Are loans from the IMF preventing the poorest countries from spending on children's education?

In the last year, Americans and Europeans have bought fewer cars. This has led to job losses among the migrant workers of Malawi who work in South African mines, where the materials for car parts are found. And one of the first responses of these workers has been to withdraw their children from school and send them to earn money, the charity ActionAid says.

An important study, shown to international economists in Washington last weekend and seen by Education Guardian, concludes that the prospect of world leaders fulfilling their promise to educate the 75 million children out of school by 2015 is looking "increasingly remote". The target was set in Senegal in 2000 as part of the Education for All goals. It is also the second of the millennium development goals.

No one denies that dramatic progress has been made - 25 million more children are in school than were in 2000. But the onset of a global recession has sparked fears that "progress may be stalled", the Global Campaign for Education's (GCE) study - Education on the Brink - argues.

This is despite last week's budget, which confirmed that the UK would not be cutting its international aid supply this year or next, and President Obama's promise to double US aid to $50bn (£34bn) in his first term of office. The problem, as the GCE sees it, lies predominantly with the International Monetary Fund, which tries to help countries achieve economic stability.

As the effects of the global economic crisis start to impact on the poorest countries, more of them will go to the IMF for loans. But these loans come with conditions. The IMF pushes countries to bring down their inflation to a single digit, limits fiscal deficits and government borrowing, and encourages the build-up of foreign currency reserves. All of which leaves little room for a low-income country to invest in its education, says the GCE.

Dire need
"From the IMF's perspective, spending on education is like pouring money down the drain," David Archer, one of the study's co-authors and the head of education at ActionAid, says.

"The dire needs of education systems in low-income countries are an essential investment that, in the context of the financial crisis, will also reap immediate short-term gains by generating employment and building a skilled and educated labour force," the study argues. "It makes sense to invest more in education now in order to reap returns in the future, but tight deficit targets make this impossible."

In remote villages, investment in schools stimulates economic activity in a way that would otherwise be hard to achieve, the GCE says. But the report's authors see few signs that the IMF is trying to reform.

At the G20 London summit this month, the fund became more powerful. The G20 leaders agreed to treble the size of the IMF's available resources from $250bn to potentially $750bn. But they did not make this on the condition that the IMF was reformed.

Archer says: "In the build-up to the G20 meeting, the IMF claimed it was perfectly placed to be given the responsibility to help poor countries deal with the recession. It claimed that it had changed and no longer imposed unreasonable conditions that prevented countries investing in education. But our report proves conclusively that in the past six months it has not changed. It is still imposing conditions to this very day and these conditions continue to block spending on education."

The effect of this, charities such as ActionAid say, is the withdrawal of pupils from school - and a restriction on the number of teachers being trained and recruited across the world. This is at a time when the world needs 18 million extra teachers by 2015, charities say.

We have an "education emergency" on our hands, says Kevin Watkins, director of Unesco's Education for All Global Monitoring report. "While the IMF has a key role to play in the financial crisis, it is not the most effective source of support for key social sector budgets," he says. "Its loans are far less concessional than those of the World Bank and they come with more loan conditions attached than strings on the average marionette. Poverty reduction is not the IMF's core business - and it doesn't do it well."

IMF denial
Hugh Bredenkamp, the IMF's deputy director of strategy, policy and review, denies the organisation is preventing low-income countries investing in education.

"On the contrary," he says, "we never put conditions that limit education. A third of our programmes in low-income countries have targets to increase health and education. The IMF has called for more aid to prevent low-income countries from having to cut expenditure as we go into recession. Far from imposing cuts, the objectives of our programmes provide for higher spending."

Meanwhile, the latest figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development show total aid commitments to basic education dropped more than 20% between 2006 and 2007, to $4.3bn.

"Education budgets will face a severe squeeze, caused by lower domestic revenues and exacerbated by falling aid flows," says Lucia Fry, a policy adviser at the GCE. "Countries that are already struggling to get all children into school for free, reduce class sizes, pay teachers and build classrooms will face the prospect of making cuts to already inadequate funding. It is likely that the squeeze will be particularly acute for the teaching profession, as the teacher salary budget typically makes up a large portion of overall spending."

