As many as 115 children, about to be sent to neighbouring Gujarat to work in factories despite a legal ban on child labour, have been rescued thanks to a Rajasthan-based NGO.

The child labourers were rescued from Udaipur, about 500 km from here, Saturday by a team of the Dakshin Rajasthan Mazdoor Union, an advocacy group working for migrant labourers.

"These children were being taken to Gujarat for working in cotton factories," the NGO said in a statement.

Most of the children belong to poor tribal families.

"These children were rescued by us when they were being sent to cotton factories of Gujarat, especially in Ahmedabad and Disa," Meenakshi Paliwal, an official of the NGO, told IANS on phone on Monday.

According to a study by the union, at least 100,000 children from Rajasthan's tribal belt are employed in the cotton fields of Gujarat.

The study said that about 50 percent of the labourers employed in the cotton fields come from four tribal districts of south Rajasthan, Dungarpur, Banswara, Udaipur and Sirohi, which border Gujarat.
It also revealed that about 35 percent families there send their children for cotton works.

The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 bans employment of children below 14 years in specified fields which are considered unsafe and harmful to children.

However, the practice goes on uninhibited across the country.

On July 22, 11 child labourers from Jhadol block of Udaipur district were rescued by Udaipur-based Gandhi Manav Kalyan Society. These children too were being taken to Gujarat.

On national play day, Adrian Voce is almost jumping for joy about the government's new bonkers-for-conkers approach

Gordon Brown gave a hint in January 2005 of the change in the priority afforded to child policy and the emphasis of the policy itself that his premiership might entail.

Writing in the Guardian, the then chancellor said that the forthcoming Labour manifesto needed to be a manifesto for children that struck a "balance between education, care and play".

To some observers, this struck a markedly different tone to the well-worn rallying cry of "education, education, education". In a Brown premiership, it was speculated, education might still come first for children, but there would be other important areas of children's lives in need of serious policy attention, too.

These predictions proved to be accurate when the prime minister created a new ministerial position, not for education, but for children, schools and families - and then appointed his closest political ally to the post.

Some commentators insist on still calling him the "education secretary" but on July 18, Ed Balls confirmed that the change wasn't just cosmetic when, in his first major policy speech in his new role, he described his new empire as the 'Every Child Matters' department and unveiled an impressive list of new measures to support children's wider wellbeing.

Most striking - or at least most widely reported - were the sections of his speech about children's play and its importance in developing their resilience. We "mustn't wrap our children up in cotton wool', he said, 'but allow them to play outside so as to better understand the opportunities and challenges in the world around them, and how to be safe".

He had told the Guardian that morning: "My assumption is that if it's snowing, kids go outside to build snowmen and have snowball fights; in October, kids go outside and play conkers."

This emphasis was as unexpected as it was welcome, given that the context for all this was a consultation on a new safeguarding strategy, concerned largely with the need for cohesion in child protection policy.

The government is, of course, responding to the increasing evidence, and growing consensus among children's professionals, academics and parents, that the world of the modern child often lacks the simple opportunities to play outside in and around their local neighbourhoods, and that a risk averse culture is partly to blame.

The government proposal is to "launch a communications campaign to encourage parents to let their children play outside in safe environments and take part in positive activities safely." But is a social marketing initiative going to be sufficient to turn this around?

Research commissioned by Play England for today's Playday suggests that children and their parents know the value of outdoor play but there are real concerns about how safe the outdoor world is for children.

In the Our Streets Too! survey, 71% of adults said that they played out every day as children, compared with 21% of children today. The main barrier is traffic, with 23% of children and 35% of adults telling us that busy roads prevent outdoor play.

On top of the traffic problem, we also know that access to good quality play space and supervised play provision such as adventure playgrounds is being denied to many children: partly because of the perennial squeeze on resources for what has never been a statutory duty for local authorities.

The survey also found that 29% of children and 39% of adults said that more play space in and around the local neighbourhood and streetscape would make it easier for children to play out.

In June, the left-of-centre think-tank Compass, with support from Play England, launched a Charter for Childhood, setting out what it sees as the real challenges for policy makers concerned with turning "battery-reared children" into "free-range" ones.

