Poverty is the main cause of the increase in child labour, 17-year-old Rabecca Mulenga has said.

And United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) country representative Dr Stella Goings said child labour was a global problem, which required immediate attention.

In an interview, in commemoration of the World Day Against Child Labour, which fell yesterday, Rabecca said most children were forced into labour due to poor standards of living in the country.

Rabecca said some children were orphaned and had to engage in work to fend for their families.

"Child labour is a big problem in Zambia. It is harmful to children's health. Poverty forces many children to work in order to survive. HIV and AIDS also leave children orphaned and they end up heading households. This entails children taking the lead through all sorts of jobs," she said.

Rabecca said there was need to sensitise parents on the dangers of child labour, as some were ignorant on the effects of engaging children in labour.

She said parents had to instil good values in their children and to invest in their education.

"If children are the future leaders then there is need to take them to school. Zambia will only develop if future leaders are educated," she said.

And Dr Goings said the increase in economic challenges had in most cases forced families to engage their children in labour.

Dr Goings said most children had been robbed of their childhood by engaging in work.

"Child labour in Zambia is driven by poverty. UNICEF estimates that out of 2.2 billion children in the world, about one billion lose their childhood early due to labour. Economic challenges have led to the increase in the number of children engaging in labour. HIV and AIDS has also increased the number of orphans further compounding the problem. These orphaned children are subjected to hazardous works such as stone crashing and working on farms," Dr Goings said.

"Poverty has also led to an increase in human suffering and families are in most cases left with no choice but to send their children to work because it is an issue of survival."

Dr Goings said there was need to provide children an opportunity to go to school.

She hailed government for its efforts in promoting a decent living for children by discouraging child labour.

"We need to protect children from hazardous situations. We need to give them the right to be children. Children have a right to leisure, education, security and health. Communities should also take a leading role in taking care of children, they should be aware of what is happening to children. It is not entirely up to the government to stop child labour," she said.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200506131248.html

Women and Children's Affairs Minister, Hajia Alima Mahama, has called on members of parliament to contribute hundred thousand cedis each, to support the Neonatal intensive care unit.

The unit has been formed for individual and corporate institutions to contribute to it and help mothers who cannot pay for services rendered by the hospital after they had given birth.

Hajia Mahama said this when she made a statement in parliament to commemorate African Union day of the African child. The theme for the occasion is "The African orphan, our collective responsibility".

She noted that orphans are vulnerable children who find themselves as a marginalized group in society, a situation which has been made worse by the increase in the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

She stated that it is estimated that in Africa, there are about 12 million orphans as a result of parents dying from AIDS and 16% of the orphans are under 6 years of age, adding that though Ghana is considered as one of the countries with relatively low prevalence compared to other countries, the pandemic has orphaned over 200,000 children in the country.

The minister who is also the MP for Nalerigu/Gambaga said Ghanaian communities have traditionally absorbed orphans within the extended family system but the trend has over the years reduced, due to the breakdown of the extended family system.

She mentioned that stigmatization and discrimination against persons with HIV/AIDS on the part of society has contributed to extended families shirking their traditional responsibilities of care and support for orphans. She said women, as always in crisis situations,are rising up to the occasion, with their men behind them and acknowledge the work of Queen Mothers Associations in the country for adopting, finding and placing orphans in families in their communities as well as identifying support packages for their care.

All the 1,035 are enrolled in school and GAC is at this moment covering educational requirements bills for 400. She entreated all orphan homes also rendering services throughout the country to enroll all the children in schools because orphanages are not necessarily schools on their own and commended them for rendering this service. "Orphanages should also not be considered as businesses to reap profits".

On her part, the deputy minister for manpower development and employment, Akosua Frema Osei Opare, said the term: "Child Labour" does not encompass all economic activity undertaken by children but rather, refers to employment or work carried out by children, that does not conform to the provisions of national legislation, the Children's Act and international instruments such as the ILO Conventions 138 and 182, which define the boundaries of work undertaken by children that must be targeted for abolition.

She said the Children's Act defines exploitative Labour as work that deprives the child of his/her health, education or development. It sets the minimum age for admission to employment at 15 years for general employment, 13 years for light work, and 18 years for hazardous work.

The Act she said, defines hazardous work as work posing "a danger to the health, safety or morals of a person", and provides an in-exhaustive list including sea-going, mining and quarrying, porterage of heavy loads, work involving the production or use of chemicals, and work in places where there is a risk of exposure to immoral behaviour.

She explained that as the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) documents points out, child labour is a national problem, not only because it contributes to children dropping out of school, but also because by keeping children out of school, it breeds another cycle of people who would most likely end up in poverty later.

And the fact that child labour interferes with education has significant implication for social and economic development at individual household and societal levels.

She noted that government, on its part, has over the years, taken adequate steps through legislation, policies and other initiatives to protect the rights of children and promote their well-being.

Mrs. Osei Opare who is also the member for Ayawaso West Wuogon, disclosed that the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment through the Child Unit and the Department of Social Welfare is collaborating with the ILO to monitor child labour in selected districts as part of a process of eliminating the practice in Ghana.

She appealed to all Ghanaians, religious leaders, chiefs, queen mothers and mps to help in various ways to eliminate this practice and provide a better future for our children.

For, as the writer of a song says, IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO RAISE A CHILD Contributing to the statement, the MP for North Dayi, Akua Dansua said as the African union recognizes African children as future leaders, they should do all in their power to assist them. She urged African leaders to use the occasion of Africa day to end the senseless wars and resource institutions that are responsible for the welfare of child orphans.

The MP for Builsa North, Agnes Chigabatia, suggested that irresponsible parents be punished by making them face the full rigors of the law.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200506170889.html

Mr Nelson Sulemana Nyadia, Livelihoods and Advocacy Manager of Regional Advisory Information and Network Systems (RAINS)/Campaign for Female Education, a non-governmental organisation dedicated to providing humanitarian services to communities has called local communities, district assemblies and development agencies to curb the menace of child labour. He said despite education to eliminate child labour and trafficking, policy makers continue to grapple with the problem because some community leaders and other stakeholders had not committed themselves to fight the menace.

Mr Nyadia was addressing the chief and people of Sagnerigu, a farming community near Tamale, at the Northern Regional launch of the World Day Against Child Labour (WDACL) at the weekend. The occasion was meant to sensitise the public on the dangers involved in engaging children in hazardous work and how chiefs and other community leaders in the area could assist to eliminate child labour from the region.

RAINS/CAMFED organized the forum with sponsorship from International Labour Organization (ILO)/International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) as a means of fighting child labour issues particularly from the quarries. Mr Nyadia said more than 2,000 children were engaged in child labour in the three northern regions with large numbers in the quarries and surface mining communities of the Upper East Region and called on district assemblies to commit themselves to the fight against it.

