The population of children below 18 years of age is almost half of the total population of Nepal. ILO-IPEC has estimated that there are about 2.6 million child labourers in Nepal. These child workers, according to child rights organisations, shed their blood and sweat in 75 different sectors for their mere survival. Of these 75 sectors, some have been identified as most hazardous.

Unpaid labour
There is yet another revealing factor regarding child labour in Nepal. Concern for Children and Environment, a child rights organisation in Nepal, says that about 900,000 child workers are unpaid despite the exploitation of their labour. Some child rights activists even claim that as many as 1.7 million children are working as unpaid labourers in different sectors. This is an extreme case of exploitation of child labour in Nepal.

Nepal has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and several other international instruments concerning human rights and child rights, which prohibit child labour. The ratification of the international treaties is a commitment and obligation of the signatory to ensure that conditions and provisions of the treaties are strictly applied and implemented back home.

Since Nepal has ratified the CRC and other child rights related international instruments, it is the obligation of the government of Nepal to implement these provisions and fully guarantee the rights of the child.

Nepal has definitely taken some initiatives for the rights of the child. Laws have been made and policies and programmes announced to promote children's rights. The Children's Act has prohibited the employment and recruitment of children below 14 years of age in any kind of physical and mental labour. However, child labour is pervasive in Nepal despite the legal measures to restrict it. This is due to the weak implementation aspect and lack of effective measures, mechanisms and programmes to practically eliminate child labour.

Child labour is a violation of the rights of the child. The different forms of exploitation include use of labour without wages or salary; physical, mental, psychological and sexual abuse; using them in hazardous sectors; long working hours and poor working condition; and denial of opportunity for education and entertainment. The exploitation of child labour is a crime, which must be punished by law.

Given the poor economic condition and pervasive nature of child labour in Nepal, immediate elimination of child labour may not be possible. Thus, a gradual process has to be adopted. However, the exploitation of child labour and recruitment of children in hazardous sectors can be stopped.

Bijaya Sainju, director of CONCERN, says that the immediate priority of the government and the social organisations and child rights groups should be to end the exploitation of child labour, and the first approach should be to duly recognise child labour and ensure fair wages, better working conditions and opportunity for education.

ILO Convention No. 182 adopted in 1999 has defined what constitutes the worst forms of child labour. According to Article 3 of the Convention, the worst forms of child labour comprise: (a) all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict; (b) the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or for pornographic performances; (c) the use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties; (d) work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.

In Nepal, the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour ( ILO-IPEC) has categorised conflict-hit children, child soldiers, street children, domestic child workers, child sex workers and trafficked children as the victims of worst forms of child labour. It is estimated that there are 127,000 children working in the most hazardous sectors. But the number of those involved in the worst forms of child labour is much higher as some more areas like stone quarries, brick kilns, restaurants and metal works have been added to the list of worst forms of child labour.

Recently, CONCERN conducted a national survey on children working in the mechanical sectors, a sector that had earlier been grossly ignored. In this sector, children as young as 10 years old were found working in very poor conditions that included long and odd working hours, low wages and hazardous work. According to the survey, about 50 per cent of the child workers in the mechanical sectors are either not paid at all or not paid in time. They are also not being allowed to go to school as they are forced to work from early morning to late evening. This is just the tip of the iceberg, and similar conditions exist in other hazardous sectors as well.

Children are the future nation-builders. The future of the country depends on how we rear and educate children at present. Thus, any investment on children is an investment for the development of the country. Children must be better educated now so that they can be good citizens and contribute to the development of Nepal in the future. Labour is not a choice of the children but a compulsion due to poverty and other social and cultural factors.

Goals
Nepal is now working hard to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. It is only right that child workers figure prominently in the plans and programmes of the government towards meeting the goals. Most of these child labourers are out of school. Some have either not attended school at all or dropped out before completing the primary level of education and joined the labour force. If these 2.6 million child workers are not covered, Nepal will not be able to meet the MDGs.