Fry anticipates a reintroduction of school fees in some countries and an even deeper neglect for children in remote areas, who need extra help to get to school.

"We know from past crises that when incomes in poor households fall, education spending gets cut and children are taken out of school," says Watkins. "We also know that hungry children do not make good learners."

In this global recession, sub-Saharan countries such as Tanzania, Malawi and Ethiopia face the prospect of a sharp rise in budget deficits, he says.

Archer thinks the answer is to remind rich countries that they need to keep their international aid promises - as the UK has so far done - and to lobby for the IMF to change its loan conditions for poor countries.

If the world raised £11bn, every child could go to school. Does it really seem all that much when the UK government manages to raise hundreds of billions to rescue its banking sector?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/apr/28/imf-loans-education

BANGALORE: The Child Welfare Committee (CWC) has asked a Metro Rail contractor to appear before the child welfare court on Thursday, based on a complaint by an NGO on Tuesday.

Hasiru Usiru had alleged that Metro Rail contractors m/s Nagarajuna Constructions has been employing children under 14 years to work at its project site on Nanda Theatre Road in Jayanagar.

In their complaint submitted to the CWC, the BBMP and to Commissioner Shankar Bidari on Tuesday, they alleged that the contractor had hired three children below 14 years violating the Juvenile Justice Act. They have also accused the Nagarjuna Construction engineer, Mathiah, for child trafficking, charges which the latter has denied. The three children, Zakir, Manik Barua and Shamu are said to be from West Bengal.

Mathaiah claimed that all three had EPICs which gives their age as 21 years. The NGO has demanded that the engineer be booked under the Child Labour Act, Minimum Wages Act and Juvenile Justice (Care & Protection of Children) Act.

The Child Welfare Committee Coordinators have taken Manik into their custody. They have asked the Mathiah to appear before the child welfare court on Thursday.

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Labour and Manpower Syed Khursheed Ahmad Shah on Monday said the government was keen to develop comprehensive labour laws and policy according to the international labour standards, so as to ensure maximum labour welfare and create investment friendly environment in the country.

He was addressing a celebration of the 90th Anniversary of International Labour Organization (ILO) here today. The government was fully committed to safeguard the rights of the workers. At the same time, the government was convinced and obliged to provide level playing field to the employers’ community, as well.

He said the ILO had been helping the government in addressing various labour related issues, like promoting decent employment, human resources development, improvement of working conditions, occupational safety and health, elimination of child labour and bonded labour etc.

Besides the government and ILO, the employers and workers of Pakistan were also playing an important role in socio-economic development of the country, he added.

The minister said that the workers were backbone of the economy and the government highly appreciated their contribution towards national development.

Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Manpower Malik Asif Hayat said that the government was also making efforts, with the collaboration of the ILO, to integrate the labour related issues into the macro-economic policy of the country. This would ensure an effective follow-up and sustainability of our policies. He said the ILO’s contribution to Pakistan’s development covered not only the development of infrastructure but strengthening systems and institutions.

The ILO Country Director, Donglin Li welcoming the guests informed that in Pakistan, ILO had 16 ongoing projects with a combined budget of $35 million focusing on various issues including child and bonded labour, employment and skills development, labour market information, rural infrastructure, women empowerment, and earthquake response.

There were 6 upcoming projects $30 million in the pipeline, including skills development programs, women employment concerns and project to promote international labour standards, he added.

Ashraf W. Tabani, President, employers’ Federation of Pakistan, Khurshid Ahmed, General Secretary, Pakistan Workers’ Federation, Dr Bile, Acting UN Resident Coordinator in Pakistan, Frank Hess, Representative of the European commission have also addressed the ceremony.

The Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with 36 Municipal and District Assembles to support them to eliminate the worst forms of child labour in the cocoa sector.  In this regard, a capacity building programme is being undertaken to enhance implementation of interventions in 470 beneficiary communities in these districts.  

