WITH International Children’s Day approaching on June 1, what about the children who do not have the chance to enjoy their childhood? Some children are still forced to act as ‘parents’ – to care for their younger siblings in the home and sacrifice their own education and childhood to do so. 

This is a problem highlighted by many of the NGOs in Mongolia. For example, Save the Children’s 2006 study on children living in difficult circumstances in Mongolia cites more than one case of children being pressured to undertake household chores and care for younger siblings or other family members in the home. The report was ‘child-led’, meaning that the research was structured and collected by child researchers who had themselves experienced life in difficult circumstances – for example, former street children or child labourers.

“When I was small, I looked after the children and did the family’s housework. At the time, I got very tired and was pressured much. Now, when I think of how much I suffered then, I feel like a knife is cutting through my heart,” said one of the children interviewed for the study, a girl now aged 18.

World Vision and UNICEF also state cases of children being forced to care for young or old members of the family. Work within the family is often not as obvious as other forms of child labour, but it is still child labour. According to official figures at the moment 60,000 Mongolian children work, around 35% of the country’s population aged between 5 and 14. The real issue here is changing the attitudes of parents, both in this particular case and to child labour and abuse as a whole. As a child researcher for the Save the Children report, T.Delgertsetseg, said “Only parents can provide their children with opportunities for a happy life and to be good people.”

It is a basic human right to not be forced into forms of child labour in the home. One-third of all Mongolian children live in poverty, and this leads to children ending up with the responsibility of caring for relatives or siblings.

“When I interviewed an 8-year-old child, I felt very sad. The mother of this girl had been sick and unemployed. Her father was unemployed too. The girl had not had a good life. She helped Dad buy medicines for Mom. They collect wood, bottles, glasses and recyclable metals. Her father cannot get a job even though he tries. I feel pity for this little girl for not studying at school and spending her childhood in the struggle to take care of her sick mother,” said child researcher Ch.Nasan-togtokh.

International Children’s Day should serve as a wake-up call to remind everyone of the problems of child labour in the home and the importance of rights for children. Children are not adults, and should not be treated as such. In taking away their childhood, they are robbed of their right to education, their right to freedom and, quite simply, their opportunity to be happy children.

The 96th session of the International Labour Conference (ILC) started off on an unusual note in Geneva, Switzerland on Wednesday - without a president. In the interim Membathisi Mdladlana, the South African labour minister, was asked to chair the conference, Zolisa Sigabi, the department of labour spokesperson, said.

More than 3 000 government, worker and employer delegates converged for the annual conference of the International Labour Organisation, which will continue until June 15.

Yesterday, the African government group failed to reach consensus on Congo's candidacy to chair the conference, resulting in South Africa, as chair of the governing body, being asked to chair the ILC on an interim basis until the election of a president was finalised, Sigabi said.

"In accordance with the principle of rotation for regions and consensus on candidacy, (labour minister Membathisi) Mdladlana called for nominations from the floor. Albania received the most votes at 198, while Congo was supported by 90. But the quorum of 300 votes was not obtained, and the results were nullified. A further attempt to elect a president of the conference will be made at a future plenary session of the conference," she said.

Focus on child labour
During this session of the ILC delegates will discuss issues ranging from work in the fishing sector, equality at work, forced labour and the promotion of sustainable enterprises.

There will also be a focus on child labour in agriculture on the occasion of World Day against Child Labour on June 12.

"Six heads of states and governments as well as two princes will honour the conference with their presence this year," said Sigabi. - Sapa

The Islamic Development Bank has launched a USD 10b fund to fight poverty in developing Muslim states in Africa and other parts of the world.

The fund, which has an initial endowment of USD 1.4 b, will be dedicated to alleviating poverty, promoting health and universal education, and empowering women in the bank's 56 member countries, Reuters reported.

"This launching ceremony of the IDB's Poverty Alleviation Fund symbolizes a revitalization of the Islamic community in a world where unmatched wealth abides next to absolute poverty," the host of the bank's annual meeting, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, told delegates on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia has already pledged to contribute USD 1b, Kuwait USD 300m, Iran USD 100m and Senegal USD 10m, bank officials said.

The aim of the fund is to help meet the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), proposed by then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan and approved by world leaders in 2000.

They include halving extreme poverty, ensuring universal primary education, and stemming the AIDS pandemic, all by 2015, among the world's states.

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WHEN, in 1954, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly recommended that all countries should institute a Universal Children's Day to be observed as a day to celebrate children and draw attention to their problems, it could not have imagined that 53 years after, the challenges facing this most vulnerable class of people, would still be staggering, especially in African and other third world countries.

Nigeria adopted today, May 27 of every year, as its Children's Day and has remained faithful to the observance of the day. But children's issues go far beyond observance of Children's Day.

The UN General Assembly, realizing that all is not well with the world's children and recognizing that children have rights that must be documented, adopted by member states, promoted as well as enforced, adopted in 1959, the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which addresses the rights of children and youths under 18 years of age, and in 1989, adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which covers, in its 54 articles, every of the rights of children, from health care to education, to the freedom from exploitation and the right to hold opinion.

Notwithstanding that most member states of the UN are signatories to the Convention, however, the basic rights enunciated in this convention are still being violated with impunity in these countries that have adopted the Convention. Children are still flagrantly being abused and neglected, both at the family, community and governmental levels.

Apart from being a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Nigeria has domesticated the Convention in the Child Rights Act which the National Assembly passed after much prevarication occasioned by opposition to its passage by some members based on perceived incompatibility of some provisions of the law with their religious and cultural beliefs.

In spite of both the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Child Rights Act, however, the rights of the children of Nigeria, to a large extent, are still being violated at the family, community, state and federal levels.

For instance, such basic rights as the right to education, healthcare, protection from child labour, trafficking, sexual and other forms of exploitation and drug abuse, right to rest and leisure, play and recreation, right to a decent standard of living, right to protection from abuse and neglect, protection from illicit transfer and illegal adoption, right to survival and development and the right to non-discrimination are scarcely respected or enforced.

In diverse forms, children are being discriminated against. In some states of the country, discriminatory school fees are being charged while in some others, children from some parts of the country are not admitted, all based on ethnicity or religion. Also in some parts of the country, the girl-child is still being discriminated against especially when those to be sent to school are being considered.

In spite of the efforts of the outgoing government through the Universal Basic Education (UBE) scheme, many school age children are still out of school. Indeed, some statistics have it that about 40 per cent of school age-children are out of school in the country. The basic right to education is thus denied this staggering percentage of the country's children from among who could have arisen the great men and women of, tomorrow's Nigeria.

The right to survive and thrive is also a tall dream for many of these hapless children. It is estimated that about 25 per cent of them die before they are five years of age, due mostly to avoidable causes. Indeed, statistics have it that the level of immunization coverage for the child killer diseases that was once as high as 80 per cent has dropped to as low as less than 20 per cent.

Those children that survive beyond their fifth birthdays in the country still have the tough task of developing their potentials in an inclement environment where their basic rights as children would be respected and enforced by government through the relevant agencies.

On a daily basis, the media is awash with stories and pictures of different forms of child abuse, child trafficking for purposes of forced, sometimes, hard labour or for child prostitution, of torture and deprivation of the liberties of children, of child marriages, most resulting in VVF, of female genital mutilation (FGM), of people using children for ritual purposes or for begging on the streets or of children hawking all manner of wares when they should be in school.

Many cities have the challenge of street children, some sleeping under the bridges, in the markets, in school buildings where they are exposed to all manner of abuse and are easily indoctrinated into criminality. There is also the increasing cases of HIV/AIDS orphans who are often left to fend for themselves in the harsh economic environment of the country. Most of these also graduate to become the area boys and area girls that are today part of the problems of the society.

Why are children faced with these challenges in spite of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and in spite of its domestication in the country in the form of the Child Rights Act? One of the reasons may be that though the National Assembly has passed the Child Rights bill and outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo has signed it into law, only 14 out of the 36 states of the federation and Abuja have passed it into law in their respective states, meaning that in 22 states of the federation, the Child Rights Act is not law.

LATEST developments in child education and early learning came into focus at a two-day conference at Beit Al Quran.

Keynote speakers from Bahrain, the UK and US addressed an international audience of about 160 professionals, parents, educators and scholars.

The First International Early Childhood and Montessori Conference was organised by the Mother Child Home Education Programme (MOCEP) in co-operation with the Bahrain Montessori Centre (BMC).

It was held under the theme: Childhood An Evolutionary Vision - Celebrating 100 years of Montessori.
The four speakers were MOCEP and BMC founder and director Dr Julie Hadeed; Harvard Graduate School of Education, Project Zero educational researcher Mara Krechevsky; Cambridge University early years scholar Mary Jane Drummond; and Montessori Centre International, London, chief executive Barbara Isaacs.

They discussed topics on early learning, a Montessori approach to education versus a traditional one, multiple intelligences and related topics.

Montessori education is a scientific way of observing children to discover and support their true nature.
The teaching views each child as having its own inborn inner guidance for self-directed development.
The Montessori environment provides an order and arrangement of self-teaching materials that children use according to their free choice for independent learning and intellectual development.

The conference celebrated the honorary legacy of Dr Maria Montessori, who founded the Montessori approach 100 years ago, and some leading research and practice in the field of early education and development.

The conference was sponsored by Esterad and Gulf Finance House.

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As one walks through the corridor of every upper, middle or lower class home, one would come across either a male or a female child who can be said not to be a part of that family.

The signs are often clear. He or she is either cutting the hedges in the compound; fetching water; cooking; washing; scrubbing; cleaning shoes; bathing and feeding the dogs among other things while biological children of owners of such homes would be doing home work from school; playing with friends at the playground or watching television.

Such children are often bombarded with whole lots of household chores that, they least have time for themselves. Their social life then becomes a life of sorrow, depressive and grief.

The question, which always comes to mind at this point, is why are these children left to suffer at the hand people who seem to care less about humanity? Why are people, who treat their own children as angels from heaven, providing them with comfort and care to ensure their social and psychological well being be so callous to the children of others?

These children continue to labour and do all sorts of hazardous work both home and outside which affects their health.

Poverty has been recognized as one major factor, which allows some families to willingly give out their children to people whom they believe would take good care of them.

The promise by these people to send such children to school, take good care of them and help in their total development are always less realised as against inhuman and hard treatment.

In Ghana the practice of domestic servants had gain root and had now become a business venture for some unscrupulous men and women, who act as middlemen in the trade.

Most children in child labour now can be linked with internal trafficking by such middlemen, who give them out to somewhat rich individuals to engage them in exploitative business.

A document made available to the Ghana News Agency by Child Labour Unit of the Ministry of Manpower Youth and Employment said an estimated total of 1,273,294 (20%) of children in Ghana are engaged in child labour.

Out of the 2,474,545 (39%) of children engaged labour, 6,361,111 are into economic activity with over 1,031,220 children under 13 years.

In Ghana, the largest proportion (57%) of working children are in agriculture, hunting and forestry; 20.7 per cent in sales; 9.5% into production and 11 per cent in other general workers such as porters, truck pushers and driver-mates.

The records showed that 242,074 children engaged in Worst Forms of Child Labour work in dangerous and hazardous environment, exposing them to injuries, toxic substances, sexual abuse, violence and even death.