Mr Iddrisu Dajia, the Northern Regional Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), said it was important for child rights advocates to use enough forums to educate the public about the rights of children especially to education and the need to avoid engaging children in exploitative labour. He said child molestation issues in the Northern Region was as a result of the negligence of some parents to educate their children and the love for material gain and called for a change in the trend.

Mr Dajia said it was sad that Ghana was the first in the sub-Saharan region to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child but could not fight child rights issues in the country. He appealed to the public to continue to regard children as the greatest resource of the nation and take good care of them to grow into good adults to develop the country.

The Sagnarigu Naa, Dr. Andani Andam in a speech read on his behalf, expressed worry that some people in the Northern Region always use poverty as a basis for not enrolling their children in school and advised the communities to send their children to school. He expressed concern about shepherd boys and stressed the need to withdraw them from the bush and enrol them in schools to ensure that no one was left out of the educational race. Dr Andam said child rights abuse cases were rampant in Sagnerigu and that the launch would change the people's attitude towards child molestation particularly child trafficking, shepherding and the Kayayee (porters) phenomenon.

http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=84130

"We are going to vigorously pursue this" says State Attorney General The authorities in the U.S. State of Connecticut have uncovered proof of 11 child labour law violations in three different Wal-Mart stores. They concern young workers using heavy machinery such as equipment to crush cardboard. Young workers have also illegally been made to work late at night, after the 22.00 deadline set by law.

In February this year, Wal-Mart was fined USD 135,540 to settle federal child-labor charges. In that connection, a sweetheart deal between the Bush administration and the Bentonville-based multinational was discovered, which gave the company a two week advance warning before workplaces were inspected.

Commented on the latest child labour bust, Rich Harris, a spokesman for Connecticut governor M. Jodi Rell, said to NBC 30 News that it's "worth considering toughening the fines" against employers that "wilfully and repeatedly" violate child labour laws.

Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Attorney General, has been strongly critical of the deal between Wal-Mart and the U.S. Labor Department. He promised that the state athorities will now vigorously pursue Wal-Marts labour law violations to the end.

http://www.union-network.org/unicommerce.nsf/0/C17E849A56B8C30BC125702600471 D31?OpenDocument

Volunteer Services Overseas VSO- Rwanda and the Ministry of Education have joined the Global Education Campaign (GCE) in order to achieve the education objectives in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG's) by the year 2015.

This was during the annual celebrations to mark the Day of the African Child, on the 16th of June, at St. André Secondary school in Nyamirambo, Kigali. The theme of the campaign was "send my friend to school"

"Over 3000 messages from Rwanda's school children will be sent to leaders of the G8 summit which is due in the first week of July to remind them of their promise to implement the education for all in the MDG's by the year 2015," Phil Hudson the Country Director VSO, said.

He also added that the messages will be accompanied by signed pledges by Government representatives and various key players in the education sector in Rwanda, including UNICEF who are to be presented at the summit.

Hudson revealed that US$5.2 billion was needed to implement education strategies in Africa, yet twice the amount is used in the West on wars and ice-cream.

"This money is nothing to the Western World but meaningful to us here. There is need to share resources and watch leaders live to their promises," he recalled.

In a report to the G8 "friends", it is estimated that only one in two African children gets primary school education while 22million African girls do not attend school at all.

Students at St. André portrayed the situation of the African child as alarming especially for the girl child through the play "Mureke inshuti yanje yige" (Send my friend to school)

"There is need to send girls to school, because they are future leaders too. Though poverty is the main problem in Africa, we call upon world leaders and parents to send children to school," Allan Mizero, a students leader said.

"Day of the African child" started in 1976, when Soweto children in South Africa were brutally murdered by the former Apartheid regime after a demonstration on rights to education.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200506200994.html

YOUNG PEOPLE LAW

The matter of the trafficking in persons in Jamaica has been in the news recently, following the report by the United States of America that Jamaica has been downgraded from the 2004 assessment of being ranked at Tier 2 in human trafficking to now being ranked at Tier 3, which is the lowest level of the three-tier system. A possible consequence of this "demotion" is the suspension for a year of economic aid from the United States of America as well as from international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to Jamaica.

On a positive note however, the resulting discussions have increased the public's awareness of human trafficking and provides an opportunity to garner the energies of the wider society in providing possible solutions to this problem.

What is the meaning of trafficking in persons? Are we aware of the implications for children?

It is therefore necessary for us to firstly, examine whether children can be victims of such trafficking and secondly what, if any protection our laws accord to our children.

Trafficking in Persons includes:
the movement or recruiting of persons by the use of threat, force, fraud, deception, abuse of power or as a consequence the vulnerability of the person being moved or recruited. It also includes the giving or receipt of payment in order to have control over the person being moved/ recruited where the purpose of the movement/recruitment of the individual is for the purpose of the exploitation of that person. Additionally, the selling of children is a form of trafficking.

A child defined in section 2 of the Child Care and Protection Act, 2004 as "a person under the age of eighteen years", is protected from trafficking by this Act.

Section 10 of the Child Care and Protection Act expressly provides that "no person shall sell or participate in the trafficking of any child". This means that trafficking in children is against the law.

Further, the penalty for this offence is quite serious. Any person who is convicted of this offence faces the possibility of a term of imprisonment at hard labour for a period of up to 10 years as well as the possibility of being fined.

It can be argued that poverty and inadequate economic opportunities are factors that take children away from the protection and security of their homes and families, into the urban centres, into night clubs, onto the street, at the stoplights, selling and begging, thereby increasing their vulnerability to incidence of trafficking.

To what extent does the law offer protection to our children against these activities and ultimately, the reduction of the likelihood of our children being targets?

Firstly, except where specifically permitted by the Minister of Labour, it is illegal to employ children under the age of 13 years.

Section 33 of the Child Care and Protection Act provides that "No person shall employ a child under the age of thirteen years in the performance of any work.

Further, more extensive protection is accorded by section 34 of this Act which expressly provides that "No person shall employ a child (a) in the performance of any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual or social development or, (b) in night work or an industrial undertaking.

A person who is convicted of acting in breach of sections 33 and 34 of the Act faces the possibility of a maximum penalty of being fined up to $500, 000 as well as being imprisoned for a term of up to six months.

The law (Child Care and Protection Act section 39) also expressly specifies that it is an offence to employ a child in a nightclub or to use a child for any conduct that is indecent or immoral.

A person who is convicted of this offence faces the possibility of being fined up to $1 m or a term of imprisonment of up to one year.

It is also an offence to allow or cause a child to beg.

Apart from the Child Care and Protection Act, the Offences Against the Persons Act specifies the offence of Carnal Abuse, which is having sexual intercourse with a girl who is under the age of 16 years.

It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the law firstly recognises the possibility of children being victims of human trafficking and additionally, has safeguards for the protection of our children. Not only in the express statement of the law against "trafficking" but also through the other provisions including that against, child labour, sexual exploitation and begging.

However, the law cannot operate in isolation and the responsibility of protecting our children undoubtedly lies in the collective efforts of all, after all our children are tomorrow's people.

