By Alan Boyd

30th January 2004

SYDNEY - India does it. So do Pakistan, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Nepal, Indonesia, the Philippines, East Timor and several Central Asian states. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has labeled the practice one of the most morally reprehensible acts of systematic abuse worldwide, and even took the extraordinary step of publicly naming the culprits last year.

Yet at least 100,000 Asian children as young as eight are still being coerced to fight for government armies and armed rebel movements, according to the latest report by Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, a global human-rights alliance.

As the UN Security Council met last week to debate the predicament of children caught up in armed conflict, there was a minefield of contention over the dwindling prospects of a diplomatic solution.

"Adopting resolution after resolution which fail to protect children from conflict has created 'resolution fatigue' among governments at the UN and cynicism among the public," said Casey Kelso, the coalition coordinator. "The test for the Security Council is to hold these governments and groups accountable for their actions."

Comprising eight charities and human-rights groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International Save the Children Alliance and World Vision International, the coalition reported a general deterioration last year in the treatment of children in war zones.

In Asia, children played a significant role in the government forces of Afghanistan and Myanmar, with the junta in Myanmar alone conscripting as many as 70,000 youths under the age of 18.

While the practice was not condoned at an official level elsewhere on the continent, paramilitary and rebel movements enlisted scores of other children as soldiers, sexual slaves, laborers, porters or spies on the Indian subcontinent and in some parts of Southeast Asia.

A separate study released by Annan ahead of the Security Council debate cited Afghanistan, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, but omitted India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and East Timor.

"Exiled children told of being abducted by government forces and taken to military camps where they were subject to beatings, forced labor and combat,? the human-rights coalition said of Myanmar, where there was "little if any progress? in ending the practice.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) pledged to demobilize children after a ceasefire two years ago in Sri Lanka, Asia's other leading conflict zone, but has released only 202 child fighters. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported in another assessment this week that the LTTE recruited 709 under-age fighters in 2003, despite promises that it wouldn't enlist anyone below 18 years of age. While the average age of children utilized by the LTTE is 15, some are as young as 10. The rebel group claims that most enroll voluntarily to flee poverty or abuse from government forces.

"Our estimate is that there are 50,000 children of different categories that are directly affected by the conflict," said Ted Chaiban, UNICEF's representative in Sri Lanka. "I am speaking here of children engaged in child labour, child soldiers, children that have been displaced repeatedly, children victims of land mines."

It is this social aspect, plus the logistical problem of reaching remote opposition factions, that has proved the biggest hurdle in shaping tougher measures against states and groups that condone the use of child soldiers.

A year ago the Security Council pressed for an immediate halt to the use of child soldiers by passing Resolution 1460, which identified 23 armed factions worldwide recruiting children and calculated the number of victims at 300,000.

The list has since grown to 54 warring parties in 15 conflicts, mostly in Africa and Asia. Conditions have improved in only a few countries - notably Colombia, Liberia and Burundi - and largely as a result of changed domestic circumstances.

Activists charge that Resolution 1460 was always doomed to fail because it carried no penalties, reflecting a diplomatic reluctance to impose economic sanctions that would be almost impossible to enforce.

Another shortcoming is that the resolution does not target those countries, including a number of Security Council members, that provide a political or military lifeline for regimes accused of using child soldiers.

"Action must also be taken against those indirectly involved through tacit support for governments or armed groups, or via the provision of arms and financial assistance,? said Kelso, coordinator of the coalition to stop the use of child combatants. "The council should act to end weapons flows to violators and apply targeted sanctions to parties that fail to end their use of child soldiers."

This week the Security Council began thrashing out a new resolution that is expected to raise the tone of the debate, though probably little else. One draft prepared by France would establish a system to monitor the use of children in conflict.

Germany is pushing for the inclusion of other rights violations such as rape and sex slavery, which it alleges are often used as weapons of war in combination with murder and mutilation.

But the UN again will be hamstrung by a lack of consensus on how to impose punitive measures, partly as a result of its inability to achieve a comprehensive legal platform.

No fewer than six international declarations have been issued on the specific issue of children in conflicts since 1999, culminating in a Child Soldiers Protocol that was signed by 109 countries in 2002 after six years of difficult negotiation. A minimum age of 18 was established for the direct participation of children in hostilities, their compulsory recruitment, enlistment or use in hostilities by non-governmental armed groups - up from 15 years, the previous threshhold.

However, the covenant has been ratified only by a disappointing 67 countries worldwide, including three in Asia - Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Vietnam - giving the UN limited jurisdiction to take punitive action. In addition, it is only an optional protocol to the wide-ranging Convention on the Rights of the Child, which also covers the involvement of children in armed conflict, and hence it cannot be legally enforced.

The United States, one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, has not ratified either the convention or the protocol, though the Senate has voted support for the protocol. The United Kingdom, France, China and Russia, which hold the other four permanent seats, have signed but have not yet ratified the resolution.

One possible reason for Washington's reticence is that it has technically violated the protocol by incarcerating at least three children as "enemy combatants" in a military facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Detained with more than 600 other terrorism suspects after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, the children are believed to be aged between 13 and 15, while there is an undetermined number in the 16-18 age bracket. None has been charged with any crime.

With the UN in effect sidelined, the task of implementing Resolution 1460 increasingly has fallen to activists who have even less enforcement ability and are often seen as pursuing their own agendas.

Myanmar, the Asian country on the child soldier blacklist that is arguably most vulnerable to UN sanctions, portrayed itself as a victim of outside political pressures, in an angry retort to the study by the human-rights coalition.

"The report, without checking and verification, used second-hand information provided by politically motivated NGOs [non-governmental organizations] to include Tatmadaw Kyi [the government army] in the list," the ruling junta said in a statement to the Security Council.

"The preparation of the report as far as Myanmar was concerned was very political and the discussions were sometimes even acrimonious," the government statement said. "No UN agency in Myanmar has verified this allegation."

Source: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FA30Aa01.html

January 29 2004 at 06:36AM
Reuters

Rabat - An estimated 600 000 Moroccan children are working, mainly on family farms, the Labour Ministry said on Wednesday, despite a commitment by Rabat to end child labour.

Results of a ministry study showed that 84 percent of child workers were in agriculture, and of these 96 percent were employed by their families. The figures referred to children aged between seven and 14, a ministry official said.

The North African country is committed by international conventions to eradicating child labour. It ratified in 1993 the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which says children should be protected from economic exploitation.

A new labour bill, expected to be implemented this year, bans employment of children under 15.

The ministry official said 800 000 children under 14 in Morocco, a country of 30 million, do not go to school.

Source:http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=68&art_id=qw107535096120B256&set_id=1

KARTA, Jan 28:

Child prostitution and children’s involvement in the drug trade are major problems in Indonesia and the police must do more to combat them, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) said today.

Indonesia still faces "big problems" with child prostitution and young drug traffickers despite its recent ratification of ILO conventions on child labour, said Alan Boulton, the organisation's country director.

"There are still problems here and not enough has been done," he told reporters after the launch of a joint project between Indonesia, the ILO and the US Government on training police to handle industrial disputes.

"If you ask me, progress hasn't been good enough but I think there is at least progress and I think we can always do better," Boulton said.