This revelation is a sure contradiction of what is stipulated in the Children's Act of 1998, which vehemently frowns on such practice.

The Acts stipulated to ensure the rights of children especially children of school going age has not been enforced strictly to deal with perpetrators of this crime.

The figures also indicated that boys dominated sectors like fishing; commercial agriculture; mining and quarrying while girls were used in domestic work, as potters, Kakayes, selling, chop bar workers and prostitution with its attendant diseases.

About 91 per cent of both parents of working children, according to the document were alive, which showed a gross shirking of responsibility or the state of poverty among parents especially rural parents, who often gave their children out.

The child trafficking has become so lucrative that it is now rated as the third most profitable business aside drugs and small arms. The practice has gained an international recognition according to an expert with UNICEF, Mr Eric Okrah.

He said children are exported to as far as Ivory Coast, Nigeria and United Kingdom among other places. These children according to him were 'packed' into specially made cars and injected with drugs, which made them lose contact with their environment. In effect they fall into deep sleep till they get into their destinations.

He stated that children according to the Acts were expected to only engage in light and normal works till they are above 16 years but often times these trafficked children engaged in hard, hazardous and exploitative work.

Looking at child trafficking from two main perspectives, he gave it criminal and human right dimension, which makes it an offence for one to engage in the practice and at the same time trampling upon the fundamental human rights of the affected person.

Nike, the official supplier of soccer balls to the English Premier Football League, is to resume making hand-stitched leather balls in Pakistan, six months after it stopped production there amid child-labour concerns.

The company has signed a new contract with Silver Star, a leather processor based in Sialkot, after a tender process that Nike says was designed to promote a broader modernisation of the sector centred around the city in northern Punjab.

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The case has highlighted the challenges facing brands in the clothing and footwear industry over how to respond to persistent breaches of their codes that set minimum conditions for workers in their supply chains.

Nike's decision in November to end production at Saga, its former supplier in Sialkot, followed what Alan Marks, a company spokesman, said was "primarily a fundamental breach of trust" in its management over failures to remedy problems with labour conditions.

Nike was the factory's main client, taking around 80 per cent of its production, and many of the estimated 3,000 workers at the factory have subsequently lost their jobs. Saga was producing 6m of the 40m leather soccer balls produced in Pakistan annually.

Unlike the global clothing business, where contracts can be moved relatively rapidly between factories and companies, the quality and scale of the leather industry in Sialkot is globally unique, leaving Nike with a significant shortfall in its supply of hand-stitched balls.

The city's leather stitching industry is largely informal and household based. This has combined with a lack of organised local labour groups and a repressive local political environment to stymie a decade of efforts by international buyers to eliminate child labour through monitoring programmes.

Nike says Saga had originally agreed to use factory rather than home-based workers, but that local factory monitoring groups reported persistent child labour problems last year.

The new contract requires the new supplier to use only registered full-time employees paid hourly wages to work on its premises, rather than piece work. It also stipulates that its workers be able to form or join trade unions.

However, the initial contract is for a fifth of the volume of balls originally produced for Nike by Saga, although Nike says it will buy more as Silver Star's capacity develops.

Ineke Zeldenrust, a labour rights advocate at the Clean Clothes Campaign, said Nike needed to "provide the prices and volume and long-term relationship" to support the new contractor, and that the impact of its efforts on the rest of the sector depended on the involvement of other brands.

"If you want to do this, you need the other brands to be brought into the loop," she said.

The terms of the tender, drawn up in consultation with a range of local and international labour rights groups, also requires Silver Star to pursue the gradual automation and mechanisation of the ball manufacturing process in Pakistan.

Nike points to the use of an Adidas machine-stitched ball at the last World Cup finals as an indication that the game's use of hand-stitched balls is set to decline, creating future problems for Sialkot unless the industry modernises.

Amsterdam - Top cocoa producer Ivory Coast is confident it will stop the abuse of child labour on its farms by a deadline of July 2008 to avoid US sanctions, the campaign's co-ordinator says.

"For us it's not a deadline, it's just a milestone. We will meet this milestone," Youssouf N'Djore, national co-ordinator of Ivory Coast's Child Labour Monitoring System Project, said this week.

Ivory Coast, the world's number one cocoa producer, which has been racked by instability since a brief 2002-2003 civil war, has been the target of allegations by international rights groups that children are working as slaves on its plantations.

The Ivorian government, cocoa sector and foreign multinationals who export and process Ivorian cocoa have all come under increasing scrutiny from rights and consumer groups who are campaigning for "Fair Trade" foodstuffs untainted by violence and child slavery.

Chocolate makers missed a 2005 deadline to certify labour conditions on cocoa farms but are now working to meet a July 2008 deadline to monitor conditions on 50% of West African farms.

"It is not important for us to simply say that we have completely eliminated child labour," N'Djore said at the end of a two-day cocoa conference in Amsterdam.

Setting 'strict criteria'
"It is important that whenever a case (of abusive child labour) is registered, we solve it successfully and we find ways to prevent such cases in the future," he added.

Ivory Coast faces sanctions on its exports to the United States if it misses the 2008 deadline, set by US lawmakers.

Two US politicians brought to world attention the issue of child and slave labour on West African cocoa fields when they set a deadline for chocolate makers to certify their products were free of abusive labour practices.

There have been widespread accusations that children, some as young as five, work on farms in Ghana and Ivory Coast.

Ghana, the world's number two producer, said last month it was on track to meet the 2008 target.
The Ghanaian government was now working to amend its legislation and set strict criteria about the conditions and age at which children can work, said Rita Owusu-Amankwah, the national programme manager in Amsterdam.

Cultural differences
Ivory Coast officials said they would follow Ghana's example and come up with measures after a pilot labour survey was expected to be completed in the coming month.

The survey focuses on working conditions for both children and adults on Ivorian cocoa farms.

Farmers and local authorities in Ivory Coast, while recognising the problem of child trafficking, insist there is no widespread use of forced child labour on farms.

They instead point to cultural differences and the need to pass on skills to enable their children to earn a living as an adult.

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The Committee on the Rights of the Child this morning reviewed the initial report of Sudan on how that country is implementing the provisions of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

In opening remarks to the Committee, Sami Abd Eldaim Yassin, State Minister with the Ministry of Social Welfare and Women and Child Affairs of Sudan, said a legal workshop had been held to harmonize domestic law with Sudan's obligations under the Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the resulting draft bill on children was now before Parliament. Among new developments, the National Council for Child Welfare, responsible for coordination and monitoring of efforts to implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its two Optional Protocols had been established; a unit for the protection of the family and the child had been set up 15 months ago; two weeks ago, approval had been given to establish a special unit on children's protection within the army; an action plan on violence against children had been adopted; and there was a Working Group on the protection of children from sexual abuse in conflict areas, which was being conducted in partnership with the United Nations, the African Union, and civil society institutions.

In preliminary concluding remarks, Joyce Aluoch, the Committee Expert serving as Rapporteur for the report of Sudan, observed that things were looking bright for Sudan. It appeared that the national will was in place, both at the national level, and on the part of the Government of Southern Sudan, to put all the new laws in place for the better protection of children in Sudan. Concluding recommendations from the Committee would centre on issues of monitoring, budgetary allocation, implementation of existing programmes and laws, and ratification of related international human rights instruments by the Government. Indeed, the most important priority for Sudan now should be implementation of the laws, policies and peace agreements that it had concluded.

Other Experts raised a series of questions during the discussion, including what resources had been allocated over the past few years to implement the Protocol; why there was no specific law criminalizing the sale of children in Sudan; whether there were any exceptions to the prohibition against the death penalty for children in Sudan; why Sudan had not criminalized the use of child camel jockeys; whether there were functioning courts that had the capacity and capability to prosecute and penalize the crimes set out in the Protocol; what was being done to address raids carried on villages to abduct children for forced labour; and what was being done to address reports of child slavery in the country. An Expert was particularly concerned about the provision regarding forced child labour in the Sudanese penal code, whereby anyone who pressed a person into labour by illegally forcing them to work against their will was subject to a penalty of up to one year in prison and/or a fine. That left the door open for imposing just a small fine for what was a very serious crime.

The Committee will release its formal, written concluding observations and recommendations on the report of Sudan towards the end of its three-week session, which will conclude on 8 June.
Also representing the delegation of Sudan was Ibrahim Mirghani Ibrahim Mohamed Kheir, Permanent Representative of Sudan to the United Nations Office at Geneva, as well as other representatives from the Permanent Mission of Sudan in Geneva; Amira Elfadil Mohamed Elfadil, Secretary-General of the National Council for Child Welfare of Sudan; and representatives of the Government of Southern Sudan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sudan, the legal system and the Police Force of Southern Sudan.

As one of the States parties to the Convention, Sudan is obliged to present periodic reports to the Committee on its efforts to comply with the provisions of the treaty. The delegation was on hand to present the report and to answer questions raised by Committee Experts.

When the Committee next reconvenes in public, at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, 30 May, it will take up the combined second and third periodic reports of Kazakhstan (CRC/C/KAZ/3).

Report of Sudan
The initial report of Sudan on the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (CRC/C/OPSC/SDN/1) says it is prohibited to employ children in forced labour, sexual exploitation, pornography, or illegal trafficking, or to use or employ them in armed conflict in Sudan. The offence of selling children is a new offence that is not known in Sudanese society. There have been no cases of this kind, since the Sudanese social heritage and prevailing customs and traditions forbid this practice. It is very difficult to commit this kind of offence in Sudan. Sudanese law does not mention this offence as a primary offence, but rather as an adjunct to other offences such as forgery, deception or enticement. These offences are contained in the Sudanese Criminal Code of 1991 and carry heavy penalties. With regard to pornography, this is indecent material and performances as defined in the Criminal Code, as well as in the 2004 Children's Act, which prohibit the publication, offer, distribution, reproduction or possession of any printed matter or audiovisual work of art that panders to children's basest instincts, projects an attractive image of behaviour that contravenes social values or traditions, or encourages juvenile delinquency. Article 30 of the Children's Act requires managers of cinemas and similar public facilities to use every possible advertising method to display prominently, in Arabic, announcements about performances that children are not permitted to see. Anyone who breaches articles 28 and 30 of the Act shall be liable to a term of up to one month in prison and/or a fine. The Criminal Code of 1991 makes no mention of what is known as trafficking in human organs and therefore does not criminalize or prescribe penalties for this offence.

The National Council for Child Welfare set up a committee to combat the exploitation of children in camel racing. The committee members include government institutions and some civil society organizations. As part of its plans, the committee demanded the enactment of laws and regulations and the introduction of tighter controls on children travelling abroad; organized awareness-raising workshops in several states on the employment of children in this work, which violates their rights; and involved local community leaders and families in community awareness-raising programmes about these practices.

Presentation of Report
SAMI ABD ELDAIM YASSIN, State Minister with the Ministry of Social Welfare and Women and Child Affairs of Sudan, said, with regard to legislative measures, that Sudan had ratified all regional and international instruments related to children, beginning with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its two Optional Protocols. It had also ratified all the international human rights instruments from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights up to the two protocols to the Four Geneva Conventions. Those had become part of the legislation in Sudan, and national laws had also been harmonized with the international protocols and conventions that had been ratified. In addition, a legal workshop had been held to harmonize domestic law, including the 2004 Children's Act, with Sudan's obligations under the Optional Protocols. That workshop had been made up of jurists, civil society organizations working on children's issues, and State institutions operating in the children's domain, and led to a draft bill on children in 2006 that was now before parliament for ratification.