Efforts made by the government to eradicate the menace of child labour are not satisfactory – more has to be done to relieve children of this slavery, advisor to the Sindh chief minister on Information, Salahuddin Haider, said on Tuesday.

He was speaking at a one-day capacity-building workshop for radio producers and reporters at a local hotel. The workshop was organised by the ILO under its national media plan of action to sensitise media personnel about the issue of child labour in Pakistan.

Haider said that a “resistance consumer approach” should be followed to discourage industrialists who hire children to work at their factories. Only by persistently boycotting their products will we be able to control the menace of child labour, he said. “The owners of these factories should be penalised and fined heavily for violating the ILO convention 182,” Haider said.

Poor financial conditions of the families of these children are among the main causes of child labour, the information advisor said, adding that economic hardships forced families to send children to work at factories, instead of sending them to school.

The present government, Haider said, has appointed labour inspectors to check factories in the province. He regretted, however, the fact that these inspectors were looking for their own benefits instead of trying to curb child labour.

Haider urged the print and the electronic media to highlight these issues in order to raise awareness among the masses. He further said that the government was pursuing the national labour policy very proactively, and was open to suggestions from civil society organisations. LHRLA President Zia Ahmed Awan said that the media does not follow up cases related to social issues. Moreover, he said, the “Bait-ul-Maal is not providing money to those who deserve assistance” and the credibility of the organisation was questionable. Legislation should be formed and implemented, Awan said, to bring the perpetrators to task, and to stop child labour in Pakistan.

Taking strong exception to child labour in court premises, a magistrate has ordered an inquiry into the case of a minor boy allegedly employed by a caterer at the Rohini courts complex in New Delhi.

The offence came to light on Monday when Metropolitan Magistrate S S Rathi, while going to his chamber, saw a minor boy serving lunch to various judges' chambers.

Finding the boy apparently minor, the magistrate then asked him to wait there and called for his employer by sending a messenger.

Sumit, his employer, denied that the boy was minor and later appeared with his counsel in the court.

Taking cognisance of the matter, the magistrate has directed the police to get ossification test (determination of age by examining bone formation) conducted on the boy to ascertain his age.

The police has been asked to submit its report by May 19. Noticeably, child labour, in all its forms, has been banned by the government through a recently passed law.

Two of Britain's leading retail chains are selling clothing made by child slaves, an Observer investigation reveals today. The exposé raises serious questions about this country's soaring demand for low-cost clothing and has triggered angry calls for retailers to take far greater care in sourcing garments.

In a network of mud-bricked sweatshops in the lawless Haryana area of New Delhi, India, this newspaper found dozens of children cramped together producing clothes for the UK high street.

In one sweatshop, children were finishing a summer dress, now on sale for £16.99 in 250 Select clothing stores across Britain. 'I was brought here from Bihar [the poorest state in India],' said Shafiq who first claimed to be 14 but later admitted to being 11.

'All my family know is I have come to Delhi to work. They were paid a fee for me and I was brought by road from Patna with 40 other children. If they knew I had ended up here they wouldn't have let me go. But now I can't telephone them - they live in a small village. I am going to work off the fee the owner paid for me so I can go home but I am working for free. The supervisor has told me because I am learning I don't get paid. It's been like this for four months. I've had only two days off. And that was only because the factory was flooded.'

Prakesh, who is also on 'probation' and working for free, claims to be 13 but his colleagues jokingly claim he is closer to nine. He bares fresh wounds on the backs of his legs but while his supervisor looks on, denies he has been beaten.

'I want to work here. I have somewhere to sleep at night,' he says looking furtively behind him. 'The work is hard and my back hurts from crouching over the material but I am learning. I often hear other children playing in the street outside but it is my job to work. My parents needed the money for the other members of my family and they sold me. It is my duty to stay here. Another boy ran away. The supervisor told me he is in prison. I don't want to go to prison.'

Select, one of the fastest growing retailers in Britain, told The Observer it was appalled to learn some of its clothing was being finished off by child labourers. 'The whole idea of child trafficking is utterly unacceptable and the thought that we could be involved has very much upset us all,' said John Sunderland, a director. 'We had visited the factory and we were totally confident that everything was absolutely straight.'