The ILO said in two separate reports in 2003 that children as young as 13 are being employed as drug runners in Jakarta and have begun working as prostitutes between the ages of 15 and 17.

It said more than 10,000 children aged under 18 work as prostitutes in Indonesia and parents and other relatives play a part in trafficking them.

Apart from a national action programme to tackle child prostitution and child drug traffickers, the Government and the police should consider forming a task force, he said. — AFP

Source: http://www.emedia.com.my/Current_News/NST/Thursday/
World/20040129104023/Article/indexb_html

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
January 28, 2004

Posted to the web January 28, 2004
Harare

When a lorry carrying farm workers crashed this month outside the capital, Harare, killing 22 people, a number of children were among the fortunate survivors.

The tragedy came at the beginning of the new school year, when a rise in school fees had forced many former farm workers - among the poorest of the rural poor - to pull their children out of school. The children on the lorry, aged between 13 and 18, were seeking piecework on neighbouring farms to earn the money to continue with their schooling.

Prior to Zimbabwe's land reform programme in 2000, an estimated 320,000 to 350,000 farm workers, often from neighbouring countries, were employed on commercial farms owned by about 4,500 white farmers. Their dependents numbered around 2 million - more than 20 percent of the national population.

As a result of land reform, some 90 percent of commercial farms have been redistributed, the majority broken up and parcelled out to newly settled small-scale farmers.

The farm workers, many from neighbouring countries who had lived on the commercial estates for generations, were suddenly faced with an uncertain future. Not only did they lose their jobs, many also lost their entitlement to free housing, education, basic health services and subsidised food.

Gertrude Hambira, secretary-general of the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers' Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ), told IRIN that the new settlers were able to absorb only a fraction of the former farm workers they found living on the plantations. Many of those of Zimbabwean origin returned to their rural homes, others turned to gold panning or migrated to the towns. The rest were left with little option but to become squatters, surviving by offering their services to the neighbouring farms.

The lives of the former farm workers remained precarious, said Hambira. They were barely able to make ends meet and provide sufficiently for their children, thus the high rate of child labour and school absenteeism. The prevalence of HIV/AIDS, which the UN Development Programme's Relief and Recovery Unit estimated at 43 percent on the farms, had led to many child-headed households and still less children in school.

Sending a child to school in the rural areas costs about US $110 a year for basics such as school uniforms and fees. But the salaries of farm workers currently range from US $10 to US $20, which must not only cover household expenditures, but also farming inputs like seeds and fertiliser. According to Peter Mazadzise, GAPWUZ national coordinator, some of the newly settled farmers pay their workers no more than US $5.50 a month.

Many children are thus pulled out of school by parents who cannot cope. "When parents can't pay, they simply select a few of their children, whom they think can do well, and the rest assist them on the farm," explained Hambira.

She added that even many of those in school had to provide some kind of labour to assist with covering education costs. Some areas, such as the tobacco and tea plantations, have an "Earn and Learn" school system where children study some of the time and work part-time to help raise the money for their fees.

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200401280464.html

Policy Interventions On Child Labour

CHANDRA MOHAN

January 5th, 2003

Policy interventions to end child labour without hurting children is a major challenge before the global community. More than two centuries after the first serious efforts were made to eradicate the problem, there are still 186 million child labourers in the world. There have been sharp reductions in the industrialised countries, but in emerging economies like India, the use of child labour continues to flourish.

Take the latest NSSO report on the employment-unemployment situation in India, 2001-02, for instance. The number of persons usually employed in the age group 5-14 has sharply risen in urban India and among females in rural India. From 27 boys in that age group who were employed per 1,000 persons in 1999-2000, this ratio sharply rose to 43 boys in 2001-02. Similarly, for girls both in rural and urban India.

Can a policy response end child labour? Professor Kaushik Basu and Zafiris Tzannatos, who masterfully survey the burgeoning literature on this problem*, believe that “government intervention for controlling child labour is both desirable and possible”. To be efficacious, a policy has to be crafted which recognises the powerful market forces that give rise to the problem and will therefore respond to intervention.

These economists divide possible interventions into collaborative and coercive measures. The former includes those that alter the economic environment of the decision makers, which makes them more willing to let children stay away from labour. Among others, this includes improving the functioning of adult labour markets so that their incomes rise while unemployment falls. When such incomes rise, child labour may be unnecessary.

But the most direct collaborative measures are the ones that reward children who go to school rather than work. Basu and Tzannatos mention the ex-ample of the mid-day meal scheme in India, among many others. Jean Dreze and Kingdon’s work shows that female school participation is 15% higher when the local school provides a meal. They also find that girls’ schooling responds more to such incentives — an important finding as special efforts are needed to keep girls away from work.

On the other hand, coercive measures include the “social clause” which permits the WTO to take punitive action against a country that has child labour, among others, but the authors note that such measures should be used more carefully than collaborative ones. Though well-meaning, such interventions often end up hurting children or forcing them into undesirable activities.

The upshot is that there is no one simple policy to end child labour, but there is a much better understanding today to craft a policy response to sharply reduce it and ultimately eradicate it.

The Global Child Labour Problem: What do we know and what can we do?’, World Bank Economic Review, forthcoming later in 2003

Source: http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=49827

Today is a historic day. Children who always toiled hard to provide amusement to adults and children alike, for the first time felt that they too could have a bright future and enjoy their childhood. Owing to unstinting efforts of BBA/SACCS during the course of the last one year, now these children have been released from their work in the circus. It is also historic in the sense that the employers of famous circuses in India like Greater Bombay and Jumbo came forward to release children from work and provide them education. Nine children - two girls and seven boys - were released. Of this, six are from Jumbo and three from Greater Bombay circus. Ami De, Maya, Aman, Vijay, Vicky and Vinay Kumar are from Nepal, while Bittu is from Bihar, Meena belongs to Assam and Abhishek is from Gwalior. They have been working with the circus for last one to two years. They were recruited through their relatives already working in these circuses or through agents.

A press conference organised at the Constitution Club in New Delhi today was jointly addressed by Kailash Satyarthi, Chairperson, SACCS, and representatives of Indian Circus Federation (a nodal body of Indian Circuses also comprising some prominent circuses in India). Mr. Khemji Thapa, representing Nepal Child Welfare Foundation (NCWF) from Nepal, also addressed the press. He will be taking the Nepali children back to Nepal. The media interacted with the children who were just released.

The momentum has begun. It will not stop till all the children working in circuses are released and their childhood restored.

Anjana Pasricha

New Delhi
22 Jan 2004, 12:40 UTC

The U.N. children's agency says Tamil rebels are continuing to recruit child soldiers in Sri Lanka, despite a halt in the country's civil war. UNICEF is appealing for their release.

A UNICEF report released in Colombo says Tamil Tiger rebels recruited 709 underage fighters last year despite promises not to enlist anyone below 18 years of age.

UNICEF's representative in Colombo, Ted Chaiban, has called on the Tamil rebels - also known as the LTTE, to honor their pledge.

"New recruitment must stop and there needs to be an accelerated release of children currently with the LTTE," he said.
The report says Tamil rebels released 202 child fighters last year.