Mr. Yassin noted that Sudan's Penal Code already provided clear legal protections for the children in line with the Protocol. In addition, the Military Code criminalized such acts, and the El Fasher, Abuja and Darfur Peace Agreements all included provisions to protect the rights of the child. Moreover, the Constitution of 2005 provided that all international human rights instruments to which Sudan was a party formed part of its law, and state constitutions had similar provisions. Thus, Sudan was taking very active steps at both the State and federal level to protect children.

It was true that data and statistics were few, Mr. Yassin said. However, with the ratification of the Protocol, Sudan now intended to set up a statistical centre on children's issues, with the help of UNICEF and others, to create an up-to-date database on children.

Mr. Yassin then drew attention to a number of new programmes and developments for the promotion and protection of children's rights in Sudan. To start, the former Social Welfare Ministry had become the Ministry on Social Welfare of Women and Children. A National Council for Child Welfare had been established, responsible for coordination and monitoring of efforts to implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its two Optional Protocols, as well as all on all issues to do with children's rights. A unit for the protection of the family and the child had been set up 15 months ago, in accordance with the provisions of the Optional Protocols. So far, it had offices in Khartoum and Southern Sudan, but it was planned to establish offices in all areas of the country, with the help of UNICEF. Just two weeks ago, approval had been given to establish a special unit on children's protection within the army, and the first group of trainees had already been sent to Kenya for training. A group had been established to provide assistance to children without families, to help find their families, and to place them in temporary care until they could be found. (There were some 1,600 children in foster care in Khartoum.) There was also a programme to protect children who had been displaced and to voluntarily return them, in cooperation with UNICEF, which was established in February 2007. There was a year long, country-wide media campaign to raise awareness on children's rights, in partnership with UNICEF. Finally, an action plan on violence against children had been adopted, and there was a Working Group on the protection children from sexual abuse in conflict areas, which was being conducted in partnership with the United Nations, the African Union, and civil society institutions.

In conclusion, Mr. Yassin wished to highlight that, since the mid-1980s, Sudan had been suffering from natural disasters, such as drought, coupled with civil wars and conflicts, which had had very adverse effects on children in the country. Nevertheless, Sudan had been able to establish a community base capable of protecting children in all aspects. Following the signing of the El Fasher, Arusha and Darfur peace agreements, the conditions were in place for furthering and enhancing of the rights of the child in Sudan.

Questions by Experts
JOYCE ALUOCH, the Committee Expert serving as Rapporteur for the report of Sudan, noted the very many new developments and programmes Sudan was putting in place to protect children's rights. Like many developing countries, Sudan suffered from problems caused by poverty, instability and insecurity, and a high national debt burden. It was good news that Sudan had managed to turn its economic situation around recently, but they still faced economic difficulties. In addition, there were a number of conflict areas in Sudan, which had obviously impacted negatively on Sudan's human rights obligations. In that regard, negotiations, which had led to a peace agreement in Darfur, Abuja and elsewhere were welcome news and a step forward.

Turning to the Optional Protocol, Ms. Aluoch recalled the Committee required non-governmental organizations to be included in the drafting of periodic reports, and she wondered if that had been done in this case; the report did not really follow the guidelines set out by the Committee.

Ms. Aluoch was also concerned to know what was the status of the Optional Protocol in Sudan until the bill regarding children mentioned in the presentation was in place. It was her understanding that, until those measures had been adopted, the Optional Protocol could not be implemented directly in Sudan.
Ms. Aluoch was further concerned that the report itself noted that there was a "confusion" on the age limits for criminal liability of children, and it had not been stated at what age a child could be recruited into the armed forces.

While the delegation had affirmed that it was a party to all of the regional and international human rights conventions, Ms. Aluoch would appreciate clarification as to whether Sudan had taken any action to ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the UN Convention against Torture, the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. As far as she knew, Sudan was not a party to those instruments.
NEVENA VUCKOVIC-SAHOVIC, the Committee Expert serving as Co-Rapporteur for the report of Sudan, welcomed the many prevention measures, training and education programmes related to the Optional Protocol that had been implemented by Sudan. However, there had been very limited data on those programmes, in particular with regard to child prostitution. How was it possible for Sudan to draft legislation to prevent the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography without any statistics on those crimes? She was particularly concerned to know the extent of child prostitution, with special regard to Darfur and Southern Sudan.

Other Experts raised a series of questions, including, what resources had been allocated over the past few years to implement the Protocol; why there was no law criminalizing the sale of children in Sudan; were there any exceptions to the prohibition against the death penalty for children in Sudan; concrete cases of implementation of the Protocol; why Sudan had not criminalized the use of child camel jockeys; effective impunity for those committing crimes proscribed by the Optional Protocol in Sudan, and whether there were functioning courts that had the capacity and capability to prosecute and penalize the crimes set out in the Protocol; what was being done to address raids carried on villages to abduct children for forced labour; efforts to address reports of child slavery in the country; and what was known about the foreign children, reportedly abducted by militias and used for fighting in Sudan.

An Expert was particularly concerned about the provision regarding forced child labour in the Sudanese penal code, whereby anyone who pressed a person into labour by illegally forcing them to work against their will was subject to a penalty of up to one year in prison and/or a fine. That left the door open for imposing just a small fine for what was a very serious crime.

Response by the Delegation
Responding to questions, the delegation noted that two non-governmental organizations had been involved in the original drafting of Sudan's report. At later stages of its preparation other civil society organizations had read the report and given feedback, and that feedback had been incorporated in the final version.

The delegation reiterated that all international human rights instruments ratified by Sudan were part of their domestic law, and so the Optional Protocol was currently enforceable in Sudan. Sudan then undertook to harmonize its laws with those instruments. The Children's Law of 2004, which harmonized the law with the Convention, was an example of that.

Forced labour was criminalized under Sudanese law. The delegation underscored that it was a well-known principle enshrined in Sudanese law that, regardless of the crime committed, crimes committed against children bore heavier penalties.

Prior to the age of 18, children were not criminally responsible and could not be sentenced to the death penalty, except as provided in the Constitution in exceptional cases.

In terms of children's instruments to which Sudan was a party, the delegation said that the African Charter on Rights and Welfare of the Child had not previously been implemented because there had been a lack of clarity regarding its status. It had been ratified and henceforth would be included in its laws.

In terms of budgetary allocations for children's issues, the delegation pointed to the growth of the Sudanese economy, and noted that, as a result, it had been possible to increase funding for children's issues. In 2005, 9.6 per cent of general expenditures, or 2.5 per cent of Sudan's gross domestic product, had been budgeted for children, as compared with 2004, when only 8.2 per cent of general expenditure had been allocated for that purpose. Moreover, between 2002 and 2006, in conjunction with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), some $250 million had been allocated for children.

Regarding Southern Sudan, and problems related to the Lord's Resistance Army, the Southern Government had formed a centre for healing former child soldiers, in conjunction with UNICEF, and also helped to send them back to their homes. In terms of the buying back of child slaves by non-governmental organizations, the organization Christian Solidarity had done that. Unfortunately, however, that organization had no way of returning those children to their families or reintegrating them in the community. The Southern Government had stopped Save the Children UK from attempting to buy back children, explaining that such payments were encouraging the practice. Children should not be paid for, but should be taken back and reintegrated into their communities.

In terms of legislation, the Government of Southern Sudan was starting from scratch, and most of its laws had not yet been enacted, the delegation observed. Child welfare was a priority issue. There was a child bill that specifically targeted child marriages. There was also a programme in place to help return abducted children and women. In terms of combating children's abduction across borders, negotiations had been held with the Government of Uganda to address that situation.

Regarding early marriage throughout the country, the delegation acknowledged that some of the 570 tribes in Sudan practised early marriage.

As for female genital mutilation, that practice could only be combated through changing social views. Several workshops had been held, and there had been awareness-raising campaigns to discourage that practice. Moreover, following the order of the President of the Republic, the National Council of Physicians had issued a decree prohibiting that practice for all physicians and midwives, and providing penalties for those who performed it.

With regard to children used in camel races, Sudan had a bilateral agreement with the United Arab Emirates to deal with the situation of the children used as camel jockeys. The Council for Child Welfare had also undertaken a survey in conjunction with UNICEF to return child jockeys and to provide the necessary psychosocial support, and a mechanism had been established to provide financial compensation to children who had participated in camel races. A memorandum of understanding was also in place with a Qatari charity organization to provide community support, including schools and health care facilities, in the affected regions of southern Sudan, and some $4 million had been earmarked for that purpose.

Preliminary Concluding Observations
JOYCE ALUOCH, the Committee Expert serving as Rapporteur for the report of Sudan, in preliminary concluding remarks, welcomed the fruitful dialogue with the delegation. Things were looking bright for Sudan. It appeared that the national will was in place, both at the national level, and on the part of the Government of Southern Sudan, to put all the new laws in place for the better protection of children in Sudan. Concluding recommendations from the Committee would centre on issues of monitoring, budgetary allocation, implementation of existing programmes and laws, and ratification of related international human rights instruments by the Government. Indeed, the most important priority for Sudan now should be implementation of the laws, policies and peace agreements that it had concluded.
NEVENA VUCKOVIC-SAHOVIC, the Committee Expert serving as Co-Rapporteur for the report of Sudan, also thanked the delegation and looked forward to working with them in future on these issues.

In the extreme northern conditions of Siberia, Russian Federation, certain schools follow the reindeers’ migration routes, making education accessible for the herders’ children. Called nomadic schools, these experimental primary schools date from the 1920s and 1930s. Thanks to the revitalization of indigenous culture, they are currently undergoing modernization, with UNESCO support.

“Nomadic schools educate children in their community and natural surroundings, far from population centres, “explains Sargylana Zhirkova of the Nomadic Schools Development Centre in Yakutia. “This allows their herder parents to follow the reindeer undisturbed”. In many cases, she adds, “those who run the schools are members of the herder community themselves”.

The nomadic schools project, supported by the UNESCO Moscow Office since 2005, began in the Nomadic Schools Development Centre at the Scientific Research Institute of the National Schools in Yakutia in the far north of the Russian Federation. It aims to support the nomadic school system of the region’s indigenous people: Dolgans, Evens, Evenks, Ukagirs and Chukchis. These ethnic groups live in the furthest reaches of northern Yakutia and are striving to revive their traditional way of life.

The main characteristic of the nomadic school are the small number of pupils and the variety of subjects taught by one teacher. Several interconnected approaches are used to help the schools ensure adequate education. These include providing textbooks in the mother tongues of the indigenous peoples; introducing information and communication technologies (ICTs) and distance education as well as training staff in planning, management and monitoring educational quality.