The sector Minister, Stephen Amoanor Kwao who announced this in Kumasi, said one key intervention for the selected Assemblies is to establish a Community Child Labour Monitoring System to disseminate occupational safety and health messages.  He said, the Community Child Labour Monitoring System will help the Municipal and District Assemblies to identify working children in cocoa growing communities and their migration status.  

They will also help to identify children who are in distress and exploitative situations at any given time, so as to plan and institute appropriate interventions.  Mr. Kwao said society should see child labour not as a consequence, but also as a cause of poverty and under-development.  

According to him, the prosperity of Ghana depends greatly on the quality of the human resources and therefore, to tolerate child labour is inconsistent with the massive investment government is making.  

Mr. Kwao said, in view of this, a micro credit scheme is being introduced, so that community members could source, to pursue alternative livelihoods in order to raise additional income, especially during off-season, to support the children.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has directed the Tamil Nadu government to file in eight weeks a status report indicating the number of child labourers in match and firecracker units.

A Bench consisting of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justices P. Sathasivam and A.K. Ganguly gave this interim direction on an application in a pending petition filed by M.C. Mehta alleging large scale employment of children below 14 in these factories.

By an earlier order, the court directed the constitution of a committee to look into child labour and to mobilise funds for the welfare of these children.

The Bench, taking note of the last affidavit filed in 2004, said the status report should also indicate the steps taken by the committee to disengage child labourers from match and firecracker units; the welfare measures taken to rehabilitate them and how much fund was available with it for such activities.

The application said the intention of the earlier court order was to rehabilitate child labourers and create educational and health facilities for them.

However, in the last 10 years the government had done nothing for their welfare even though there were directions to create a welfare fund.

Models dressed in chains paraded along a makeshift catwalk in London's Oxford Street as part of a demonstration against sweatshop labour.

Campaign group No Sweat staged the protest outside Primark's flagship store urging "decent working conditions and a living wage" for garment workers.

A Primark spokeswoman insisted: "We obviously share and recognise many of the concerns raised."

It says it fired suppliers whom the BBC's Panorama found used child labour.

'Huge profits'
But Mick Duncan, the secretary of No Sweat, said this was not good enough.

He said: "We don't want them to walk away - we want them to take responsibility for their workers and make sure their conditions are improved.

"No Sweat isn't calling on consumers to boycott chains like Primark, but instead to put pressure on them to clean up their act.

"These companies make huge profits and have a duty to ensure a fair wage."

The protest was backed by comedian Mark Thomas, who said it was in the interest of British workers to campaign for better treatment for their counterparts overseas.

"If workers abroad are being badly exploited, that means that the conditions of workers in the UK are also being undercut.

"It's about raising the standard for everyone."

But a Primark spokeswoman said the company had insisted that many factories improved their labour standards, and created senior management posts for an ethical trade manager and an ethical trade executive.

She said: "Ethical business practices are at the top of Primark's agenda and the company works tirelessly to ensure its many suppliers, including those in Bangladesh, conform to the highest standards of behaviour.

Preview: Panorama
"Primark works very hard to continually improve ethical standards and working conditions among suppliers."

Primark currently has more than 170 stores and made a £200m profit last year on total sales of more than £1.6bn.
Last year, Primark fired three Indian suppliers after a six-month BBC Panorama investigation found the suppliers had used child labour to carry out embroidery and sequin work.

A subsequent BBC undercover investigation found factory workers making clothes destined for fashion chain Primark who worked up to 12 hours a day for £3.50 an hour in Manchester.

IMPHAL, April 5: As the 15th Lok Sabha election draws nearer the children of Manipur today appealed to the people to choose the right person who will think about the children who are considered the future pillars of the nation. “Your vote will decide our fate and our fate decides the nation’s future. Elect those who protect children for the future of Manipur,” stated a poster which was also released today.

The release of the poster was held at the Manipur Press Club in Imphal. The poster was published by the Manipur Alliance for Child Rights (MACR) and Coalition on Children’s Right to Protection (CCRP).