It appears Majgenta, the Indian company contracted to make the Select dresses had sub-contracted sewing some sequins on the almost-finished garments to another firm. Majgenta has pledged a full inquiry in the wake of The Observer revelations and point out that fewer than two per cent of the garments it exports to the UK require the application of sequins.

In a statement given to this newspaper, Select said: 'The supplier concerned has denied all the allegations. They have suggested that the photographs we have been shown depict surplus or faulty stock that our supplier had disposed of, and not stock supplied to Select. We have sought further explanation from them in this regard.'

Majgenta says it uses only approved sub-contractors which are obliged to meet strict ethical and moral standards. It has threatened to fire its subcontractors if its investigation finds evidence of wrongdoing.
But tracing the trail to the sweatshops is not easy. Akesh, the supervisor of the sweatshop, said his orders were contracted by word of mouth only, leaving no incriminating paper trail.

'The workers here are well treated,' he said. 'We feed them and they sleep here, it is comfortable, more comfortable than many of the other units around here. We have water tanks here. These children are not slaves; they are working for their families in the north.'

But his comments have drawn an angry response from child protection groups. 'The uncovering of this sweatshop is obviously a major blow for a leading British firm but the reality is most high street firms in Britain are playing exactly the same game, cutting costs and not considering the consequences,' said Bhuwan Ribhu, a New Delhi lawyer and activist for the campaign group Global March Against Child Labour.
'They know what outsourcing to India means. The cheapness and accessibility of these garments has created a life of servitude, a living nightmare, for hundreds of thousands of children who are forced to sew them.'

In another sweatshop, The Observer found more children completing a major sub-contracted order for a British firm, the Birmingham-based fashion label Roman Originals, who’s up market garments are popular purchases in English market towns.

'We were horrified to see these pictures and immediately launched an investigation into our suppliers,' Roman Originals said in a statement, adding it had cancelled its contract immediately.

'We had visited the suppliers and were presented with an adult-only workforce and practices that satisfied our standards. It appears that our supplier sub-contracted a portion of the business and this is where the problem occurred."

In the past few months Delhi police and Indian Labour Department officials have made a series of raids on garment factories in the Indian capital and rescued hundreds of minors working in embroidery units
Most campaigners, however, remain sceptical, claiming the raids are simply 'PR stunts' designed to show something is being done about the problem. According to Global March, the fight against child labour is becoming increasingly dangerous.

'The police have to rely on rare tip-offs because it is difficult to track down child workers, with employers setting up small units in crammed back alleys, where the children are hidden from public eye,' Ribhu said.
'But even before the search parties get to the factories the owners are tipped off and many of the children are cleared out. We have lost a number of activists, murdered in the course of their duties, others have been dragged in chains behind cars and had threats made against their families.'

Professor Sheotaj Singh, the co-founder of the Dayanand Shilpa Vidyalaya, a Delhi-based rehabilitation centre for rescued child workers, believes that as long as cut-priced embroidered goods are sold in catalogues and stores across Europe, major retailers will continue to inundate India's main export firms with lucrative contracts.

'The facts are straightforward for the consumer,' Singh said. 'Cut-price stores in the West can cut prices only by ordering in bulk, huge numbers of garments, and somewhere along the chain of suffering and exploitation enslaved children are inevitably going to be involved.

'Everything is sub-contracted in this country. These consumers should not only be demanding answers from retailers but looking to themselves and how they spend their money.

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in collaboration with Interpol and the Ministry of Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis has recovered 43 children smuggled to Middle East countries as camel jockeys, during the first three-and-a-half months of this year.

The agency has also arrested 26 human traffickers and their agents from different parts of the country and investigations against them are underway, Daily Times has learnt. Most recovered children belong to remote areas of Sindh and the Punjab. Sources said the human traffickers had tricked poor parents by telling them that philanthropists had taken the responsibility to provide education to their children in big cities. The human-traffickers also fixed a monthly stipend of between Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 for the parents.