Thalia Maragh is an Attorney at law, Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights, 131 Tower Street, Kingston

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/TeenAge/html/20050620T200000-0500_82775_OBS_TRAFFICKING_OF_PERSONS_AND_CHILD_CARE_PROTECTION.asp

Dhaka, June. 12 (AP): Hundreds of underage workers who toil in the sweatshops of Bangladesh's tannery, welding and chemical industries rallied in the impoverished nation's capital on Sunday to demand an end to child labour, organizers said.

Clad in red T-shirts, they carried banners and placards that read ``Adults will work, children will go to school'' and ``We want child-labour-free Bangladesh'', in commemoration of the World Day against Child Labour.

About five million Bangladeshi children aged 5-17 work to support their families, according to the U.N.'s International Labour Organization.

One of them is Nazmin Akter, 10, who has been working at a plastic manufacturing factory in Dhaka for six months to support her parents who live at a slum. Akter has no weekly holiday and works at least 10 hours a day, earning just 250 takas (US$4) a month.

The owner of the factory or her senior male colleagues sometimes beat her if she makes a mistake.

``I hate to work, but I do that just to help my parents,'' Akter told The Associated Press at the rally. Her mother works as a maid and her father pedals a rickshaw on the streets of Dhaka, a city of 10 million people.

Now, Akter studies for two hours each day at a center run by Ahsania Mission, a Bangladeshi charity organization that organized Sunday's rally with the support of the International Labour Organization.

Akter attends the school in the morning before going to work.

``I don't want to work in this factory in future, I want to study in high school,'' Akter said.

Ahsania Mission works to get employers to send their child workers to the school and make factory work safer. It also encourages parents to send their children to school instead of work.

``We are trying to bring a change, but it's really difficult to be successful here,'' Asma Begum, a teacher of the mission's non-formal school, said, adding poverty is the main reason for such a dreadful situation. ``Still, the situation has improved substantially,'' she said.

``Our first mission is to eliminate hazardous environments at work places,'' Mahbub Morshed, who mobilizes employers to improve work environment, said at the rally. ``Child labour in Bangladesh is a reality, but we want to eliminate it,'' Morshed conceded.

Children in Bangladesh are engaged in about 430 forms of child labour, of which 67 forms are hazardous and dangerous for children, according to United Nations Children's Fund.

Morshed said about 1.2 million children are engaged in hazardous work in tobacco, tanneries or chemical factories and welding workshops.

Shampa Khatun, 8, who also attended Sunday's rally, said she worked at a tannery factory for six hours daily with her mother.

``I wash leathers with chemicals,'' Khatun, who earns takas 150 (US$2.5) a week, said, showing her wounds in hands. She said she does not use any gloves at the factory she works.

``I have sent her to work as my husband is unable to work due to his illness,'' Khatun's mother Rani Begum, said after the rally. ``What can I do with my sick husband without sending her to work?''

Mohammed Yunus, an owner of a car repair workshop, told The Associated Press that he had improved the work environment of his workshop after understanding the significance of child rights issue.

``But, it's not enough. I have still many things to do,'' Yunus said. Four children are employed in his workshop, he said.

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/003200506121528.htm

Monday, June 13th 2005

Leslie Bowrin, International Labour Organisation (ILO) Regional Child Labour Project Manager, who was delivering remarks at Friday morning's launch of the public display for the World Day Against Child Labour on the Brian Lara Promenade, would go on to reveal some hideous truths about child labour -a well-kept secret of the Caribbean region.

"Children have been found to be engaged in urban street work, such as vending, loading, transporting, begging, engaged in agricultural activities using hazardous materials and exposed to harsh elements, found scavenging on landfill sites, being exploited for illicit activity, whether for commercial sexual activity or the drug trade, and exploited as domestic servants," said Bowrin, referencing the ILO's pioneering child labour research in seven Caribbean territories.

The downtown Port of Spain event was part of the World Day Against Child Labour, established in 2002 to highlight the global movement to eliminate the practice of child labour, particularly in its worst forms.

A press release dispatched from the ILO's Sub-regional Office for the Caribbean to all major Caribbean media houses, supports Bowrin's statement. According to the release, rapid assessment studies done by the ILO in 2001 and 2002 in Belize, Barbados, Bahamas, Jamaica, Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago revealed the worst forms of child labour. Other than national surveys done in Belize and Jamaica, the release conceded, there were no studies effectively quantifying the magnitude of child labour in the region.

"While there are no extensive statistics on child labour in Trinidad and Tobago, a rapid assessment study done by the ILO in 2002 in particular occupational areas reveals that there is in fact evidence of what is regarded as the worst forms of child labour in this country," said the Ministry of Labour and Small and Micro-Enterprise Development representative when his turn came to address the audience on the Promenade.

The Labour Ministry has played a significant role in the fight to eliminate and prevent child labour in Trinidad. Shanmatee Singh, Director of Research and Planning (Ag) at the Labour Ministry chairs the Cabinet-appointed, multi-sectoral National Committee for the Prevention and Elimination of Child Labour in Trinidad.

In other Caribbean territories, national child labour committees have also been established, comprising members of non-governmental organisations, employers' and workers' organisations, labour ministries and other major social ministries such as education, youth and health. The child labour committees are charged with policy formation and programme development toward the elimination and prevention of child labour.

To date, twelve Caribbean member states have ratified ILO Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour and ten member states have ratified ILO Convention No. 138 on the Minimum Age for Employment. (See www.ilocarib.org.tt)

Here in Trinidad, the child labour Committee has spearheaded the ongoing pilot rehabilitative programmes in the Beetham, Forres Park and Aripo landfills.

"The YMCA was contracted to work with children on Beetham Estate to offer them alternative options in terms of training and counselling," explained Bowrin, adding that the programme, which started in the 2004 long vacation, targeted 40 children for direct withdrawal from child labour and targeted a further 90 for prevention.

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_features?id=83177245

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Tom Harkin says the cocoa industry must deliver on its promise to wipe out forced child labour on farms in West Africa or face legislative action.

"I hope the industry will do what they said they were going to do. If not, then I'm going to be looking at legislation," Harkin told Reuters. "It could be anything from 'B' to 'T' — from boycotts to tariffs."

Harkin, who spoke in a telephone interview late on Wednesday, was a key force behind the development of an industry-wide protocol in 2001 that aimed to eliminate forced child labour on cocoa farms, particularly in West Africa, the top growing region.

The multibillion-dollar chocolate industry has agreed to present lawmakers with a plan to implement a monitoring and certification system by July 1. The industry has repeatedly said that it is on target to meet that deadline.

Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, said he planned to meet with representatives of the chocolate industry on June 21.

"I would like to hear from them what they promised. That is, a timeline with detailed descriptions of how they are going to put in place a monitoring system, how they are going to put in place a system for social rehabilitation for these children, and a certification (scheme)," he said.

The Harkin-Engel Protocol, named after Harkin and Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, also a Democrat, was developed in response to reports of child and slave labor conditions in West Africa's cocoa industry.