The average age of children enlisted as fighters was 15, but the youngest recruit was only 10-years-old.
The Tigers have admitted using child combatants in the past. But they deny doing so since they signed a truce with the government two-years ago, halting two decades of fighting. They say underage children come to them to flee poverty or abuse at the hands of government forces.

According to U.N. estimates, more than 40 rebel groups worldwide rely on underage fighters.

UNICEF also is calling for greater international involvement in helping children in war-ravaged areas in Sri Lanka's north and east.

Mr. Chaiban says virtually every child in that area has been affected by the conflict, and needs rehabilitation programs.

"Our estimate is that there are 50,000 children of different categories that are directly affected by the conflict," he said. "I am speaking here of children engaged in child labour, child soldiers, children that have been displaced repeatedly, children victims of land mines."

UNICEF introduced a $14 million plan last year to provide education and vocational training to war-affected children. But it says more social workers, health workers and schools are needed to make the program effective.

Tamil rebels began fighting in 1983 for a separate homeland in the north and east. The truce two-years ago halted the fighting, but efforts to permanently end the conflict have been stalled by a power struggle between Sri Lanka's president Chandrika Kumaratunga and prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Source: http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=
DE372810-E768-489D-B3DFC07E999F4B06#

New Delhi, Jan 14 (IANS) :

On a foggy Wednesday morning that wiped even the majestic India Gate here out of sight, thousands of schoolchildren stood before the historic monument and pledged to eradicate child labour.

Enthusiastic as they were, the poor children had to wait for a while in the cold before the chief guests, including Labour Minister Sahib Singh arrived. They amused themselves by waving the national flag at the media at intervals.

The children were also disappointed that cine actress and Rajya Sabha member Hema Malini and other celebrities expected to grace the occasion didn't turn up.

They pledged, along with Singh and International Labour Organisation director General Juan Somavia, to help ensure that kids below 14 go to school.

"We have pledged to eliminate child labour in Delhi by the yearend and in the country by 2007," said Singh.

As a step towards helping end child labour in hazardous industries, Singh launched the National Child Labour Project (NCLP) in 50 districts, in addition to 100 districts where the project is already under way.

By the month end, the NCLP project would be extended to 100 more districts.
Till 2007 the labour ministry would be utilising Rs.6.02 billion to provide education through bridge courses to children freed from child labour.
The project would also provide the means to improve the living standard of the targeted children's families so that they can remain in school.

According to a labour ministry estimate, there are around 10 million children in the country employed in different professions, though unofficial figures put them at about twice the number.

"In a step forward, around 1,000 schools in the capital have given their commitment to help educate at least 50 children free of cost, making a provision for 50,000 children in the capital though the number identified is around 27,000," said Singh.

The schools will also contribute around Rs.500 to each of the families of the children either through their own funds or with the help of the students and parents, Singh said.

The labour ministry will give a monthly stipend of Rs.100 to children, while schools will provide free food, clothing and stationary to them to motivate poor parents to send their wards to schools instead of making them bread winners.

Lauding India's efforts and commitment, Somavia said there was need for a structural solution to eliminate child labour, with the community playing a major role.

Thanks to efforts of NGOs like Prayas and some leading schools like Laxman Public School, many destitute children from poor homes are getting education.

"In the end it is development that is going to provide the solution," said Somavia, criticising the unfair trade practices of developed nations.

"Rules of trade are not fair to the developing nations. We see lots of protectionism on the part of the developed nations. All these have a contiguous effect on development," said Somavia.

The ILO official revealed that under a project to be jointly funded by India and the US, the NCLP programme would be extended to another 20 districts.

Source:http://www.newkerala.com/newsdaily/news/features.php?action=fullnews&id=4705

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

January 14, 2004

Posted to the web January 14, 2004
Johannesburg

With an estimated 30 percent of Angolan children aged between five and 14 forced to work, officials and aid groups gathered on Wednesday to discuss ways of tackling child exploitation.

The meeting in the southern Cunene province was expected to highlight children's rights, an issue that has largely been ignored in Angola.

Widespread poverty and social upheavals as a result of the decades-long civil war are seen as the main reasons why children are forced to work instead of attending school.

The legal minimum age for employment in Angola is 14 years. However, according to the International Labour Organisation, many younger children work on family farms, as domestic servants, and in the informal economy. Family-based child labour in the subsistence agricultural sector is common.

"Children are hungry and are unable to feed themselves. This leads them to the streets to seek employment - there really is no other option, given the weak system of social welfare in Angola. Most often the meagre earnings of these children help to support unemployed parents and the elderly," Sam Kambarami, the acting director of Save the Children Fund-US, told IRIN.

Primary school attendance in Angola stands at just over 50 percent, and many children in the underdeveloped interior of the country also have no access to basic health care.

"This is an extremely complex issue, which has its roots in the war. Most of the children who are currently working are doing so because they have lost either one or both parents in the war. But in some cases, the lack of schools in some parts of the country means that children have to work at an early age," said UN Children's Fund's child protection officer, Abubacar Sultan.

It was important to continue with attempts to re-unite families separated during the war, and provide educational opportunities for children who did not have access to education, he added.

"There is wide recognition that, in some cases, some families do not have any choice but to send their children to work. The solution therefore is to consider how to combine schooling with work that is not exploitative," Sultan explained.

Another key issue raised by participants was reports of cross-border trafficking of young children into neighbouring countries, especially Namibia and the Democractic Republic of Congo.

"There is wide consensus that immigration and customs controls need to be stricter, to ensure that this practice does not continue. It is also quite worrying to see young girls, who sell goods during the day, involved in prostitution at night, many of whom have very little knowledge about sexually transmitted diseases," Sultan said.

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200401140396.html

SHRUTHI JOY

TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2004 02:21:19 AM ]

HYDERABAD : On an average, about 40 street children land up at railway stations in the city every day, but the railway authorities and the government do little to take care of them.

Though the state government’s initiatives on child labour eradication have reached children in the rural areas, street and migrant children in the city have been left out, Mohammed Rafiuddin, director of the Hyderabad Council of Human Welfare (HCHW), an NGO working with street children, said.

The railway stations have no presence of child labour department functionaries. This, despite the fact that stations are key contact points for migrant street children, Rafiuddin said. Since HCHW was not granted permission to set up a centre at the station, it has set up two ‘drop-in centres’ outside the Nampally and Secunderabad stations.

Street children can walk into these drop centres where they are provided with food, basic amenities, medical care, referrals for further rehabilitation and recreational facilities.

Around 150 children drop in at the centres every day, Rafiuddin says. Perhaps realising what they have thus far missed out on, the Andhra Pradesh State Based Project for Elimination of Child Labour has decided to focus on urban street children, those working at railway stations and beggars this year, project manager M P Joseph said.

“In the last three years,we did not focus on urban child labour in the twin cities.We will definitely incorporate it in our planning this year,” he said.

“It’s not that government agencies don’t have any presence at the stations. About two years ago, we were working with the Hind Mazdoor Sabha, part of the AP Federation of Trade Unions for Elimination of Child Labour, at Secunderabad railway station,” he said.