This included better work-life balance for parents; more play provision in schools and extended schools; better recognition for playwork; more incentive for local authorities to expand and improve play provision; space for outdoor play in all new housing builds and re-designs; and a reduction of the speed limit to 20mph or less in all residential areas, with more Home Zones and child-friendly neighbourhoods. It also called for the creation of a new funding stream for play provision to secure investment above and beyond the current lottery funding.

Mr Balls' announcements on July 18 included another significant break with the Blair era. His new department will now have "dual key responsibility" for children's play policy with the department of culture, where play policy has, until now, anomalously sat outside of the government's big Change for Children programme in spite of it frequently coming out as the top priority for children themselves.
Given that the safeguarding strategy's proposal on play was clearly developed before the "regime change", we, and children, must hope that they are only a precursor to a cohesive and wide-ranging government play policy.

http://society.guardian.co.uk/children/comment/0,,2137913,00.html

Labour Minister Manzoor Nadir verbally flayed Mr Edward Dunham of EduCare this week over his pronouncements on that organisation's recent research on child labour. Mr Dunham, in a recent interview with this newspaper on the preliminary findings of the research, had said that there was evidence of the worst forms of child labour in Guyana.

Following the publication of that interview, in the thin-skinned approach that has become typical of some government officials, Mr Nadir, at his very next public forum, denied everything. While he said he was upset at the fact that the claims were made even before the final analysis was done, Mr Nadir did not stop there. He accused Mr Dunham of being overeager to find something wrong in Guyana in order to justify EduCare's US$2 million funding from the US Department of Labour, obviously implying that the research's findings were incorrect. He also threatened to "write to the US Congress to let them know how US taxpayers' dollars are being spent," stating that he was taking "the allegations" seriously.

Clearly, although Mr Dunham had stressed that his report was preliminary, Mr Nadir has already made up his mind about the results of the completed report. The truth is that the results of the final analysis are not going to change much from the preliminary results; except perhaps statistically. Therefore, Guyanese should not expect the Labour Ministry to act on any recommendations the report may make because Mr Nadir has already decided that there is no abuse of child labour in Guyana and that Guyanese children only work at "summer jobs, working in supermarkets packing bags and shelves…" If only this were true.

The fact is, regardless of how deep in the sand Mr Nadir buries his head, Guyanese children work at adult jobs, are exploited by unscrupulous bosses and some of them do not and have never gone to school.

One example of this was contained in a report published in this newspaper on March 28, this year, under the headline: 'Three held in baby's death probe released - following exhumation, post-mortem'. For that story, the Stabroek News reporter had interviewed the baby's siblings at their Number 72 Village, Corentyne, Berbice, home.

One of them, 14-year-old Raj, said he worked as a labourer at a fowl farm along with his 11-year-old brother Suraj. He said he had a ten-year-old brother named Raju and that the three of them had at one time attended Number 43 Village Primary School, but he could not recall when last they had gone.
His 18-year-old brother Vijay said he worked as a 'Tapir' (vehicle) conductor and his 16-year-old sister Shelly said she had been married for two years and lived a few houses away.

The 14-year-old boy said his younger siblings, eight-year-old Devi, seven-year-old Kevin and three-year-old Kavita did not have birth certificates. This is just one family and it is not an isolated case. Some poor rural children work very hard and not just at painting "the neighbour's fence and with contractors just to collect some extra money during the summer holidays" as the minister would like us to believe. For them it is purely a bread and butter issue.

With regard to children in the city, could Minister Nadir have failed to notice the number of children selling sweets, snacks, limes, plastic bags, combs, thread and other haberdashery around the National Cultural Centre on show nights and in and around the municipal markets on a daily basis? Some of them can be seen in their school uniforms, sometimes after school hours, which begs the question as to when they do homework and play; perhaps in the "summer". Some of these children wear regular clothing and sell all day. Some of them, particularly the boys are employed by people and around the markets as labourers; some work with horse-cart drivers.

Minister Nadir argued that Guyana was a signatory to the conventions that speak to child labour and that labour inspections were done during which records were checked to see if teenagers were employed. But would persons who employ children and who know that it is illegal have them on the books?

Minister Nadir also pointed to local youth empowerment programmes, which enable school drop-outs to develop skills. But these programmes only reach some of the intended targets. Guyana is not the only country where children are exploited and it is probably not as bad here as it is in other countries. But we cannot deny that it exists. To do that would be to do a grave disservice to these children. The tendency in Guyana to react with umbrage to whatever is viewed as criticism is part of the reason why initiatives to correct some problems fail.