A 2002 survey by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture showed an estimated 284,000 children worked in hazardous conditions on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, Guinea and Nigeria.

Hundreds of thousands of small family farms under 12 acres in West Africa provide more than 70 percent of the world's cocoa crop. Ivory Coast is the No. 1 cocoa producer.

U.S. and European chocolate industry associations signed the voluntary protocol, together with U.S. and Ivory Coast governments, international labor unions and several nongovernmental organizations.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=833613

New Delhi: Twenty Nine children, working in inhuman conditions at a zari unit in Delhi were released on 6th June 2005.

In a massive crackdown on an industrial unit in the congested Raghunagar, Dabri locality of West Delhi, Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) under the leadership of Shri Kailash Satyarthi rescued 29 children working in exploitative conditions. This raid was conducted on a complaint lodged by 8 year old Huaib Ansari, who had managed to run away from the zari factory.

Huaib complained that the zari contractor gave him only one meal and used to beat him often.

BBA has been engaged in a drive against child labour and inhuman working conditions for last twenty five years. Most of the rescued children were trafficked from their villages in Sitamarhi district of Bihar. The rescued children aged between 7 to 12 years were forced to work from 9:00 am in the morning till 3:30 am in the night for as little as Rs. 40 per month. For several months they had not been outside the room where they were living and working. They were locked in 2 rooms, less than 25 sq ft without adequate food or medical attention. Most of the children have developed skin allergies due to crowding and lack of medical attention.

"I have been working in zari industry for months now; we get up early and start working from 9 am to 3.30 am. We got food twice a day: rice, dal and potatoes. I was paid Rs 40 every month. I was not allowed to go anywhere", says 8 year old Insaif. Akbar Ansari, 9 years old said, "Any time there was a small mistake while embroidering, the owner used to beat us mercilessly.
Nearly a year ago, Sagir alias Mullahji (owner) had got me here, saying that I would be sent to school in Delhi. We were not given any new clothes on any of our festivals, like Id, neither were we allowed to do Namaz"

Thousands of children slog in sweatshops like the zari units in Delhi, mostly trafficked from Bihar and neighbouring states. Most parents are conned by traffickers who promise that the children would lead a better life with opportunities for education in the cities. At the most conservative estimate, there are around 50,000 children between the 5 and 12 years of age, who are bonded to the zari unit owners in Delhi alone. These children work from dawn to dusk, with little to look forward to, with no money and education.

Kailash Satyarthi, BBA Chairperson, says "The main culprits are the principal employers who should be tracked and convicted for the illegal use of underage children, in this case as well as in the recent Mumbai raid. It is the responsibility of the government to provide for the rehabilitation and education of these children".

http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/112800/1/1893

NEW DELHI: Twenty-nine children working in an embroidery unit at Dabri in South-West Delhi were rescued on Monday by police and members of a non-governmental organisation. Two persons have been arrested.

According to Kailash Satyarthi of Bachpan Bachao Andolan, the embroidery unit was located in Raghu Nagar area of Dabri. Last week, one of the children working in the unit gave the slip to his employer. He met officials of the Andolan and told them that he was brought to the unit from Sitamarhi in Bihar where he and other children were made to work for several hours at a stretch without getting any remuneration. They were given food twice a day and a monthly salary of Rs. 40. He alleged that he was beaten up if he refused to work for long hours. The children were not allowed to go out.

The NGO informed the police and the sub-divisional magistrate. On Monday, the SDM conducted a raid on the units along with the NGO officials and rescued the children. Twenty-three of them were below 14 years.

Unhygienic conditions

All the rescued children belong to Sitamarhi. Police arrested Sagir

Ansari, who had allegedly brought the children from Sitamarhi, and his accomplice Nayeem on charges of trafficking and forcing minors to work. The team found that almost 20 children were kept in a small room that did not have any ventilation. Nearly all the children had developed skin allergies apparently due to working in unhealthy and unhygienic conditions.

The children have been sent to a shelter home at Burari. The NGO has demanded the arrest of the owner of the unit.

Earlier this year, the South Delhi police and the Special Cell rescued over 120 children working in the embroidery units running at Badarpur and other areas of South Delhi.

http://www.hindu.com/2005/06/07/stories/2005060705911200.htm

The US Department of State's fifth annual Trafficking in Persons Report released on Friday again takes a hard look at what governments around the world are doing to stop this hideous activity. The report is interspersed with account after account of victims of forced labour, child sex tourism, prostitution and sex trafficking. The countries are placed into one of the three lists called tiers. Placement is relative to the degree of a government's actions to eliminate human trafficking. Governments that fully comply with the US' Trafficking Victims' Protection Act's minimum standards are placed in Tier 1. Those making "significant" efforts to comply are put on Tier 2. And those that are identified as doing neither are dropped to Tier 3.

The report estimates that between 600,000 and 800,000 people, mostly women and children, are trafficked across borders worldwide. It admits that among those figures are 14,500-17,500 persons trafficked into the United States.

Trafficking in persons is a global curse and its treatment requires a global perspective. This is where awareness, education and cooperation come into play. The victims of sexual and labour exploitation are more often than not poor, uneducated, vulnerable and desperate. They often come from areas of high unemployment, overpopulation and civil or international conflict. It is these innocent people who fall prey to the criminal activity of predators of all sorts. Even a cursory look at the US State Department's report is disturbing enough to alert all communities to the need to work to effectively combat human trafficking.

These victims often pass unnoticed. Border controls can help identify them and repatriate them, and prosecute the offenders. Governments, NGOs and citizens' groups can help raise awareness of this scourge and work to protect and assist its victims.

Consider one more estimation of the report: Of the 600,000 to 800,000 people trafficked across international borders every year, 80 per cent are female, and up to 50 per cent are minors. In the 21st century, this is a global shame.

http://www.imra.org.il/story.php?id=25487

The police in coordination with voluntary organisations on Wednesday morning rescued close to 400 child labourers from Madanpura in central Mumbai. Wednesday's raid, as well as those in Govandi and Dharavi over the last few weeks, came after TOI reported on April 20 the story of 12-year-old Afzal, who died after being beaten and mistreated by his employers in a zari sweatshop in Govandi, and followed it up with a series on child labour in Mumbai.

From 9.30 am to 11.30 am, 150 policemen combed 220 workshops in two areas of Madanpura, Dagdi Chawl and Shirinbai Chawl. The rescued children were employed in zari, leather and steel workshops, and came from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and even Nepal. The police arrested 42 employers and will charge them under the Juvenile Justice Act, the Child Labour Act and the IPC. As the police began their rescue operations, several hundred children were forced to run away by their employers. Members of the rescue operation recounted tales of children being made to sit silently in locked rooms, hidden in sacks or stowed away on lofts. Intal Sheikh (5), a sick-looking malnourished child told TOI that his employer had hidden him and his brother in a loft. "When the police came, they grabbed me but my brother is still there in the room," the boy from Darbhanga district, Bihar, said.

