The Security Council, in a landmark resolution, has unanimously castigated the continued recruitment of child-soldiers and approved setting up of a mechanism for monitoring, reporting and punishing the people concerned.

According to the UN figures, 2 million children have been killed in armed conflicts and 6 million others disabled or wounded over the past one decade.

The approval had been delayed since February, with China and others insisting that member states not yet on the powerful 15-member body's agenda could not be monitored.

Mr Olara Otunnu, special representative of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, briefed mediapersons here yesterday on the issue.

''For the first time, the UN is establishing a formal, structured and detailed compliance regime of this kind. This brings together all the key elements we have been developing in the last few years to ensure accountability and compliance on the ground,'' Mr Otunnu, in-charge of Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC), said.

In February, he compiled a report of child combatants with a list of offenders -- both government and insurgent rebel groups.

Among them are the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, the Janjaweed of Sudan and the Communist Party of Nepal.

Yesterday, the Council said, the mechanism will monitor flagrant violations by both governments and insurgents, focusing especially on crimes identified in the CAAC resolution it had passed in April last year, depicting the violations and calling for the mechanism and for time-bound national and rebel action plans to comply with international law.

The crimes are -- recruiting child soldiers in violation of international norms, killing and maiming of children, rape and other sexual violence mostly committed against female children, kidnapping and forced displacement, denial of humanitarian access to children, attacks against schools and hospitals, trafficking, forced labour and other forms of slavery.

The Council, in response to these grave violations, said that institutions at the country-level would gather evidence and forward this information to the secretary-general, who would report to the Security Council and the General Assembly.

The UN chief's report may also be considered by other international, regional and national bodies, within their mandates and the scope of their work, in order to ensure protection, rights and well-being of the children affected by the armed conflicts, the Council said.

It stressed that the Council was concerned about the lack of progress by listed offending parties on developing and implementing the action plans to end violations that the 'April resolution' called for.

And urged them to undertake the work without delay, in collaboration with UN peacekeeping missions and UN country teams.

It also asked the secretary-general to provide the criteria to be used in drawing up the action plans.

For the continuing offenders, the Council reaffirmed ''its intention to consider imposing, through country-specific resolutions, targeted and graduated measures,'' like banning the export and supply ofmilitary equipment and withholding other military assistance to parties in the conflict situations on the Security Council's agenda.

The council urged member states, the UN system and other multilateral organisations ''to take appropriate measures to control illicit subregional and cross-border activities harmful to children, including illicit exploitation of natural resources, illicit trade of small arms, abduction of children'' and their recruitment as combatants, and other violations of children's rights during war.

The Council welcomed recent initiatives by some regional and subregional organisations to mainstream child protection into their advocacy, policies and programmes, to develop peer review programmes and monitoring and reporting mechanisms and to include child-protection training in their peace and field operations.

The Council this year would monitor nations or rebel groups operating in Burundi, Ivory Coast, Congo Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia and Sudan.

The same would be expanded to Colombia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Uganda next year.

http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=9601

Amnesty International (AI) revealed Tuesday that thousands of children across Nepal are facing serious violence and abuse in the ongoing conflict between the government and the rebels.

In a report Nepal: Children caught in the conflict released worldwide today, AI said that Nepalese children were being killed deliberately or in indiscriminate attacks, illegally detained and tortured, raped, abducted and recruited for military activities. “The conflict is a disaster for the children of Nepal,” said Puran Sen, director of Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Programme. “Some children have been directly targeted by one or other party to the conflict, while hundreds more have died from bombs and improvised explosive devices.”

It is estimated that at least 400 children have died in the conflict-related violence since 1996. Besides, thousands of children have been forced to flee their homes and face desperate poverty and exploitation. In July 2005, the International Labour Organisation predicted that between 10,000 to 15,000 children would be displaced in Nepal during 2005 alone.

The report said that such treatment to children was in contrary to Nepal’s human rights obligations. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has a provision that “every child deprived of liberty shall be treated with humanity … and in manner which takes account of the needs of persons of his or her age”, while torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment are forbidden under the CRC and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The report said that the limited education services had been badly hit by the conflict, depriving many children from their right to education.

In many areas schools have entirely shut down due to destruction of premises, lack of teachers, crossfires between the two sides, and threats by the Maoists, the report said. In other areas children are getting less than 100 days of schooling a year because of Maoist imposed bandhs and compulsory participation in party activities such as ‘political education’ sessions. In addition, many children who might otherwise attend school are kept at home for fear of abduction.

AI said that over the last few years the Maoists had abducted tens of thousands of school children for ‘political education’ sessions, held in remote locations. “While most of these children return home after a few days, some do not and it appears that the rebels are recruiting children for military activities and forced labour, despite the fact that the use of children under 15 in armed conflict is a war crime.”

The report said that the conflict had worsened the problem of trafficking of girls for commercial sexual exploitation. “In particular, the thousands of girls who have already been displaced by the conflict are especially vulnerable to trafficking and sexual exploitation.” While in the past trafficking was mostly across the border into India, now the girls are increasingly being trafficked to urban centres within the country, where many of them are forced into sex work in dance parlours and bars, it added. “Nepal’s children are being caught up in the cycle of violence that is gripping the country,” said Sen. “In addition to experiencing violence and abuse, as the conflict erodes education, health and development services, thousands of children are unable to enjoy their rights to education and health.”

AI has urged the government to fulfil its commitments to protect the rights of children, as laid out in the CRC and other human rights treaties; to bring to justice those violating child rights; and to provide appropriate services for the children affected by the conflict.

It has also called on the rebels to end the abduction and recruitment of children, release within its forces and end all indiscriminate attacks and targeting of civilians.

“It is vital that both sides take all possible steps to respect and protect the rights of children and minimise the negative impact of the conflict on their lives,” said the report.

http://www.gorkhapatra.org.np/pageloader.php?file=2005/07/27/topstories/main9

The government will continue with the on-going national programme to pull kids out of child labour, the Minister of Labour, Youth Development and Sports, Prof. Juma Kapuya told the National Assembly yesterday.

The minister informed the house that about 642 kids were withdrawn from the worst forms of child labour in 2004/05 financial year.

Youth aged 6-17 were reportedly engaged in worst forms of child labour including prostitution, mining and agricultural plantations in the period under review.

Out of the 642 kids assisted, about 309 were girls and 333 boys. ’’About 65 girls were involved in commercial prostitution.

They have been induced to run small and medium enterprises thus securing alternative and safe employment,’’ he said.

In the period under review, Kapuya said about 1,361 youth-659 girls and 711 boys were withdrawn from cruel labour.

About 29 youths out of the number were enrolled in social welfare institutions and deployed to 22 centres in the project areas to work as child care experts.

About 21 municipal councils identified 64, 954 youths working under difficult environment.

He listed the councils as Bagamoyo, Karagwe, Kisarawe, Magu, Makete, Musoma rural, Rungwe, Temeke, Muheza, Mikindani, Masasi.