According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisations (Unesco) Education for All Global Monitoring Report, there are 218 million child labourers around the world.

It says three quarters of these children are under the age of 14 and they are involved in trafficking, debt bondage, slavery and prostitution.

In South Africa, child labour is estimated at 200 000. Enver Surty, the deputy education minister, says child labour in South Africa has decreased dramatically due to State intervention.

ITAHARI, July 17: The District Child Welfare Committee, Sunsari has expressed commitment to introduce concrete programme soon as to resolve the problems of children compelled to survive a life labour. This commitment has been expressed in eight-point declaration issued here yesterday by the Committee.

The commitment stated to operate skill-based and vocational programme for children, and to introduce programme related to education and rehabilitation. The declaration set the provision that no responsible officials of Sunsari district would keep children as a domestic worker in own house following the release of declaration.

At a programme to release the declaration, Child Welfare Committee Chairman Chief District Officer (CDO) Prem Narayan Sharma expressed commitment to work to bail out the problems of child labourers and street children with the separate package of programme. District Justice Lila Prasad Gautam stressed on the need of running child court effectively and rehabilitation center. District Child Welfare Committee Officer Yogendra Giri presented working paper at the programme presided over by CDO Sharma.

Nigerian authorities are investigating a suspected case of human trafficking involving children. Gilbert da Costa reports for VOA that Nigeria has taken a tough stance in the fight against human trafficking.

Nearly all 62 young people now in the custody of the Nigeria's anti-trafficking agency are said to be from neighboring Benin or Togo. The agency's spokesman Arinze Oraukwe says a regional approach has become imperative in the fight against what is considered a lucrative trade involving children.

"These countries need to set up similar structures and similar instruments of law like Nigeria has done, so that these cross-border movements are not allowed, so long as victims are being taken out of the shores for illegal movements, like trafficking in persons," said Oraukwe.

The Nigerian police intercepted a truck in the country's south carrying the potential child laborers to Cameroon and Gabon. The children included a three-year-old girl. Oraukwe says some suspects have been arrested and would soon be prosecuted.

"We have secured 12 convictions; we have not lost any case since this thing started," said Oraukwe. "We cannot let this matter go down like that, especially when it is not just Nigeria. What my boss is doing is to try to reach out to those countries that have their citizens here, to take custody of their citizens while we prosecute the traffickers."

Child trafficking is punishable by a maximum 10-year jail term in Nigeria.

West African girls are often trafficked into sexual exploitation, with others placed in domestic servitude, drug trafficking, and labor exploitation.

Human trafficking is a major problem in West Africa where most impoverished families are often glad to give their children away for a token.

The United Nations estimates the number of people trafficked each year range from between 600,000 to four million.

CHILD trafficking may seem a world away for ordinary Australians, but the reality is it remains a worldwide epidemic.

Macquarie Bank's Melbourne executive chairman Simon McKeon will head a forum next month aimed at raising awareness of the illegal trade.

A panel including high-profile public figures will take part, among them World Vision chief the Rev Tim Costello, Victoria's Deputy Police Commissioner Simon Overland and TV presenter Jennifer Adams.

Mr McKeon, who was a board member of World Vision Australia for 12 years, said the aim of the evening was to generate discussion in the community.

"This issue of child trafficking is, believe it or not, very much alive and unfortunately very well in this particular era," Mr McKeon said.

"And often it is conscripted labour.

"They end up in the brothels of Phnom Penh or Bangkok, they end up in child labour camps in China, they end up being child soldiers in Uganda at the age of 10, conscripted and being told to shoot their uncles."

Mr McKeon said child trafficking had become a big money-spinner for organised crime gangs.

And the evils of child trafficking were closer to home than most Australians might think.

"It's a subject that you can easily avoid and frankly many of us want to avoid because it is uncomfortable," he said.
"Unfortunately it's a big industry driving this now, a nasty industry.

"And many of us either holiday in places where this happens.

"Or alternatively we acquire goods from these regions, which are absolutely wrapped up in child trafficking."

The forum will be held on Saturday, August 4, at Brighton Secondary College.

Tickets can be bought from World Vision Australia. All proceeds will go to World Vision's child rescue program.