Although the extent of child labour in Mumbai has been an open secret for years now, sporadic raids have done little to clamp down on the practice. However, this time around, there has been a systematic crackdown on child labour with orders coming from the top. The DCPs of various zones were instructed to conduct investigations and then raids in their own areas in collaboration with the voluntary organisations which know the ground realities well. Raids in a number of areas in the city have seen several hundred children being rescued. In addition, more than 7,000 child labourers were sent home by their employers in the last few weeks because they seem to have realised this time around that there's no way out.

Members of the Child Welfare Committee, which is responsible for the children while they are in the state children's homes until they are repatriated, also came to the DCP's office and helped the police take down the names and ages of the children. Patil promised that the capacity of the children's homes would be expanded if necessary to accommodate all those rescued in the raids and that additional funds would be released if needed. Patil and Roy said that they would plan a monitoring system at railway stations to ensure that more children were not trafficked and brought to the city as child labourers.

<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1129752.cms>

Violence against children and adolescents, often meted out by their own parents, is an all-too-common problem around the globe. Corporal punishment, sexual abuse and the exploitation of minors through child labour are just some of the practices that are widespread but often invisible.

To draw attention to this tragedy that plagues all regions of the world, the United Nations commissioned a global Study on Violence Against Children, based on consultations with governments, social organisations in each country, and children.

Almost 100 countries, including 18 in Latin America, have already responded to the consultations through questionnaires. Some 2,000 Latin American children participated through consultations coordinated by Save the Children, World Vision, Defence for Children International and other organisations.

The study will be presented next year to the U.N. General Assembly once the round of consultations currently being carried out in nine regions is completed.

Leading the study is independent expert Professor Paulo Sergio Pinheiro from Brazil, who initiated the second round of consultations in Latin America Monday in Buenos Aires.

"This is an emergency. We don't want to draw up a report for the future generations. We need to change violent practices against children now, not wait until they are adults," Pinheiro told an auditorium of government officials and experts from 17 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.

In an interview with IPS, Pinheiro explained that the aim is not to produce "a catalogue of horror," but to identify good preventive practices, and design recommendations for public policies aimed at eradicating violence against children.

Pinheiro said one common problem that occurs in rich as well as poor countries is corporal punishment, which takes place in the home with the consent of the state.

"Many parents do not know any other way to deal with disciplinary problems, and children assume that being hit or beaten is normal," he said.

He also criticised the fact that in some industrialised countries, the justice system considers the occasional spanking a normal part of child-rearing.

In Latin America, violence against children also takes on specific characteristics depending on the local culture. "In northeastern Brazil, there are 300,000 girls working as domestics without any legal protection, and almost always with the complicity of their families, who find these jobs for them," said Pinheiro.

Another more sinister and silent form of violence against children and adolescents is their forced introduction into prostitution and pornography rings.

Pinheiro underlined the severe marginalisation suffered by many African-American, indigenous and disabled children and teenagers, who suffer "multiple discrimination" due to their age, ethnic origins, socioeconomic position and health problems.

He expressed special concern over the mistreatment of minors who come into conflict with the law in many countries in this region. "There are minors held in custody in appalling conditions, treated as adults, as criminals, and sentenced to prison, even life in prison," he said.

But Pinheiro praised the willingness of governments in the region to recognise the faults and shortcomings of current practices for dealing with "institutionalised" children, and their desire to correct them.

He also lauded the enthusiasm of non-governmental organisations and judicial functionaries who make a personal effort to fight on behalf of the rights of minors who suffer beatings, mistreatment and even torture in detention centres, or who are subjected to abuse by members of the security forces who are supposed to protect them.

One of the experiences that most moved Pinheiro, he said, was one that he observed in Mali, where elderly women care for children who are born to single mothers and are deemed potential victims of infanticide. "These women don't stop to conceptualise about what they are doing, they just know that what they are doing is right," he remarked.

The media, which should be the main allies in the campaign against violence, often "demonise" children and adolescents, while the entertainment industry casts them as criminals in numbers far greater than those found in the real world.

According to the World Health Organisation, 30 percent of homicide victims are between 10 and 28 years of age. "The crimes committed by minors are infinitesimal compared to the crimes committed by adults," stressed Pinheiro.

The regional consultation in Buenos Aires, which will wrap up Wednesday, was inaugurated by Pinheiro alongside UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Rima Salah and Argentine Minister of Social Development Alicia Kirchner, with the participation of representatives of non-governmental organisations and UN agencies.

Salah emphasised that violence against children leaves scars and kills, and while the scars are not always visible, they have a profoundly destructive impact on their futures.

"We must break the silence around these issues," she said.

Kirchner concurred with the need to combat the invisibility and acceptance of violence against the young, while harshly criticising state institutions "that confuse the protection of minors with policing them."

Pinheiro noted that while Latin America has succeeded in making democracy the norm, after decades of dictatorship in various countries, the region has still not been able to eradicate violence against children, and much of the blame lies with the strong resistance of state structures that repress minors and deprive them of their rights.

Children's rights "will be an illusion in democratic societies if the state maintains unacceptable practices like police brutality, torture, lynching and abominable prison conditions," he said.

Pinheiro, who formerly served as a UN special rapporteur on human rights in Burma and Burundi, said that the rights most frequently ignored or violated are those of children and adolescents, and this takes place "with the tolerance of governments, and even progressive governments."

"The problem with the democracies in Latin America is the existence of split-personality states that reduce malnutrition and illiteracy on the one hand, while subjecting children in prisons to authoritarian and illegal practices on the other," he said.

Legal protection of minors is established in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which entered into force in 1990 with the signatures of 191 countries. Two protocols were later added, one against recruiting minors for armed conflict, and the other to fight the trade of girls into prostitution rings.

Pinheiro does not believe there is a need for another protocol specifically addressing violence against children. "We already have too many instruments, what we need is for them to be fulfilled," he said. He believes the best strategy is foster greater mobilisation and participation in the consultation process, to gain a commitment from the largest possible number of actors.

As part of this process, thousands of youngsters around the world shared their views on violence through non-government organisations that work with children. A clear image emerged of the extent to which minors bear the brunt of violence in the home.

The "reasons" for hitting or beating children can be remarkably trivial, like the fact that they have dirtied their clothes. Some cases reflect the way that minors are forced to take on adult responsibilities, such as children who are beaten for not taking proper care of their younger siblings, or because they do not contribute enough money to the household.

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=7&no=229741&rel_no=1

It was a sign of life from a boy reaching out to his long-lost mother. But in a country scarred by war, his words dug deep into wounds gouged more than a decade ago.

"Greetings to my mom ... from your son Rade," read the scrap of paper the 13-year-old mailed along with his photograph.

There is something Rade had never been told: According to a social worker familiar with the case, his Bosnian Muslim mother became pregnant with him after being raped repeatedly at age 15 by an enemy Serbian fighter, who went on to raise him.