But since the state government never carried out any scientific survey on the number of urban child labourers, the first step will be to start with one this year, he said.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-421484,curpg-2.cms

January 14, 2004 02:40 IST

Several NGOs under the umbrella of Children's Rights in a Globalising World (CR4WSF) would try to build strategies and strengthen alliances in an effort to pay more attention to the rights of children in the agenda of World Social Forum for development.

About 500 children and 56 organisations and networks working on child rights will discuss at the five-day meet in Mumbai how globalisation and privatisation have impacted poor children all over the world as governments cut back investment in social development, representatives of CR4WSF told mediapersons on Tuesday.

"It is very evident that the target set by the United Nations in the millennium declaration -- to eradicate poverty, achieve universal education and promote gender equality and improve health -- would not be achieved by 2015," they said.

"Therefore, we (NGOs) would examine the accountability and responsibility of the state and international institutions to ensure protection of rights of children growing up in the economic, cultural and political climate driven by a free market," they added.

Some eminent personalities and specialists, including Magsaysay Award winner Dr Shantha Sinha (elimination of child labour), Anne Finger (rights of disabled) and Cecilio Adorna of UNICEF (investments and accountability), will participate in the panel discussion on January 18.

Several workshops on 'Living with Conflicts', 'Rights of Disabled', 'Early Childcare' and 'Child Trafficking and How to Prevent it', would also be held, they added.

Agencies

Source: http://us.rediff.com/news/2004/jan/13wsf.htm

DR. P.D Shenoy**

Thursday, January 08, 2004

16:7 IST

India fully subscribes to the ideal of the child’s well being - a universal aspiration. Our constitution makers had foreseen that the India of their vision would not be a reality unless the country’s children are nurtured and educated properly. Child labour is a complex socio-economic problem. It has to be tackled through sustained efforts over a period of time. The Government is committed to eliminate all forms of child labour. As per the 1991 census, the total number of working children in the country was 11.28 million. This figure has now come down to 10.40 million as per the 55th round of NSSO survey. The figures of the 2001 census are awaited.

Child Labour Act

While child labour in the country is present in one form or the other, the employment of children below 14 is prohibited in 13 hazardous occupations and 57 risky processes as per the Child Laour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986. The Centre, the States and the Union Territories have machineries to enforce child labour-related provisions of various laws.

Considering the nature and magnitude of the problem of child labour a gradual and sequential approach has been adopted for the rehabilitation of child labour, beginning with the children working in hazardous occupations. Jobs in automobile workshops and garages, slaughter houses, foundries, handling of toxic or inflammable substances or explosives, handloom or powerloom industry, mines and collieries, plastic units and fibre glass factories come under the category of hazardous occupations.

The hazardous processes include beedi making, carpet weaving, aggarbatti manufacturing, gem cutting and polishing, lock making, bangle making, brassware making and zari making.

Awareness

The growing concern for their welfare has helped create a new awareness for children by and large who are provided with facilities like education, health, safety and nutrition. When the children are compelled to work at the cost of their education, they are bound to remain unskilled. They easily fall a prey to different health hazards, sometimes losing even their vital organs in accidents and remain handicapped for the rest of their lives. More significantly, their mental development, self-esteem and entrepreneurship remain stymied and they are forced to lead a life of abject poverty. A situation develops in which child labour is perpetuated and sustained. Food security provided by the mid-day meals programme has had a positive impact on reducing child labour. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan with the objective of education for all has also substantially raised literacy levels among the children.

Child Labour Project

The Government has now adopted project-based approach to eliminate child labour. It encompasses education, stipend, motivation, health concerns and vocational guidance. Food supplement is also given to them. The monitoring machinery is being strengthened at all levels based on inputs from teachers, employees of labour departments and the project authorities.

A major activity initiated under the National Child Labour Project is the establishment of special schools to provide non-formal and formal education, vocational training, stipend, health check-up and supplementary nutrition to the children withdrawn from jobs.

Presently, 100 child labour projects have been sanctioned in 13 child labour-endemic States to cover 2.11 lakh children in 4022 schools. The Government has approved the continuation of the existing 100 NCLPs in 13 States during the Tenth Plan. It has also approved the setting up of an additional 150 NCLPs. Action to set up NCLPs in 50 additional districts in 20 States and Union Territories is under way. It is expected to eliminate child labour by the end of the 10th Plan (2002-2007). The strategy is to ensure that all working children in the age group of 5-9 years are directly put into school under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Older children between the ages of 9 and 14 years are to be covered subsequently. (PIB Features)

**Secretary, Ministry of Labour

Source: http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=614

By Declan Walsh in Nairobi
08 January 2004

When he finally returned home, Thomas was quiet as a mouse. Two years of dusty, bloody warfare in the Sudanese bush had quelled his enthusiasm for talk. His age didn't help either. At 12 years old, Thomas was a war veteran in mind, but not in body.

"He was very quiet. I tried to encourage him to forget what happened," recalled the aunt who took the boy into her home. With both parents dead, he had nowhere else to go.
Now Thomas is slowly piecing his life together again. In the morning he casts a fishing net into a nearby swamp. On a good day, there is enough for his aunt's family too. Then he goes to the Doulgan.

In the old days, the Doulgan was where Nuer youth learnt their tribe's history, song, dance and sport - a sort of bush school for local culture. Today, in post-conflict Sudan, it is where soldiers like Thomas learn to be children again.

The Doulgan is usually held in a large circle, preferably under the shade of a tree. There are 180 children at Nyadin village, about half from Kuertuet across the river. For the child soldiers, it is doorway back into their own society.

"It's not easy for these children, having had military orientation, to just fit back into their communities," said Patience Alidri of Save the Children, one of three charities supported by this year's Independent Christmas Appeal, which closes today.

The Doulgan's activities, usually performed in a large circle, have poignant echoes of conflict. Racing games involve fleeing an imaginary abductor, because thousands of Sudanese youngsters were taken into slavery during the war. Community elders visit to pass on local stories and legends. Aid workers come with advice on hygiene, food and diseases such as HIV/Aids.

Save the Children also enrols the child soldiers into accelerated learning programmes, where eight years of schooling are compressed into four. The programmes not only provide an education but also keep the sometimes unruly former combatants out of trouble. "The children were promised schooling in the demobilisation centres, but it didn't really happen. And they can be difficult to control," said Ms Alidri.

The United Nations estimates that there are about 7,000 child soldiers in the rebel ranks. But in truth, nobody knows for sure. Two decades of fighting have condemned vast swaths of Sudan - Africa's largest country - to poverty and isolation.

Electricity and running water are unheard of in most parts. Hunger and diseases eradicated elsewhere - such as guinea worm - are still rife. The south of the country has suffered worst. There are 4,000 miles of tarred roads in the north, less than 10 in the south.

Now peace is looming. Government and rebel negotiators signed an agreement yesterday on dividing the country's massive oil revenue during a six-year transition period. A full deal is expected within months.

Amid the anticipated rush of humanitarian aid, the demobilisation of thousands more child combatants will take place. The return home will be happy, but not always easy. Many of the combatants - including some girls - are orphaned, their parents either killed or taken into slavery, a phenomenon particularly prevalent in frontline areas.