The Nomadic Schools Development Centre proposes seven different models for nomadic communities:

• The combined nomadic school – kindergarten brings nomadic pre-schoolers closer to thetraditions and way of life of their people through daily communication with their families.
• The community school is a small mainstream school, integrated in the community where the minority lives.
• The private tutor moves in with the nomadic community and teaches the children in local conditions.
• In the Taiga (forestry) school, the parents tutor their own children. This study programme is combined with sessions in a mainstream school.
• Pupils in the Combined basic-nomadic school alternate between mainstream school and the nomadic community.
• The network nomadic school moves between several herder communities. The teaching
• combines regular and correspondence classes. Frequent meetings take place between teachers and parent-tutors.
• The nomadic summer school teaches native languages and traditional culture. It targets children who no longer speak the indigenous mother tongue.

“The nomadic school is a vital institution for indigenous people who lead a nomadic way oflife,” declares Sargylana Zhirkova. “It provides education while adapting traditional culture to the 21st century”. However, to increase the quality of education in nomadic schools more trained teachers are needed. The requirements of the job are: a university degree, a good knowledge of teaching methods; familiarity with culture and language of specific nomadic people – and psychological readiness to endure severe weather conditions.

Amnesty International has criticised Ireland for failing to fully implement UN recommendations to adopt a child rights-based approach to Government policy and practices.

In its annual report published today, the human rights organisation said it was concerned at the State's
Ireland remains the only country in the European Union which has still not introduced anti-trafficking laws
Labour party spokeswoman on children, Senator Kathleen O'Meara failure to incorporate the UN Children's Convention into Irish domestic law.

The report on global human rights records for 2006 said their findings for Ireland raised concerns over issues such as:

• limitations in the mandate of the Ombudsman for Children in investigations related to children in prison and police stations,
• racism and xenophobia faced by children from ethnic minority communities,
• the lack of privacy protection for children prosecuted in higher courts,
• the fact that corporal punishment is not prohibited, and
• the lowering of the age of criminal responsibility to 10 years for serious crimes.

Amnesty International said Ireland "inappropriately" continues to admit children into adult inpatient mental health units, with up to 300 children currently living in these facilities.

Labour party spokeswoman on children, Senator Kathleen O'Meara said the criticism levelled by Amnesty International was "a serious cause of concern" and demonstrated a need for action on child trafficking.
Amnesty International expressed concern in the report over legislative proposals to reform immigration legislation, published last September. It said the proposals highlighted an absence of "specific protection measures for victims of trafficking".

Ms O'Meara said the Labour Party had consistently demanded laws which would ban child trafficking but said its calls to the Minister for Justice had fallen on deaf ears.

"Ireland remains the only country in the European Union which has still not introduced anti-trafficking laws, and despite the promises from the outgoing government that they would introduce new legislation, none ever appeared. We have not even signed up to all the international conventions and treaties in this area," she said.

Ms O'Meara also said the issue of children being admitted to adult inpatient mental health units needed to be addressed "as a matter of urgency".

The Amnesty report was also severely critical of the Garda Siochána for its use of "lethal force" in April 2000 when Longford man John Carthy was shot dead outside his home in Abbeylara Co Longford.

It said "a series of command failures by police scene commanders" during the 25-hour long siege had led to the 27-year-old man's death. "Insufficient precautions were taken to avoid or minimize the risk to life," it said. Mr Carthy was suffering from depression at the time of his death.

The annual report highlighted the naming of Ireland as one of the states responsible for passive collusion in the US-led programme of secret detentions and renditions during the so-called "war on terror".
On a global level, the report said it was concerned that "powerful governments and armed groups are deliberately formenting fear to erode human rights and to create an increasingly polarized and dangerous world".

Noeleen Hartigan, Programmes Director at the Amnesty International Irish Section said: "Through short sighted, fear-mongering and divisive policies, governments are undermining the rule of law and human rights, feeding racism and xenophobia, dividing communities, intensifying inequalities and sowing the seeds for more violence and conflict".

THE Government must spend an extra £3.8bn if it is to reach its target of halving child poverty by 2010, a leading charity has warned.

A report by Barnardo’s, which is published today(weds), said that work to alleviate child poverty has stalled and there is little chance of Labour achieving its ambitious pledge unless more money is invested.
There are still 170,000 children in Wales who are living in poverty.

To ensure that child poverty is halved by 2010, Barnardo’s wants incoming Prime Minister Gordon Brown to commit an extra lump sum to the £1bn already earmarked for tax credits in the 2007 budget.

The charity also wants the next Welsh Assembly Government to take specific action to address child poverty, including giving families who qualify for free school meals compensation to cover school holidays.

Andy James, assistant director of Barnardo’s Cymru, said, “Poverty is a real blight on families’ and young people’s lives – it suppresses any hope and ambition.

“Halving child poverty was a key political pledge for the Government to make and with the right commitment and spending it is achievable.

“But in terms of the government’s current commitment, the target will not be met.”

Investing more money to raise tax credits will save 200,000 children in the UK from a lack of food, clothing and adequate living conditions, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, quoted in the Barnardo’s report It Doesn’t Happen Here – The Reality of Child Poverty in the UK.

But to remove a further 900,000 children from the 2.8 million in the UK living in poverty, more action is needed.

The IFS estimates that the target could be achieved by increasing the child element of child tax credit by a further £11 a week at 2007 prices and giving families an extra £20 per week for the third and subsequent children through the family element of the child tax credit.

To do so, the Government will have to spend £3.8bn more than planned.

Mr James said, “We are calling on the UK Government to invest £3.8bn – this is one fifth of 1% of the Government’s total expenditure or less than half what it intends to spend on the Olympics.”

And Martin Narey(corr), Barnardo’s chief executive and chairman of End Child Poverty, said, “Barnardo’s witnesses every day the impact on children and families of living in grinding poverty.

“Children missing out on what most would consider essentials – a good diet, a warm home, school trips, books, birthday treats. Children suffering bullying, isolation and a deep poverty of ambition.

“These effects can last a lifetime – children growing up in poverty have worse health, worse exam results and, very frequently, will end their adult lives still in poverty.”

In addition to extra investment from the UK government, Barnardo’s Cymru believes that the next Welsh Assembly Government can make a significant difference if all government funding and programmes benefit the poorest children the most.

Other options include extending access to high-quality childcare by ensuring adequate funding to sustain childcare provision in disadvantaged communities and tackling financial hardship during the school holidays.

This would see families whose children get free school meals compensated for the loss of these during the school holidays, and ensuring that affordable and age-appropriate holiday activities and childcare is readily available for all children.

A further step would be to tackle fuel poverty by working with the private sector to make sure that all customers are on the cheapest tariffs for utilities and are not penalised if they cannot take advantage of payment schemes such as direct debit.

BRAZZAVILLE, 21 May 2007 (IRIN) - Hundreds of children have been trafficked into the Republic of Congo from several West African states, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The majority of the children – many as young as nine – come to Pointe-Noire, the Congo's second-largest city, from Benin, followed by Mali, Guinea, Senegal, Togo and one Central African country, Cameroon. They are promised work and money to return home by compatriots who employ them.

"The children are given to 'tutors' [from West Africa] against a certain amount of money with the promise of a job or apprenticeship. Some of the children are illiterate, while others have had some kind of schooling," said Constance Mafoukila, one of the researchers of the report.

Most of the children in the Congolese capital, Brazzaville, come from the Democratic Republic of Congo, brought there by intermediaries who promise them a visa to Europe or South Africa. In reality, they are used as cheap labour, and girls over the age of 12 are pushed into prostitution.

The children were victims of exploitation, including sexual abuse, and denied an education, Mafoukila said. The survey on which the UNICEF report was based was conducted in November 2006.

"Most of these [children] come from abroad, notably West Africa, where trafficking in children is much more widespread than in Congo," she said. "It is an old tradition that is still practised. In Congo this trade is not widespread yet, but it is catching on, especially in Brazzaville and in Pointe-Noire."

In 2005, the Congolese government said more than 2,500 street-children, local and foreign, were living in the two cities and were exposed to alcoholism, drug abuse and pornography. The children were left homeless after the civil wars and attracted to the cities by promises of jobs.

"These children live under difficult conditions. They sometimes work for 15 or 16 hours per day. Most of them suffer from physical and psychological mistreatment. They lack sleep and food and are often beaten and injured," the UNICEF report said.

Many people from West African countries live in Pointe-Noire working as fishermen and have established residential camps along the beaches. They also own shops where foreign child workers are employed, according to non-governmental organisations. Observers say these traders prefer employing West African children to the Congolese because they do not demand as much money.

The scale of the phenomenon is hard to measure, although the children of Benin seemed to be most at risk in this traffic, with 1,800 estimated to be in Congo. Regarding those from DRC, the police reckoned 80 children were crossing the border every day, of whom half would return home.

The UN resident representative in Congo, Koen Vanormelingen, called for social mobilisation against child labour and trafficking in minors. "Taking care of the children and international networking between governments is also central in order to prevent and fight this problem," he said.

Millions of poor Indian children who work at street food stalls, restaurants or as domestic servants in homes mock a government ban last year which made work for under-14s illegal and punishable by jail

UNDER the sweltering sun, 12-year-old Rajesh cleans steel plates at a dusty bus stand in the heart of New Delhi and hopes for a better life, a testimony to how far India has to go to curb child labour.

“This is not what I want,” said Rajesh, who works at an open-air food stall, before he quickly picked up a filthy bucket in which he washes dishes. He jumped out of the way as a bus screeched to a halt nearby. “I want to study and go to school,” he said, starting to wash again as passengers got off the bus. Rajesh is one of millions of poor children in India who work at street food stalls, restaurants or as domestic servants in homes, their labour mocking a government ban last year which made work for under-14s illegal and punishable by jail.

“There has been a lot of enthusiastic policy pronouncements and policy commitments made in the beginning,” said Victoria Rialp, UNICEF Child Protection Chief in India. “But the challenge always comes in actually walking the talk,” said Rialp, adding implementation of the new ban has been very slow and had a “very bumpy start”. Officially, India has 12.6 million child workers - the world’s highest number - but activists say the figure is at least five times more.

Last year’s ban reinforced a 1986 law that forbids children from working in high-risk industries such as matchstick-making which exposed them to hazardous fumes and chemicals. To implement last year’s ban, authorities have launched some 39,000 inspections of possible child labour sites. They have filed just 211 prosecutions, despite detecting over 2,200 violations.

Officials say they are hindered by widespread traditional acceptance of child labour. “The law alone cannot fight it,” said ML Dhar, spokesman for India’s labour ministry, adding poverty in rural areas forces many parents to send their children to work in towns and cities. “People have to be more aware that it is wrong and illegal.” UNICEF’s Rialp agrees.

“We have to create a critical mass of people who question the traditional practice of child labour. This is far from reached.” The federal government has to depend on local officials in states to enforce child labour laws.

Weak at best: But data from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, two populous and poor states whose combined population is around a quarter of a billion people, shows enforcement of the new ban is weak, at best. In seven months, both states - with hundreds of thousands of children working in food stalls, restaurants and homes - have detected nearly 700 violations but filed only 20 prosecutions.

In New Delhi over the weekend, authorities rescued 93 children working as bonded labour in cramped and poorly ventilated rooms of gold and silver jewellery-making units. The government says nearly 400,000 children have been stopped from working and “mainstreamed” into the formal education system since 1988 through special state schools that provide food, vocational training, stipends and healthcare.

But poverty keeps many like Rajesh - who earns 600 rupees ($15) a month for cooking food and washing dishes - working. “My parents are poor. That is why I am here and not in school,” said Rajesh, the white of one of his eyes red and inflamed from a splash of hot cooking oil.