Ten years after the end of the worst carnage in Europe since World War II, the focus in Bosnia is on jobs, investment and eventual European Union membership. While ethnic mistrust persists, Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims now share power in a federal government.

"What we have here in Bosnia is an amazing achievement if you compare with what was here 10 years ago," said Bosnian Foreign Minister Mladen Ivanic, a Serb. "We are still a divided society. But I am really optimistic that people here can live, if not together, at least side by side."

The agonizing truth

But the war is not over for children like Rade. As these war babies reach adolescence, they are beginning to ask questions about their past — and those with the answers are faced with the choice of keeping them in the dark or telling them the agonizing truth.

"The mother is now in Austria, is happily married and wants nothing to do with the child," said the social worker, Bakira Hasecic.

Hasecic is herself a Bosnian war rape victim, and her sister died in a Serbian rape camp. She is helping others to come to grips with their torment.

She said Rade, in the photo he mailed to his mother, bears a striking resemblance to her.

She said he was raised in the Serbian village of Arilje and sent his letter to a village less than 10 miles away on the Bosnian side of the border where he was told his mother had moved after giving birth.

"The grandmother, who opened the letter, is devastated," said Hasecic. She is trying to work up the courage to have the boy visit, she said. "But then he would have to know the whole truth — that he was a child born of hate."

While Serbian and Croatian women also were raped, Bosnia's Muslims were the main victims. An estimated 20,000 Muslim women were raped during the 2 ½-year conflict that ended in 1995 with hundreds of thousands of people dead or missing and more than 1 million displaced.

Most of the perpetrators were Serbs, who often used mass rape as a weapon of terror.

Many women were dragged to concentration camps and raped repeatedly. Some were brought back to their homes and dumped in front of their husbands. Other women were violated in their husbands' presence as part of a shock campaign.

The systematic use of rape led to the U.N. war-crimes tribunal to recognize ethnically motivated rape as a war crime, part of the Serbs' campaign of ethnic cleansing.

A "hidden population"

A just-completed UNICEF draft report — the first to look at Bosnia's war babies — says anecdotal evidence suggests many of them were killed at birth. It says the number that survived is unknown, and constitutes a "hidden population ... particularly vulnerable."

The report, given to The Associated Press ahead of publication scheduled for June, says many of these children remain unwanted and in state-run orphanages as they enter their early teens.

The children who remained with their families face ostracism in their home communities if their origins are revealed. Some suffer trauma because of the hatred the mother bears for the father.

"One family taught their daughter's child to explicitly identify his existence as a mistake, forcing him to introduce himself to household guests as, 'I am the product of my mother's shame,' " says the UNICEF report.

However, most of those parents who adopt invent stories of fathers who died in the war or mothers who disappeared.

"As long as their origins are kept secret, such children are in the best possible situation ... they are neither at risk of neglect or attachment disorders, nor are they facing discrimination," says the report.

But sometimes parents feel compelled to tell the truth before the child hears it somewhere else.
"One girl I know has begun asking, 'Who is my father?' " said Fadila Memisevic, head of Bosnia's Branch of the Society of Threatened Peoples, who also counsels women raped during the conflict. "Her mother says, 'He was a hero who fell in the war,' but she won't accept that for an answer — in a strange way she is starting to sense her origins."

Alen Muhic, 12, a boy who was adopted by Muslims in Gorazde, appears to have recovered well.

"A Boy from a War Movie," a 2004 Bosnian documentary of his case, shows him happily playing with schoolmates, tussling with his adoptive father and sitting contentedly at home with his two adopted siblings.

At age 9, "some kid told me I was adopted, that the family was not mine," he says, a half-smile on his lips as he looks into the camera. "I immediately ran to my father and told him what happened. He put me on his lap and told me who my mother was and how I was born."

But the film does not reveal the extent of the hurt inside.

Citing family acquaintances, the UNICEF report says Alen suffered through a suicidal period because of teasing at school, being called "Pero," a typically Serbian name. It says he tried desperately to contact his biological mother, who angrily rebuffed him.

Advija Muhic, Alen's adoptive mother, cried as she told the AP of Alen's schoolyard encounter with the truth.

"We went through hell after that," she said, sobbing. "He ranted and raved for days, screaming and crying: 'Why have you betrayed me? Why have you lied to me? You said you carried me here!' he screamed, pointing at my stomach.

"It was a trauma we will never forget."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002293469_bosnia31.html

The town of Poipet, where the borders of Cambodia and Thailand meet, has a sense of the Wild West about it.

Newly constructed high-rise casinos are crammed into the few hundred metres of no man's land which separates the two countries.

Stand at the border gates for half an hour, and you will see second-hand jeans, produce and mechanical parts stacked high on wooden carts with wooden wheels, clattering chaotically towards another country.

But it is not just goods that are traded here - people are as well. It is a human trafficking hotspot.

A recent court case in Bangkok has revealed the way in which human trafficking networks operate across the border.

In a conviction the United Nations has hailed as a breakthrough, a woman named Khun Thea was sentenced to 85 years in jail for luring Khmer girls into prostitution.

It is the most substantial sentence ever given in South East Asia as punishment for engaging in human trafficking.

Part of the reason for the conviction was the courage of a handful of Cambodian women, who travelled to Bangkok to testify against Khun Thea.

Two of them, now living again inside Cambodia, spoke to the BBC and revealed their stories for the first time.

They cannot be identified as they are living in fear of retribution from other members of the same trafficking network.

But they said they do not regret participating in the court case, and facing the woman who forced them into prostitution.

One told me she wanted to see justice done, and to prevent the same thing happening to other girls.

Looking for cash

She and her cousin were 16-years-old when they decided, against their family's wishes, to travel to Bangkok. The New Year was approaching, and they wanted some extra cash for the festive season.

A neighbour had told them they could make good money washing dishes in a restaurant in the Thai capital.

They were smuggled across the border in the back of a pick-up truck, covered by a tarpaulin. When they finally reached the capital, they were taken to an apartment. But they soon realised something was wrong.

One explained: "A businessman arrived at our apartment and asked us to open our clothes, because he wanted to look at our bodies. He asked if I had a husband. That's when I knew we weren't going to work in a restaurant.

"I became really worried, I had no way to get help. I remember I began to cry."

The pair were taken to the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur. One was put to work on the streets, the other in a karaoke bar. Both were threatened and beaten.

"At first I refused to have sex with men. Then I was beaten so badly I had to hide my face for a month, until it healed. Then I was told again I would have to sleep with the customers. I knew if I refused I would be beaten again. I had no choice but to agree."

After a few months on the streets, one of the girls was arrested. After a year spent in prisons and detention centres in Malaysia and Thailand, she was deported back to Cambodia. Her family thought she was dead.

In Kuala Lumpur, her cousin faced a more difficult escape. She approached the Malaysian police for help, who she said then sold her across the border to a Thai police unit.

There she was forced to work off her debt to the police in another bar, before finally finding her way home.