Others are: Mtwara, Singida Urban and Rural, Kibondo, Songea and Ilala.

Disclosing 2005/06 strategies and programmes, Kapuya said his ministry has allocated funds to facilitate implementation of disabled and old persons’ development policies.

’’Establishment of the National Youth Council is in the offing,’’ he said adding his ministry would conduct extensive sanitisation to job market stakeholders on the current labour laws to minimise labour disputes.

In their comments, some MPs told the government to review National Social Security Fund (NSSF) to make sure contributions remitted to the scheme benefited members (worker).

NSSF collects a lot of money from workers and spend it on development projects which are not necessary beneficial to contributors, said Talala Mbise (Arumeru-North, CCM).

’’The government should stop exerting pressure on NSSF to embark on unplanned projects,’’ said Athuman Janguo (Kisarawe,CCM).

He was referring to the recent acquisition of Mafuta House by the pension body following alleged pressure from the government.

The House endorsed about 39bn/- for the ministry.

http://www.ippmedia.com/ipp/guardian/2005/07/26/45390.html

Lack of full-time project directors, teachers and instructors, has adversely affected implementation of a law which seeks to eradicate child labour, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has said.

The CAG in its report for the year ending March 31, 2004, has said the provisions of the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986, could not be properly implemented for the want of skilled manpower.

It said the cases involving penalty of Rs 7.28 crore for employing child labour in hazardous industries were either withdrawn or cancelled by the state Labour Department.

The data on child labour in the state was grossly understated at 66,000 against 19.28 lakh working children, according to the 2001 census, the report said.

Out of 55,510 child workers enrolled in special schools upto March 2004, only 9,469 were mainstreamed, the CAG report said.

It said Rs 49.59 lakh earned as interest on Corpus Fund were not utilised for providing relief to the families of the children withdrawn from hazardous occupations.

The Act, besides enforcement measures, envisaged rehabilitation of children below 14 years of age.

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200507211464.htm

Amnesty International revealed today that thousands of children across Nepal are facing serious violence and abuse in the ongoing conflict in Nepal, where Maoist rebels and security forces have been fighting a brutal internal conflict for the last nine years.

In a report released today, Nepal: Children caught in the conflict, the organization said that Nepalese children are being killed, illegally detained, tortured, raped, abducted and recruited for military activities and accused both sides to the conflict of violating the most fundamental rights of children.

"This conflict is a disaster for the children of Nepal," said Purna Sen, Director of Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific Programme. "Some children have been directly targeted by one or other party to the conflict, while hundreds more have died from bombs and improvised explosive devices. Thousands of children have been forced to flee their homes and face desperate poverty and exploitation."

Both sides to the conflict have been responsible for killing children. The security forces have killed children they suspect of involvement with the Maoists, while the Maoists have abducted and killed the children of security forces personnel, as well as caused the deaths of many children by deliberately bombing civilian infrastructure and leaving improvised explosive devices in civilian areas.

There have been disturbing reports of children suspected of affiliation with the Maoist rebels being detained for long periods in army barracks, police stations or prisons -- often held together with adults. Many child detainees report having been tortured by security forces during their detention.

Such treatment is in direct violation of the Nepalese government's human rights obligations. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) provides that "every child deprived of liberty shall be treated with humanity...and in a manner which takes account of the needs of persons of his or her age", while torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment are forbidden under the CRC and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Chandra Malla told Amnesty International how, after her husband was killed by security forces, the police came to her home and arrested her 10-year-old son. They dragged him from the house and beat him with a pistol, accusing him of being a Maoist. The boy was held in custody for six days, during which time he was beaten with a plastic pipe all over his body. After his release, the security forces continued to visit his home and threatened to rape his 12-year-old sister.

Amnesty International has received reports of girls being raped by security forces during "search operations". One 15-year-old girl from mid-western Nepal told Amnesty International how she was raped by a soldier in her family's cattle shed during a night time "search operation" in her village. Many women's organisations report that the conflict is also resulting in more girls being trafficked for sexual exploitation -- already a serious problem in Nepal.

Over the last few years the Maoists have abducted tens of thousands of school children for "political education" sessions, held in remote locations. While most of these children return home after a few days, some do not and it appears that the rebels are recruiting children for military activities and forced labour, despite the fact that the use of children under 15 in armed conflict is a war crime.

Education services have come under particular attack. Both sides have used school premises for military purposes and the Maoists have bombed a number of schools, injuring children. These attacks, combined with Maoist abductions of school children and crippling strikes, mean that many of Nepal's children are missing out on vital years of education.

"Nepal's children are being caught up in the cycle of violence that is gripping the country. They are abducted and recruited by the Maoists and then become targets for the security forces, placing them at risk of detention or even killing," said Purna Sen. "In addition to experiencing violence and abuse, as the conflict erodes education, health and evelopment services, thousands of children are unable to enjoy their rights to health and education."

Amnesty International is urging the government of Nepal to fulfil its commitments to protect the rights of children, as laid out in the CRC and other human rights treaties; to bring to justice security forces personnel who commit human rights violations; and to provide appropriate services for those children who are caught up in the conflict. It is also calling on the Maoists to end the abduction and recruitment of children, release all children within its forces and end all indiscriminate attacks and targeting of civilians. It is vital that both sides take all possible steps to respect and protect the rights of children and minimise the negative impact of the conflict on their lives.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/SODA-6EN38N?OpenDocument

In the labyrinthine innards of Zafarabad, a resettlement colony in East Delhi, 25-odd kids — aged five to 14 — are squinting their eyes in ill-lit zari factories against gossamer fabrics to craft fashion produce. Squatting on grime-caked floors — without fans, potable water or toilet blocks — this underage, undernourished army is toiling in the most inhuman conditions. Dilapidated buildings, hovel-like interiors and sauna-esque rooms — which leave even adults gasping for breath in 45 degrees-plus — complete this picture of near-Dickensian wretchedness. And this is the children’s fate 24/7 for which they earn a piffling Rs 50 per month!

The scene is no better in India’s commercial capital, Mumbai. On June 1, the city police swooped down on Madanpura’s (Central Mumbai) zari factories to rescue 400 child labourers working in heart-wrenching conditions. Following this, the Maharashtra labour department sent middlemen scurrying for cover as it raided gold-plating workshops in Bhuleshwar to rip the lid off a child labour racket involving hundreds of kids. On June 6, Delhi’s Najafgarh area was shook up massively as the police rescued 30 children — all belonging to Bihar’s Sitamarhi district — from zari workshops. In Secunderabad and Sholapur, cases of child labour have recently come to light. In Muradabad, Mirzapur, Srinagar, Ferozabad too.

Child labour is a horrific reality that ricochets across many Indian towns. But in a country obsessed with Page Three palaver, it’s a topic that fails to spike the collective adrenaline of the movers and shakers. Of course, with media pressure, the police do wake up sporadically to conduct rescue operations. But no sooner do the cameramen exit the scene than these children return to the grind, usually with the same set of employers.