Recently the Maharashtra Government announced its plans for eradicating child labour by the year 2010. The plan includes a hefty budget that will be allocated to various NGOs. The plan aims at bringing child labour at all hazardous industries to an end by 2008.

The plan so far, includes a budget of Rs. 18.65 crores annually to be procured from various organisations. The government has asked the Maharashtra Labour Welfare department to shell out Rs. 5 crores and the Sarva Shikshan Abhiyan has been asked to spend Rs. 9 crores.

The government decided to conduct a survey to determine the exact numbers of child labourers in the State and to devise a plan for to create awareness amongst others against child labour.

Last year, 40,000 child workers were rescued from zari industries. The children were sent for rehabilitation to various NGOs like Pratham and Child Rights and You (CRY). The rehabilitation centres have been equipped to handle children from broken families and those exposed to the hardships of the world at a very young age. Organisations look after the education of the child and offer shelters for these children. Said Farida Lambay, Vice Principle of college of Social Work Nirmala Niketan and Founder Trustee of Pratham, "At Pratham, rescued children are sent for treatment along with their families."

The organisations have welcomed the decision of the state with open arms. Many have started charting out a plan of action for the awareness campaign to be used across the state.

"The city has been successful in eradicating 80 percent of child labourers in the last one and a half years," said Lambay. There were cases where it was found that the children were going back to the places they were working in. "It is not possible to keep a hold on all the rescued children but the number of children going back to their work places is a negligible amount," she added.

The non-governmental organizations do see a ray of hope by 2010. "Seeing the Mumbai model, the union government has asked all states to implement similar plans," said Lambay. The organisations are hoping that there will be no lack of political will. "The government should be serious and make sure that the funds are utilised honestly," said Rajesh Singh, All India Human
Rights President.

For now at least the plan has been materialized and simultaneous projects have started across the country. Organisations and the government have set their minds firmly on the 2010 deadline.

http://www.cybernoon.com/DisplayArticle.asp?section=fromthepress&subsection=
inbombay&xfile=May2007_inbombay_standard12977

The government is implementing the scheme of National Child Labour Projects (NCLP) since 1988. Under the scheme, children withdrawn from work are put into special schools where they are provided with education, vocational training, nutrition, stipend and health care facilities etc. These children are kept in the special schools for a period of maximum three years to prepare them to join the regular education system. At present, approximately 3.30 lakh children withdrawn from work are enrolled in the special schools under the NCLP Scheme. So far, under the scheme, 3.92 lakh children have already been mainstreamed into formal education system. Out of this, 1.36 lakh children have been mainstreamed between the years 2003-04 to 2005-06.

This was stated by the Minister of State (Independent Charge), Labour & Employment, Shri Oscar Fernandes in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.

In another written reply Shri Fernandes said that Rs. 108 crore were spent under NCLP for rehabilitation of child labour during the last financial year.

All the rescued children were working in hazardous gold and silver melting units in Regharpura and Beadonpura areas of Karol Bagh. Of the 93 children, 57 are below 14 years of age and some even 9-10 years of age. The rest of the children are between 14-18 years of age.

Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), an NGO, had got tips and input that a large number of children are working in extremely hazardous conditions in the illegal units in the Karol Bagh area. "We had deployed a team of our activists who gathered intelligence and the exact buildings where the children were working," said Kailash Satyarthi, Chairman of the NGO.

Labour and Industry Minister Mangat Ram Singhal said the working conditions of the children were extremely bad. "They were locked inside and had to work in difficult and hazardous conditions," he told the Hindustan Times. The minister said more such raids would take place as the government believed in "zero tolerance" towards child labour. 

The raiding team comprised of the local police, the area SDM, the BBA and the Labour Department of Delhi government. Specific input was provided by the NGO and the team raided 25 buildings in the lanes and by-lanes of Karol Bagh. When the rescued children were brought in the police station, a mob gathered and demonstrated.

"It was difficult to get information as the children ventured out only in the morning to buy basic necessities. But the efforts and surveillance of the last 15 days paid off and we managed to rescue the children from inhospitable conditions," said Satyarthi.

The team of BBA found that the children were exposed to chemical fumes and dust along with acid. They were also exposed to the dust from metals like silver and gold during the process of melting and shining. "No child can remain unhealthy in such circumstances," Satyarthi added.

Of the 93 rescued children, 90 hail from West Bengal and 2 from Bihar. One child was from Rajasthan. They have been lodged in Mukti Ashram, a home for such children, run by the BBA. Their medical examination would be done to determine what health problems are the children facing. After completing the legal formalities, the children would be sent back to the respective states for rehabilitation.

The Minister for Women and Children’s Affairs, Hajia Alima Mahama has sharply criticized the international media for portraying Ghana as a hub for child trafficking in Africa.

According to her the phenomenon of child trafficking in Ghana is often exaggerated in the Western Media creating the impression that the country endorses slavery.

Last week 25 trafficked Ghanaian children were reunited with their parents at Ekumpoano, a fishing community in the Central region by the International Organization for Migration.

But Hajia Mahama said child trafficking in Ghana must be understood within the cultural context of the people.

“Every country has their social problems. In other countries they have homeless people. ..If people are feeling guilty of slave trade in the past they shouldn’t share that guilt with us because we are not doing slave trade in Ghana,” she stated.

The Ghanaian government is continuing its investigation into labour practices in the country's cocoa industry with the publication of a report into child labour.

Ghana is the world's second largest cocoa growing region and many major manufacturers have invested in the area to ensure a steady and stable supply chain. Earlier this year, Swiss processor Barry Callebaut extended operations at its facilities in the country - adding a new processing line to double production.

According to the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) the country's commercial crop in 2005/06 reached a record high of 646,000 tonnes.

But, with cocoa growing spread across around 600,000 small farming communities, unsafe labour practices are a major concern for the Ghanaian government.

Deputy Minister with the Ministry of Manpower Akosua Frema Osei-Opare said: "Cocoa farming is part of the fabric of our nation, today as much as in the past. So, too, is the tradition of helping out on the family cocoa farm.

"As we move forward, we must preserve the rich history and traditions of cocoa farming, while ensuring that responsible, safe labour practices are used in Ghana."

According to the recently released Pilot Labour Survey in Cocoa Production in Ghana, 2.47 million children aged between 5 and 7 years are engaged in economic activites.

Cocoa farming is traditionally a family business with children being taught the necessary skills from a young age, allowing them to take over from older relatives.

The study examined around 600 cocoa farms and discovered children of all ages were involved in many aspects of the growing process. The degree of involvement varied according to age and activity but typical duties were weeding, carrying water for spraying, pod gathering, carting and drying beans.

Encouragingly, enrolment levels in local schools were generally high and investigators found children assisted in cocoa production mostly during the weekends and school holidays.

However, the report identified several hazards that present a significant risk to working children. Those in the 5-12 age group were particularly vulnerable to exposures to pesticides, farming related injuries, and injuries caused by carrying and walking long distances with heavy loads.

The report states: "It is for this minority of children, who are usually the most vulnerable, that well planned and organised interventions should be implemented as a matter of urgency to protect them and ensure that these children enjoy their right to full development."

The study was carried out as part of Ghana's National Program on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Cocoa (NPECLC).

The commentators are applauding a partial but real gentling of American politics these days. President George W. Bush and the opposition-dominated Congress are discussing a sensible middle way in what appeared to be an Iraq war of US rhetoric.

They also seem likely to reach near-unanimous agreement on immigration and illegal workers, one of the country's thorniest continuing problems. But it is unfortunate that this kinder, gentler relationship has come up with new rules for American trade. This may be good for the spirit of political compromise, but it is an unexpected and dangerous booby trap to the ideal of free trade with Thailand and much of the world.

The new rules are to be the basis of American trade rules that only a protectionist could love. It is arguably worse that President Bush himself has praised the deal.

Mr Bush has been a strong supporter of free trade, at least until recently. Even as the new trade rules were under discussion, his administration began filing suits against China at the World Trade Organisation.
The aim of the suits is to make it possible for the United States to penalise Chinese trade. By suing instead of negotiating, the US has put Chinese firms on notice that not even their signed contracts are necessarily dependable.

In brief, the new rules mean this: Every trade agreement signed by the United States must contain mention of labour and environmental standards.

Pending free-trade deals with South Korea, Peru, Panama and Colombia will have to be reworded.
All future trade agreements at any level must have such standards. That is, the US will not sign even a world trade agreement without such stipulations. Worst of all is the unwritten stipulation that the US can intervene and penalise pretty well any trade where its officials think they have spotted some violation of US standards.

It is not that the US has higher standards than many countries on issues such as child labour, say, or protection of the environment.

The trouble with this very troublesome new trade bill is that US standards are different, evolving, subject to change and always subject to interpretation. Thai officials must be extremely wary of such stipulations, because they are so insidious.

When rules about labour and environment appear, the stench of protectionism is pervasive.

Take child labour. Everyone agrees that factory assembly lines must not be staffed with children, and that no child should be subjected to manual labour.

But what of the 12-year-old who helps to serve the customers at the family noodle shop? Or, more correctly, what of the government that "allows" the child to help her mother for a few hours a day? Is the family-run vegetable garden a matter of child labour?

And for that matter, since we heard two weeks ago at a UN conference that rice fields are a major global-warming pollutant, would it be possible that a nation that grows rice is not abiding by international environmental standards? Could the United States put a punitive tax on that country's imports of, say, auto parts?

Under the new law, it could. US Trade Representative Susan Schwab, who brokered the trade deal and also placed Thailand on the high-priority watch list for piracy, is trying to sell the agreement as altruistic.
The rules will encourage the world to raise their respect for workers and environment. So she says. Best of all, to some, is that no appeal will be allowed from any country or company who thinks the rules are unfair.
After all, if a country allows child labour, it doesn't deserve a level playing field.

Protectionism comes in many forms. The US is neither the first nation to employ what economists call non-trade barriers, nor are its new rules the most aggressive.

But most of the world depends on the US, both as a major trading partner and to lead on free-trade policy.
It is too bad that the extreme protectionists of the right and the anti-trade unionists of the American left have been able to push through a decidedly immoderate agreement in the name of free trade.

Ranchi, May 15: Jharkhand Labour Minister Bhanu Pratap Shahi today declared that the state would soon have its own Child Labour Commission.

Talking to reporters here, Mr Shahi said the Union government had advised on constituting a child labour commission in Jharkhand, which would be formed soon after state cabinet's approval.

Speaking on the efforts of strengthening employement exchanges in the state, Mr Shahi said registration in these exchanges would be mandatory for fresh appointments.

Mr Shahi alleged that employement exchanges were non-functional during the erstwhile NDA regime, adding that he had also advised the state Human Resources Minister to make registration mandatory in the employement exchanges for appoinment of para-teachers.

He said that pension under the social security scheme would be incresed to Rs 400 and about 6,00,000 people would be benefitted from it.

Mr Shahi, who also holds the health portfolio, said about 3,000 ANMs and would be appointed in the department.

DAKAR (AFP) - Child trafficking continues unabated in Africa but efforts to rehabilitate those affected is hampered by poverty and long-held traditions, a regional forum heard on Friday.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that some 1.2 million children are trafficked globally and a third of the victims -- 400,000 -- are in west and central Africa.