Surviving relatives, if they can be located, often lack the resources to feed them. Bereft of family anchors, some former child soldiers have drifted from their villages to market towns. Girls have turned to prostitution; some boys have even re-enlisted in the army. And for surviving parents, it can be difficult to discipline youngsters used to army life.

Songs and sums are the key to stabilising this lost generation. Thiep Mawien dreams of being a pilot, like the ones that bring relief to the airstrip near Akon. But for a while, Thiep thought he had no future.

At the age of 14 his village chief conscripted him into the ranks of the southern rebel Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army (SPLA). It was part of the village's contribution to the war effort. Thiep's mother cried but his family was also proud - the notorious government-backed horseback militia had abducted many women and children from the village into slavery.

Thiep's own family had lost their home to government soldiers a few years earlier. Even worse was the loss of their cattle. For the Dinka, who idolise cattle, having your herd stolen is akin to having your bank account emptied and your local religious shrine desecrated. Since he demobilised, Thiep has been going to school, and helps his mother with the sorghum harvest. But he still respects the gun. "There can be no peace without force," he said.

Back at the Doulgan, Thomas has taken a leadership role. The group composed a song promoting the participation of disabled children, because both polio and war injuries are rife. Thomas and a new friend have also asked for a canoe so that other children from nearby villages can attend during the rainy season. Before he joined the Doulgan, he worried about being re- recruited into the SPLA. Not any more.

"He is OK," one elder told aid workers recently. "Now he has a future in the community."

Source: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=479049

7th January 2004
THE Tasmanian Government today rejected claims it was dragging its feet on ratifying an international treaty on child labour.

Federal Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews yesterday said four Labor states, including Tasmania, were preventing Australia from ratifying the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour.

He said the convention had been ratified by nearly 150 countries including Iraq, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.

Tasmanian Attorney-General Judy Jackson today said Premier Jim Bacon had written to the chair of the Joint Standing Committee of Treaties last month detailing the State's position.

"The premier said in his letter 'the Tasmanian Government continues to support the aims of Convention No. 182'," she said.

"He went on to detail measures being put in place to ensure full compliance."

Ms Jackson said Tasmania would follow a similar course to NSW and Queensland to outlaw the use of children under 18 for pornographic purposes in order to comply with the treaty.

Such measures would be included in the Sex Industry Regulation Bill, due to be introduced when Parliament resumed in March.

Source: http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_
page/0,5936,8341233%255E1702,00.html

By Anisur Rahman Khan
Jan 6, 2004, 12:49

The World Bank will provide Tk 300 crore as grant to Bangladesh for child-labour education programme. This donation will go to Children Welfare Trust (CWT) of the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education. A team of World Bank already visited some child labour-education centers.

When contacted, the Chairperson of CWT, Professor Jahanara Begum, who is also the Prime Minister's advisor of primary and mass education told this correspondent that about 8000 child labour students (ages between 5 and 15) in 45 schools were studying throughout the country.According to her, these urban-based schools were run by the riches' contribution to the society and government's grant was very poor.

She said that these schools would be established in all districts of the country.

Prof Jahanara, however, said, the World Bank has agreed in principle to give the envisaged grant. Necessary documents in this regard are now being prepared and its expected that by the end of this month the contact would be okayed, she said.

Meanwhile, about 2.5 million children, including child labours (ages between 5 and 15) are yet to be got registration of those schools in the country. Rather, most of them are working in apparels, hotels, workshops or as domestic aides without getting any formal or non-formal education facilities over the years in past.

According to Director of CWT, keeping such a big portion of children out of education, education programmes will never reach the commitment of the government, Education for All' by 2015.

However, the CWT has been conducting about 45 schools since 1989 throughout the country to educate the child labours so that they could become able in future to establish themselves in the society.

It was a matter of regret that most of the child labours schools were operating in dilapidated buildings which any time may collapse causing to huge causalities.

In order to save these innocent lives, reconstruction works are needed to save them from any unwanted incidences, Director of CWT said.

Students of those child labour schools were getting scholarship to the tune of Tk 400 per month at primary level and Tk 600 at secondary level.

Former President HM Ershad had introduced it as 'pathakoli trust' and later it was renamed as 'CWT'.

Source: http://nation.ittefaq.com/artman/publish/article_6841.shtml

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI JAN. 5. The Chennai Corporation today constituted a coordination committee with the Labour Department, the City Police and a few non-government organisations to crackdown on child labour within the city limits in the coming months.

The crackdown will be simultaneously followed up with rehabilitation of the children and their enrolment in either the 93 non-formal schools (in cases where the children have discontinued their studies), or in regular Corporation schools.

The civic agency is also considering setting up a residential school, if a substantial number of children are migrant labourers.

Detailing the campaign to mediapersons at Ripon Buildings, the Corporation Commissioner, M.P. Vijayakumar, said the drive was being planned upon the instructions of the Chief Minister.

The Corporation would identify places where the children are employed. "The Assistant Health Officers of the Corporation will coordinate the teams in each zone. Since they are involved in the licensing of trades as well as issuing of birth certificates, they will have a fair idea of places where child labourers are employed," he said.

Though the drive looked at total elimination of child labour, the Commissioner said the option to prosecute the employers of children would not be used straightaway. "We will warn them and try to sensitise them. Only if they do not comply, we will consider framing charges and prosecution," he added.

The Labour Department will prosecute the employers under the Child Labour (Prohibition and Elimination) Act.

In a random survey conducted by Arivoli Iyakkam and a few non-government organisations recently, more than 5,100 child labourers were identified in the city. Senior Corporation officials felt that the number could be much more.

As a first step, the ten coordination committees - one each for every city zone - will be sensitised to the rules for child labour elimination.

Source: http://www.hindu.com/2004/01/06/stories/2004010609820300.htm

Daily Champion (Lagos)
January 5, 2004
Posted to the web January 5, 2004
Matthias Nwogu
Lagos

UJU is 23, plum and tall, mother of two girls, and a commercial sex worker in one of the brothels in the slums of Enugu. She habours a deep-seated hatred and bitterness for her father. In a chance meeting with this writer she lumped all men together as selfish and wicked. Prodded to give her reasons for such a blanket write-off of men, she said "I should not be here and doing what I am doing if not for the selfishness of my father. I hate to remember that I have a father!"

She had been married out to an old polygamist who was five times her age when she was 15. At 18 she had her second baby shortly before the man died. She had no place in her husband's house and to think of going back home to meet her father who had disposed of her as a chattel was ruled out. She ended up a prostitute.

Obinna, 14, cried uncontrollably when pick-pockets dispossessed him of the N150 he made from pushing barrow around Ogbete Market. He refused all entreaties to go home, afraid of how he could fact his Oga who he had to give an account of N200 every day or be "skinned alive".

Oju and Obinna are typical examples of the numerous Nigerians whose rights as children were, or are still being, violated or denied. While Oju was denied her right of choice in marriage by being given out in early marriage, Obinna is one of many Nigerian children sent into forced labour within the country or elsewhere. It was for these and others Nigerian children born and unborn that Anambra SOMETEC in collaboration with UNICEF recently organised a one day workshop at Nsukka to disseminate the "situation assessment and analysis on women and children and a world fit for a child".