The sources said officials from the FIA’s passport cell in Multan, Bahawalpur and Hyderabad had completed the investigation against the arrested and sent challans of the cases to the courts.

The sources said four jockeys had been killed during camel races in ME countries in last six years but their ill-fated parents were unaware of it. Mirza Mohammad Yaseen, the FIA additional director general, told Daily Times that the agency was in touch with Interpol to apprehend the members of these gangs involved in smuggling children to Dubai and other ME countries. FIA Director General Tariq Pervez, who is in France to attend an Interpol meeting, would urge the authorities concerned to expedite the arrest of human traffickers. staff report

The latest statistics released by the Turkish Statistics Institute (Turkstat) on Friday revealed that child labour in Turkey is still a crucial problem.

According to Turkstat figures, 5.9 percent (or 958,000 out of 16.2 million children aged between 6 and 17) are engaged in labor. Some 47.7 percent of those working children in this age group live in urban areas, whereas the remaining 52.4 percent of them are in rural areas. The ratio of boys amongst those working children was 66 percent, while 34 percent were girls. Only 31.5 percent of employed children were attending school while working.

The statistics gathered indicate that 2.2 percent of all the children in Turkey belonging to the given age group and attending a school were employed in an economic activity. From those who are not being schooled, 26.3 percent are working.

The child labour Survey was conducted along with the Household Labor Force Survey in October, November and December of 2006. Some 28,978 children between 6 and 17 years old were interviewed. This study indicated that the number of children in the given age in Turkey was estimated to be around 16.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2006. Some 60.9 percent of them lived in urban areas while 39.1 percent live in rural areas. Within this age group, 84.7 percent of children were attending school, and the rest wasn’t. Some 58.8 percent of children who did not attend school were girls.

Some 40.9 percent or 392,000 of employed children were engaged in the agricultural sector and 59.1 percent, or 566,000, in non-agricultural sectors. While 53 percent of the total number of employed children worked as regular or casual employees, 2.7 percent were self-employed and 43.8 percent as unpaid family worker.

At researches on child labour, besides the working status in an economic activity of children, questions about housekeeping chores are also asked. But, in spite of the fact that there was one question about household chores in 1994 and 1999 child labour Survey, this was questioned more detailed in order to remind children all type of housekeeping chores in 2006 child labour Survey. When the number of children who engaged in household chores is compared by years, this should also be taken into consideration. While 5.9 percent of children between 6 and 17 years old were working in economic activity, 43.1 percent of those were working in household chores. In addition, 51 percent of children did not do any form of work.
Some 61.2 percent of 7 million children who stated that they assisted their family in household chores were girls (4.29 million). While 42.8 percent of children who were attending school assisted in household chores, this ratio is 44.4 percent for children who were not attending school.

A new law to be proposed by the department of labour on Wednesday would make it easier to prosecute adults who coerce children into breaking the law.

As of now, there is no legislation dealing with adults who use children to commit crimes. Prosecutors instead have to rely on conspiracy or incitement charges to prosecute them.

But the use of those tactics doesn't properly recognise the issue, said Jacqui Gallinetti, a researcher with the Community Law Centre (CLC).

Because such cases lack any special legal distinction, tracking the number of instances of child exploitation in crime is nearly impossible, she said.

"For being able to assess the extent of the problem, our present laws do not assist us," she said.

Having a statute in place would also motivate prosecutors to pursue the cases, and would serve as a warning to older criminals who consider using children as henchmen, Gallinetti said.

The new law is part of a package of initiatives from the department of labour as it renews South Africa's Child Labour Programme of Action.

The statute would compliment a larger effort to divert child criminals away from prisons and into rehabilitation programmes, particularly those children who were forced into crime.

"We want to avoid a child being prosecuted for something when they're actually the victim," said Dawie Bosch, the chief adviser to the department of labour on issues relating to child labour.

The use of children in criminal activity is internationally considered one of the worst forms of child labour. But until now there have been few guidelines on how to deal with the cases in South Africa's courts.

There are about 1 000 South African juveniles serving prison terms.

Another 1 000 are there awaiting sentencing.