However only around 10,000 children are rehabilitated and reintegrated into normal social life.

"A drop in the ocean," lamented Elkane Mooh, regional advisor for Save the Children, on the sidelines of a regional conference on human trafficking.

The children's re-insertion into normal life is rendered complex by the increasing numbers unwilling to return to their original homes, dreading the poverty that drove them out in the first place, the conference heard.

In 2004, about 60 children from Mali were rounded up in Senegal and sent home, but experts said a few months later they were spotted back in the country, considered better off than its poverty-stricken neighbours.

In Africa, child trafficking and abuse is fuelled by poverty which forces families to entrust their children into the care of richer family members who often exploit them as heavy domestic or farm labour.

Most of the children earn very little or do not get paid at all, and some are sexually abused. As a result, child trafficking and exploitation is considered to be essentially sanctioned and run by families themselves.
Pierre Ferry, a specialist consultant with the UN Children's Fund said trafficked children take on the migrant psychology.

"They left for something and if they return with nothing, that's a failure," he said. "For example, lots of young girls leave for the city to gather items for their dowry, and if they go back without, it's traumatic for them."
Now efforts to reunite children with their families are handled on a case by case basis, as opposed to mass repatriation, experts say.

"One child may want to return home, but another could have found a niche in their country of destination," Mooh said.

Specialists from 12 west and central African countries and from international non-governmental organisations have been meeting here since Wednesday to seek ways to combat human trafficking.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070511/wl_africa_afp/africatrafficking_070511191437

A growing number of Palestinian children are roaming the streets of Gaza looking for a meagre wage to help support their families in the impoverished territory.

Instead of going to school, Ahmed, 13, dodges vehicles in one of Gaza City’s busiest streets trying desperately to sell candy to motorists on the move. Working feverishly to peddle his merchandise at the smoky intersection, Ahmed said he cannot afford to slow down.

“I am the bread-winner for my 12-member family,” the boy said. “I work every day, all week, and I get about 20 shekels($5) a day. At home, we almost never eat meat, maybe once a month.”

Ahmed is not alone. With unemployment topping 60 per cent in the crowded strip of land squeezed between Israel and the Mediterranean, hundreds of children like him have taken on the role of providers as most families have little or no income.

The Western freeze on direct aid to the Palestinian government headed by Hamas, an Islamic group that has spurned donors’ demands to recognise Israel, has only deepened the economic despair in Gaza.

Children sell cigarettes along Gaza’s beaches, and some even venture into Jewish settlements Israel demolished before its withdrawal in 2005 to steal scrap metal and earn small change. Such forays can be dangerous, drawing Israeli fire at times, when youngsters stray into Israeli-designated “no-go” are as along the tightly controlled border.

Ten-year-old Atteya, selling biscuits and lighters at a busy Gaza intersection, said failure is not an option. “If you are shy, you will not sell what the (supplier) gave you and you may get beaten or fired. Sometimes if you return home without any money you will be beaten by your father,” Atteya said.

Palestinian labour law bans children under the age of 15 from working. But lawlessness pervades the Gaza Strip and the prohibition is ignored. Some children turn to crime. “Why do I steal? the conditions made me steal,” Kahil, 15,said from inside al-Rabeea juvenile detention centre in Gaza City.

“The first thing I stole was an apple,” he said, explaining that the path to bigger thefts was a natural progression. “I was visiting somebody at home and I stole some necklaces from his house. He caught me and handed me to the police and I ended up here,” he said, speaking from an institution founded during Egyptian rule in 1958.

Kahil’s father had been sick at home and the boy said he had to steal so his nine-member family could eat. “It was both to make a living for my family and to entertain myself,” he said. Officials at the centre said the high level of unemployment in Gaza was a major cause of juvenile delinquency. Al-Rabeea currently holds 14 boys, all aged between 12 and 18, but the number of detainees has exceeded 30.

The figures are low by Western standards but alarming for residents of the Gaza Strip, a traditional Muslim society where juvenile crime used to be rare although nearly half the 1.5 million inhabitants are under the age of 18.

“Theft is the most recurring crime in light of the economic conditions. Poverty and unemployment are the main reasons for the bad behaviour of the children,” said psychologist Nabil Taha, a teacher at the centre. “Most of the boys’ fathers are unemployed, there is no work and there is no food, so they are forced to steal,” he said.

Sixteen-year-old Karam was arrested and taken to the centre after police found him in possession of cables belonging to Gaza’s electricity company. “I have a family of 12 people. My father is married to two women and I have stolen to make a living,” Karam said.

Taha said the role of the institution was to provide the boys with treatment, rehabilitation and care. But with summer holidays coming, officials at the centre expect an annual spike in child crime. “We have been successful with many children who left the institution and never came back, but sadly, some return tim eater time,” Taha said.

Globalisation advocates haven't had much to cheer about in recent times. However, the newly-developed trade pact between Democrat and Republican legislators in the US could change all that.

The Bush administration last week reached agreement with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, to attach environmental and worker protections in several pending trade accords, clearing the way for early passage of some pacts and improving prospects for others.

The unusual agreement, which came after weeks of negotiations, would guarantee workers the right to organise, ban child labour and prohibit forced labour in trading-partner countries.

It would also require trading partners to enforce environmental laws already on their books and comply with several international environmental agreements.

The agreement is a win-win for both the Democrats, who control both houses of congress, and President Bush, who in the face of his unpopularity over his stewardship of the Iraq war, now has an opportunity to fashion a legacy on trade liberalisation in the last months of his presidency.

The short-term effect of the deal, the first major bipartisan economic pact since the Democrats seized control of the legislature in January, is to allow ratification of four pending bilateral trade deals between the US and Colombia, Panama, Peru, and South Korea.

More importantly, however, officials in Washington DC now believe the pact could open the floodgates for a raft of new trade deals, and possibly help clinch a meaningful outcome in the World Trade Organisation’s multilateral Doha round.

The negotiations were led on the Republican side by Susan Schwab, the US Trade Representative, and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Representative Charles “Chuck’’ Rangel, a New York Democrat who chairs the House Ways and Means committee, led the Democrats in the negotiation, which lasted several weeks.

The pact is not a blank cheque for the White House, which will still probably have to shepherd individual deals through the Congress line by line. However, its strike rate of passage is likely to increase expotentially.

Democrats have been wary of giving President Bush open-ended trade promotion authority (TPA), or the ability to ‘fast-track’ deals, although Mr. Rangel says he can imagine a limited extension of such negotiating authority if the Doha round talks looked as if they were shaping up to be a good deal for the US.

The administration’s current TPA expires at the end of next month.

New Zealand’s trade minister, Phil Goff, says the prospects are now brighter for a conclusion to the Doha round, and also for the US to consider entering into further bilateral free trade agreements, including New Zealand.

However, he says this doesn't mean that the TPA will automatically be renewed.

The prospects for this happening will be enhanced if the G4 economies (US, EU, Brazil, India) achieve a breakthrough on issues currently dividing them. If this occurs, Congress would be unlikely to block the TPA, Mr Goff says.

The minister is justifiably cautious about jumping to any conclusions about New Zealand’s chances of an FTA with the US being accelerated.

“No decisions at this point have been made regarding entering new negotiations for free trade agreements with New Zealand or any other country,” he says.

Education, consumer awareness aid in stopping workplace abuses

Washington – Nearly 30 years ago, when activist Kailash Satyarthi began rescuing children who were bonded laborers in India, he had little company.

“child labour was a non-issue,” he told USINFO. “Now we see thousands of organizations are dedicated, very genuinely working to eradicate child labour.”  His efforts sparked young people, businesses and governments to cooperate in eradicating a practice that robs a child of well-being and a future.

To Satyarthi, who leads raids on offenders and epic marches against child labour, the solution lies in education. “Education is the answer to violence, education is the answer to conflicts,” he said at an April 26 event for youth organized by the International Center for child labour and Education (ICCLE), part of an international campaign for universal education.

Satyarthi recognized early that merely freeing children was not enough. Not only the children, but societies that employ children as laborers must be educated for the abuses to stop. He urges governments, activists and businesses to unite to prevent children from being forced to haul bricks at construction sites or work in mines or quarries when they should be in classrooms. Today, eliminating child labour is “very much on the political agenda; it’s very much in the social discourse and discussion,” he told USINFO.

But acknowledging child bondage is just a start in a world where, according to UNICEF, an estimated 218 million children aged 5 to 17 are forced to work, often in hazardous environments for little or no pay. This figure omits millions of children who work long hours as domestic servants and are vulnerable to abuse. Satyarthi says a significant number of children are sold into servitude.

Because Satyarthi believes abolishing child labour is “a matter of corporate social responsibility,” he founded RugMark, with the help of concerned businesses and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), to enlist market forces against child labour. Since 1994, RugMark has rehabilitated about 3,500 child weavers from “one of the problematic industries” that use child labour to keep costs down, RugMark director Nina Smith told USINFO.

RugMark offers voluntary, “child-labor-free” certification to carpet factories, soliciting retail outlets to stock RugMark certified carpets.  A recently launched “Most Beautiful Rug” consumer awareness campaign promotes rugs made by adult weavers. “[A] rug made by child labour is ugly, no matter what it looks like,” Smith says.

“The market here is growing. Something like one-third of U.S. consumers incorporate their social, environmental and spiritual values into their purchases,” Smith explained. “We believe about 15 percent market share -- we  are at 2 percent now – is the tipping point for where the industry would be child-labor-free, sometime in the next decade. One of the good things about what we do, our mission is achievable,” she says. RugMark income goes to rehabilitation and vocational training programs in South Asia.

The U.S. Department of Labor supports such multilevel approaches, according to Marcia Eugenio, director of the department’s International Labor Affairs Bureau. Since 1995, the United States has appropriated nearly $600 million for child labour and trafficking eradication efforts in 79 countries.  “As of the end of March 2007, we actually reached our 1 million children target,” she told USINFO. U.S. technical assistance includes refurbishing schools, training for children and adults, and access to microcredit.

Eugenio explains that children often labor away from the eyes of inspectors: “They are down in the supply chain to a point where they are not directly linked with the formal sector of the economy.”  Changing attitudes at the community level is critical to stopping child labour, she says.

U.S. grant money funneled through large NGOs to local organizations supports building sustainable programs. Annual reports to Congress track the nature and extent of child labour in countries around the world. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2005 mandates publication of a list of goods and companies associated with forced labor each year.

The Asia Pacific regions have the largest number of child labourers, followed by Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, according to UNICEF.

Satyarthi’s group, Bachpan Bachao Andolan, operates three centers in India that prepare former child labourers for productive lives through counseling and appropriate training. In 2006, the U.S. State Department, through the U.N. Development Fund for Women, funded the group’s public awareness campaign for child labour trafficking.

“I’ve come here to remind you about the children who are like any one of us, who are not able to go to school and have dreams and aspirations,” said Kinsu Kumar, a 12-year-old boy from India rescued from domestic servitude. He was among several former child labourers from India, Africa and Colombia who accompanied Satyarthi and shared their stories. Now in school, he said “I wish each one of us can work together to give the same opportunity to other children in bonded labor.”

