The countdown to the World Cup 2006 to be held in Germany has begun and so has it for the World Day Against Child Labour (June 12 th)!

What do these two have in common? Child Labour and the movement against exploitation of children!

Child labour has now long crossed beyond the limits of football stitching. Millions of children are losing their precious childhood in exchange for producing sporting goods like sports equipments, sports wear, shoes, caps and lots of other accessories. They are spending 12-14 hours a day toiling in absolute merciless conditions deprived of minimum wages. This is a barefaced violation of not only national labour laws and international conventions but is an unconcealed violation of basic human rights.

In addition, comes to the forefront another irrefutable fact that thousands of innocent victims, mostly girls are trafficked to cater to the sexual needs of hundreds of thousands of Germans and more than one million foreign visitors expected for the FIFA 2006.

The trafficking of children constitutes a particularly egregious form of human rights abuse. Child trafficking and child prostitution is not just a national crime, but increasingly is a transnational crime as well. Human trafficking is a modern day form of slavery. It’s the third largest source of income for organized crime, after trafficking in drugs and arms. UN now believes that the number of children trafficked annually, internally and externally, is around 1.2 million. Further, at any time, several million children are engaged in sex work, most of them victims of trafficking.

Germany , along with Greece and France, according to recent UNODC report, are among about a dozen countries identified as having a ‘high’ incidence of acting as transit countries. Germany is also among the top 10 destination countries for trafficking victims. It is estimated that 40,000 women and girls will be “imported” from Central and Eastern Europe into Germany to “sexually service” the men during the World Cup 2006.