Police in Vietnam say they've arrested three people for allegedly trafficking children to China, some of whom were forced to work as prostitutes.

The police say two young men from Hanoi were detained on Friday, while a 36-year-old woman from the northern province of Lang Son which borders China was arrested on Saturday.

Local media reports say police started investigating the case after getting a letter asking for help from a 15-year-old girl who had escaped from a brothel in China.

The girl is said to have told police she met the traffickers online, and had been raped before being sold in China as a sex worker.

The reports say the alleged traffickers admitted they had taken five children across the border, receiving hundreds of dollars for each.

Bangalore, Jul 17: The Karnataka Government has extended the action plan for elimination of child labour in Karnataka till 2012, Minister for Labour and Minority Welfare Mr Iqbal Ansari informed Karnataka Legislative Council on Monday.
In a written reply to Bharatiya Janata Party member Smt Vimalagouda, the Minister informed that the state government had appointed 2050 officers of various department as inspectors under child labour (prohibition and regulation) act 1986 for Karnataka shops and commercial act 1961.

The Minister said the action plan for elimination of child labour in the state, launched in the year 2001 was extended till the year 2012. The child labourers who were rescued were rehabilitated in special child labour and other mainstream schools supported by National child labour project and state child labour project.

The Labour Department also had launched an intensive awareness campaign against the practice of child labour and sensitized the public on the issue in the state.

Replying to another question by Congress member Prakash K Rathod, the Minister said as per 2001 census 39400 child labourers were identified and rehabilitated. Poverty and illiteracy of parents was the main cause which drove their children to work. The child labourers who were identified and rehabilitated were found deprive of proper food, shelter, cloathing, education and access to health.

OAKLAND -- More than souvenirs and overpriced beer was being sold at the 2007 All-Star game in San Francisco last week.

Like other large sporting events, the playoff game was a magnet for pimps and their increasingly underage prostitutes.
That was why FBI agents and police from Oakland, Fremont, San Jose, San Francisco, Campbell and the Alameda County Sheriff's Office fanned out across the Bay Area in a prostitution sting scheduled to coincide with the July 10 Major League Baseball festivities.

Also involved in the undercover operation were California Department of Justice and the East Bay Regional Parks.
"Operation Strikeout," conducted July 6-12, netted 131 arrests, including a juvenile in South San Francisco who had an 8-month-old baby with her.

The sting was the first regional effort aimed at confronting the proliferation of prostitution -- of which Oakland is a hub -- and, in particular, human trafficking and child exploitation.

The age of prostitutes is dropping, while the number of sexually exploited girls and boys is rising -- most between the ages of 11 and 14, experts said at a news conference Monday announcing the results of the sting.

The youngest children bring in the most money and business, said Lt. Kevin Wiley, who led the sting for the Oakland Police Department. But they are hidden, scared and abused victims.

In response, law enforcement agencies are redefining the way youngsters are treated in the legal system.

Instead of being treated as suspects, they are seen as sexually exploited victims with a history of sexual, physical and emotional abuse by adults.

Among the 27 cases of human trafficking the Oakland Police Department investigated since 2006, most involved juveniles, Wiley said.

There are more children out there than people to help them, said Nola Brantley, co-director of the Alameda County Family Justice Center and MISSEY, which works with law enforcement agencies to provide services to sexually exploited children. About 30 percent of sexually exploited youngsters are from Alameda County she said.

Another 30 percent are from Contra Costa County and 25 percent are from elsewhere in the state. About 5 percent are from other parts of the country.

"This isn't a Bay Area problem. It affects everyone, and we need everyone to step forward," Wiley said.

Since 2002, the number of sexually exploited minors in Northern California has tripled, according to Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, D-Oakland, who has introduced a bill that would define sexually exploited minors as victims instead of criminals, making it easier to get services to them.

Involving law enforcement at the earliest stages is a key element in order to get services to victims immediately after they have been removed from the streets, Brantley said.

Creating a facility specifically targeted to their needs is another.

Mayor Ron Dellums' office is appointing a task force to confront Oakland's rampant prostitution and child sexual exploitation.

"We have to think to the size of the problem, to think to the size of the solution," Dellums said at the news conference.
A model city, he said, cannot be one where young people are exploited.

