off the strip and to shepherd underage prostitutes into social services. Prosecutors rarely file charges against arrestees, detectives admit, except for egregious repeat offenders. City Jail typically releases adult prostitutes without warrants a few hours after their arrest.

Underage hookers are usually returned to their parents or sent to social service programs such as foster care through the department's Family Services Unit or Contra Costa Juvenile Court.

Elizabeth, for her part, didn't know what would happen to her next. She seemed unconcerned about it.

"I didn't run away. I have a mother. I mean, I have a roof over my head," Elizabeth said as she waited for her ride to City Jail. "I moved out. I moved in with my aunt" in Oakland.

Elizabeth made $450 every two weeks at a Stockton pizza restaurant. She got a job at an Oakland pizza place after she moved, earning only $200 weekly. She made that same $200 in one night shortly after beginning to turn tricks. That's not much, she notes, "but I am a novice."

She turns the money over to her pimp. He provides her with all the spending cash she needs, she says in a matter-of-fact tone that belies her sweet-girl smile.

"Yeah, I'm scared sometimes. I guess."

Source: http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/living/9949028.htm

Ghanaian Children in Internet Pornography

Sunday, 17 October 2004

The National Coordinator of the International Labour Organisation Action Programme Against Forced Labour and Trafficking in West Africa Eric Okrah, has said information reaching his office indicate that there are a lot of Ghanaian children involved in pornography on the internet.

Children he said are lured into the act of sending pornographic material on themselves to their friends when they start chatting with such people on the internet.

The photos are then posted to the World Wide Web showing the children in pornographic poses.

If you see the photos INTERPOL sent to my office you would be surprised that Ghanaian children could do that," he said.

He has therefore asked parents to be vigilant on the activities of their children who visit internet cafes where they have access to all forms of pornographic material which they in turn copy.

Okrah was speaking at a meeting in Accra on Child labour and trafficking, a fortnight ago. It was organised by the Women in Broadcasting (WIB) in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

He also said a lot of children are being used as drug carriers and drug pushers, since children are less suspected to be carrying drugs by security agencies.

He said the UN convention on the rights of the Child recognizes the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation or any work that is hazardous to their health or would interfere with their education.

Okrah also asked parents to invest in the education of their children as against putting up houses and other forms of properties. "It is better to put their investment in the person through education rather than leaving the person a house," he said.

He said as a result of parental neglect many children have found themselves on the streets making ends meet through ways that would not guarantee a good future for them.

He said child labour is exploitative, but attractive because children are vulnerable. "Child labour is cheap, Children will not form trade unions and fight for their rights." He explained.

He disclosed that there is a distinction between child labour and child work. While child labour interrupts a child's education, and is sometimes harmful to the child's health, child work refers to the light duties children perform under the supervision of their families.

Children aged 13 years can engage in light work, that is not harmful to their health and children aged 15 and above can be fully employed upon completion of basic school.

The Worst forms of child labour in Ghana include child trafficking, domestic servitude, street work, surface mining, quarrying and children in agriculture among others.

According to the Ghana Child Labour Survey Report 2000, over one million children are engaged in child labour in Ghana.

Out of this 242,074, between the ages of 13 to 17 are engaged in mining, quarrying, hotel, restaurants and fishing. Again about 220,891 children are engaged in night work while 14, 221 of them work for more than four hours a day. In addition, 254,447 of them are engaged in other economic activities.

A private legal Practitioner Geogette Francois, contributing to the discussions, said although Ghana was the first to ratify the UN convention on the rights of the child, people have gone unpunished for violating it. She pointed out that, issues affecting children engaged in employment are human rights issues, and must worry all Ghanaians.

The President of WIB, Sarah Akrofi-Quarcoo on her part asked journalists to be interested in child labour issues since children are an important group in the entire society. "When we are all old and gone, the children of today will take over the administration of the country and we should equip them with the skills to do so effectively," she said.

The issue of child labour especially in the West Coast of Africa is giving the continent a bad image.

A couple of years ago, a ship was found on the high seas of West Africa carting Malian children like goods to work in cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast. What made the situation more serious was that all the children were of school going age. This news led to threats of boycotts of cocoa products from West Africa by the international chocolate consumers associations.

Afraid to lose their businesses, the International Confectionery Association (ICA) has formed a partnership with other stakeholders in the cocoa industry to curb the menace of child labour in cocoa plantations in West Africa.

Thus a project dubbed the West African Cocoa/Agriculture Project (WACAP) has been initiated.

As a sub-regional project under the International Labour Organisation (ILO)'s International Programme on Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), it aims among others at preventing and eliminating the worst forms of child labour in the cocoa sector and other agricultural sub-sectors in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroun, Guinea and Nigeria.

According to ILO estimates, more than 250 million children between the ages of five and 14 are engaged in economic activities throughout the world.

More than half of them are said to work full time every day all year round. Again about 70 percent of these children are engaged in agricultural activities, which generally involve long working hours for meagre wages and often under hazardous working conditions.

Source: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/
NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=67967

Many Iraqi children forced to work because of country's grinding poverty

Sunday, October 17, 2004

Borzou Daragahi

Newhouse News

Baghdad, Iraq- Everyone in the neighborhood knows little Mohammed, the short, sunburned boy in a worn track suit who runs the sidewalk knickknack stand in the Jaderiah district of Baghdad. To them he's the polite kid who sells cigarettes, packs of stale gum and Iraqi-made soft drinks to passing drivers and pedestrians.

But they may not know that Mohammed Hamid, 13, whose labors earn him $2 a day, harbors a dream.

"I want to be a doctor when I grow up," he says. "And I'm capable of it."