And while it is unclear how many convicted children were coerced by adults, a CLC study made several troubling findings. In cases where an adult and a child were accused together, many prosecutors, in order to assure a conviction, dropped charges against the adult if the minor took full responsibility for the offence.

Children were left open to intimidation, especially when organised crime was involved.

The CLC and several government departments ran two pilot programmes - one in Mamelodi in Pretoria and one in Mitchells Plain - over the past year to test out the new child protection policies.

Between the two district courts, 1 529 children were arrested. Of those, there was evidence that 433 may have been forced into crime by an adult and were put into rehabilitation programmes.

Relatively few of the children were arrested for drug-related activity. The majority were caught for property crimes like theft and severe vandalism.

And more often than not, the children were co-opted by people close to them.

"We had a case where an uncle asked a child to go and steal a gun from another uncle," said Rene Botha who helped run the Mamelodi programme.

"It's not strangers who are asking youngsters to go and steal and commit crimes, it's people they know."

Matthew Dally, National Programme Coordinator of the International Labour Organization (ILO) has said that over 1.2 million people, representing 20 per cent of children in Ghana, were engaged in child labour.

He said 57 per cent of these children were engaged in the areas of agriculture, with 20.7 per cent in hunting and forestry, while the rest were used as general workers such as porters, truck pushers and drivers’ mates.

Mr Dally said over 91 per cent of parents of those children were alive, which indicated that parental neglect was a major cause of child labour in Ghana.

He said the definition of child labour was classified as children's work which had the tendency to disrupt their education, harm their health or general development of the child.

Mr Dally noted that not all work was harmful to children, adding that, light work could be an essential part of a child's socialization and development process.

He said through a carefully monitored work experience, young people could acquire the right skills to become useful members of their communities and could gain the traditional skills that were transmitted from parents to children.

Mr. Dally said the illegal employment of young children and girls in particular was alarming, adding that the younger the children, the more vulnerable they were to hazards at workplace and to economic exploitation.

He said the situation of the girl-child deserved particular attention due to the nature of their work and the conditions under which they worked.

Mr Dally said much of their work, such as domestic service, was hidden from public view, and this was a major sector of employment with the child frequently exposed to violence and sexual abuse.

He said the consequences of child labour could prove costly such as denial of children their rights, personal, physical, psychological and emotional disturbances, poverty and high dependency rates in the family and its effects on the economy.

He called for the use of education as a way of addressing the issue of child labour in the country.

THE number of working children in Uganda is nearly two million, an International Labour Organisation official has said.

Gilbert Sendugwa, the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) Country Programme Coordinator, said the number of working children between 5-15 years has grown in the past few years.

He was presenting a paper on HIV/Aids and child labour at a workshop in Mukono last week. "It's very unfortunate that the number of our youngsters engaged in child labour has grown to 2.7 million," Mr Sendugwa told Daily Monitor.

Causes

He attributed the phenomenon to the HIV/Aids scourge that has killed many adults, leaving many children orphaned. The workshop organised by the International Labour Organisation (ILO-IPEC) in conjunction with the National Organisation of Trade Unions (Notu) aimed at sensitising Mukono district civil servants on HIV/Aids and child labour.

Mr Sendugwa said the children, mostly girls, drop out of school to cater for their sick parents and when they (parents) die, harsh conditions force them to look for jobs at an early age. He said of the 2.7 million orphans in the country, 950,000 lost their parents to HIV/Aids.

"If you include the children who are not orphans but their parents are living positively [with Aids], you get scared," he said. Mr Sendugwa also cited poverty, agricultural activity, armed conflicts, natural disasters, domestic violence and population growth among the factors fuelling child labour in the country.

Statistics

According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos), of Uganda's 27 million people, 13.3 million are children. Ubos also shows that 34 per cent of the children between the ages of 5-14 are engaged in child labour.

Mr Sendugwa said most of the children are involved in domestic activities while 5 per cent take part in other more strenuous forms of labour. Efforts to get a comment from State Minister for Youth and Child Affairs James Kinobe proved futile as his telephone was not available.