UN Security Council Should Urge Chad to Immediately Release Underage Fighters

The Chadian army and its allied paramilitary forces are keeping thousands of child soldiers out of demobilization efforts, despite the government's promises to release underage fighters from military service, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

On July 19, the UN Security Council's working group on children in armed conflict will meet to discuss Security Council responses to the use of child soldiers and other human rights abuses against children in Chad's armed conflict.

In May, the Chadian government pledged to cooperate with UNICEF in identifying and demobilizing child soldiers in the ranks of its military. Since then, several hundred children, some as young as 8 years old, have been released from a military base in central Chad. But none belonged to the national army; all came from a government-aligned paramilitary group. UNICEF's requests to visit two other bases, both in conflict zones in eastern Chad, have not been granted by Chadian government officials.

"The Chadian government is failing on its promise to remove children from its armed forces," said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "The Security Council should demand that the Chadian government and its allied forces end child recruitment and release children from their ranks."

The 46-page report, "Early to War: Child Soldiers in the Chad Conflict," documents how the Chadian army, its allied paramilitary militias and rebel forces have used and recruited child soldiers in both northern Chad and along the eastern border with Sudan's Darfur region. The report is based on interviews with senior officers in the Chadian military as well as current child soldiers themselves.

Since December 2005, the Chadian National Army (Armée Nationale Tchadienne, or ANT) has fought against Sudanese-backed Chadian rebel groups seeking to unseat President Idriss Déby. When battles raged in northern and eastern Chad in the autumn of 2006, both the government and rebel forces increasingly turned to the recruitment of children, who continue to serve as fighters, guards, cooks and lookouts on the frontlines of the conflict. In recent months, as pro-government forces have gained the upper hand, the government has engaged in peace negotiations with the rebels.

A former rebel group that recruited and used child soldiers, the Front Uni pour le Changement (United Front for Change, FUC), signed a December peace agreement with the government, which is now integrating FUC forces into the national army. However, after the FUC agreed to contribute many more soldiers to the army than it had under arms, it conducted aggressive recruitment drives that brought many children into its ranks.

Despite the Chadian government's promises to demobilize child soldiers, Human Rights Watch interviews with army commanders indicate that military personnel would attempt to exclude children from the demobilization process.

"Some of the child soldiers will be demobilized, but most will be hidden," a senior Chadian army officer told Human Rights Watch. "They will be stationed on the frontlines and other places that are off-limits."

Notably, none of the 413 children demobilized from Chadian government military installations since May have been from the national army. All of them were former FUC fighters who had been integrated into government forces. 

"The Chadian government needs to release children from all corners of the military, not just the ranks of its former enemies," said Takirambudde.

Since January 2006, Human Rights Watch researchers have observed the use of child soldiers by the army and pro-government forces, including integrated ex-rebel forces (namely the FUC), village-level self-defense forces and two Sudanese rebel movements. Each of these groups has forces deployed all along the Chad-Sudan border.
 

The UN Security Council has proposed a civilian-protection mission for deployment to eastern Chad, but this has met persistent opposition from Chadian government officials.

"The insecurity in eastern Chad leaves children vulnerable to recruitment as soldiers," said Takirambudde. "An international mission is needed to protect civilians and end this insecurity."

Both the Chadian government and the government-affiliated FUC are in violation of international law, which prohibits the use of children under the age of 18 in armed conflict. In addition, the recruitment or use of children under the age of 15 is considered a war crime.

To view the Human Rights Watch report, "Early to War: Child Soldiers in the Chad

Danny Glenwright and Mohamed Massaquo back from Kono Isatu Kamara looks on as her three young children navigate muddy pathways at Zone 3/7 Congo Bridge Mine in Kono, carrying shovels and lugging heavy loads of gravel to be sifted for diamonds.

She has brought them to the mine, where she herself has worked for four years, to work along with her and hopefully raise enough so they can attend school in September.

"The father of these children is not around," she says, pointing to her kids. "This is where I get money for their school bills. The children are not pleased with it, but it is the only option to get money. We know it is bad to employ children in the mines, but there are many here." A recent report by the Network Movement for Justice and Development (NMJD) in Sierra Leone, interviewed 267 children who work in mining areas across the country and found that 55 per cent of the child miners live with at least one parent.