Shockingly, 10 crore kids are engaged in illegal employment in India, a world record of sorts. Delhi alone has the dubious distinction of employing 15 lakh children in myriad factories, five lakh of whom have been brought in from neighbouring states. Overall, around 500 zari factories in the country employ 5,000 children from various parts of the country. These kids are invariably smuggled inter-state by Shylockian middlemen who tantalise parents with the lure of “vocational training” for their “employable” kids.

Hence, while the rescue operation may seem like a noble exercise to begin with, it loses its potency the moment the rescued child is re-cycled as child labour. Also, by punishing the perpetrators of child labour — employers or middlemen — the state action remains punitive. How about attacking at the root of the malaise by presenting these kids with educational opportunities? For research has proven that the only long-term solution to eradicating child labour is to educate them.

The Child Labour Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, forbids the engagement of children in certain employment sectors while regulating their conditions in others. Clearly, this act needs to be amended forthwith, for it neither completely prohibits child labour nor lays down any provision for educational opportunities of the rescued child.

Similarly, in its preamble, the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000, talks of providing care and protection to children wrongfully employed but has no provisions for what happens to the kids post-repatriation. What is this if not tokenism? Why is the act silent on ensuring education for these children? What happens after repatriation? What after the rescued child is re-cycled as child labour? The act is disconcertingly quiet on all these fronts.

Similarly, the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, provides for the abolition of bonded labour (“to prevent the economic/physical exploitation of the weaker sections”), but overlooks the crucial rehabilitation of child labour. Ditto the Beedi and Cigar Workers (Conditions of Employment) Act, 1966, the Factories Act, 1948, and the Motor Transport Workers Act, 1961, all of which prohibit employment of children in the establishments covered by these acts but fail to address the rehabilitation issue.

The sordid picture that emerges from these sundry legislations is that there is no cohesive state policy to address the critical issue of child labour in India. The law neither provides for the rehabilitation of child labour nor for the prevention of its re-cycling. Thirdly, and most importantly, none of the existing laws provide for any educational opportunities for the rescued children. A mere visit to the Badli resettlement area — on the Haryana border — illustrates the point. Here, despite the existence of 12,000 hutments, not a single school worth its name exists. What is this if not a fertile breeding ground for future child labourers?

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=75024

A human rights group has sued three U.S. companies in federal court in Los Angeles to force them to step up efforts to end child labour on African farms that supply cocoa beans used to make chocolate products.

The International Labor Right Fund filed suit on behalf of former child labourers against Nestle, Archer Daniels Midland Co. and privately held Cargill Inc. on Thursday claiming the companies are involved in trafficking, torture and forced labor of Mali children who were enslaved to work on Ivory Coast farms.

The lawsuit comes soon after U.S. and European chocolate and cocoa industry missed a July 1 deadline imposed by federal law for adopting protocols to eliminate child labour from the West African cocoa supply chain.

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, one of the protocol's authors, said earlier this month he was disappointed that the industry had been unable to certify that its chocolate products were not made with child labour but was satisfied it was "committed to moving forward."

In a statement, the International Labor Rights Fund blasted the industry for dragging its feet and refusing "to exchange a small portion of its massive profits to ensure sufficient return for farmers and workers."

Representatives for Archer Daniels Midland of Decatur, Illinois, one of world's largest agricultural processing companies, and Cargill, an agricultural products and services provider, had no comment on the lawsuit.

A Nestle spokeswoman also would not comment on the lawsuit, but said the company was working with the International Cocoa Initiative foundation created by the Harkin-Engel protocol.

"Obviously we strongly believe it is important to make sure that cocoa is grown responsibly without abusive labor practices," Nestle spokeswoman Barb Skoog said.

The lawsuit claims the Mali children were beaten and forced to work 12 to 14 hours a day with no pay and little food or sleep.

The three main plaintiffs said they were ages 12 to 14 when were taken from their homes, but the lawsuit covers "thousands" of children who were allegedly enslaved from 1996 until the present to work in the Ivory Coast region.

The claims were brought under the Alien Tort Claims Act, which has recently been used by human rights groups to sue multinational corporations for violations of international law in countries outside the United States.

Similar lawsuits were brought against Unocal Corp by villagers who claimed they were enslaved by Myanmar's military government to work on a pipeline for Unocal and other entities.

Settlements in those cases were finalized earlier this year.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2005-07-
16T023233Z_01_HO609108_RTRUKOC_0_FOOD-NESTLE.xml

This conference paper summarises discussions and conclusions reached at the conference on 'Girl mothers in fighting forces and their post-war reintegration in southern and western Africa' held at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center, Bellagio, Italy, from April 12th through 18th 2005. The conference was intended to provide an opportunity for those directly involved with the demobilisation and community reintegration of girl mothers in African conflict situations to explore the existing research and share their practical experiences, with the 'luxury' of time and space for reflection, discussion, sharing and creating possibilities - programme ideas, policy recommendations, a research agenda, and a scholarly publication.

The goals of the conference included:

Countries particularly focused upon included Uganda, Sierra Leone, DRC, Sudan, Angola, and the participants discussed at lengths various aspects of working with, and researching, girl mothers.

Because so little is known about girl mothers and their children, participants felt they were unable to work on approaches and 'best practices' since few presently exist. Instead, substantial discussion occurred from the perspectives of practitioners, researchers, and policy makers about knowledge gaps, articulation between policy, research, and practice; there was substantial debate about how (conceptually) to address the problems that arise in working with girl mothers and their children. Participants decided that the debate needs to move now to a practical level whereby best practice can be more readily articulated.

http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC18955

Hundreds of underage job finders in the Lake District are being exploited by businesses that flout child employment laws, according to new research.

A survey by Cumbria County Council has revealed that nearly half of all under-16s who have a part-time job are employed illegally.

It also showed that one in nine children work longer than the legal limit of 12 hours each week, while 20 per cent begin their shifts before 7am, the earliest permitted start time.

The study, carried out for the council by the child employment research group at Paisley University, also revealed that one in five were younger than the legal minimum age of 13 when they started working.

Charlie Monkcom, a business adviser with the NSPCC, has called for tougher enforcement of the law: “What is happening in Cumbria is probably typical of the rest of the country,” he told Cumbria Online.

“Something like 80 to 90 per cent of children in work aren’t registered, which is a legal requirement.

“There needs to be greater transparency and a campaign to ensure everybody understands their rights and obligations.”

http://www.employersjobs.com/news.asp?id=15006336

The labour department conducted raids in various textile markets in Surat on Saturday and rescued 73 child labourers. The raids were conducted following directions of Gujarat High Court, which ordered an action to curb child labour in view of a public interest litigation filed before it.

Official sources said that fifteen teams, comprising labour department officials from Ahmedabad and Surat, and officials of Surat Municipal Corporation, conducted raids in Abhishek textile market, Shivshakti textile market, and some other textile markets in the ring road area, amidst strong presence of police personnel.

Panic gripped the textile market area on account of the raids and hundreds of shops were closed within a few minutes. The teams conducted the raids and rescued 73 children, under the age of 14, who were working in various firms in the markets.

