Message
from Tony Blair - British Prime Minister
May
1, 10 Downing Street, London
"I
have great pleasure in extending this greeting
to all participants in the Global March Against
Child Labour throughout the world. I am especially
pleased to be able to warmly welcome the group
that have come to Britain. We only have to look
back a little way in our own history to find
child labour as widespread in Britain as it
is now in some of the world's poorer countries.
We still have some way to go – child labour
is not just a developing country problem. Moves
towards its eradication in Britain in the last
century began with increasing public disgust
that such exploitation should take place. This,
in turn, created the political will to deal
with it. Initiatives like the Global March are
still needed to remind the world that the evil
of child labour, which has been with us through
all of time, has still to be despatched.
I
applaud the March and its aims and I hope that
it will do globally what campaigners in Britain
did here a hundred years ago and unite all governments
in a common cause: to eradicate child labour."
Tony
Blair
April 1998