(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

Palmerston North children have taken a stand against the exploitation of child labour, and their views were on display at the city's Trade Aid shop at the weekend.

A postcard competition was one of a number of events organised by Trade Aid in the lead up to World Fair Trade Day on Saturday.

Entries in the local competition were exhibited in the shop's window and Palmerston North MP Steve Maharey presented prizes to the winners.

Naomi Vos, five, won the primary school section and Evie Feierabend, 13, won the secondary school section.

Evie was announced the overall winner and her entry will be sent to Belgium for the International Fair Trade Association worldwide competition.

Child marriages and child labour are rampant in Cane Grove and its surrounding communities and Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Priya Manickchand with the help of residents has set up a committee to deal with these issues.

The committee's immediate responsibility is to get the names of all the children in the area who are not attending school.

In addition, the committee must find out the reason for the children's non-attendance at school and the minister pledged to return to the village in an effort to address the problems.

She warned that the marrying of young children should not be tolerated as the laws of Guyana clearly states that any person having sex with a child under the age of 16 could be charged with rape.

Complaints about the child marriages, child labour and the non-attendance at school were raised during a meeting at the Cane Grove Neigh-bourhood Democratic Council (NDC) office. In attendance at the meeting were the minister and a number of other officials, including Special Advisor to President Bharrat Jagdeo, Sri Prakash Gossai, Jamal Imran of the CIOG, the area MP Anil Nandalall and Region Four's Regional Chairman Clement Corlette. Residents raised a number of issues from garbage disposal to the problems faced by the dust emanating from a rice mill and the delay in the issuing of land titles. It was a teacher who raised the issues affecting children.

Some residents said poverty was the reason parents in the area sent their young children to work rather than to school and why they "married off" young girls. Some were not too keen on the issues being raised. Grumbles were heard in the audience as the teacher spoke and some men in the room were heard quietly trying to dissuade the teacher from speaking. One man got up and left the meeting after the minister and the other officials took a serious stand on the issues.

According to the teacher, who was later supported by another teacher, parents were keeping their children away from school and sending no excuse for the absences. He said teachers were afraid to visit homes, as parents were sometimes very abusive. Recently one parent even went into the school and abused a teacher and the police were called in, he recalled.

"We are afraid. Parents cussing you up when you talk to them but it is a serious problem; child labour and children marrying children," the teacher said. While no indication was given as to the number of child marriages in the communities, they appeared to be rampant as none of the residents, even those who disagreed with the issue being raised, denied that it was a major happening.

The teacher said one young boy told him if he does not take money home, his mother beats him.
Last week there was to be a wedding between two children but the ministry got wind of it and it was stopped. However, according to some persons there was still some sort of celebration at one of the homes as music was heard and people had gathered on the day the wedding was expected to take place.
Some residents feel parents have no alternative because of the poverty situation. "You can't blame de parents dem. You gaffa understand dat people have to eat and in dis community de digging of trench and drain is a big moneymaker. But now is only some people and dem family getting de contract so parents have to send dem children to work," one resident reasoned. Some residents also alleged that only some persons received public assistance.

While Pandit Prakash Gossai and Mr Imran from CIOG emphasised the importance of a good education they both stopped short of saying child marriages is wrong.

Gossai informed the residents that the first 25 years of a Hindu's life should be spent on being educated. He said he found the situation very worrying as parents are not thinking about the progress of their children, while in every part of the world the focus was on ensuring children received at least basic education.

"If parents prevent their children from receiving education they are sinners," he warned. He stressed that no one knew the potential of a child and it would be unfair for that child not to be given the opportunity to realise his/her full potential. The pandit is of the opinion that a law should be implemented, which mandates a penalty for parents who refuse to send their children to school. This remark was greeted with a rousing round of applause from the residents. He said if parents do not send their children to school then Cane Grove will become one of the most illiterate communities in the country.

Pandit Gossai read a letter from the headmistress of the school in the area, who was unable to attend the meeting due to illness. In it, she said late attendance at school was 20%; there are a number of children who are irregular at school and no excuse is sent by parents; and school dropouts and under age employment are big problems.

Mr Imran told the villagers that according to the Koran, God says if a person should make one step towards him, he would make several steps towards that person. He urged parents to take up the responsibility of their children's well-being, including ensuring that they are educated.

"Poverty should not be an excuse for you not to educate your child," the religious leader stressed. He said in the end the children are the ones who will punish.

Minister Manickchand urged the religious leaders in the area-Imans, Pandits and Pastors-to refuse to marry under aged children and to tell parents that it is wrong. The minister suggested that they also counsel the parents and give them guidance. She said religious leaders are the first to know about these intended marriages and they should contact her ministry and inform officials about the cases. "Any person who has sex with a girl under the age of 16 is committing rape; that is the law of Guyana. You [the religious leaders] have to be on the ground to stop it," the minister said.

The pandit in the area told the minister that he knew each and every family in the area and was aware of those who do not send their children to school. He also said he knew about the child marriages but did not say if he officiated at any.

He said he had no intention of marrying the two children who were expected to get married last week, as it was a child getting married to a child. He also pledged that he would be on the committee visiting homes to find out the reasons for children not attending school. He said he already knew which parents needed assistance to send their children to school. "I am not scared to undertake this job. I would go into people's house and talk to them. I just need one or two persons to stand by me," he said.

It was at this point that the minister constituted and tasked the committee with finding those children not attending school. She said she is not in favour of disciplining the parents, until the reason for their children's non-attendance is received and the assistance is given to them. If after they receive the assistance the child is still not sent to school then the parent should be made to answer.

THE Employment Act states that children under 12 years are not to be employed except for light work or in a family business where they are paid on a daily basis.

But if we look around we see children employed as wheelbarrow boys, bottle collectors, shoeshine boys, supermarket packers, bus checkers, farm hands and in many other areas.

Most of the children are forced to do hard labour to provide for their family.

In most cases their parents were forced out of employment for health reasons or lost their jobs because of circumstances such as coups or political upheavals.

The Wikipedia encyclopedia describes child labour as employment of children under an age determined by law or custom.

Child labour can be factory work, mining or quarrying, agriculture, helping in the family business, selling food or doing odd jobs.

Today, we hear of child prostitution. Mothers are forced to send their daughters on to the streets to supplement the income at home.

The economic situation in Fiji does not bring any assurance because more and more people are being sent home, and fewer tourists are coming for a holiday.

Poor families rely on the labour of their children for survival. In some cases they are the sole breadwinner in the family.

Not long ago, an independent study on child labour was commissioned by the Fiji Employers Federation on behalf of the British American Tobacco company.

In that report, traditional farming communities which were surveyed said they expected rural children to help with family tasks including working on the tobacco farm.

The study found that two per cent of farm children in tobacco growing areas missed school on a regular basis to work on the farms while 18 per cent missed school during busy crop periods.

Child Labour Planning Committee chairman Nezbit Hazelman said this year's World Day against Child Labour, to be celebrated on June 12, would focus on the elimination of child labour in agriculture.

He said agriculture was where the largest percentage of working children was found worldwide.

An International Labour Organisation paper presented at the meeting yesterday stated more than 132 million girls and boys aged five to 14 years often worked from sunrise to sunset around the world on farms planting and harvesting crops, spraying pesticide and tending livestock.

Child labour, according to the ILO convention, is work that harms children's wellbeing and hinders their education, development and future livelihood.

When children work long hours in the fields, their ability to attend school or skills training is limited and this prevents them from gaining education which would lift them out of poverty in the future. ILO director Abu Zakaria said the fight against child labour in the world continued to be a daunting challenge.

In a training report held in March and released yesterday on child labour issues in Fiji, Mr Zakaria stated while people in the Pacific were in an advantageous position not to have a large number of child labourers it did not mean that its worst forms did not exist.

"As a matter of fact this is a new but progressively growing concern.

"In Fiji, children work as garage hands, in small shops, repairing shoes and spreading insecticide in farms and many other areas," he said.

UNICEF child protection project officer in the Pacific Mereia Carling said children's rights were defined in the Convention of the Rights of the Child and constituted what they were legally entitled to in order to survive, be protected and develop.

She said the four principles of the convention could be used to asses whether a working child was a child labourer or not.

"UNICEF recognises work at home is all right as long as it is not dangerous and does not prevent the child from going to school," she said.

Labour Ministry's standard services manager Harbans Narayan said a child under 12 years should not be employed except for light work and family-owned agricultural business earning a wage paid on a day to day basis.

He said the child must return home to his parents before nightfall.

"The restrictions on employment include any which is dangerous, industrial work and attending to machinery.

"There must be 30 minutes break every two hours and not more than six hours of work a day.
"The total time spent at work and school is not to be more than seven hours.

Ministry of Education deputy secretary Filipe Jitoko said it was hard to keep children at school.

"There is a need to work with policies from various angles to deal with the problem of keeping children at school and there is no simple solution.

"That is why the ministry is keen to look at total partnerships to tackle the challenge effectively," he said.
Mr Jitoko said there was a continuous decline in primary school enrolment and in secondary schools there was a need to retain more children in the classroom.

He said the secondary school dropout rate was high with the highest after Form Four because of those who failed the Fiji Junior Certificate Examination.

Mr Jitoko said causes for dropping out of school included family financial situation, peer pressure between students, disciplinary problems which has increased in schools, lack of opportunities, access problems for those in rural areas and lack of support for secondary education as most were in urban areas.

He said some students simply did not find education interesting and some, especially in the cane belt areas, were expected to be employed by the families.

Social worker Maheezabeen Khalid, a member of the Fiji Muslim League women's branch said child labour was prevalent in Suva and urban areas because of expiring land leases forcing farmers and their families to join the urban drift in search of a place to live and work.

"There are more squatters in Suva and such, child labour in squatter settlements is prevalent."
Ms Khalid said even though there were no statistics available the government of the day needed to address the issue seriously as it was a growing problem.

"We visit these areas and through our social work the children are persuaded to return to school."

Ms Khalid said in most cases they saw, children were forced into paid work because of poverty and broken families. She said most of the families where these children came from earned less than $60 a week.
Ms Khalid said the Muslim League had a special fund kept aside which was used to pay for the school fees of children forced into employment for various reasons.

"We have helped many families and Muslims from around the world donate."

Ms Khalid said more children could be forced into employment because many workers being laid off as a result of factory closures.

She said most families found it hard to help themselves and many women were often left on their own to fend for their children while the husband stayed with another woman.

Namibia's journey towards development and industrialisation, can the many and varied cultures of its people be allowed to continue unchanged? This question of culture versus development was just one of a series of dilemmas confronted by participants at a recent workshop held in Outjo to try and find solutions to the country's child-labour problem.

According to a 1999 survey conducted by the Ministry of Labour (Namibia Child Activities Survey or NCAS), 23 per cent of all children in rural areas were working, while in urban areas this figure stood at 2.3 per cent.
More than half of these working children - 40 000 - were younger than 14, the survey found.

In Outjo, the work some children are expected to do includes getting involved in the sex trade for family members who act as pimps, and in the charcoal producing industry.

According to Kunene Regional Councillor Thomas Sheya, some children move into this area from the Kavango Region with their parents to work as charcoal burners.

"These children don't go to school.

They live here in plastic make-shifts," he told fellow participants.