The report also found that 38 per cent live with a relative and seven per cent live on their own.
"Most of the kids that are in the mine are actually staying with their parents," said Patrick Tongu, Field Supervisor for NMJD in Kono, who said he was surprised by this finding. "It's an issue of poverty. The people are so poor after the war that they cannot actually afford to send their kids to school." Tongu said there are thousands of children working in mines across the country, many of whom don't go to school - a violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that even in wartime, all children have the right to receive an education.

Although the country's three main political parties have now released their party manifestos, none has said how they will address the issue of children in the mines if elected on August 11.

"Child mining, to me, is one of the worst forms of child labour," said Tongu. "The conditions are hazardous and the work is heavy." He said children work long hours for little or no pay and are often taken from their families by relatives who say they will care for them and then put to work in the mines.
Abu Marrah knows all about this. He was taken from his family in Kabala by his uncle and promised a job in carpentry, but for the last year has spent most of his days mining at Zone 3/7. He digs in heavy clay, hauls gravel and is immersed in filthy water for much of his day.

He has never been to school and is unsure of his age, which is in the range of 10-12 years.

"The work is hard," he said. "I am part of those who wash the gravel. I only have one meal per day and I come early in the morning and I am here up until 2 o'clock." Marrah said he would like to go to school if the opportunity arose - his dream is to be a medical doctor. He often works for days without finding a diamond and those he has found have never earned him more than Le 1000.

"We have a lot of children coming to work in these mines," he said, scanning the mounds of silt and gravel around him, where other children work, in the hot sun, bent over pools of dirty water as they dig and sift through stones. "When working if you are sad, the work will not go on, so you have to be happy." Tongu thinks more needs to be done to ensure Sierra Leonean children like Marrah are released from a life of hard labour in the mines. The NMJD's report has recommended increasing opportunities for education, relocating children to non-mining areas and greater community law enforcement.

"Not much has been done in terms of looking for alternatives for children in the mines," he said, noting that the government needs to encourage NGO's, businesses and other stakeholders to do more research into the issue and come up with ways to solve the problem. "For those communities where there is mining, they really have to do something for the kids." In the meantime, Isatu Kamara and others like her will continue to bring their children to work in mines all over the region. "We have no choice, we have no money," she said.

New guidance on child trafficking has been created by the government for professionals and community or voluntary groups that come into contact with vulnerable young people.

A recent official report identified a number of suspected cases of children being trafficked into and around the UK, with many of the young people involved coerced into sex work, forced to work in sweat shops, drawn into crime or sold into domestic servitude.

Jointly produced by The Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Home Office, the guidance covers information for community groups, charities, organisations in the not for profit sector, social workers, immigration officials and other professionals, describing best practice if a child is suspected of being trafficked, the common background to cases of child trafficking, physical and mental abuse used to control children and ways to combat the problem.

Home office minister Vernon Coaker said: "Child trafficking is an appalling crime which causes terrible distress and ruins the lives of its victims. The guidance published today provides valuable information to those working on the front line, helping them to recognise victims of child trafficking and giving advice on how they should work together with other agencies to ensure these children are rescued from the horrors they can face."

Meanwhile, leading children’s charity Save the Children has called on the government to put in place adequate tools and resources to improve skills and training for workers who come into contact with trafficked children.

In a provocative new study appearing in the July issue of the Journal of Labor Economics, economists Elias Dinopoulous (University of Florida) and Laixun Zhao (Kobe University) formally analyze the effects of globalization on child labor.

The authors find that emigration of unskilled adult workers from poor countries to rich countries increases the incidence of child labor. Surprisingly, the authors also found that child-wage subsidies, such as subsidized meals, increase the incidence of child labor by lowering the costs of child labor to employers.

The problem of child labor is arguably one of the most important issues of our time: "Excessive effort, hazardous work, bonded labor, armed conflict, prostitution and pornography, long work hours, unhealthy working conditions, absence of schooling, malnutrition, and sexual harassment acquire a different meaning when applied to children," write Dinopoulous and Zhao. "The phenomenon of child labor has been viewed as an epidemic of the global economy that must eventually be eliminated."

According to the International Labor Organization, about 15 percent of children worldwide between the ages of 5 and 14 are classified as child laborers. Of these working children, about 171 million children work in hazardous conditions and 5.7 million are forced to work against their will.