Both girls now dream of opening a shop in their hometown. But they are both subject to gossip in the community. One told me she would like to have a husband and family, but was unsure whether anyone would accept her.

Community leaders despair at the risks taken by the thousands of people who travel across the border for work. But they recognise that they are driven to do so by poverty.

Until there are other choices, the desire for a better life will make people vulnerable to smugglers and traffickers who make a profit at the cost of their freedom.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4599709.stm

Some nine years ago a cattle pen stood where now rises a pink school building, one of the original five schools established by The Citizen's Foundation (TCF), an experiment by five affluent Karachi businessmen that has taken the form of a movement across Pakistan.

Ironically, it is not the mosquitoes, as the name of the area -- Machhar Colony -- suggests, but the hordes of flies that have invaded the place, along with a burgeoning migrant population. Like the rest of the now 195 schools built by TCF, this 6,000-sq-ft building includes an administrative block, six classrooms, an art room, a library, a play area and a canteen.

In 1995, a handful of affluent businessmen decided they had had enough of after-dinner talks where they discussed what ailed their country, and then went home and slept off the guilt. They felt they were not giving back to the country what they owed.

"We decided we needed to stop talking and do something more meaningful. There were options and choices -- setting up of hospitals, or funding family planning campaigns," says Mushtaq Chhapra, one of the six TCF founders.

But the more they looked deeper into the nation's mire, one problem seemed to stand out glaringly -- illiteracy -- the root cause of all malaise. "We needed to give the underprivileged the opportunity to study. Education should not be the preserve of the privileged alone," says Chhapra.

And so the group decided to build schools in areas not covered or underserved by the government.

The plan is so simple and doable that one wonders why it could not be adopted by the government. "Once the area has been earmarked and we have the plot, we begin building," says Chhapra.

TCF wields the advantage of having an architect of international acclaim on its board. "Our buildings are beautiful but not necessarily expensive. All material used is local and the schools are designed in a way that they require minimum maintenance."

Once the building is ready, in about eight months, teachers who have been undergoing further training are brought in. TCF has a policy of hiring only female teachers although the schools are co-education.

"The idea is that parents feel secure that their daughters are being taught by females, which is a major concern in some rural and remote communities. For all the teachers we provide transport so that commuting is not a problem," according to Chhapra.

Surprisingly, co-education has not been an issue, except in two areas. There, officials segregated the boys and girls. "We want the boys and girls to study together. These boys when they grow up will respect women more than their fathers ever do," adds the founder.

The process of socialization, though slow, is having a positive effect, says Neelam Habib, TCF's manager of donor relations, who regularly visits schools and even homes.

"Over a period of time, we have observed a change, even in the attitude of mothers who would come for parent-teacher meetings. (Before) they would be loud, crass and at times even abusive. Now the same women have become gentle, come properly dressed, hair combed and speak softly," she says.

Habib never fails to marvel at the mothers who have been the driving force behind sending their daughters to school. "They don't want their daughters to end up like them -- as mere domestic help. A lot of them also feel that their adolescent daughters are safer in schools than they would be if they'd stay home, where they could be in danger of abuse and violence."

TCF offers the same courses as those prescribed for government schools, but they include supplementary books. The medium of instruction is Urdu, but English is a compulsory subject from nursery onwards, explains Seemi Saad Azad, manager of the organisation's marketing and volunteer programme. "The ones who pass out from our schools are able to converse in English."

A nominal fee of 125 rupees per month (two U.S. dollars) is charged for students studying in primary grades and 175 rupees for those in the secondary section. Books and uniforms can be purchased from the school on an instalment plan.

"When things come for free, it loses its value, so for even those who cannot afford -- about 75 percent -- they are given a scholarship and they pay 10 rupees a month only," says Azad.

TCF's target is to build 1,000 schools across Pakistan and educate 350,000- 360,000 children by the year 2015. This also happens to be the education target set by the global Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Somehow this does not seem too tall an order for TCF. For, so far, they have delivered all that they promised. "By this year we aim to add another 50 (schools)," explains Habib proudly.

"We have, to some degree, overcome our teething problems in these nine odd years and consolidated and gained strength. The climb now will be easier," she anticipates as the group has built good relations with both the government and the donor community.

"You'd be surprised at the philanthropic spirit people can muster once they know that the cause is good and that their money will not go waste," she adds.

Among the many myths TCF says its schools have forever put to rest are the ones about parents not wanting to send their children to schools but instead enlisting them to work, and that daughters should not be permitted to study in a co-ed system.

Make the rounds of a few TCF schools and you will come up with countless real life stories, each more heart-rending than the other.

Of children like 10-year-old Imran, now in Grade 3, the only breadwinner of a family of eight siblings. Every day after school he "goes to a nearby cement factory and collects the leftover cement bags from the dump, reuses them to make envelopes and sells till late in the night."

Or like Farkhanda Aziz, whose mother died the night before she was to sit for her board exams. She was persuaded to continue by her teacher and the principal, who escorted her to the examination hall, and when the results came the whole school celebrated her brilliant 86 percent result.

There are kids who sometimes go to school, neat, clean and spruced up, smiling and enthusiastic, but who have not had a morsel to eat since the previous day. Others live in homes with no electricity or piped water but sit in front of PCs for computer studies.

According to Azad, the key to the TCF schools' success lies in the "belief that we can do it." Their formula is simple enough -- apply proper management skills to a human development issue and be transparent.

What they have attained seems monumental when you meet the children and the difference it has made to their lives and their households. But if you start measuring TCF's success in terms of figures it comes to providing a service to a mere 10 percent of underprivileged children.

"We've shown a way; the government can clone this success and others can follow suit. We have, after all, limited resources," says Chhapra. They also have a long list of students waiting to be enrolled.

http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=28900

White wristbands sold by the Make Poverty History coalition were made in Chinese factories accused of using forced labour, it has been disclosed.

The fashionable white wristbands, worn by celebrities and politicians, including Tony Blair, were made for a coalition of charities as the symbol of its 2005 campaign to end extreme poverty.

Oxfam, Christian Aid and Cafod are among those charities selling the wristbands, made in rubber and fabric, for £1 each, of which 70p goes to the organisations.

But reports on two factories making the bands found the working conditions violated Chinese law and the standards of the Ethical Trading Initiative, which promotes better international working practices. "We were stupid," said Dominic Nutt at Christian Aid. "We didn't check it out, Cafod didn't check it out, and Oxfam didn't check it out."

At one of the factories, the Tat Shing Rubber Manufacturing Company in Shenzen, employees were working a seven-day week for less than the minimum wage, with no annual leave, no right to freedom of association, and poor health and safety provisions, one report said.

At the Fuzhou Xing Chun Trade Company, workers were being paid below the minimum wage and having pay deducted for disciplinary reasons, the other report said. About three million bands have been sold since the campaign began in January, almost two million of them in the UK. Most of the bands are fabric and not made in the two factories, which produced silicon versions.