Deeply concerned about children, MACR convenor Montu Ahanthem expressed to the media that with the election coming nearer, political parties were coming out from their hibernation and getting into full swing to woo the voters. Manipur will poll on the 16th and 22nd of April for electing two MPs and invariably the conflict torn state will once again be caught up in election fever.

However, so far no election issues can shift the voters minds from long standing issues of the society like AFSPA, insurgency, lawlessness, etc. Children have no voting rights and many a time their voices are not heard as election manifestos give least importance to their issues. Election, being the only available democratic medium in which people’s mandate is counted for bringing a sea change in the entire governance every voter must use the utmost wisdom while casting his or her vote, he said.

It is high time that the concerned civil society bodies strictly impose public code of conduct for elections that should be observed by all the political parties, candidates as well as the voters. So, let us give our mandate for ensuring a just society in which children’s rights are fully protected and ensured and let us strive together so that children’s issues are placed among the top agendas in every election thereby making it the agenda in every election and making it the major deciding factor for all the voters, for they are our future, he said while adding that it will then truly be the beginning of a total democratic revolution for a just society.

CCRP convenor S Sarju also maintained that children in Manipur are the victims of AFSPA, armed violence, drugs, HIV/AIDS epidemic, etc. While the frequent curfews being imposed plus the failure of the government in providing essential services like power, water and basic health services, not to mention the price hike of the essential commodities have resulted in the gross deprivation of the rights to life, education and other fundamental rights of children.

And one should not equate property, money and manipulation capability as plus factors for candidature.

Voters’ wisdom and principle should be upheld and never be swayed by corruption and threats and only then an enabling electoral environment can be created where public debate, open interaction and dialogue decide electoral fortune of the candidates through free and fair polls for the future of children, Sarju said.

Some of the key demands of children in Manipur are to increase government expenditure on children, specially increase expenditure on education to 10 percent and health to 5 percent GDP and all children between the age 6-18 years, without discrimination should be in formal, full time schools that provide quality education and also all children below six years should enjoy early childhood care and education (ECCE) Rights.

Other demands include complete prohibition on all forms of child labour across sectors including agriculture and ensuring rehabilitation of child labours, to provide ART treatment, shelter and educational support to all children living with HIV/AIDS, no educational institutions in the state should be used as military camps for conducting counter insurgency operations and education should be treated as an essential service and be exempted from bandh and blockades.

A Shiite woman with her baby waits to receive aid distributed by Iraqi government in Sadr city, Baghdad. Photograph: Petros Giannakouris/AP

Corruption, weak law enforcement and porous borders are compounding a growing child trafficking crisis in Iraq, according to officials and aid agencies, with scores of children abducted each year and sold internally or abroad.
Criminal gangs are profiting from the cheap cost of buying infants and the bureaucratic muddle that makes it relatively easy to move them overseas. Accurate figures are difficult to obtain because there is no centralised counting procedure, but aid agencies and police say they believe numbers have increased by a third since 2005 to at least 150 children a year.

One senior police officer said at least 15 Iraqi children were sold every month, some overseas, some internally, some for adoption, some for sexual abuse. Officials believe at least 12 gangs are operating in Iraq, offering between £200 and £4,000 per child, depending on its background and health. The main countries in which they are sold are Jordan, Turkey, Syria and some European countries including Switzerland, Ireland, the UK, Portugal and Sweden.

According to Colonel Firaz Abdallah, part of the investigation department of the Iraqi police, gangs use intermediaries who pretend to be working for non-governmental organisations. During negotiations with the families, members of the trafficking gangs prepare the paperwork: birth certificates, change of names and the addition of the child to the passport of the intermediary or any other person who is paid to take the child outside, usually to Syria and Jordan and from there, to Europe or other Middle East countries.

"The corruption in many departments of the government makes our job complicated [because] when those children come to the airport or the border, everything looks correct and it is hard for us to keep them inside the country without significant evidence that the child is being trafficked," Abdallah said.

"A couple of weeks ago we caught a couple with a six-month-old baby leaving by car from the Iraqi border to Jordan. One of our police officers found the age difference between the couple strange and asked our office to check. After arresting them we found out that the girl was sold by her parents and was going to be taken to Amman, then after that, to Ireland where a family had already paid for the baby."