In contrast to prior economic models about child labor that assume altruistic parents reluctant to part with their children, Dinopoulos and Zhao propose a model that incorporates the idea that at least some children go to work because their parents are eager for the additional income. The study also assumes that while skilled and educated adults can do things children cannot do, working as ,foremen, supervisors or machine operators," children can perform similar work as unskilled adult workers, especially in the agrarian sector.

"Analyzing the economic effects of globalization on the incidence of child labor constitutes a high research and policy priority," the authors write. "Lower migration barriers that induce unskilled adult workers to migrate from poor to rich countries, alone or with their children, increase the incidence of child labor."

The analysis also identifies other conditions under which globalization-related changes can affect the incidence of child labor, including trade policies that encourage the production of child-labor intensive products and taxes that discourage foreign investment in child-labor-free sectors in developing countries.

July 14, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka's Labour Ministry has sought the help of the International Labour Organization to do a survey to find out if the country's agriculture sector uses child labour.

Although the practice is not as widespread as in other poor South Asian and African countries, a survey eight years ago found nearly 600,000 children working in agriculture and industries in the island of 20 million people.

The survey, by the Census and Statistics Department, found that more than 90 percent of these children worked in the agriculture sector.

Now, the Labour Ministry is teaming up with the ILO, part of the United Nations, to conduct a fresh survey.

“The ministry of labour has requested the ILO to provide technical help for the exercise," said Tine Staermose, ILO Country Director in Sri Lanka. "We are now designing the survey and look forward to collaborating with them.”

In poor countries where laws are lax or are difficult to implement, children are used as agricultural labour because they are cheaper to employ.

Doing so denies them the opportunity to study and exposes them to hazards that could have long term health effects.
However, not all work is child labour.

“It is important to differentiate between children working as child labourers and in family farm activities,” said Indrani Sugathadasa, Secretary, Child Development Ministry.

“According to the ILO, child labour is something that harms children’s wellbeing and jeopardizes their development and violates their rights.”

The survey by the statistics office eight years ago found over 97,000 children suffering from work related injuries. More than half of them worked in the agriculture sector.

Experts at an ILO organized seminar to announce the commencement of the child labour survey said children in rural areas were most vulnerable.

It is illegal to employ anyone below the age of 14 in Sri Lanka, although the UN convention on the rights of children itself defines children as anyone below 18 years of age.

However, experts argue that weak social infrastructure is a bigger contributor to the problem than the lax Sri Lankan law allowing anyone who is 14 years to be out of school and in employment.

“Child labour is a survival strategy in many rural areas in Sri Lanka,” Sugathadasa said.

“In most cases parents would prefer to send their children to school but the (poor) quality of education in remote areas, though free, is a disincentive to parents.”

While almost all children get a primary school education, secondary enrolment is less than 50 percent leaving many children available to be used as labour.

Studies have also found that the poor quality of education in rural areas is a contributory factor to the early withdrawal of children from school.

“Recognizing that education is empowering, the government continues with free education,” Sugathadasa added.

“Many parents see the provision of quality education for their children as an opportunity for social and economic advancement.”

“Therefore, before withdrawing children from child labour in the agriculture sector it is important to ensure that viable alternatives are in place. It is necessary that they are placed in safer and non-exploitative alternatives or we take the risk of them moving into worse forms of child labour.

"It is also necessary to ensure that the income lost by pulling the child out of employment does not entail the impoverishment of that particular family."

The escalating ethnic conflict has also left many children in greater danger of ending up as agricultural labour, according to the ILO.

“Since the country slid back into violence and conflict in January 2006, many children are living in difficult conditions, either on the move as IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) or in camps,” the ILO's Staermose says.

“They are today the most vulnerable of the farming and fishing communities and their rights to a decent and dignified childhood free from fear needs to be taken care of as a matter of urgency.”

A minor girl, who was allegedly harassed by her employer, was rescued by Legal Metrology Controller Tejdeep Kaur Menon in Bowenpally on Sunday.

The police later arrested the girl’s employer B. Mahesh, a readymade garments stockist.

It all began when Tejdeep’s driver noticed the girl, A. Padma (9), of Mahbubnagar district wandering in Sowjanya Colony despite heavy rain on Saturday night. The driver then took the child to his house and offered her food.

After much persuasion, Padma said she has been working as a domestic help in Mahesh’s house at Panchavati Colony in Bowenpally for the last six months. But, unable to tolerate constant abuse and torture by her master, she ran away on Wednesday and took shelter in a nearby temple for two days. The girl had bruises on her body.