Before he joins the Iraqi capital's hardscrabble army of working kids each afternoon, Mohammed plays the model student at his middle school, worrying about maintaining his grades and trying to make a favorable impression on the other kids despite his modest clothes.

"When there are no customers, I study," says Mohammed, who uses the money he makes to help support his extended family of 11. "We're poor. My parents asked me to go to work and school at the same time. Sometimes I feel ashamed that I have to work. But I also feel proud that I'm helping my family."

Once home to one of the Arab world's most middle-class societies, Iraq has been ground into poverty by decades of political trouble. The country's successive wars and internal violence have killed off many breadwinners, leaving widowed mothers and orphaned children.

Iraq's child labour woes predate the U.S.-led invasion of last year. Indeed, just before the war, the White House cited "instances of forced labor" among children and "military training camps for children" as one of its top 10 reasons for deposing Saddam Hussein.

But if anything, life amid the violence and instability of occupation has become even more grueling and dangerous for Iraq's youngest.

"The situation was better before the war," said Ibrahim Nimat, an official at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. "There is no support for some families and the absence of steady income is causing a loosening of the family. They push their children to work selling petrol [gasoline] or cigarettes. This used to happen before, but never to this extent."

Few in Iraq are starving to death. Thanks to a food-rationing program begun in the late 1990s, almost all Iraqi families receive a monthly allowance of rice, cooking oil, salt, sugar and other basic food needs.

But years of United Nations- imposed sanctions, booming rents and postwar inflation have driven even well-to-do families into poverty and forced many of their youngest members into the work world.

There they face a variety of risks and challenges.

One of Mohammed's best friends, a fellow cigarette vendor, was killed when an insurgent's car bomb blew up near him last May.

"That was the scariest thing," he recalls. "I was sitting right here at my stand when the explosion happened. I couldn't go back to work for the next three days."

Statistics on child labour are sketchy. The International Labor Organization estimates that 66,000 Iraqi children between the ages of 10 and 14 hold jobs - a reduction from the 74,000 at work in 1995, before the U.N.- monitored rationing program began lifting the lives of some Iraqis out of utter despair.

In a more startling study, conducted by the Children's Parliament on the Right to Education, one in four Iraqi children between the ages of 6 and 12 were found not to be enrolled in school, nearly four times the average in the wider Arab world.

Iraq's child labourers lead quietly stoic lives. Old before their time, they are in constant danger of exploitation, exposed to all manner of threats on the capital's increasingly mean streets.

In theory, Iraq has some of the most progressive child labour rules in the region. Iraqi law bars children under 15 from working and demands strict worker safety conditions for those 15 and over.

By law, working children must receive the same rights and benefits as adults, as well as regular health checkups. They must draw at least one-third of an adult salary and are barred from working more than seven hours a day, says labor ministry official Nimat.

But in practice, few employers, parents or children abide by such regulations. "Nobody obeys the law," Nimat says.

Unlike Mohammed, many of Iraq's children forgo school for work.

Mohammed Abdul-Wahab, 15, works at the Sheik Omar car mechanic shop on Palestine Street. He says he quit school when teachers began demanding money from parents for teaching their kids. "Work is better," he says through rotting teeth. "As long as I know how to read and write, that's all I need."

But like many of Iraq's child labourers, his tough-guy demeanor masks real anguish over lowered expectations and dashed dreams. And after a few minutes of conversation in the noisy, oil-splattered garage, he admits he'd rather still be in school.

Source: http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/
base/news/109800582285410.xml

UZBEKISTAN: Exhibition highlights child labour

15 Oct 2004 14:26:05 GMT

Source: IRIN

TASHKENT, 15 October (IRIN) - Campaigners against child labour in the country's cotton sector opened a photo exhibition on Friday in the capital, Tashkent, in an attempt to highlight the practice. Uzbekistan is one of the five top cotton producers in the world, with thousands of children and students picking cotton in vast cotton fields during the harvest months of September to November.

The photo exhibition "Cotton - White Gold of Uzbekistan", organised jointly by the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), a media NGO, and the Swiss embassy in Tashkent, is a rare attempt to draw attention to the use of hundreds of thousands of young people to bring in the nation's cotton. Critics of the practice say it impacts on the health and education of young people.

On 8 October, Rustam Akhliddinov, the first deputy minister of public education, confirmed that 44,000 senior pupils and students had been mobilised to harvest the crop this year, but critics say the number does not include junior school children helping their parents.

"Eighty percent of our schools are located in rural areas and children in these schools help their parents and farmers to harvest cotton - our national wealth. It is obvious that children help their parents to keep their livelihoods," the deputy minister said at a press conference at the time.

The photographs, by German Thomas Graska, depict the faces of children working on Uzbek cotton plantations. "To make my photos I didn't look for working children, they were just everywhere in the cotton fields," he told IRIN. "It was so sad for me to see them working, while their contemporaries in Germany spend their time in study and leisure," he said.

"We have been writing about it [child labour] endlessly," Galima Bukharbaeva, head of IWPR office in Tashkent, told IRIN. "Now we came to the conclusion, maybe it is not enough to write about it, maybe it is time to show the public the reality which exists on cotton plantations and show under what conditions children work," she said.

Local rights activists used the exhibition launch to call on the international community to boycott Uzbek cotton. "They [local governors] use children as slaves. Furthermore, these children and their parents don't get any benefit, although cotton is sold for hard currency," Motabar Tajibaeva, a rights activist from the eastern Uzbek province of Fergana, present at the opening, told IRIN. "That's why 18 NGOs in Uzbekistan are telling the international community to boycott - not to buy Uzbek produced cotton," she added.