The reports have sparked disagreements between the charities, which are investigating why the factories were not given a thorough social audit. Christian Aid and Cafod say they placed orders with the factory in Shenzen after Oxfam gave them the go-ahead, having itself placed an order for 10,000 bands after it saw a preliminary questionnaire, which, it admits, had some "unanswered questions".

While awaiting results of a full audit, Oxfam abandoned Shenzen and began assessing the factory in Fujian. Christian Aid placed orders for 500,000 bands, and Cafod for 120,000. They say Oxfam failed to tell them it had stopped dealing with the Shenzen factory, although Oxfam insists it did.

Mr Nutt said: "We made mistakes. Oxfam had ... thought it had been done and we all took that in good faith. There is a good reason for that - Oxfam has very high standards."

Alison Fenney, the director of advocacy and communications at Cafod, said the charities were now working with both factories to improve labour standards. "If we were to just get up and leave, the workers' position would not change.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=642659

A high-level Ivory Coast delegation will fly to Washington this week to discuss progress made by the world's top cocoa producer in stopping child labour on cocoa plantations, officials said on Tuesday.

The trip comes roughly a month before a July 1 deadline for chocolate companies and major cocoa bodies to come up with a credible certification system enabling customers to choose products made without abusive labour practices.

If that does not happen, politicians promise to draft laws requiring U.S. chocolate makers to guarantee no child labour was used in their products and label them "no child slavery".

Ivory Coast, which produces 40 percent of the world's cocoa, fears sanctions against its cocoa exports if the U.S. lawmakers and non-governmental organisations which started the anti-child labour campaign are not satisfied with its efforts.

"We hope to meet the lawmakers and the NGOs to discuss the situation with them as July 1 is near," said Marie-Louise Acquah, commodities adviser to the prime minister and head of a committee fighting child labour in the West African country.

Ivory Coast began a pilot project to eradicate child labour in March, five months later than originally planned. The project is currently limited to one region and Acquah said a full report on its impact would not be ready before the end of July.

"Certification is a process, it's not just a stamp. And we have to proceed carefully as we are talking about children," Acquah, who will be part of the delegation travelling to the United States, told Reuters.

"What we think is important is fighting against child labour. Certification will come later. We are going to the U.S. to harmonise our positions on this issue," she said.

Senior officials from Ivory Coast's main cocoa marketing, regulatory and financing bodies will also be part of the delegation.

http://www.reuters.co.za/locales/c_newsArticle.jsp;:429c8b9f:f555967669b9dc?type=
topNews&localeKey=en_ZA&storyID=8654212

Human rights organisations have criticised the Nepalese government for failing to place enough emphasis on the gross violation of children's rights as a result of the current armed conflict between government forces and Maoist guerillas in its second periodic report to the United Nations Committee on Rights of the Child (CRC).

"In many ways, Nepal was not a country fit for children," said committee expert Lucy Smith during a review of the Nepal report by the CRC on 20 May, at the headquarters of the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva.

The much delayed five-year (1997-2002) report, which took seven years to complete, was submitted to the committee in December 2004.

Among other issues related to children's rights, the impact of armed conflict on children was strongly raised by the committee to the Nepalese delegation which they claimed failed to address adequately in their report.

"The report from Nepal and its update touched only lightly on the impact of the conflict and the analysis concentrated on the transgressions of the Maoists," UNICEF representative to Nepal, Suomi Sakai, told IRIN.

"While there are numerous areas where the Maoists have violated the Convention on the Rights of the Child, it would have been appropriate for His Majesty's Government of Nepal, as the state party, to also examine the actions of the security forces under its control," Sakai added, who had recently returned from the CRC meeting in Geneva.

The Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) was particularly critical of the report, which had omitted the most important adverse effects of the conflict on children, it argued.

The government failed to even include many of the inputs made by some NGOs which were invited by the government to draft the report. "The final report has not incorporated all our comments and concerns on issues like children in armed conflict," said activist Sumnima Tuladhar, from the NGO Child Workers in Nepal (CWIN).

Over 300 children are estimated to have been killed from 13 February 1996 to 28 February 2005. Of these, 168 children were reportedly killed at the hands of the state and 138 at the hands of the Maoists, according to the leading local human rights group, Insec.

"Yet, Nepal is portrayed as a country with little problems. It does not help the purpose of examining the periodic reports," reads the ACHR's alternate report to the CRC.

But government representatives say the issue was addressed. "The issue has been highlighted a lot and we have been running various government programmes to address the plight of children affected from conflict," Deepak Sapkota from the government-run Centre for Child Welfare Board (CCWB) told IRIN.

Many Nepali children have become victims of extrajudicial executions, torture, disappearances and rape. "Both the security forces and the Maoists make children victims for the alleged offences or crimes allegedly committed by parents. The girls have been raped and molested by the security forces," added the ACHR report.

Yet some activists don't want to totally discredit the government as being callous in its reporting as the delegation to Geneva was able to respond strongly and satisfactorily to the questions raised by the CRC members.

The delegation consisted of senior government officials to the United Nations office in Geneva and activists from NGOs.

"We have to admit that the government has made strong statements on child protection, Maoist abduction, child recruitment and their humanitarian assistance issues," explained prominent child rights activist, Gauri Pradhan.

Nepal ratified the Convention on the Rights of Children in 1990 following the establishment of multiparty democracy and the overthrow of the autocratic Panchayat regime. Since then, the country has introduced several laws and ratified key international conventions to promote and protect children's rights that were non-existent during the pre-1990s era.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/2c88e7b2ebc0458326db79ced5fddd77.htm

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, in Colombo as a special UN envoy for Tsunami reconstruction, categorically called the abduction of tsunami affected children, by the LTTE, to be trained as child soldiers, a " Horrible crime."

"It's a crime" Clinton said, adding after a thoughtful pause " A horrible crime." LTTE has so far recruited 137 children into their ranks since the tsunami, nine of whom were taken directly from relief camps, according to a UNICEF report.

Clinton also visited the Tsunami stricken Muslim areas of East on Saturday morning to see the reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts in the area.

Pressed as to why he was not visiting the LTTE- occupied areas in Sri Lanka, Clinton stated that his aim was to meet Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese at a "neutral ground".

Meanwhile, Clinton commented that he strongly supports the President Kumaratunge's move to implement a "Joint Mechanism" to distribute aid among the Tsunami affected people in North East areas of Sri lanka.

However, Clinton avoided a direct answer when asked how he could support the JM when even the Prime Minister of the country had admitted he knew nothing of such mechanism. The former US president however, expressed optimism on issues concerning Muslims relating to the Joint Mechanism.

Clinton also urged all concerned parties to utilize the opportunity to build a better future for the country.
" Too many children have died, too many families have been crushed. If I was 20 years younger and I was a politician here, I would take hold of this chance to build a future for this country." he added.

Bill Clinton will next tour the tsunami hit areas of the Maldives , before flying to Indonesia's Aceh province.

http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/112322/1/1893