Officials said that the children were mostly involved in the packing, cutting and pasting work in the firms. The rescued children were sent to the juvenile home at Katargam, from where 20 of them were handed over to their parents. The remaining have been lodged in the juvenile home.

The officials added that similar raids were conducted at some places in Ahmedabad and Rajkot also. He, however, could not provide any details about the raids. Meantime, officials of the labour department said that legal action would be initiated against the textile traders, who had employed the children.

http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?storyflag=y&leftnm=lmnu2&leftindx=
2&lselect=1&chklogin=N&autono=194785

ISLAMABAD July 15 : Pakistan Television Corporation and Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation have started broadcasting programs on issue of child labour besides number of articles being published in national dailies as part of a joint project of Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and ILOs launched to activate media for creating awareness on the issue.

The project aims at creating mass awareness and enhancing capacity of media organizations for accelerating Pakistan’s efforts in combating child labour.

Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation has started broadcasting dramas on this issue since August 2004 every Sunday on national hook up at 9.15pm. Whereas starting from this June PTV telecasts Urdu drama Serial “Masoom” on Thursday at 6.45pm on PTV-I from this June PTV World telecasts discussion programs and documentaries on every Tuesday at 6.15pm. In the print media about 80 articles have been published so far.

The project spanning over two years has set the target of telecasting 20 drams of 25 minutes duration on Pakistan Television, 8 discussion programs, 8 documentaries based on in-depth reports and interviews with the children and stakeholders and 15 spots and slogans.

Similarly Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation would be broadcasting 20 Urdu drams, 18 discussion programs 13 documentaries and 12 Jingles.

Capacity Building of media organizations to produce programs on child labour being one of the important objective of the project, 250 media managers, producers and journalists were bing trained on issues of child labour through workshops. 4 one day capacity Building Media Workshops have already been conducted in Karachi, Peshawar, Lahore and Quetta the fifth workshop is scheduled to take place in Islamabad on July 28th.

http://www.pakistanlink.com/Headlines/July05/15/12.htm

ABU DHABI –– The United Arab Emirates has repatriated more than 250 child camel-jockeys since it signed in May an agreement with the United Nations children's fund UNICEF to ban their use in the region's popular sport, local media reported Sunday.

"The number of children who have returned to their countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mauritania and Eritrea, has exceeded 250," Al-Itihad newspaper quoted the director of social police in Abu Dhabi, Major Najem al-Husni, as saying.

But he said there was no proof that these children were kidnapped or trafficked into the UAE.

Eighty-six Pakistani children were repatriated early July along with 20 Pakistani men and women who were taken straight into custody in their home country on suspicion of trafficking the kids to the UAE.

The signing of the pact with UNICEF came less than a month after a UAE ban on jockeys aged under 16 and weighing less than 45 kilograms (100 pounds) came in force.

The Gulf Arab state plans to mount robot jockeys on racing camels later this year.

It was the second state in the region, after Qatar, to test robots as jockeys following criticism that small children, some as young as four, were being brought in from poor countries, mostly in south Asia, to race the camels.

http://www.timesofoman.com/newsdetails.asp?newsid=17798

THE escalating number of children of school-going age working as labourers is threatening to disrupt Uganda's agricultural exports to the international market.

A recent Child Labour report by the International Labour Organisation and the ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development and the Uganda National Bureau of Statistics indicates that more than 2.7 million children in Uganda are employed as workers.

It stated that 28 percent of these children work on the employers' premises and 18 percent work on plantations.

The problem, according to the report, is most common in the coffee sector, which is the country's major contributor to export earnings.

The Federation of Uganda Employers (FUE) has called for policy makers and implementers to ensure compliance to the ILO and national legal requirements of not employing children. "At an international level, child labour can have a lot of consequences to employers including sanctions or boycotts of products," Mr Aloysius Ssemmanda, the Chairman FUE, said in a speech read for him by Mr Isaac Munabi, the Secretary General of the Uganda Tea Association, at the opening of a one-day FUE council and staff meeting on child labour at Hotel Africana on July 5.

Impact
Mr Swizen Kyomuhendo, a lead consultant, warned that the problem is likely to affect our export commodities.

"We have to be careful because whatever little is mentioned can lead to a slap on the Ugandan coffee exports," Kyomuhendo said.

The survey was conducted with 197 employers from the ten coffee growing districts of Masaka, Mbarara, Wakiso, Mpigi, Bushenyi, Jinja, Mukono and Kayunga among others.

He said the age bracket they came across in the survey was between 5-17 years old and majority were in the 12-17-age bracket and 46 percent are still in school but go to look for school fees.

"Part of the problem is caused by poverty, the HIV/Aids challenge and lack of information. Most of the employers claim they employ children to help them to raise school fees," Kyomuhendo said.

But the findings of the survey do indicate that much as the children are helped to raise school fees, when it comes to payment they are exploited.

However, Mr George Tytens the General Manager of the Entebbe Handling Services, argues that employers should work towards eliminating child labour by improving the general standard of living for their workers.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200507130890.html

A group of NGOs have filed a PIL in the Supreme Court seeking a ban on all forms of child labour as it negated the fundamental right to education guaranteed to children between 6 to 14 years under the recently-inserted Article 21A of the Constitution.

The PIL by Andhra Pradesh-based M V Foundation, HAQ:Centre for Child Rights and Social Jurist has contended that prohibiting employment of children for hazardous jobs in a way legalised other forms of child labour.

Pointing out that the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986 made a distinction between children working in certain prohibited occupations and processes and those working in non-prohibited occupations and processes, the petition said such a distinction allowed the continuation of child labour.

The petitioners have sought a direction to the government to make changes in all existing laws relating to child labour, including the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, the Plantation Labour Act, Children (Pledging of Labour) Act, Apprentices Act, so that it is in conformity with the Constitution read with the UN Convention on Rights of the Child and the ILO Minimum Age Convention.

They have contended that child labour in any form was negation of rights of children enshrined under Articles 14, 21, 21A, 23, 24, 38, 39(e), 39(f), 41 and 45 of the Constitution.

http://www.indlawnews.com/E117308216C7FFDA36E28955047802C1

Tree-and-a-half years after signing the International Treaty on the Worst types of Child Labour, the Guatemalan government still lacks a policy to protect the approximately million-and-a-half minors who work in high-risk conditions.

As World Day Against Child Labour was recently celebrated, the following facts came to the fore: 1,200,000 girls and boys between five and seventeen years of age work in industries considered to be worst. These industries include stonecutting, mining, horticulture, fireworks production, prostitution, agriculture, fishing, and the production of construction materials. Another 300,000 children do other types of labour, such as the selling items on street corners and at traffic lights, cleaning shoes, or juggling. Six out of every ten children in Guatemala work in industries considered to have the worst labour conditions. Their education, housing, and personal development are not considered a crucial issue on the government agenda.