The photographs will be displayed for two weeks. Organisers hope government officials, especially from the educational and agricultural ministries, will visit the exhibition. The exhibition will also give teachers and schoolchildren in Tashkent an idea of the conditions their contemporaries in rural areas are working under to gather the 'white gold'.

Source: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/94
31c25492d025d0db4df9c036af0a38.htm

‘INDUS’ project for elimination of Child Labour

Friday, October 15, 2004

[India News]: The Ministry of Labour & Employment, India and Department of Labour, USA have prepared a project ‘INDUS’ under International Labour Organisations – International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (ILO-IPEC) for Prevention & Elimination of Child Labour in identified Hazardous Sectors.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has given its approval for the following:

Implementation of the INDUS Project in identified 20 districts in the five States of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and the NCT of Delhi by the Ministry of Labour and Department of Elementary Education & literacy, Ministry of HRD.

The Ministry of Labour & Employment will have the option to extend this project to a few more districts by utilizing the overall savings in the project.

INDUS Project to be treated as an additional/special component of the National Child Labour Project Scheme of Ministry of Labour & Employment and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan of Ministry of Human Resource Development.

Incurring of expenditure not exceeding US $ 13 million (Rs.59 crore) by the Ministry of Labour & Employment for their component of the project, and of US $ 7 million (Rs. 31.5 crore) by the Department of Education for their component of the project from their on-going scheme of SSA. This would be equally matched by ILO contribution of US $ 20 million. The contribution of the Ministry of Labour & Employment not exceeding Rs.59 crore on the INDUS Project would be in addition to the approved outlay of Rs.602 crore for the NCLP scheme.

The Scheme would provide rehabilitation to 80,000 working children in the identified hazardous industries in 20 districts of five States of U.P., M.P., T.N., Maharashtra and NCT of Delhi.

Source: http://athens-olympics-2004.newkerala.com/?action=fullnews&id=36847

Their skills can't be contested

Saturday, Oct 16, 2004

IT'S DURING student days that one dreams of great things about future and develops novel ideas and strong opinions on diverse issues. But not many get a chance to put forth their views in public.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Southern Region, and the United Nations International Children's Educational Fund (UNICEF) have jointly organised the `Talent Contest for Rural Children of South Tamil Nadu' to give shape to dormant ideas and opinions of students of government schools in rural areas.

The contest, held in eight districts, was classified into three groups, one for standards VI to VIII, another for standards IX and X and one more for standards XI and XII.

There was an overwhelming response to the competition. Nearly 1,600 students participated in the preliminary rounds, of which, 400 were selected for the two-day final event, which began at TVS Lakshmi Matriculation Higher Secondary School on Friday.

In all, 230 contestants from Madurai, Sivaganga, Pudukottai and Dindigul took part in the final round. An equal number of students from Tuticorin, Theni, Virudhunagar and Ramanathapuram will take part in the final round on Saturday.

The contest was split into three segments, drawing, elocution and essay, based on three topics, `education to girl child', `female infanticide' and `child labour'. A majority of the participants chose to express their views on `education to girl child', followed by `female infanticide' and `child labour'.

Most of the students presented a visual description of `education to girl child' in chronological order, in the drawing competition. A few `roaring lions' were noticed during the elocution. The modulation maintained by the students in their speeches clearly showed their involvement.

Several quoted from works of the Tamil poets, Subramania Bharathi and Bharathidasan, to support their ideas.

Speaking on education, the rural students frequently referred to statements made by the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, and objectives of the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, showing that they were keeping abreast of the latest developments.

The striking qualities of the participants were their lack of stage fear, exemplary pronunciation of Tamil words, and loud and clear diction.

At the end of the two-day-long event, 36 winners from eight districts would be selected for scholarships to be provided by members of the CII, Madurai zone.

A project contest on the topic, `Water 2020', has also been organised. "The winning school will get financial assistance for development of infrastructure from the CII," said M.D. Vel, Chairman, CII, Madurai zone.

T. Kannan, former chairman, CII (Southern Region), delivered the keynote address at the inaugural function. Thomas George, Project Officer, UNICEF, Pamela Anna Mathew, chairperson, Social Development Sub-Committee, and Annapurna Prasad, Convenor, Community Development Panel, Tamil Nadu State Council, CII, also spoke.

From M.R. Aravindan

Source: http://www.hindu.com/lf/2004/10/16/stories/2004101601360200.htm

Child labour is more than a children's issue

11 October 2004

Kailash Satyarthi

The world community has consistently called for an end to the persistent exploitation of children. We at the Global March Against Child Labour have demonstrated our capacity to mobilise world-wide efforts and support to protect and promote the rights of millions of children.

The Global March is not just only about eliminating child labour. If one were to follow a service delivery model, perhaps it would be meaningful to talk of numbers--the number of children that get out of a child-labour status every year. The Global March seeks to eliminate child labour by questioning, attacking and changing the very systems that compel children to work at the global, regional and national levels.

Without changing these systems and without attacking them at their very roots, the existing numbers will decline but there will be new entrants to the child labour force almost daily. This underscores the importance of addressing the root causes of child labour and the poor quality and access to education within a broader poverty alleviation strategy.

Talking about international commitment, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which is unanimously ratified by almost all countries, brings together civil and political as well as economic, social and cultural rights of children in one instrument. Article 32 on protecting children from exploitative and harmful work is applicable to all children in all situations.

ILO Convention 138 on the Minimum Age of Employment calls for the elimination of child labour up to age of the completion of compulsory education and Convention 182 (1999) on the Worst Forms of Child Labour calls for immediate elimination of child labour in the worst forms such as children who are forced into bondage and slavery, hazardous occupations, armed conflict, trafficking and illegal activities.