However, Notu deputy Vice Chairperson General Irene Kaboole said the body has started a campaign to eliminate child labour, beginning with civil servants.

"Many civil servants have children working in their homes as house girls and house boys," she said.

Ms Kaboole said adults use children to cut costs because the young labourers donot demand alot of wages. She also condemned the people who sexually exploit girls.

ISLAMABAD: The government is not living up to its responsibility to eradicate child labour, as it has not included child labour in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) II, said Salma Majeed Jafar, technical advisor for Save the Children, UK.

She was speaking at the concluding session of a two-day national conference on the eradication of child labour.

Salma asked the government to include child labour in the PRSP-II if it was serious in protecting the rights of children. She said according to the labour force survey 2005-06, child labour was on the increase.

She said over four million children were neither getting education nor doing any work. She said it was strange that out of the four million children, 3.1 million were girls.

“The government must conduct a survey to compile data on the children working at a domestic level, as it is the worst form of child labour,” she said.

“The government must consult children before finalising policies on child labour for better results,” she said, adding that refugee children must also be made a part of the government’s welfare policies.

Farhat Raja asked the government to activate the union councils and district governments to free the children working at various work places.

Imtiaz Nizami, the project coordinator, said that the government should make the curriculum skill-oriented and ensure the implementation of the Primary Education Act.

Speaking on the occasion, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Dr Akram Sheikh said that child labour was an international problem that should be addressed on a priority basis. He said the government was committed to eradicating this social evil. He assured participants that the recommendations of the conference would be forwarded to the prime minister to ensure their implementation.

The Labour Department will kick-start a campaign to expose the "scourge of child labour" on Monday with roadshows in Cape Town, Polokwane and Kimberly, it said on Thursday.

Managers of the Department of Labour will speak about the extent and gravity of the problem in South Africa and will lead the campaign.

Zolisa Sigabi, the department's spokesperson, said in a statement that 36% of children aged between five and 17 did some form of economic activity exceeding three hours in any given week.

"This translates to 4,8-million children involved in economic activity in South Africa and we find this unacceptable. We are also worried to learn that about 1,7-million children do at least 12 hours economic work per week," she said.

According to Section 43 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, it is illegal to employ a child below the age of 15 even if the child requests to be employed.

However, the law allows children between the ages of 15 and 17 to work if there are protective mechanisms in place.

Two out of every three children in Mali work, many of them in dangerous jobs, despite international agreements to end child labour, the West African country's government said on Thursday.

Child labour and trafficking are problems across the region, but the government said it was important to distinguish between children working purely for money and those fulfilling tasks within the family or as part of their education in line with cultural traditions.

"Around two out of three children aged 5 to 17 years are economically active, that is to say they say they have worked either for free or for payment," said a government statement based on a survey by the planning ministry.

"Forty percent of (working) children from 5 to 14 years are doing dangerous work, meaning work which could seriously damage their health, safety or wellbeing," it said.

Child labour is a sensitive issue in West Africa, where poverty and longstanding traditions of children learning a trade, sometimes by going to live with members of their extended family, have left children vulnerable to exploitation.

Last month a group of 34 children were reunited with their families in Ivory Coast after spending more than two months in Mali waiting for papers from traffickers who conned them or their relatives out of up to 300,000 CFA francs ($600) each on the promise of a future playing soccer in Europe.

THEY toil beneath a baking sun, stagger under heavy loads and, with small hands, wield dangerous machetes. For the child slaves who produce the cocoa beans, life is far from sweet.

While millions of British children celebrate Easter Sunday by tearing through foil wrapping to get to their chocolate eggs, more than 12,000 of their African peers will continue their miserable work in the modern slave trade.

Major chocolate manufacturers such as Nestlé and Cadbury were asked yesterday to certify their products with a "traffik-free" guarantee to prevent consumers unwittingly supporting child slave labour. Stop the Traffik, an anti-slavery coalition backed by Amnesty International and the charities World Vision and Tearfund, want firms to do more to prevent the abuse of child workers.