Working children between the ages of five and fourteen are primarily employed in the countryside. Seventy percent work in agricultural and rural labour industries. Eight percent work in manufacturing industries, and eight percent more work in peripatetic sales and trade. Seven percent are employed in domestic labour, and the remaining three-and-a-half percent work in pornography and prostitution.

Il Latin America, Guatemala ranks second in child exploitation. According to a study by the International Labour Organization, Ecuador employs thirty percent of its children; Guatemala employs twenty-five percent; Brazil twenty percent; Peru and Colombia, sixteen percent respectively; El Salvador and Costa Rica, twelve percent respectively; and Chile two percent.

Nidia Aguilar, Defender of Childhood and Youth at Human Rights Procurator’s Office (PDH), said that the approval of the Law of Full Protection of the Rights of Children and Adolescents (LEPINA) is one of the first steps in eradicating this plague. According too the report “Situation of Children 2004”, produced by the Archbishop’s Human Rights Office (ODHA), child and adolescent labour is not only a consequence of the country’s economic problems, but also stems from political violence, cultural norms of child rearing , the ignorance of parents regarding laws protecting children, and familiar disintegration.

http://www.terrelibere.it/terrediconfine/index.php?x=completa&riga=01276

Save the Children, a non-government organisation (NGO), has called for new legislation, diplomatic moves and strict implementation of existing laws to stop increasing child abuse and the use of children as camel jockeys.

The Sweden-based NGO has launched a research report on camel jockeys from Rahim Yar Khan, in collaboration with Pakistan Rural Workers’ Social Welfare Organisation, a Bahawalpur-based organisation. The report looked into factors responsible for child trafficking to the Gulf for camel jockeying, trafficking procedures and the traumatic situation children passed through while in the Gulf, said a press statement issued on Monday.

Human trafficking was a growing concern for governments and civil society all over the globe, the statement said. “Over a million people are reportedly trafficked each year, the main victims being women and children. The trafficked people end up in prostitution, bonded labour, and other hazardous and exploitative working environments. Children taken from Pakistan as camel jockeys are a part of this trafficking,” the statement said.

The research pointed to poverty, illiteracy and a lack of awareness about child rights as the main reasons why families allowed their children to be taken to the Gulf as child jockeys. It suggested that effective measures were needed to reduce poverty, promote education and implement laws against child traffickers.

Research respondents included 46 children who had been trafficked to the United Arab Emirates at an average age of five years, the youngest being three and the oldest aged 11. On average these children spent about four years on the camel racing tracks while 15 of them had spent seven years. About 29 children had been sent back to Pakistan by the age of 10, and the remaining 17 between the ages of 11 and 15. They had been repatriated because of racing injuries or because their weight exceeded 20 kilograms.

The report said that international commitment was needed to implement existing legislation and stop cross-boarder trafficking. “The Pakistani government needs to take appropriate legislative, administrative and diplomatic measures to control trafficking inside Pakistan and offer the education and training which could give real options to families trapped by poverty.”

Child sexual abuse: The statement said that another report prepared by the Working Group against Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation in collaboration with Save the Children had pointed out that commercial sexual exploitation of children was a complex and hidden phenomenon in Pakistan that required “innovative and evidence based responses”.

The report included information about girls in Lahore’s red light district, trafficking of girls in the guise of marriages, children in the transport industry, massage boys, children with alternate sexual identities, keeping boys for sexual services, nomad children, exposure of children to pornography at Internet cafes and the nexus between drugs and commercial sexual exploitation of children.

Street-based prostitution of boys mostly took place at bus terminals and in public parks in the country’s major cities, the report said.

The report also described in detail the legal and constitutional framework against child sexual abuse and exploitation. “Although the National Commission on Child Welfare and Development has drafted an excellent plan – National Plan of Action against Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation – it has not yet been officially adopted,” the report said.

The report said there was an urgent need for a programme against the sexual exploitation of children that fully respected all elements of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_12-7-2005_pg7_17

Child prostitution has been on the rise despite a vigil by law-enforcement personnel on notorious spots in and around the walled city of Peshawar, a senior police official said here.

Deputy Superintendent of Police (City) Chaudhry Ashraf said that a strict vigil by the police and the recent arrest of 26 persons had failed to root out this social evil from the city.

Earlier this week, Mr Ashraf led a police raid on three small hotels situated near Kabari Bazaar in Qissakhwani and arrested 14 young boys and 12 men who were reportedly engaged in immoral activities. The owner of one of the hotels was among those arrested.

But since the police had not caught the suspects red-handed and had no hard evidence against them, it was forced to book them under sections 109 and 107 of the Pakistan Penal Code, and not under clauses relevant to the offence of prostitution. A local court ordered the release of the suspects within 48 hours of their arrest.

“Unless the suspects were caught red-handed, they cannot be charged under section 377 PPC relating to unnatural offences,” the DSP City said. The maximum punishment for this offence is life imprisonment.

Small hotels often do not register the addresses of their guests and provide them only beds for a night’s stay, according to Mr Ashraf. “This probably helps to increase the incidence of child sex abuse,” he said.

Last Wednesday, the police held a meeting with the owners of small hotels in the walled city and requested them to start registering the addresses of prospective guests before providing them a room at their respective hotels and inns, Mr Ashraf said.

The hotel owners were also told to stop masseuse from visiting their premises as these men were often involved in unnatural offences, the official said.

He also disclosed that the police had conducted raids on one of the most notorious hotels in Hashtnagri area which, the DSP claimed, was the hub of child sex labour.

Mr Ashraf said that the police felt helpless as it could not arrest any one during the raids. “We have warned hotel owners against aiding this immoral activity,” he said.

Several residents of the walled city accused the managements of some schools for forcing their students into the child sex labour trade. They claimed that these small hotels and inns were used for such types of immoral activities.

Some of them identified the spots from where the people picked these children. They said that late in the evening, these boys could be found standing in front of cinema houses in Khyber bazaar area.

Others alleged that video arcades in Yakatoot area were places from where sex labourers were supplied.

Some months ago, the police on the complaints of the local hoteliers association stopped the Shabab-i-Milli wing of Jamaat-i-Islami from checking on small hotels and inns for immoral activities. However, the Shabab-i-Milli warned policemen that if didn’t take proper action against the hotels and the offenders it would continue to check on the small hotels and inns.

http://www.dawn.com/2005/07/11/nat36.htm

Eighty-six Pakistani children who were smuggled into the United Arab Emirates to work as camel jockeys have returned to Pakistan on Friday.

The move comes after the UAE signed an agreement with the United Nations Children's Fund in May to rehabilitate and reintegrate former child jockeys into their original societies, amid international calls against child labour.

The children are the second batch to be repatriated from the Gulf state in a fortnight.

UAE Interior Ministry officials escorted the children and handed them over to the Overseas Pakistani Foundation for their return flight to Pakistan.

Officials said 20 Pakistani men and women believed to have taken the children to the UAE also arrived on the same commercial flight from Dubai and were taken into custody for investigation.

Upon their rrival at the Pakistan airport, the children were given medical examination before they were handed over to the care of the Child Protection and Welfare Bureau.