The World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, in April 2000 adopted six major goals for education, covering the attainment of Universal Primary Education (UPE) and gender equality, improving literacy and educational quality and increasing life-skills and expanding early childhood education programmes. These are to be achieved within 15 years ending 2015.

In September 2000, 189 heads of state and governments made a passionate commitment to meet the Millennium Development goals that include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability, and developing a global partnership for development.

During September 1999, the World Bank group and the IMF came out with the initiative of nationally-owned participatory poverty reduction strategies to provide the basis of all World Bank and IMF concessional lending and for debt relief. This approach, building on the principles of the Comprehensive Development Framework, will be reflected in the development of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers by country authorities. There is the Fast Track Initiative by the World Bank following this.

All these recent developments provide a favourable climate for realising the rights of children. But in spite of this the latest estimate on global magnitude of child labour during May 2002 found that 246 million children – one in every six children aged 5-17 -- is involved in child labour; One in every eight children in the world – some 179 million children aged 5-17 – is still exposed to the worst forms of child labour, which endangers the child's physical, mental or moral well being. Of these 111 million are under 15 years of age and of these 8.4 million children are caught in unconditional worst forms of child labour including slavery, trafficking, debt bondage and other forms of forced labour, forced recruitment for armed conflict, prostitution, pornography and other illicit activities.

The three key processes affecting the future of the world, in particular our children, are the elimination of child labour, education For all and poverty alleviation.

It has been witnessed that in poor countries the affects of poverty and unemployment are dramatic. The child's very right to survival may be threatened by the parents' unemployment.

In addition to suffering severe economic hardships, families are disintegrating. The outcome includes increased child labour, rising drop-out rates and even juvenile delinquency. These issues are not fully captured in the poverty alleviation strategies.

The education sector has a great potential to contribute to the prevention and elimination of child labour, which should be an integral part of education policies worldwide. In addition to preventing child labour, the education sector can provide special measures to reintegrate children withdrawn from hazardous work into schools. Still, policies that focus exclusively on the education system without accounting for the economic environment of households and the general state of the labour market will not be sufficient to reduce child labour and achieve education for all over long run.
An anti-poverty, child-friendly strategy must pay greater attention to converge with other policies on education and the elimination of child labour. Education For All and the elimination of child labour should find a prominent focus in poverty alleviation programmes.

A multi-dimensional approach consisting of awareness building and consciousness raising, community participation, alternative and viable social economic rehabilitation, and enforcement of national and international legal instruments in relation to children and other similar plans is needed for linking the elimination of child labour with the overall poverty alleviation and education strategies. There is need for a synergy in policy planning and programmes that addresses these three vital issues that affect the lives of millions of children for a sustainable development.

The focus will also be to promote a better cooperation and understanding between policy planners, children and advocacy groups working on children's behalf. We adults have a commitment to provide all children of this world with an environment for their full and harmonious development to lead a life in the spirit of peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom, equality and solidarity.

Kailash Satyarthi is the chairperson of Global March Against Child Labour, which has a membership of more than 2,000 NGOs and trade unions in 140 countries.

Source: http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/95736/1/5339

INDIA: Child-labour groups get Pepsi ad banned

A High Court judge has ordered Pepsi to temporarily withdraw a television commercial that has angered child-labour activists

South China Morning Post

Monday, October 11, 2004

A High Court judge has ordered Pepsi to temporarily withdraw a television commercial that has angered child-labour activists.

The commercial shows a boy, who looks about 10 years old, negotiating a dangerous route to reach the Indian cricket team who are in a huddle, celebrating the fall of a wicket and waiting for their drinks. The boy emerges from an underground tunnel with a tray of Pepsi.

"We are against multinationals using children in advertising that shows child labour in a positive light," said activist Santosh Shinde of the Mumbai-based voluntary group Balpraful.

The petition against the ad was lodged in Hyderabad, where a judge ruled it should be withdrawn.

Pepsi officials denied the advertisement glorified child labour, saying the underlying theme was "cricket and the immense joy and excitement it brings to children and young people".

A spokesman added: "The boy is obviously delighted to get an opportunity to deliver drinks to the idolised team members. It is unfortunate that the advert has caused some anxiety despite the fact that there was no such intention."

Campaign groups are furious over commercials portraying underage children working.

A recent example on the music channel MTV drew protests by showing a young urchin carrying tea for customers and swaying to a pop song.

"The India media and the ad agencies are irresponsible," said Uma Bhopal Rai, who filed the petition. "They just can't convey the message that it is all right for children to work instead of being at school. They make it acceptable. The fact that millions of viewers watch them and think it is okay makes me shudder."

Child labour is common in India. Estimates vary widely, but it is believed there are up to 100 million children working in India.

Lack of awareness is widespread. The name chotu (Hindi for little boy) is ubiquitous throughout India. It is chotu who rises first in a home to sweep and mop the floor, dust the house, wash the dishes and chop vegetables.

Date Posted: 10/11/2004

Source: http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=15709

ICFTU launches report on child labour in Albania

Tuesday, 12 October 2004, 10:09 am

Press Release: International Confederation Of Free Trade Unions

ICFTU launches report on child labour in Albania

Brussels, (ICFTU Online): At their conference on child labour in Tirana, Albania (11th- 12th October 2004), the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and its two Albanian affiliates (KSSH and BSPSH) will launch a new study on the issue of child labour in Albania. The conference aims to raise awareness of the subject amongst local trade unions and to consider a number of areas in which they might get involved.

A recent study carried out for the ICFTU shows that child labour is still a major problem in Albania. Every day tens of thousands of Albanian children work instead of attending school. They mainly work in agriculture, shoe and clothing production (especially for major Western European companies), selling of small goods in the streets (for example cigarettes and chewing-gum), washing of cars, begging and recycling of waste products.