Police alerted
“I immediately alerted the police when Mahesh approached me today morning to take the child back home,” said Tejdeep. She said that Padma was sent to a rehabilitation centre at Kavadiguda. Mahesh paid some paltry amount to her father Kuria Gookarna and brought her to the city. He was paying Rs.200 per month to Gookarna as salary.

Cases under Sections 317 (Exposure and abandonment of a child under 12 years by parent or person having care of it), 323 (causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code and Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act were booked against him.

En el país trabaja el 6,5% de los niños y el 20,1% de los adolescentes, y la edad promedio de incorporación está entre los 8 y 9 años. Urgen estrategias para evitarlo.

Lucrecia Teixidó POLITOLOGA, DOCENTE UBA

La Argentina es un país con profundas desigualdades sociales y regionales.

En términos de pobreza infantil, esto se expresa, por ejemplo, en un 63,4% de niños pobres en Corrientes, 20,1% en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires y un 9,3% en Río Gallegos.

La Comisión Nacional para la Erradicación del Trabajo Infantil (Conaeti) realizó en 2004 la Encuesta de Actividades de Niños, Niñas y Adolescentes (EANNA) en Gran Buenos Aires, Mendoza, NOA (Salta, Jujuy, Tucumán) y NEA (Formosa y Chaco), que incluyen a 4.309.652 niños de 5 a 18 años. Algunas de sus conclusiones fueron:

En el país trabaja el 6,5% de los niños y el 20,1% de los adolescentes y que la edad promedio de incorporación está entre los 8 y 9 años.

En el NEA y NOA, prevalece el trabajo doméstico de los niños de 5 a 13 y que el porcentaje de aquellos que trabajan y no asisten a la escuela supera los registros del Gran Buenos Aires y Mendoza.

Sólo el 10% de los adolescentes que trabajan en zonas urbanas recibe algún beneficio laboral y que este porcentaje se reduce a 3% en las zonas rurales.

Si bien el 97% de los niños está escolarizado, esto encubre deserción escolar, repitencia, analfabetismo funcional en los sectores pobres e indigentes, especialmente rurales.

La mayoría de los niños pobres trabaja. Venden lapiceras, estampitas, tocan instrumentos, bailan, hacen malabarismos, piden, limpian vidrios, cartonean, revuelven y seleccionan residuos, solos o acompañados. Menos visibles pero igualmente laboriosos están en la cosecha de ajo, cebolla, frutillas, frambuesas y arándanos. Recordemos el premio a la mejor cosecherita del año recibido por una niña de 5 años en la Provincia de Buenos Aires, así como lo valoradas que son las manos sensibles de las niñas/adolescentes en el sur porque no "marcan" las manzanas al arrancarlas de los árboles.

Detrás de cada niño que trabaja hay una familia empobrecida o crónicamente pobre. En esas condiciones individuales y grupales se fractura la posibilidad de proyectar sueños y esperanzas de futuro y se quiebran también las relaciones entre los miembros de la familia, ya que en muchos casos dejan de ser los adultos quienes abastecen a sus hijos y pasan a ser los niños y niñas quienes traen el sustento al hogar.

La Conaeti ha elaborado un Plan Nacional para la Prevención y Erradicación del Trabajo infantil a implementar a lo largo de 5 años. La decisión de avanzar en este sentido brinda el contexto necesario para resignificar y potenciar muchas de las iniciativas gubernamentales y privadas dirigidas a prevenir y erradicar el trabajo infantil.

En este camino será oportuno detectar y resolver vacíos y contradicciones del marco normativo actual y de su implementación; identificar y resolver aquellas cuestiones que aseguren la coherencia de las acciones planificadas; reconocer aquello que se haya hecho bien, mantenerlo y articularlo con lo nuevo; impulsar políticas sectoriales coordinadas entre Nación y provincias de apoyo activo a las familias, en particular aquellas dirigidas a promover la inversión en los niños y combatir la pobreza en los hogares para poder separar, efectivamente, la educación y el desarrollo de los niños y adolescentes de las desigualdades de origen.

Lo más difícil no es la acción. En ella ayudan el coraje, el momento, el impulso. Lo más difícil es tomar la decisión de romper los hilos con que los intereses corporativos y la costumbre nos guían.