"Our top priority is to locate their parents and reunite them with their families," Faiza Asghar, who heads the bureau.

Last month, 22 children returned to their home countries from UAE. Twelve have rejoined their parents, while the remaining are living in a hostel for destitute children in the eastern border city of Lahore.

Officials say about 2,800 child camel racers, 70 percent of them Pakistanis, are still in the UAE. Others are from Sudan, Bangladesh, Mauritius and India.

Trafficking in children has been a problem in Pakistan where poor families are paid by agents to send their children abroad for use in traditional camel racing, a popular sport in the Gulf.

The UAE now plans to use robots instead of children to race camels.

http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/RegionNF.asp?ArticleID=172170

Almost within earshot of the G8 summit of leaders of the world’s richest countries, the United Nations has held a C8 summit of children from some of the world’s poorest states with direct experience of HIV/AIDS, child labour, poor education, poverty and war to give their powerful elders advice on how to make child poverty history.

Brought together by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Dunblane, Scotland, just miles from the Gleneagles resort hosting the G8 leaders, the young people at the C8 summit laid out their recommendations yesterday after a three-day forum, calling for immediate access to free, quality education for all children, action for young people affected by HIV/AIDS and an immediate end to child poverty and exploitation.

“All G8 leaders have signed the Millennium Development Goals and we are here to remind them of their responsibilities,” Reitumetse, a 13-year-old C8 participant from Lesotho, said of the targets adopted at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000 for reducing a host of socio-economic ills, such as extreme poverty and hunger, by 2015.

“If they fail to do this, they will be failing the same children that the world is counting on to move their countries forward.”

Under the banner of Make Poverty History/GCAP (Global Call to Action Against Poverty) the youngsters united to urge the leaders to prioritize children in their discussions. What children need from wealthy nations at the G8 is justice – a package of debt reduction, aid flow and trade justice policies to help their communities prosper, they said.

The reasons for change could not be more simple, they added. At stake is one preventable child death every three seconds, 20 each minute, 1,200 an hour; 29,000 a day; day after day.

“Action is vital,” they declared, “because nearly 11 million children die every year from preventable diseases, because more than 100 million children are unable to go to school, because there are 15 million children orphaned by AIDS around the world, because 1 billion children are living in poverty around the globe, because we can’t accept this any longer, because it doesn’t have to be like this.”

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=14891&Cr=children&Cr1=

Children from some of the world's poorest nations made a plea to the leaders of the richest countries as they prepare for their Scottish summit -- act now to end child prostitution, child labour and trafficking.

"Now is the moment to help poor children because we have suffered too much. I want the G8 leaders to make it stop. It is time to listen to the children," 17-year-old Assiatou Drame told reporters on Sunday.

A refugee from Sierra Leone now living in Guinea, Drame told a news conference at the C8 Children's Forum she had never been to school and had had to work all her life.
Setting out an agenda for the leaders of the Group of Eight industrialised nations, the boys and girls from Africa, Asia and Latin American were joined by others from Europe at the small Scottish town of Dunblane.

Actor Ewan McGregor, an ambassador for the United Nations' Children's Fund (UNICEF) which organised the C8 Forum, praised their passion and involvement.
"Their experiences and opinions of issues like war, poverty and the rise of HIV/AIDS gives compelling and real evidence of why we all need to call on the G8 leaders to make child poverty history," he said.

"They are the ones who will inherit the results of the decisions the G8 leaders are going to make. They are the ones we need to listen to," he added.

The leaders of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Japan and Russia meet amid tight security in Gleneagles, some 40 miles (65 km) northwest of Edinburgh from Wednesday to Friday next week.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the current G8 president, has made tackling global warming and ending the triple curse of debt, disease and poverty in Africa the key goals of the summit.

TRAPPED IN POVERTY
The Live 8 rock concerts and a march by 200,000 people through the Scottish capital on Saturday to support the "Make Poverty History" campaign have shown the G8 leaders how much people have taken the issue to heart.

One child dies a preventable death every three seconds somewhere in the world, according to UNICEF.

Some 180 million children are trapped in the worst forms of child labour, 1.2 million are trafficked each year and two million are involved in the sex industry.

Some of the stories the children swapped with each other were harrowing.
Paola Rospigliozi, a 17-year-old, said poverty was so rife in her native Bolivia that mothers sometimes hired out their babies to other women so they could use them to beg on the streets, or they sold them into prostitution or for organ transplants.

Aminata Palmer, a feisty 11-year-old from Sierra Leone, said she had witnessed first hand the exploitation of children in her country which is ranked by the United Nations as the poorest in the world.

"We want to see an end to child exploitation. That is why we are here," she said. "I want to say to the G8 if you fail to react we will never forgive you."

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L03579282.htm

Ten years ago, when Nepal signed an agreement with the International Labour Organization (ILO) to launch a national programme to eliminate child labour, there were real hopes that the scourge could be significantly reduced. But today activists say that the number of working children in the Himalayan kingdom has increased rather than gone down, in part because of the conditions created by the current insurgency.

"The conflict has had a serious negative impact on our past efforts, and the challenges are enormous today," said long-time child labour activist, Uddhab Poudel from ILO. Poudel added that as the insurgency forces more children to leave their villages, the problem of child labour worsens.

It's not only the number of working children that startles observers but the kind of work they are increasingly being forced to undertake. Heavy migration of displaced children into urban areas because of the nine-year long Maoist conflict, means young people are being forced to engage in some of the most dangerous and exploitative forms of labour.

"We expect about 10,000 to 15,000 children to be displaced into urban areas this year - this will grow by ten fold if the situation deteriorates," explained Poudel. "A peace settlement is the only way to protect our children from further harm," he added.
Concern for children has been mounting among activists working for children's rights. In a report reviewing the situation in Nepal by the UN Committee on Rights of the Child (CRC) in May, one of the committee experts, Lucy Smith, said that Nepal was in many ways not a country fit for children.

According to the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), many young children moving to urban and semi-urban areas live in very difficult circumstances, being forced to work in unhygienic conditions and in hostile environments. Many live on the streets, denied an education and exposed to a variety of threats, added the NRC.

A recent Child Workers in Nepal (CWIN) report, said that child labour is widespread in agriculture, manual work (such as carpet weaving) basket making, iron and steel production, as well as industrial sectors such as brick-making and stone quarrying. It added that most children are exploited while employed as domestic helpers, hotel servants, porters or when picking over rubbish looking for items to sell.

"Before the conflict, children had the choice of returning home to their families but now all they can do is keep quiet and do not have the power to bargain with their employers," explained activist Tarak Dhital from CWIN. He added that there was a dire need for contemporary research on the situation of displaced children in the context of the current conflict.