The poverty resulting from the high level of unemployment and meagre wages is not the only reason behind the use of child labour in Albania. Major internal migration by Albanians is having an effect on the education system, whilst awareness of the importance of schooling has decreased amongst certain sections of the population. Failure to implement laws on compulsory education and on the minimum working age are other factors which give rise to child labour, as are dysfunctional families and attitudes towards certain minority groups. The problem of vendettas is also highlighted in the ICFTU report. For example, in the north and north-west of the country children are forced to stay at home out of fear that they could become victims of ongoing violent disputes between families.

Over 250 million children are working around the world. The trade union movement has always been at the forefront of the struggle against this form of exploitation. Its campaign, which includes the Global March against Child Labour, aims to draw the general public's attention to this issue. The conference in Tirana on 11th and 12th October 2004 is part of that campaign.

Source: http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0410/S00141.htm

Education International denounces the death penalty

Press Release 6/2004
8 October 2004

10 October 2004 – World Day Against Death Penalty

At the occasion of World Day Against Death Penalty on 10 October this Sunday,Education International, which represents more than 29 million teachers and educationpersonnel around the world, reiterates its commitment towards the universal abolition of the dealth penalty and its support for activists around the world fighting for this cause. During its fourth world congress (22-26 July 2004, Porto Alegre, Brazil) last July, the 345 member organisations of EI adopted a resolution against dealth penalty in the name of the defense and the promotion of universal human rights. On this day, education personnel reaffirm their belief that education should defend values that promote a peaceful and united world. All individual and collective behaviours should contribute to a more tolerant school environment and a world free of violence.

Visit the EI website www.ei-ie.org to find out more about this initiative and to know more about EI’s work in this area.

Court inquires into abuse of homeless kids

October 11, 2004

India News > New Delhi, Oct 10 : The Delhi High Court has asked child welfare committees to report on complaints of child abuse, including sexual abuse, of homeless children who are working as domestic help.

A division bench comprising judges T.S. Thakur and J.P. Singh asked the committees to inform the court about the nature of the allegations and the action taken by them so far.

The court's order came in response to a criminal writ petition in which the petitioner sought a direction to Delhi Police to trace a child missing since 2002.

The bench also summoned the secretary of the social welfare department of the Delhi government to appear before it Oct 25 to inform the court whether any rules had been framed or could be framed to regulate the functioning of placement agencies dealing with domestic child labour and to check child abuse.

Aparna Bhatt, the petitioner acting on behalf of the missing girl child Kalpana Pandit, also sought regulation of placement agencies allegedly engaged in picking up street children or bringing them in from various states and placing them as domestic help who are later shifted to hazardous jobs or into child prostitution.

Bhatt said the absence of any regulatory control over the functioning of these agencies, which are run on commercial lines, defeated the very spirit of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Prevention of Children) Act, 200.

She further said the child welfare committees had received a number of complaints regarding the abuse of these children working as domestic help.

Verification of complaints had proved the children had been subjected to various kinds of indignities, including sexual abuse.

The bench also asked the chairpersons of the committees to be present in court along with the relevant records on Oct 25.

--Indo-Asian News Service

Source:http://www.123bharath.com/indianews/index.php?action=fullnews&id=27544

Nepalese minor girls handed over to NGO

[India News] Patna Oct 7 : Five Nepalese minor girls rescued from a circus in a Bihar town were Thursday handed over to a Nepal-based NGO for their rehabilitation.

The girls aged 8-13 had been rescued in Madhubani district by the administration following the efforts of local NGO Gram Vikas Parishad.

Madhubani district magistrate Atish Chandra turned them over to the care of NGO Maiti for their rehabilitation.

The girls belong to Manali village in Hetaura district of Nepal. Officials had raided the tents of Kolkata-based Western Circus for violating the Child Labour Act. The circus's shows were banned and its proprietor taken into custody.

Sources in the district administration said the girls had been working for the last three years on a salary of Rs.300 a month.

In August, NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan rescued nine girls from the Apollo Circus in Nalanda district, following which the district magistrates had been directed to keep a close watch on the circuses to ensure child labour rules were followed.

--Indo-Asian News Service

Source: http://news.newkerala.com/india-news/?action=fullnews&id=35368

Ghana to weed out child labour on cocoa farms

Accra

07 October 2004 08:50

Cocoa producers have until July 1, 2005 to prove that their beans were produced without child labour, to be able to sell on the international market, the Ghana News Agency (GNA) reported on Wednesday.

Kwame Sarpong, chief executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board said that the certification had become necessary because of concerns raised by global consumers over the use of child labour in the cultivation of cocoa beans.

"Members who fail to meet the requirements would have their beans rejected in the international market," he said.

Ghana is the World's second-largest producer of cocoa, producing more than 700 000 tonnes in the 2003-04 season and trailing only Côte d'Ivoire.

The child labour certification is part of efforts by cocoa producing countries to weed out child labour from their farms, Sarpong told a consultative meeting on the elimination of the worst forms of child labour in cocoa-growing areas in Ghana.

He said that importing countries would also demand to know what action had been taken on child labour by cocoa growers.

He said that the presence of child labour in Ghana's cocoa industry was not well researched, noting that there had been only two studies on the subject. These confirmed that there were children working on cocoa farms, mostly the children of farm labourers rather than the children of farm owners.

He said that neither study documented child trafficking in the cocoa sector in Ghana.