The exercise was quite revealing as the denial of child rights was seen to be as old as civilisation. Children are denied their right of expression and even association. Little wonder then that Jesus Christ, while on his earthly ministry, in ancient Israel, rebuked his disciples who had encroached on the rights of children in that classic quote: "Allow little children to come to me and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of heaven" Why, one would wonder, would the elders who sought healing; association and sometimes food from Jesus prevent children from enjoying such privileges? The workshop, which drew journalists from the old Eastern Region and members of the academic community brain stormed on the rights of the Nigeria child and how the public could be sensitised about these rights.

Setting the ball rolling, Professor Peter O. Ebigbo, National President of ANPPCAN and member of African Union expert Committee on the Rights of the child in a paper, the "State of the child in Nigeria: Situation analysis and challenges," revealed that the struggle for the right of the child dates back to 1986 when the first International African Regional Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect was held in Enugu, on the theme "Child Labour in Africa". It recognised that ignorance was the major factor militating against curbing child neglect and decided to tackle it through sensitisation of the public using the news media. The conference recognised that the changing practices, economic and social, had eroded the role of the family as a primary socialising agent as well as the family system. The result was that peer groups, the school, and mass media which now played more roles in shaping the destiny of the child also further abused the rights of the child.

The prevalence of child labour was observed during the conference and participants were able to distinguish "child work" which is traditionally a socialising factor for the African child during which he/she learns skills either in commerce, agriculture of technology from child labour. In African tradition, it was not uncommon for parents to give out their children to successful farmers, traders or artisans where they worked for them and learnt the trades. The work under these circumstances were not exploitative.

But with poverty now pervading the nation parents and child traffickers have discovered that by pacing children in some people’s homes they can make money for themselves. They are not concerned whether the children worked under exploitative or harsh conditions where their overall development were impaired. This is child labour and a direct infringement on the rights of the child. The conference noted that it could be stopped only through compulsory education, which the child could get irrespective of the parents' economic status. The conference also recognised the preponderance of street children in African countries, and the child soldier phenomenon. Those early attempts to restore the right of the child were given an impetus when in 1989 when Poland introduced the United Nations Draft convention on the rights of the child at the United Nations General Assembly. Poland's efforts were motivated by her own tragic experience based upon which she did not want children of other nations to suffer the same fate.

The draft convention included in it, the rights of the child to go to school and have access to good health. It also included the right of the child to name, nationality, to survive, to develop and to be protected from abuse and neglect as well as to be allowed to participate in the life of society as capacities evolved. In 1992 Nigeria ratified the UN Convention of the rights of the child and through the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Youth Development in concert with UNICEF and some non-governmental Organisations, produced a draft bill under the leadership of Prof Adeyemi of the University of Lagos.

But since 1992 when the draft bill was produced, subsequent governments had not had the political will power to pass it into law. What was at stake for the various military heads of state in passing a bill that protected the rights of their children? Some school of thought considered pressures, religious and social, as possible factors. For instance, cultures where early marriage remained the practice, might have mounted pressures from groups and individuals as they saw such rights as going contrary to their norms. Most of these cultures give out their daughters in marriage before 18 years.

Gender differences in inheritance rights are another possible area of friction. The practice had been in existence in most societies to will most assets of the parents to the boy child and virtually none to the girl child, and the thought of rocking the boat by passing the bill is not attractive to those who want to perpetuate this culture. Child labour has also become profitable for some parents who give their children to traffickers to other African countries to go and work and repatriate funds for them. The lure of this profit is another obstacle. But now, with much pressure from within and outside the country, the bill at least has been passed into law after suffering some controversies at the National Assembly, emanating also from offended cultural and religious sensibilities.

Though the passage of the bill would appear a big victory for the campaigners and children, it is not yet Uhuru as the 36 states legislators would still be expected to adopt it as the law in their states before it can benefit every child.

What is in the Child Rights Bill that the state governments see as an infringement on their own rights? Are they considering the extra cost in providing education for all the children in their states which would break the monopoly of education for the children of only parents who are well-to-do. Are they afraid of the free healthcare to children at government hospitals, a right. Which even the colonial masters in Nigeria were ready to respect? It is a fact that before independence and also during the first republic children were treated free in government hospitals.

A cursory look at the bill shows that the child is any person between the ages of one day and 18 years and this is the age bracket the Child Rights Bill seeks to protect so that their childhood any adult years would not be ruined.

For Instance, part three of the bill, section 21-39 provides for the protection of children by prohibiting child marriage, child betrothal, infliction of tattoos and kin marks and female genital mutilation.

It is common knowledge that in those parts of the country where child marriage prevails, a good number of the women suffer from Vesico Virginal Fistula (VVF), a condition in which the patient cannot control her urine as it trickles out from the vulva, leaving her always wet. Many cases of prostitute are also traced to early marriage, where the girl-child was not allowed to mature enough to choose her own husband. The Bill also seeks to protect the child from exposure to hard drugs and seeks to protect the children from exposure to hard drugs and psychotropic substance as well as use in any criminal activity, abduction, unlawful custody, exploitative labour including outlawing of the employment of children as domestic help outside their own house's or family environment.

Under the relevant section, it is an offence to buy, self or hire a child for purposes of begging, prostitution or any other unlawful or immoral purpose; unlawful sex lawful, sexual intercourse and other forms of sexual abuse and exploitation.

The bill likewise contains a provision prohibiting recruitment of children into the army, and their exposure to harmful publications as well as a provision that secures the right of the born and unborn child.

It also imposes duties on the state governments to safeguard or promote the welfare of any children in danger or suspected to be in danger of suffering significant harm within its jurisdiction.

Part 20 section 209-243 provides for child Justice Administration which will replace the Juvenile Justice Administration. The implication of the new administration, adjudication and disposal of the child's case.

It also prohibits the use of capital punishment for children, which now extends to children of 18 years as against the 17 ears and outlays corporal punishment.

A critical look at the bill shows that children rights are human rights and once these rights of the little ones are respected, by extension, the human rights of all would be guaranteed.

The evils of child marriage cannot be over emphasised. For instance, such marriage most often ends in divorce, separation of a platonic relationship. The implication is that children born in such families risk being denied their rights to education as the estranged parents' relationships affect them. It is not uncommon to see children rejected by their father along with their mothers simply because the hatred for the mother had been extended to the children.

Female genital muitilation has also been proved to deny the female child sexual pleasure and impose some difficulties during childbirth. Why should children be subjected to such cultural practices that would be future deny them God given rights to sexual pleasure?, experts ask.

A bill which seeks the protection of the child from exposure to hard drugs and psychotropic substances is in the interest of society, because children who are exposed to these drugs not only endanger their lives, but the society.

Those who have been exposed to armed robbery attacks by children between 16-18 years would testify of how vicious and daring they are, usually because they are under the influence of hard drugs. The exploits of kids soldiers drug the Sierra leone conflict are also evidence that they were acting without recognising the consequences of their actions.
Children are no commodities to be sold for money or used for money making. One of the NGOs working on child righs, Children Rights Advocacy Group of Nigeria (CRGON) discovered through research that child trafficking is carried out in different forms in the country.

From its findings, trafficking in the southeast involves boys who are conveyed to Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Gabon and the Congo where they are enslaved in farms, as domestic helps and in other jobs which fall within the category of exploitative child labour.