According to the International Labour Organisation, 12,000 children have been trafficked from countries such as Mali and Burkina Faso to the Ivory Coast, where they work long hours for no pay and little food on cocoa plantations. Hundreds of thousands of other children help out on family farms in West Africa, often in hazardous conditions that put their health at risk, keeping them out of school, according to the charities.
The use of child labour is driven, says Stop the Traffik, by the abject poverty of farmers, who are forced to seek cheap or free labour, and it is demanding more money from the multi-billion-pound industry to protect children. British chocolate-makers said the industry was investing in a region-wide certification scheme to tackle the issue.

Steve Chalke, the chairman of Stop the Traffik, said: "These youngsters come from a background of poverty, and are even knowingly sold by their parents sometimes. Often, what will happen is the parents are starving, they're poor, they have nothing, and somebody comes along and says, 'I'll take your son, he'll work on my farm and I'll give you some money'. They think, 'We'll get money, so we can eat and our son gets a job'. They don't know what he's going to is a living hell. They are being hit, they have been taken from their mothers, they effectively have no freedom, no escape, there's no pay, little food, no education - and we sit here munching through our chocolate bars."

The international cocoa market is worth about £2.5 billion a year. The Ivory Coast in West Africa is the world's leading producer, supplying about 43 per cent, and some 30 to 40 per cent of cocoa used to make chocolate in the UK comes from the Ivory Coast, according to the Biscuit, Cake, Chocolate and Confectionery Association (BCCCA).

Alison Ward, of the BCCCA, said manufacturers in Britain were contributing about £8 million a year to developing certification and monitoring schemes that should cover some 50 per cent of cocoa-growing areas in Ivory Coast and Ghana by July next year.

The BCCCA is also supporting "farmer field schools", which aim to educate producers about boosting their yield and labour practices as well as social concerns.

http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=534532007

KATHMANDU, April 6: Around 18,000 out of a total of 2.6 million children across the country have been working in hazardous sectors such as garage, iron panel and iron rod repair and maintenance centres, revealed a report.

Children are working 10 hours daily in vehicles repair and maintenance centers without getting life insurance and using safety materials in very lower salary and facilities against the Acts related to child labourers, stated in the research report prepared by Children and Environment Concern Centre Nepal by visiting 59 districts of Nepal.

The report also read that less than 30 per cent of the children, their parents and employers are still not informed on the Acts related to labourers, attention has not been paid to these issues and Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) and International NGOs have not also set necessary priority to this sector.

At a programme organized here today, Concern Chairman Binaya Saiju said the magnitude of child labour could be mitigated through education, training and awareness-creating programme and added that they have been working for anti-child labour campaign.

NGO National Federation, General Secretary Shanta Lal Mulmi said children below 16 should not be employed by any individual or institutions and stressed on the need of introducing strict laws against the misuse of child labour.

For the first time, data on child abuse and neglect in India

A new report by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in India, (supported by Save the Children and UNICEF) released today, reveals the extent and magnitude of child abuse and neglect in India. This is one of the world’s largest empirical, in-country studies covering nearly 12,500 children and 4800 young adults in 13 States.

The Study looks at three different forms of child abuse – physical abuse, sexual abuse and emotional abuse and girl child neglect in families, schools, work places, on the street and institutions. The Study complements the UN Secretary General’s Study on Violence against Children, 2006.

The Study aims to develop a comprehensive understanding of child abuse, which will help formulate appropriate policies and programmes meant to effectively end child abuse in India.

 Major findings of the Study:

At the inauguration of the Study, Renuka Choudhary, Minister of State, Ministry of Women and Child Development, said “This is a landmark study that paves the way for new initiatives for protection of children in India.” The Ministry on its part has taken measures such as enabling legislation to establish the National and State Commissions for Protection of Rights of the Child, the Integrated Child Protection Scheme and the draft Offences against Children Bill.

Shireen Miller, Head of Policy, Save the Children UK, India highlights “Family is the place where children should be the safest and yet this is the context in which much of the abuse takes place. The Study reveals an urgent need for both stronger legislation to protect children and parenting education in India.”