Sarpong noted that poverty constituted the biggest problem in combating the worst forms of child labour and urged the government to ensure that farmers were paid good prices for their products. - Sapa-DPA

Source:http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Business&ao=123286

Cola major in ‘minor’ trouble

Pummy Kaul & KVV Charya

NewDelhi/Hyderabad,

October 7

Business

Friday, October 08, 2004

It's a huddle PepsiCo India should have avoided. The soft drink major put out a TV ad featuring the Indian cricket team being served drinks by a boy who seems to be about 10 years old. The company is being accused of ‘encouraging child labour’.

Yet again, a cola company lands in court. Sometime back, the Supreme Court had fined both Pepsi and Coca Cola India for defacing rocks in Himachal Pradesh with their slogans.

Dragging Pepsi to court this time are Uma and Bhupal Rao, who have filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Andhra Pradesh high court.

Subsequently, the division bench comprising justices B. Sudharshan Reddy and K.C. Bhanu issued notices to Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar, who acted in the film. Notices have also been issued to the government, Advertisement Standards Council of India (ASCI), BCCI and Sony Entertainment Television. When contacted, an ASCI spokesperson said it has had no interaction in this matter.
The court directed those concerned to immediately suspend telecasts.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=56594

MNCs Reap Profits from child labour in India's Cottonseed Farms

Suhasini

06 October 2004

NEW DELHI, Oct 6 (OneWorld) - A new report says an estimated 12,375 children continue to work under terrible conditions on cottonseed farms in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh which supply their produce to multinational corporations (MNCs) like Bayer and Monsanto, in defiance of last year's promises to eradicate child labour.

The detailed study titled "child labour in Hybrid Cottonseed Production in Andhra Pradesh: Recent Developments," was released today by nongovernmental organization, the India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN), in co-operation with its partners in Europe and India, and the International Labor Rights Fund (USA).

It names Dutch MNC Advanta and US-Dutch company Emergent Genetics as some of the others who get produce from these farms.

The report adds that more than 70.000 children are working for Indian seed companies under similar circumstances. The children work long hours, do not go to school and are often bonded to the employers by loans. It alleges that a number of children have died or fallen seriously ill due to exposure to harmful pesticides.

It regrets that companies have taken no concrete measures to curb child labour in the sector.

A second report on child labour and labor conditions in cottonseed production in the states of Gujarat and Karnataka in western and southern India, testifies that another 117,800 children under 15 are also working under execrable conditions for multinational and Indian companies.

Many more young workers (15-18) and adults, often tribal migrant workers, are badly exploited as well. Both children and adults work 12 to 14 hours a day and earn around 50 cents a day.

The report on Andhra Pradesh is a follow up of a May 2003 report which revealed that in 2002 an estimated 53.500 children were working on farms producing for multinationals and almost 200,000 for Indian companies.

At that time children accounted for 90 percent of the total labor force in cottonseed production, which has now declined to almost 60 percent. Sadly, the decrease in child labour cannot be attributed to a greater sense of responsibility, but due to a decline in cottonseed cultivation in the state thanks to drought.

Due to local and international pressure, MNCs and some big Indian companies acknowledged the rampant problem of child labour on farms which are contracted by their agents, called seed organizers.

In September 2003 these companies, represented by the Association of Seed Industry (ASI), decided to work towards the eradication of child labour in collaboration with other stakeholders like the MV Foundation, a reputed NGO based in Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh, but failed to keep their promises.

For example, only after a public outcry caused by the "pesticide death" of a working child in July 2004, three companies finally shared the list of villages and seed organisers with MVF in order to facilitate joint monitoring of farmers.

The report alleges that the delaying tactics of the companies within ASI prevented them from making a significant positive impact on the child labour situation in 2003.

Shantha Sinha, General Secretary of MVF, points out that they have been able to pressure many small and big local farmers to free children working for them and even sponsor their education.
But she adds that this is not the case with farmers working for big multinational and international seed companies.

As she puts it, "They are locked in a unequal partnership under contractual relationship with a powerful industry... It has proven time and again beyond doubt that the powerful global players who claim to uphold themselves to their codes of conduct and corporate social responsibility have flouted all norms of human rights and values."

According to the Andhra Pradesh report the companies have failed to address the issue of low procurement prices paid to farmers which spurs them to use cheap bonded child labour.

Ironically, the report adds that in July 2004, the Fair Labor Association (FLA), a labor monitoring group comprising industry, NGOs and universities, has accepted Syngenta (Switzerland) as a "Participating Company" to apply its monitoring methodology as a pilot program in the agricultural sector.

According to recent field reports from MVF a significant number of children were found working on farms supplying to Syngenta.

A slew of international NGOs like The India Committee of the Netherlands, the International Labor Rights Fund (USA), Amnesty International Netherlands, FNV Mondiaal (Netherlands), Hivos (Netherlands), Novib/Oxfam Netherlands, Germanwatch, Coalition against Bayer-dangers (Germany) and Global March Germany have issued a six-point charter of demands to cottonseed companies, and MNCs.

Their charter asks them to immediately implement a plan of action to eliminate all child labour in the cottonseed industry in India and ensure every child goes to school, in close cooperation with civil society organizations and government authorities. It adds that in Andhra Pradesh, the present cooperation with the MV Foundation should be intensified to ensure that no child works in cottonseed production in the new 2005 season.

It urges MNCs to pay fair procurement prices to farmers to allow them to hire adult laborers and pay them at least the official minimum wage as well as equal wages for both men and women.

It stresses that the corporations should eliminate all forms of bonded labor in cottonseed production in India, and respect workers rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining. It also says farmers and seed organizers should be trained on safe handling of pesticides, and provide protective gear and clothing for this.

Finally, the charter asks farmers to provide public, independently verified, evidence on the implementation of all these demands, to ensure they are complied with.