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200401050491.html

CHANDRA MOHAN

January 5th, 2003

Policy interventions to end child labour without hurting children is a major challenge before the global community. More than two centuries after the first serious efforts were made to eradicate the problem, there are still 186 million child labourers in the world. There have been sharp reductions in the industrialised countries, but in emerging economies like India, the use of child labour continues to flourish.

Take the latest NSSO report on the employment-unemployment situation in India, 2001-02, for instance. The number of persons usually employed in the age group 5-14 has sharply risen in urban India and among females in rural India. From 27 boys in that age group who were employed per 1,000 persons in 1999-2000, this ratio sharply rose to 43 boys in 2001-02. Similarly, for girls both in rural and urban India.

Can a policy response end child labour? Professor Kaushik Basu and Zafiris Tzannatos, who masterfully survey the burgeoning literature on this problem*, believe that “government intervention for controlling child labour is both desirable and possible”. To be efficacious, a policy has to be crafted which recognises the powerful market forces that give rise to the problem and will therefore respond to intervention.

These economists divide possible interventions into collaborative and coercive measures. The former includes those that alter the economic environment of the decision makers, which makes them more willing to let children stay away from labour. Among others, this includes improving the functioning of adult labour markets so that their incomes rise while unemployment falls. When such incomes rise, child labour may be unnecessary.

But the most direct collaborative measures are the ones that reward children who go to school rather than work. Basu and Tzannatos mention the ex-ample of the mid-day meal scheme in India, among many others. Jean Dreze and Kingdon’s work shows that female school participation is 15% higher when the local school provides a meal. They also find that girls’ schooling responds more to such incentives — an important finding as special efforts are needed to keep girls away from work.

On the other hand, coercive measures include the “social clause” which permits the WTO to take punitive action against a country that has child labour, among others, but the authors note that such measures should be used more carefully than collaborative ones. Though well-meaning, such interventions often end up hurting children or forcing them into undesirable activities.

The upshot is that there is no one simple policy to end child labour, but there is a much better understanding today to craft a policy response to sharply reduce it and ultimately eradicate it.

The Global Child Labour Problem: What do we know and what can we do?’, World Bank Economic Review, forthcoming later in 2003

Source: http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=49827

Sunday, January 4, 2004

Jerusalem, Jan 3: Born for Freedom, a play inspired by the life of a Pakistani boy, Iqbal Masih, who waged a battle against child bondage in the carpet industry has completed 250 performances in Israel.

Iqbal Masih’s desperately poor parents loaned $ 16 from a local carpet maker named Arshad in 1986 to get his elder brother married. As a “bond” to ensure repayment of the loan, Arshad received Iqbal as a slave in his factory.

After working under inhuman conditions, Iqbal managed to escape his employer learning about a legislation in Pakistan banning bonded labour at the age of ten. He had informed the fellow children about the legislation for which he was badly beaten by the owner but it did not deter him from escaping himself to join a demonstration organised by an NGO fighting for the same cause.

Soon his intelligent ways attracted the attention of the media and he became a spokesman of the children facing exploitation in the carpet industry at the age of ten. In December 1994, he was interviewed by Mr Peter Jennings of ABC News in which he narrated the plight of the children working in the industry. In the interview he said, “The child slaves in Arshad’s factory were warned that if they escaped, their fingers would be burned in boiling oil.”

Later, he received the “Reebok Youth in Action” award as a promoter of human rights in 1994 at a ceremony organised in Boston. “My dream is for there to be a school in my village and for every child to be free and educated,” Iqbal said.

In 1995 Iqbal was shot and killed under unclear circumstances but his story has inspired a lot of literary works and movements since then. Craig Kielburger founded a movement called ‘Free the Children’ besides writing a book of the same name and establishing an Internet site.

Thousands of children are said to have joined him in the struggle to end child slavery. Iqbal’s story is now a part of the curriculum in schools in the United States and in some countries in Europe.

UNICEF, of which Iqbal became a spokesman, developed a school programme on children’s rights, which incorporates his story. In Sweden, where Masih visited and met with school children, a school was named after him. A school has also been named after him in Pakistan, in the village of Muridke, where he was born.

Carpet makers need small hands to tie their creations which are made of thousands of tiny knots and are prying for vulnerable children. According to estimates by Amnesty International and other human rights organisations, about a million children are employed in the carpet industry in India and Pakistan, and some six million children in Pakistan are forced to work under slave conditions in various industries.

Writer and playwright, Talma Alyagon-Roz who scripted the play says that after seeing a programme on television on Massih some five years ago, she “couldn’t forget him” and decided she “had to do something with the story,” daily Ha’aretz reported. A year later, her play, Born for Freedom was produced.

Source: http://www.navhindtimes.com/stories.php?part=news&Story_ID=010434

The East African Standard (Nairobi)
January 3, 2004
Posted to the web January 4, 2004
Benson Kathuri
Nairobi

Kenya's free primary education programme enters its second year on Monday, amid fears that the quality of education is declining.

For the last one year, the Government was preoccupied with getting millions of children who had dropped out of school back to class. Close to two million children streamed back to schools countrywide. Most regions except Coast and North Eastern provinces registered dramatic rise in enrolment.

The Government faces an uphill task of maintaining the programme in terms of finances and quality.

It also has to maintain cordial donor relations. Donor agencies led by the World Bank, Unicef and the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) committed billions of shillings towards the programme.

In particular, the Government must resolve the cost constraints that have led to the deterioration of education at all levels.

In addition to addressing the household cost burden of financing education inputs, it needs to adopt policies and strategies to address the high expenditure on salaries at the expense of other education services.

Kenya's school system is known to be grossly inefficient and the government must adopt a deliberate and firm commitment to improve its efficiency.

Among the challenges is to increase public expenditure on non-salary costs of education such as textbooks and other learning materials.

Before the programme, public spending on textbooks and instructional materials was limited to a small number of primary schools.

The revised curriculum needs to be implemented to allow more time for core subjects and to reduce the costs of education.

Preparing and adopting an action plan for training, redeployment, hiring and upgrading of teachers must now be a priority, as the teachers will ultimately determine the success of the programme.

The Ministry of Education must also spearhead the campaign to revise the Education Act and regulations to decentralise decision making to district and school level administrators. During the year, the ministry decentralised the selection of primary school teachers to the districts while those of secondary to the school level.

However, the government must involve parents in decision making and management of schools.

For many years, Parent Teachers Associations in secondary schools have operated illegally though they play a crucial role in mobilising resources for school expansion.
The Government must also move and rescue millions of children involved in child labour. It is estimated that more than one million children are working and others are on the streets.

Close to a million others are orphans and lack the necessary support system to enable them continue with education.

Mainstreaming of gender in education and girls' and women's education in particular, remain the most positive investment that Kenya can make for its future development.

According to the recently published Kenya Strategic Country Gender Assessment, the Word Bank expresses concern over the low rates of pupils joining form one.

The report says only 47 per cent of children enrolled in secondary school are girls.

Education Minister, Prof George Saitoti, has expressed concern over the low enrolment of girls especially in North Eastern, Coast and Nyanza provinces.