One dealer, who asked to be called Abu Hamizi, said child trafficking from Iraq was cheaper and easier than elsewhere, given the readiness of underpaid government employees to help with the falsification of documents.

"Before we try to negotiate with any family we study their living conditions, their debts, the goods they own, and when we feel that the relatives are suffering with unemployment and cannot feed their children, we make our approach that in most of the time is welcomed as we are seen as aid workers," he said.

"During the period of investigations, we present ourselves as employees of a local NGO and offer some food and clothes. After we get their trust, we make our offer that varies according to what we have found out. If the family is really poor they can accept very low deals but sometimes with more literate ones, prices are higher.

"We prefer babies but sometimes families request children from one to four years old but they are rare cases."

The traffickers said they would check up occasionally to ensure the child was doing well. But Abu Hamizi said he once heard from a colleague that one of babies sold last year was used for organ transplants in the Middle East.

Though Abu Hamizi insists that "client" families were well-treated, a 2007 report by the NGO Heartland Alliance found that traffickers employed the threat or use of force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or vulnerability, or giving payments or benefits to a person in control of the victim.

Sarah Taminn, 38, a widow and mother of five from Babel, said she had already sold children aged four and two in the past year. She had no regrets despite receiving less money than promised by the dealer.

"People might see me as a monster but if they know how hard it is to live in a displacement camp, without a job, support or husband, they might change their idea," she said. "I did anything possible to keep them with me but I lost my husband while I was pregnant with my fifth child and life became too hard. I love all my children. I know that the families who adopted them will give a good life, food and education that I would never give."

Aid workers say very little is being done to overcome the problem. "Reports of trafficking are increasing because people are much more aware now and they feel confident enough to talk about this child rights violation," said Fatuma Ibrahim, chief child protection officer of Unicef from the Iraq Support Centre in Amman. "Of course, Unicef is very concerned about these reports and we are working with the Ministry of Labour and Social Services to follow up on reports of alleged 'adoptions'."

Aid agencies are warning parents that many children are used as sexual workers or sold to paedophiles. "We tried to approach many of these families to alert them about what can happen with their kids but we have been threatened and two aid workers were killed after they tried to prevent a child negotiation," said one aid worker, Ahmed Sami.

Yasiin Mugerwa
Africa: Parliament on Thursday created a new clause in the “Prevention of Trafficking of Persons Bill, 2007 providing for the death penalty as a maximum sentence to a person convicted of human trafficking.

To put a stop to what a host of MPs said was an increasing catastrophe in the country involving child sacrifice and human trafficking, the legislators unanimously resolved that a death penalty should apply for human traffickers.

The amendments were proposed by the State Minister for ICT, Mr Alintuma Nsambu. “We should create a new close providing for a death sentence for human sacrifice and trafficking in persons,” Mr Nsambu said.

Although Rukungiri Woman MP Winnie Masiko attempted to block the proposal saying the death penalty was still controversial, Nakasongola MP Peter Nyombi reminded the House that the Supreme Court in its recent ruling upheld the death sentence.

In January, the Supreme Court refused to outlaw the death penalty. However, the court maintained that once the death sentence is confirmed, the condemned person should either be executed within three years or his sentence commuted to life.

The Supreme Court ruling noted that hanging was cruel and recommended that Parliament consider another means of execution.

In a debate overshadowed by memories of sacrificed children and Ugandans trafficked to countries like China, Egypt, Canada, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia for forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation, legislators unanimously resolved that a death penalty should apply for human traffickers.

The latest child trafficking report released last month indicated that many people abuse human rights of children due to lack of laws to fight the vice.

According to the findings of the report that was compiled by Dr David Kyaddondo, a lecturer at Makerere University, child trafficking involves recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation.

The death penalty has been provided under Clause 5 (b) of the new Bill, still being scrutinised to provide more amendments.

http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/news/Parliament_approves_
death_sentence_for_human_traffickers_82620.shtml