Source: http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/95471/1/

U.S. Labor Dept. Gives $110 Million in 2004 to Fight child labour

05 October 2004

Funds aimed at removing young workers from abuse, providing education

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) in the fiscal year that ended September 30 awarded more than $110 million to fight international child labour.

In an October 1 press release, the Labor Department said the grants were for programs that help remove young workers from abusive work situations and improve access to basic education in areas having high incidences of exploitive child labour.

The department said that in 2004 it awarded $67.5 million under its child labour Education Initiative and $42.7 million to the child-labor elimination program of the U.N. International Labor Organization (ILO).
The Labor Department funds targeted programs that address exploitative child labour in a specific industry, country or region; educational programs that focus on child labourers and children at risk of being exploited; research and statistical programs to collect data needed to define the extent of exploitive child labour; projects to support a country's participation in the ILO's child-labor elimination program; and comprehensive national programs to achieve dramatic reductions in exploitive child labour.

The department also announced, in an October 4 press release, that it had awarded $23 million to the aid groups World Vision and Catholic Relief Services for education programs in Africa and Latin America.

Following is the text of Labor's October 1 press release:

(begin text)

U.S. Department of Labor News Release

10/01/2004

United States Provides over $110 Million in Grants to Fight Exploitive child labour Around the World

WASHINGTON -- To emphasize the United States commitment to eliminating the worst forms of child labour, U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao noted today that in FY 2004 the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) provided over $110 million in grants to remove young workers from abusive work situations and improve access to quality basic education in areas with a high incidence of exploitive child labour.

"The United States is the world leader in funding programs to eliminate abusive child labour," said U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao. "This Administration is committed to working with our partners around the world to rescue child soldiers and other children who have been trafficked. We cannot give them back their childhoods, but we can help them get an education and build better futures for themselves.

The Labor Department awarded $67.5 million in grants under its child labour Education Initiative, most through a competitive bidding process. In addition, the Labor Department contributed approximately $42.7 million to the International Labor Organization's International Program on the Elimination of child labour (IPEC) for programs to address child labour in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, and the Middle East. The department's Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) contributed to the design of these projects and is responsible for monitoring the progress of all DOL-funded international child labour projects.

DOL funds five types of projects, including:

"The United States remains committed to the global campaign to eliminate the worst forms of exploitive labor that place children in harm's way while depriving them of the opportunity to prepare for a better future by attending school," said Deputy Under Secretary for International Labor Affairs Arnold Levine.

(end text)

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

Source:http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-
english&y=2004&m=October&x=20041005172003AKllennoCcM2.738589e-
02&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html

Cocoa Industry to Launch Child-Labor Watch

Wed Oct 6, 2004 03:11 PM ET

By Jeff Coelho

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The cocoa industry, facing criticism for not moving fast enough to stomp out child labour, will launch a pilot monitoring system in West Africa next month with hopes of sweetening chocolate's tainted image.

"The launch of the monitoring system in the Ivory Coast is affecting over 80,000 children, and that is a major step," Susan Smith, a spokeswoman for the Chocolate Manufacturers Association, told Reuters.

The pilot launch is in November. "It is the first time that a system like this has been implemented. Ultimately, we are trying to reach 1.5 million small farms," Smith said.

Reports of trafficked children used to work on West African cocoa farms had prompted the global chocolate industry and a coalition of labor rights groups to pledge to put an end to abusive and hazardous child labour.

In 2001, the coalition introduced a protocol to develop industrywide labor standards and to provide transparent monitoring of the industry's supplier farms. A deadline of July 2005 had been set to launch a certification system.

Advocacy groups have criticized the coalition for moving too slowly and using inadequate monitoring methods.

"None of their recent statements indicate that they are even a step closer to having a real, credible and transparent systematic monitoring system," said Bama Athreya of International Labor Rights Fund.
"And they are not going to get it by 2005," she said.

Smith acknowledged the work has been slow and fraught with challenges. "We fully believe a system will be in place and tested in different situations. Whether it reaches across the country by July 2005, it may not -- probably not."

North Americans and Europeans consume nearly two-thirds of all cocoa product imports, while about 70 percent of the world's crop is grown in West Africa. For the past two years, farmers in Ivory Coast picked just shy of a 1.4 million ton record set in 1999/2000, despite a civil war that has been patched up by a shaky peace process.

The CMA -- which has members like Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Nestle SA -- and its partners are working with the International Labor Organization, Ivory Coast's government and local nongovernmental groups, Smith said.

About 109,000 children work in hazardous conditions in Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer, according to a 2003 State Department report. Hazards include harmful pesticides and the risk of injury from machetes.

The protocol aims to distinguish between abused child workers from kids on farms helping with the family harvest, said Bill Guyton, president of the World Cocoa Foundation, a signatory of the protocol and a CMA affiliate.

"There is a difference between child work and child labour. These programs explain the differences between those and look at different kinds of prevention and action to take if there are situations where there are problems," he said.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=reuters
Edge&storyID=6432179

India's economic boom bypasses teeming millions of out-of-school kids

October 6, 2004

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Across India, spindly street children still beg for alms or slave as ragpickers, sifting mounds of garbage for newspaper, bottles and anything else for recycling.
The economic boom is passing them by as a creaking education system fails to improve millions of blighted young lives.

"I have never been to school but I find pens sometimes when I am sorting out garbage. I use them to draw cars that I see zooming down the road," said 12-year-old Zakir Ahmad, who ran away from home to escape his alcoholic father.

"I miss my mother. I want to be a mechanic when I grow up," he added stood amid rubbish in a New Delhi suburb. "Then I will protect her."