Other organisations, like Maiti Nepal, which focuses on reducing the number of girls trafficked for prostitution, are concerned that the sexual exploitation of children is also on the rise. This is especially the case amongst those who end up in the capital and other main cities. "Most of them are in a vulnerable state and are without any protection as they don't know where to approach for help," said Anuradha Koirala from Maiti Nepal.
Nearly two years have passed since the Children as Zone of Peace (CAZOP) initiative was established to pressure both the rebels and security forces to leave children out of the conflict. But activists maintain that both parties have only made the situation worse for children, many of whom have been the victims of constant abduction, interrogation, sexual abuse and physical torture, leading them to flee their villages and work in exploitative conditions in urban areas to survive.

"The country is losing a whole generation of youth when they flee to India and leave schools and live in hostile conditions without any certainty about their future," said activist Reinhard Fichtl from Terre de Hommes, one of the handful of NGOs that is planning to launch a project for internally displaced Nepali children.

Fichtl is worried that most organisations are only focusing on the IDP camps whereas the large numbers of displaced children end up in the local district headquarters near the villages.

"Most live in cowsheds and whatever accommodation is available for the children," he explained. "Whenever we talk of civilians affected by conflict, we tend to leave out children who are in need of most state protection from all sorts of exploitation," Fichtl added.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/810acc34263b0fcbb5268fb7d5a3a09e.htm

The issue of child domestic workers, fondly referred to as house girls and houseboys in our society is no new phenomenon. Sure like tomorrow's sunrise, every one of us has either employed one or been in a household employing one and so their ways and works need no further description.

The sometimes-dehumanising way these little children, majority of whom are girls, are treated calls for an abolition of the practice of having a child domestic worker by way of criminalizing it as was done to slavery. "I dropped out of school and got a job as a house girl," narrates Nakabugo Fiona, a former house girl now under rehabilitation with Women and Youth services (WAYS), a local non governmental organisation that campaigns against all forms of child labour.

"I used to cook for the family, fetch water, clean the house and so many other tasks. I was only paid Shs8, 000 and sometimes I was not paid at all," she adds.

Like the gruelling experience of child labour is not bad enough, sexual abuse of these children compounds the problem making the victims suffer long spells of psychosocial disorders leading in most cases to a bleak future.

A research by WAYS indicates that sexual abuse of child domestic workers does not affect only the girl-child but the boy child too.

However statistics indicate an exponentially high difference in percentage between the girls and boys that face this kind of abuse.

It was found that 81.1% of the girls are sexually abused as compared to 18.9% of the boys making the affection ratio of girls to boys 5:1.

This partly explained by the fact that the girls are powerless rendering them more vulnerable to sexual abuse. This is compounded by the fact that the main perpetuators of this are male adults in households. "These girls are subjected to this in households by their masters, older boys in the household or neighbourhood and or fellow workers like shamba boys," said Margaret Happy Akiki, programme manager WAYS.

The plight of the victims is compounded by their ignorance, which incapacitates them from seeking legal redress even as basic as reporting to the Police.

"Many will not tell anyone what they are going through, but through programmes like ours, you find them opening up and sharing their bitter experiences," said Vincent Kakooza, the project coordinator WAYS.

But with WAYS and other organisations in the same trade, all is not lost.

Here they are equipped with vocational skills like tailoring, catering, Music dance and drama for the girls and the boys are linked to artisans who train them in crafts workmanship. They also undergo counselling and later are re-integrated back to their societies.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200507080944.html

Uganda's cash crops could attract sanctions or boycotts from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) if employers continue using child labour.

"At an international level, child labour could have serious consequences to employers including sanctions or boycotts of products. This has happened in some countries," Aloysius Ssemanda, the chairman of the Federation of Uganda Employers (FUE), said on Tuesday during a workshop at Hotel Africana in Kampala.

Sources said the WTO would pass new laws barring countries that still use child labour from international trade.

According to recent child labour reports from the International Labour Organisation, Uganda has about 2.7 million working children, with 28% working on employer's premises and 18% on plantations.

Ssemanda, who was represented by Isaac Munabi, FUE's industrial relations committee chairman, said Uganda's employers are obliged to contribute towards elimination of the worst forms of child labour because Uganda ratified the ILO Convention on Child Labour.

The workshop was aimed at exposing FUE's council members and staff to the effects of child labour in commercial agriculture, especially in coffee production.

Swizen Kyomuhendo, a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Makerere University, said 54% of child workers in the coffee sector are between 10 and 14 years.

Kyomuhendo said more than 75% of employers in the sector have no arrangements to eliminate child labour.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200507070186.html

An estimated 9 million East African children have been victims of trafficking within their countries and across the borders, a university chancellor said yesterday.

Dr Florence Muli-Musiime of Daystar, who is also a founder of the African Network for Prevention and Protection Against Child Abuse and Neglect, said the trade had reached alarming proportions, and that children aged between 10 and 14 were the main target.

They then become prostitutes and domestic and farm workers, or are forced into early marriage, she added.

She called on the governments and organisations such as the African Union to join hands with lobby groups to fight the trade.

She was addressing a regional conference on human trafficking and forced labour at Safari Club, Nairobi.

Last year, the US government dropped Kenya from an international list of countries that could face sanctions for failing to take steps to end modern-day slavery.

The US had placed the country on the list, accusing it of failing to comply fully with international measures to end trafficking.

In neighbouring Uganda, 20,000 children in the northern part of the country are reported to be engaged in the 19-year-old civil war.

Dr Muli-Musiime regretted that parents and other relatives or guardians of the victims were directly involved in giving them away for money and material rewards. Ms Margie de Monchy of UN children's agency Unicef cited the major challenges to the war on child trafficking as corrupt government officials and weak laws.

Some 13,000 Kenyan girls drop out of school every year due to pregnancy, a new study shows.

The report, Adolescent Health and Development in Kenya: What the Statistics Say, says teenage pregnancies and early marriages are a major contributor to rate. Quoting from the report, Dr Richard Muga, the director of the National Coordinating Agency for Population and Development, said that even if some progress had been made in narrowing the gender gap, much still needed to be done. He was speaking at The Stanley hotel, Nairobi, during a workshop on women's reproductive health ahead of the World Population Day to be marked at Vitengani, Kilifi District, on July 11.

The forum brought together MPs, development partners, international organisations and other population, family planning and reproductive health experts.

Housing assistant minister Betty Tett said that although women were about half of the world population and performed two thirds of the work, they received only a 10th of income and owned 1 per cent of property.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200507060056.html

As pressure mounts in the United States for ethically produced chocolate, Cote d'Ivoire, the world's top cocoa producer, is working hard to roll back the use of child labour in its family-owned plantations.

Just days before the world's chocolate industry outlined a global plan to combat child labour on 1 July, Cote d'Ivoire's government has begun setting up 73 cocoa-field committees which are intended to stop farmers using children to do adult work.

"Everybody knows that cocoa is the lifeblood of Cote d'Ivoire," said Nissoiti Diaby, a sociologist working with the German aid agency GTZ to set up these committees.

"But what most farmers don't know, is that children shouldn't carry out risky activities. The village committees will help them understand," she said in Oume, a cocoa-growing town 200 km northwest of Abidjan, where the first monitoring committee has just been set up. At issue is the use of machetes and pesticides by youngsters.