While stating its commitment to support Education programmes in Kenya, The World Bank says there are serious doubts about the country's attainment of the millennium Development Goals in Education.

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200401040060.html

RAJEEV DIKSHIT

TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ FRIDAY, JANUARY 02, 2004 01:31:52 AM ]

VARANASI : If the results of studies being conducted by a voluntary organisation were to be believed, Varanasi , a major centre of pilgrimage, trade and cultural activities, was also a major junction for child trafficking.

This was the reason why the Human Welfare Association (HWA), an NGO, was granted the first project in Uttar Pradesh to sensitise the people and formulate a strategy on child trafficking. Supported by the Indo-German Social Service Society (IGSSS), the project was now in its second phase of analysing the survey reports. The initial phase of analysis proved to be an eye opener, exposing an ugly aspect of society.

"About 65 per cent inmates of Mumbai's remand homes come from the districts of east Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar ", said Dr Rajnikant, the director of HWA. Though there was no accurate data for want of official records, the HWA claimed that more than 50,000 children, including adolescent girls from Nepal, were being supplied to Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Goa every year through this city. Boys and girls are 'imported' from Nepal via Gorakhpur to serve as household helps or be forced into prostitution. After bringing them to this transit centre they were routed to major cities, he revealed.

Boys and girls from Bihar served as labourers and were forced to beg on streets, said Rajnikant adding that the children were also brought from Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh by an organised gang of racketeers. The children were also supplied to Gulf countries after taking them to Mumbai from the districts like Mau, Mobarakpur and Azamgarh. Child trafficking was flourishing due to their demand as servants at dhabas on highways, food stalls at railway stations, gangs of pick-pockets and thieves, he said.
The HWA studies exposed the consumption of ‘child' power in this millennia old city. Rajnikant said that children who were not sent to other places were involved in drug trafficking at ghats and selling various articles on railway platforms. "The children are not only used in many unfair activities, but also sexually abused, though such incidents are not coming to light", he said. According to him, at Cantonment railway station there were 450 such children, while their number was over 1,000 at the ghats. The children were involved in industrial units and brick kilns at places like Dala, Churk and Sonebhadra.

In Varanasi the HWA found that the condition of such children was the worst as a major part of their daily income was spent on purchasing ‘whitener' to be consumed as intoxicant. "As there is no shelter or rehabilitation home for them, they don't have any place to keep their articles and money", he said. The organisation has started identifying the trafficking routes as well as the pockets from where children are brought for trafficking. "Nonexistence of a Child Trafficking Act is a hurdle in checking this inhuman trade. It is unfortunate that India had signed a declaration with 124 nations at the Child Rights Convention several years back, but no action was initiated to introduce a law in this regard", said Rajanikant.

As a part of the project, the organisation has started many activities to create awareness among people against the evil practice, but the main emphasis was being given on mounting pressure on the government for the introduction of a law. "We have started contacting academicians, lawyers and other sections of the society to mount pressure on the government specially the state government to introduce a Child Trafficking Act to check this problem", he added.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/399944.cms

Wed Dec 31, 1:42 PM ET
Jim Lobe, OneWorld US

WASHINGTON, D.C, Dec 31 (OneWorld) -- Tens of millions of children, especially those in the world's poorest nations, are still being left behind, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF (news - web sites)), which is urging the people and governments to do more in 2004 on behalf of the youngest and most vulnerable members of the human race.
In a statement issued from its headquarters in New York, the agency named its top five concern for children in the coming year.

They include protecting infants and small children everywhere against common killer-diseases; helping children orphaned by or infected with HIV (news - web sites)/AIDS; mitigating the impact of armed conflict on children; curbing child labour and trafficking; and investing more in services badly needed by poor children, particularly in education.
"Each of these issues alone poses heartbreaking challenges for hundreds of millions of children," said UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy. "Together, they represent a global imperative to do more for children in 2004."

Each year, nearly 11 million children die before their fifth birthday, while tens of millions more are left with physical or mental disabilities or learning impairments, solely because they and their caregivers lacked the essentials for young children to survive and thrive, according to UNICEF.

These essentials are neither exotic nor expensive; they include access to clean water and basic nutrition, bed nets that protect children from malaria-carrying mosquito bites, vaccination campaigns aimed primarily at measles, and the use of oral rehydration salts to fight diarrhea.

Measles, malaria and diarrhea are three of the biggest killers of small children. Yet each is preventable or treatable at very low cost, according to UNICEF.

The agency's second concern, the impact of HIV/AIDS (news - web sites) on children, concerns both the estimated 14 million who have lost at least one parent to the epidemic, as well as the rapid spread of the disease adolescent youth.

In sub-Saharan Africa alone, some 11 million children have been orphaned by AIDS, putting unbearable strains on both already overly stressed public social safety nets and extended families--including grandparents, who are often the only ones left to bring up children. By 2010, the number of children in the region who lost parents to AIDS is expected to rise to 20 million.

In addition, families whose adult breadwinners become too weak to work may either send their children out to earn desperately needed money or sink into poverty. Children who watch their parents die may also suffer serious psychological harm. In southern Africa, more than 20 percent of the adult population is believed to be infected with HIV.
Armed conflict, which killed more than two million children and injured or maimed at least six million more over the past decade, represents another serious risk to children, mostly in the world's poorest countries, according to UNICEF.

During the same period, an estimated 20 million children have been forced to flee their homes, and more than one million have been orphaned or separated from their families as a direct result of civil conflict.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (news - web sites) (DRC) alone, some three million people are estimated to have died over the last several years, mostly as an indirect result of armed conflict. Most were women and children who, having fled their homes, were unable to obtain adequate nutrition or medicine while on the run and fell victim to disease or starvation, according to a recent study by the International Rescue Committee.

Moreover, at any given time, more than 300,000 child soldiers, some as young as eight years old, have been recruited, usually forcibly, into armies or rebel groups in many of the world's civil conflicts. In that capacity, they have often been forced to witness or even participate in brutality against innocent civilians.

Children are exploited and abused in other ways as well. For example, almost 260 million children work in violation of international labor standards, and, of these, about two-thirds work in hazardous conditions, such as construction and mining or in fields where pesticides and other toxic substances are used.

Meanwhile, another 1.2 million children are trafficked across international borders every year, while some two million children, mainly girls, are believed to be exploited through the commercial sex trade, according to UNICEF.

The best way to tackle these problems, according to Bellamy is through greater investment in the infrastructure that is critical to children's welfare, especially child and maternal health and education. During the 1990s, according to UNICEF, total aid from rich countries to developing countries actually declined in real terms, despite the precipitous and calamitous rise in AIDS deaths.

Investing in primary health through immunization campaigns, the expansion of health clinics, and the supply of basic preventive tools, such as bed nets, could save millions of children's lives every year.

Similarly education has a major role to play, according to Bellamy. "By making sure that all boys and girls get a basic education, we will not only give them a chance of growing into independent adults who can protect their own health and rights, but we will give the next generation of children a better chance of escaping a life of poverty and hardship," she said.

"If we continue to invest in children and insist that they be a central focus of any discussion about development, we may indeed make the world a better and safer place."

Source: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/oneworld/
20031231/wl_oneworld/4536760521072895219