The Delhi-based South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude (SACCS) estimates that over 12 million school-age children in India are forced to scratch a living.
A World Bank report published last month highlighted how, despite India's high growth rates and thriving middle classes, Indian children lag seriously behind counterparts in the developing world and rival Asian power China.

"Grinding poverty, malnutrition and disease prevent poor Indian children from attending school. The maximum number of school dropouts are seen in the five to eight years age group," said the report's author Venita Kaul.

India has 78 girls for every 100 boys in school and only 76 percent of pupils complete primary school compared with 99 percent in China, said the report.

Dev Dutt Panda from SACCS called for new solutions.

"There is a vicious cycle between poverty, adult unemployment, illiteracy and child labour. Education is the key to breaking that cycle," said Panda.

"Parents break down telling us that they don't want to deprive their children of education but say they have no choice. We must give them a choice."

SACCS has worked with Rugmark Foundation to provide a choice. They rescued children labouring in India's carpet belt in Mirzapur, Bhadoli and Varanasi and encouraged loom-owners to hire adults instead.

Western carpet buyers are familiar with the smiling face on the Rugmark label -- guaranteeing a child labour-free product.

"Each Rugmark carpet that is sold supports a rehabilitation centre for a girl or boy rescued from child labour," said a Rugmark convenor.

"We have started schools in six different villages and a carpet training centre for adults," he added.

Unique grassroots literacy programmes run by NGOs like Pratham (First), Netherlands-based Novib and Akshara (Letters) are also bringing hope to India's poorest children.

Akshara Foundation based in the southern state of Karnataka has 1,200 volunteer teachers fanned out across 300 slums and poor districts.

Some software firms in Bangalore, India's technology hub, are backing Akshara. Despite its hi-tech image, the city has over 50,000 out-of-school children.

Akshara has set up resource centres with computers near sprawling slums where children aged six to 12 are taught computers, arithmetic and English, Kannada and Urdu.

"We also run a programme for children between four and six years of age for two hours a day," said retired Indian army officer Murthy Rajan, the foundation's chief operating officer.
Primary schools are free in India and education for girls is free right up to the age of 15, but that only paints half the picture.

"Some rural schools have no toilets, drinking water or teachers for the better part of the year and children droop with exhaustion just trekking up to four kilometers (2.5 miles) to reach school," said Panda.

"In tribal-dominated regions schools do not even exist," he added.

Indian schools are also notoriously overcrowded.

"In some classrooms there are 80 children to one teacher. It is not fair to the children or the teacher," said Rajan.

Chetan Kapoor, Pratham programme coordinator in Delhi said NGOs could only scratch the surface and faced a "gargantuan task".

"Even if we assume that the government is sincere in its intentions, its monolithic structure will always be an impediment in reaching the last child with the promptness that she deserves," said Kapoor. "We have to bridge this gap."

India's left-leaning government, which took office in May, has increased taxes to raise around one billion dollars to fund education and free lunches at schools.

However, the World Bank said investment in education remained insufficient, with central and state government expenditure adding up to 2.65 percent of gross domestic product.
"In a country of 20 million children below 11 years, this amounts to a paltry sum of 1.8 dollars per child, per month," the report said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041006/
lf_afp/india_education_children_041006032529

Treat the Children Well

Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra)
EDITORIAL
October 5, 2004
Posted to the web October 5, 2004

ALL OVER THE COUNTRY, it is not uncommon to see children of school-going age struggling to make a living as hawkers, shoeshine boys, fitters, quarry stone crackers and what have you. Using child labour has become so commonplace that the average person no longer sees it as abnormal phenomenon.

These children are made to toil for hours on end in the hot tropical sun, many of them on an empty stomach. The income they make goes to their sponsors and the children have to make do with crumbs from their masters/mistresses and guardians.

Most of them do not go to school or have dropped out of school due to financial constraints. When they fall sick, as they so often do because of their poor living conditions and under-nourishment, they have to fend for themselves by usually going to the local chemist shop for the minimum medication. Hardly do they have the means to seek proper medical treatment with the attendant laboratory tests to ascertain what is really wrong with them.

Add to these sorry conditions, the reality of sexual exploitation, especially of vulnerable young girls, and one gets a sense of the inhuman treatment that many young people undergo in this land of supposed Freedom and Justice.

The Chronicle is disturbed by the manner in which many of our citizens view the exploitation of children for economic purposes. Indeed in some deprived areas, parents actually goad and push their children onto the streets to go and hustle to take care of themselves. Some parents who have irresponsibly made large families tend to view their children as economic assets that can be used to make money.

Unlike the era when large families made good economic sense due to agricultural practice, these modern days of increasing urbanization make large nuclear families a liability. However, because their mind-set and psychological make up are still rooted in tradition, many men and women who make large families do not see anything wrong with having huge and unmanageable families.

Up to date there still are people who readily "sell" their children into the modern form of slavery: indentured servants who have to work to pay off debts or loans contracted by their guardians.

Many such children can be found toiling away their youth as fishermen on the sprawling Volta lake. Others are given away by their parents to slave for other families in the urban centers as house helps. These children, mostly pubescent pre-teens, are caught between a rock and a hard place. They have no relatives in the big cities and thus are compelled to suffer in silence until when they become too frustrated, run away from home and begin living off the street.

Such children invariably end as budding criminals and social misfits with no future but that of law-breakers. They can be found in all the deprived inner city centers, children with adult experiences.

The problem of child abuse, sexual exploitation of minors and child labour is gradually assuming dangerous proportions in our society and we believe the time is long overdue for some drastic actions. The Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs must gird its loins and act more proactively. Granted that it is a new ministry, we still think it has been adequately resourced to make its presence felt.

Other stakeholders including NGOs should continue to harp on the problem