Machetes are widely used as an agricultural tool in West Africa and occasionally as a weapon of attack. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) considers these long sharp knives to be a hazardous tool which children should not be allowed to handle.

US congressmen opposed to child labour demanded that the global chocolate industry present a plan to implement a monitoring and certification system, for ethically produced cocoa by 1 July. They have threatened legislative sanctions such as boycotts or punitive tariffs against countries failing to meet their standards.

"Many farmers acknowledge that they did not realize their children were carrying out dangerous tasks," Diaby said. "It's almost always a question of ignorance, not of cruelty."

Pointing to the children sitting around him in silent respect, the local chief of Oume said: "They help us out in the school holidays but they never use machetes, they are too small."

Action against worst forms of child labour

The new grassroots committees are part of a pilot scheme to monitor child labour on Cote d'Ivoire's estimated half a million cocoa farms. They will serve to rehabilitate any children below the legal working age of 14 who are being illegally exploited.

" Any child exposed to the worst forms of child labour will be transferred into the care of welfare officers, schools or an NGO," said Nadine Assemien, of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) which is also working on the project.

"The idea is to save children, and to help parents get their children into school or into vocational training," Assemien said. The pilot project is a response to worldwide pressure on Cote d'Ivoire to show that it is actively trying to wipe out child labour.

The West African country produces 40 percent of the world's cocoa. Neighbouring Ghana, which also relies on small family-run farms, occupies the number two slot, with 18 percent of world production.

Cote d'Ivoire ratified a convention outlawing the worst forms of child labour three years ago.

But the country's three-year-old civil war has hampered efforts to ensure these standards are implemented uniformly in the hundreds of thousands of small farms, that produce the bulk of the country's beans. UN Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat who was instrumental in developing a key 2001 industry protocol on child labour, has threatened to slap a US ban on cocoa beans farmed by minors.

But in West Africa, some say the controversy serves to highlight the huge cultural gap between western activists and local farmers. The farmers claim their children are not being exploited, but are simply learning a family trade and helping their poor families to make ends meet.

"The culture of teaching children a job at a young age remains very strong in West Africa," said Diaby.

No child slaves

The issue of child labour on cocoa farms has a history. In 2001 a series of press reports in Europe and North America alleged that cocoa farmers were using child slaves, to weed their farms and harvest cocoa pods.

These children were alleged to have arrived in Cote d'Ivoire via a giant child trafficking network reaching into the country's poorer northern neighbours, Mali and Burkina Faso.

Several Malian children interviewed by a British film crew said they had been forced into hard labour without pay. They also said they had been physically and mentally abused.

The chocolate industry initially refused comment, but later denied the claims of slavery. But it was too late to stop the international outrage.

The ILO acknowledged that some children had been brought to Cote d'Ivoire to work for little or no pay, but later said the same year, that it had found no credible proof that an extensive child trafficking network existed.

A 2002 study on child labour in the West African cocoa industry by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), found that 87 percent of the children working on Cote d'Ivoire farms were the farmers' own. children.

" That study showed that there were in fact no ' child slaves' and that most children helped their parents on the farm during the holidays and after school," said Diaby.

" But the damage was already done, and it's very hard to convince people today that Ivorians don't use slaves on their plantations. The story has stuck."

The IITA study noted that 284,000 children worked in hazardous conditions on cocoa farms in Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon, Guinea and Nigeria.

In Cote d'Ivoire, several thousand children were found to be using machetes or applying pesticides, but Diaby said this was not evidence of callousness or cruelty.

" They don't let their children spray insecticides because it is dangerous," she said. " They let them do it so that they learn how to work the farm. This is how they were taught by their own fathers."

The study also indicated that children working on cocoa farms were less likely to attend school. This tendency was especially notable among the children of immigrant farmers, who had an enrolment rate of only 33 percent.

Many of Cote d'Ivoire's small cocoa farms are run by immigrants from Burkina Faso and Mali, who began moving into the country to seek their fortune when all three states were still part of French West Africa.

Diaby said the 1.3 billion CFA franc (US $ 2.4 million) pilot project to stamp out child labour in cocoa plantations won't change the local culture overnight, but it may shed new light on potentially damaging habits.

"There is a region in Cote d'Ivoire where young girls who can carry heavy loads on their heads, are said to make the best future wives. So we want to say to their parents: listen if you let her do that, she will use up all her strength in youth and she cannot be a good wife later," she said.

Getting children to school

The town of Oume was chosen for the pilot project because it is located in a key cocoa growing region and has many different ethnic groups living closely together, the sociologist explained. A US delegation is due to visit Oume in mid-July as part of an inspection visit to see if the Cote d'Ivoire government has made any progress towards phasing out child labour.

One local farmer Sylvestre Kabore said he had joined a village committee against child labour. "The deputy governor came to our village to explain that our children will not grow big and strong if we make them work too hard," Kabore said.

"It was the first time I had heard this but I think it makes sense.We want our children to save their strength for later."

Diaby also said that the project hoped to convince parents to send their children to school. Education is something that most parents want for their children, but can't always afford.

http://www.businessinafrica.net/news/west_africa/455781.htm

Britain's union organisation has called for action to be taken to stop children being forced to work in dangerous or unsafe conditions.

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) added support to the Make Poverty History Campaign, saying there was a "powerful link" between poverty and unsafe jobs.

It urged the government to help invest in education and job creation schemes in developing countries.

Its calls came as the TUC marked World Day Against Child Labour on Sunday.

The TUC marked the day by publishing a report which calculated that 245 million children around the world were employed in work which jeopardised their education, health or freedom.

'Life of poverty'
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "Instead of being in school, one in every eight children worldwide is being forced into dangerous work, drug trafficking, prostitution and armed conflict.

"Children as young as five being forced down mines are trapped into a life of poverty," he said.

"To be able to invest resources in education for all, developing countries need debt relief and better aid backed by a trade system that no longer relies on or allows cheap child labour."

The Make Poverty History Campaign is calling for the G8 industrialised countries to wipe off Third World debt and increase aid when they meet for a summit in Scotland next month.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4084846.stm

The Indonesian National Development Planning Agency (INDPA) has made commitment to eradicate child labour across the country, according to local media.

The INDPA will emphasise education as a way out of child labour, said a press release issued jointly by the agency and the International Labour Organization (ILO).

The ILO said that child workers do not only endanger all children's rights, but also create social costs. Child workers generally receive very small wages and suffer poverty when they become adults.

According to the 2003 national census, there were some 1,502,600 child workers aged 10 to 14 in Indonesia who had not enjoyed a formal education. Meanwhile, more than 1,600,000 children were not able to receive formal education because of household chores and other such domestic duties.

Indonesia has developed a national action plan to abolish the worst forms of work for children and has ratified ILO Convention 182.-Enditem

http://www.vnagency.com.vn/NewsA.asp?LANGUAGE_ID=2&CATEGORY_ID=33&NEWS_ID=156751