Farmers generally make use of a loophole in the law to clear themselves of responsibility for these children, workshop facilitator and International Labour Organisation (ILO) consultant Ulfried Schwacke said.

While all farm owners interviewed by the organisation denied knowledge that children were working for them in charcoal production, some apparently said that they did not know whether or not there were cases of children "helping their parents".

This would not be their problem, as these parents are under "self-employed" contracts, Schwacke said.
Participants, ranging from Police officers to teachers, farmers and civil servants, shared their own examples of children they thought were being exploited.

These include the children of farm owners, or of farmers' extended families, who especially on communal farms are expected to work in exchange for being allowed to live and eat on these farms.
Whereas the work these children do would generally be worthy of compensation, the fact that the labourers are children and family members lead to a situation where they are forced to do this work for free, participants suggested.

These children are often not sent to school either, participants said.

Despite Namibia's legal commitment to stopping the worst forms of child labour from occurring, a discussion document completed by the ILO and handed over to the Ministry of Gender and Child Welfare last week cites weak systems of enforcement and inspection, along with parental approval or insistence, as obstacles.

"Legal protection in itself is not a guarantee that the practice will be abolished.

"Poverty, short-sighted economic interest, lack of motivation, poor training, political interference, corruption, lack of will and failure to understand the importance of children all play a role," the ILO states.

"By the very nature of the worst forms of child labour, often illegal or concealed by the adults and children involved, there is limited access to information, particularly statistics in Namibia, as is true for the rest of the world," it continues.

As far as the sex trade goes, child pornography does not seem to happen in Namibia, Schwacke said, although children are being used in transactional sex work, or sex in exchange for food, clothes and other household support.

n Outjo, a number of children were recently expelled from high school after it was found that they were engaged in the commercial sex trade, he said.

The school where they had been enrolled apparently felt that they would have a bad influence on fellow pupils.

The expulsion of these children, Schwacke said, was deemed as unfortunate, as they would now be in an even worse dilemma than before.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200705110386.html

They have no wage-board, no unions to take up and fight their cause. By all conservative estimates, the average working period is 17 hours, without any rest during the day.

Their average remuneration varies between Rs 200 to Rs 500 per month on which very few have control.
While 68.3 per cent of the Child Domestic Workers (CDW) population, who were under research, admitted of facing physical abuse, 86 per cent suffered emotional abuse and nearly 90 per cent had been victims of sexual abuse. Meet this generation of child domestic workers of West Bengal.

Save the Children UK, which had been working extensively in West Bengal for the child domestic workers have concluded a thorough research of three years recently. The research was spread over four districts of the state East Midnapore, West Midnapore, Murshidabad and South 24 Parganas.

The state social welfare department is taking the research seriously, since it is the only document available with the state. 

The research has revealed that nearly 70 per cent of CDW, who were under the research scan, faced physical abuse, varying from being beaten, kicked, punched, slapped, depriving of meals and even burned, and above 85 per cent were subjected to being shouted at, cursed, threatened and blamed.
Meanwhile, a large section of almost 90 per cent are facing various forms of sexual abuse, which involves forced sexual intercourse, touching of private parts and being made to watch pornographic material.
The research has divided sexual abuse under four categories: CDW who have had their private parts touched, CDW, who were forced to touching private parts, CDW forced to sexual intercourse and CDW made to watch pornography. While 32.2 per cent of the total children researched have confessed to being forced to molestation and fondling, 22.4 per cent have been forced to touch the abuser’s private parts (masturbation).

Again, while 20.3 per cent were forced to sexual intercourse, 19.5 per cent were shown pornographic stuff.
Its not just girls, who are the victims of sexual abuse, even out of 35 male participants 25 per cent were victims of either touching or being touched, 5.7 per cent were sodomised and 8.6 per cent had been made to watch pornography. In majority of these cases the abuse has happened more than once, most abusers belong to the employer’s family, someone who is known to the child and has certain power over them.
On physical abuse, while 46 per cent admitted of facing severe abuses, that left them badly injured, 25.3 per cent children complained of cuts/bruises because of violence. “Woken up from sleep by a kick, hair being pulled, face being punched and head being banged against the wall are very common experiences of physical abuse.

The research mentions one Bulbul, who would be scratched by her employer’s long nails and kicked in the stomach because she “took a bit longer to finish her work.” More than 60 per cent admitted that there was no medical attention, following abuse. 

This goes for the abuse, even the basic requirements food, clothing, shelter and security are denied to child workers, who are mostly girls and between age group of 11 to 16 years. While 31 per cent of CDW do not get any rest during the day, 41 per cent have only two or less than two hours of rest during the day.
While 33.1 per cent complained about frugal meals,42.1 per cent were dissatisfied with clothing and 41 per cent found their employer’s place unsafe.        

Principal secretary of Social Welfare department, S N Haque, said that the research was thorough. However, whatever needs to be done, has to be done by the state labour department, which is dealing with the issue of child labour.

Mr Haque said that his department has rescued and rehabilitated children of Howrah and Hooghly, who worked as domestic help in Mumbai and Delhi. According Haque, Save the Children UK, have spent Rs 22 lakhs on rehabilitation programmes.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=dbd5d403-5ae3-457e-be14-
e9bd5ba66d76&&Headline='70%25+W+Bengal+child+workers+face+abuse'

Nepal’s Maoist armed forces should immediately release all children from their forces, including thousands of child soldiers held for months in cantonment sites in Nepal, Human Rights Watch said today.
Human Rights Watch in a letter today urged the new Minister of Women, Children and Social Welfare, Khadga Bahadur Bishwakarma, to secure the Maoists’ cooperation with the United Nations and child protection agencies to allow children to return home without further delay. Bishwakarma is also a member of the central committee of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-Maoist).

Of more than 30,000 Maoist cadres registered in the cantonment sites created under Nepal’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement, an estimated 6,000 to 9,000 are believed to be children under the age of 18.

“There’s no excuse for letting children languish in cantonment sites month after month,” said Jo Becker, children’s advocate at Human Rights Watch. “Under the terms of Nepal’s peace agreement, these children should be released immediately so they can enter rehabilitation programs, get back into school, and rejoin their families.”

The November 2006 peace agreement between the Nepalese government and the Maoists specifically prohibits the enlistment or use of children under the age of 18, and specifies that such children should be immediately “rescued” and provided with rehabilitation services.

The Human Rights Watch letter noted that Bishwakarma attended a February conference in Paris, where representatives from 58 states committed themselves to putting an end to the unlawful recruitment and use of children in armed conflicts. At the conference, governments agreed to support and apply new guidelines, known as the “Paris Principles,” for protecting children from recruitment and providing assistance to those who have already been involved with armed forces or groups.

“Minister Bishwakarma should work with the Maoists to implement the commitments that have been made,” said Becker. Human Rights Watch also noted its deep concern at credible reports that children continue to be recruited by Maoist forces in various parts of the country.

In the February 2007 report, “Children in the Ranks: The Maoists’ Use of Child Soldiers in Nepal,” Human Rights Watch documented how children as young as 14 served on the front lines, received weapons training, and carried out crucial military and logistical support duties for the Maoists. The report also documented ongoing recruitment of children by the Maoists even after the signing of the peace agreement.
A December 2006 report by the United Nations secretary-general to the UN Security Council specifically recommended that the Maoists should immediately end the use of children and cease any new recruitment of children. It said the Maoists should immediately engage with the UN country team in Nepal for an action plan to ensure transparent procedures for the release and verification of all children within the Maoist armed forces and all other CPN-Maoist-affiliated organizations.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/05/08/nepal15862.htm

Every year when May rolls around, we celebrate Child Month. However, throughout the entire year, awful things happen to the children of Jamaica. In recent years, there have been implementations that would want to gloss over these occurences as well as genuine attempts to make children's lives better.

One of these attempts by the government came during the 2007-2008 budget presentations by Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller. Madam prime minister announced that health-care will be provided "free of cost" for children up to the age of 18 years. In this one announcement, all fees, including for registration, hospital and medication, were removed for minors in all public hospitals except for University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI). TEENage applauds this move.

On another note, the preparations for the annual Children's Expo is in full swing. This event that usually targets children 12 years and under is now hosting events wherein everyone - young, in between and old - can participate. This expo will include career seminars and news talk among other informative proceedings. In essence, for the first time, the seminar not only targets the youngsters of Jamaica, but the older generation as well.

Also, coming into effect this year, is a recommendation of the Education Task Force Report- the Ministry of Education will begin dismantling the shift system in schools as early as September. TEENage welcomes this effort.

However, though these developments will improve the well-being of our youths, it would almost spell blindness if the authorities believe these areas are the only one that need fixing.

It is a reality that our children are being mistreated and are left to suffer everyday.

Nowadays, it is a sad, but true fact that there is an increasing number of teenage girls bearing two or more children. Recently, it was brought to the attention of Jamaicans that a 17-year-old from St Elizabeth lost one of her children in a fire which engulfed her home made of ply-boards. It was said that she left the two children at home unattended.

The surviving child, a four-year-old, has since been taken into a government place of safety. The children's mother is also pregnant with a third child. With this information being brought to the attention of the government, is it not the time for them to be taking a drastic step to stop history from repeating? And there many more cases like that all across Jamaica.

Another issue raised while having our weekly editorial meeting, was child labour in Jamaica. TEENage can say without apology that there are thosands of children on the roads earning bed for themselves and their families. We, as TEENs, see them whenever we are on our way to school, going home from the cinema and shopping with our parents/guardians in the plazas. And, it is painful to realise that those children cannot have a similar existence.

What is worse, is the fact that everyday, children are being sold and traded in order to provide for the entire family. If you can recall the incident in St Elizabeth where a 12-year-old girl's parents traded her for a plot of land. Children are being exploited and subjected to humiliation like this everyday.

So, the next time we commemorate Child's Month, let us think about what has happened to the children of Jamaica and decide whether we have something to celebrate.

Assistant labour commissioner Mallikarjun S Thimmoli on Monday May 7 claimed that the district is almost free from child labour.

He was speaking at a seminar organized as a part of the Labourers’ Day at Kanara Small Scale Industries Association at Baikampady here.

The department had decided to declare the district free from child labour last year but due to technical reason could not carry out the same. In November 2006 the legislation intended to prevent child labour system came in to effect. All the children below 14 years, who work for household chores, too were brought under its purview.

Thimmoli said that it was necessary to have inspection in the district to go further in this regard. He also said that the district will be declared as ‘child labour-free district’ very soon.

Principal district and sessions judge H M Bharatesh in his presidential address said that the police should be cooperative and sympathetic towards the labourers when they fight for their rights.  If it is in connection with the rightful benefits let them fight for justice, do not stop them, he said.

SP Dayanand addressing labourers at the workplace spoke on the rights of the female labourers and sexual harassment on women at the workplace and expressed his happiness over the fact that sexual harassment at workplace was rare in DK. He also informed the labourers that they should think seriously about the new initiative of government in banning night shifts for women employees.

First additional senior civil judge N S Mamadapur was also present on this occasion

The labour department is on a national drive to stamp out child labour.

At the last count in 1999, more than 4,8-million of South Africa's 13,4-million children between the ages of 5 and 17 were involved in some form of economic activity.

Yet it is illegal in terms of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act to hire anyone aged 15 or younger.

"Children between the age of 15 and 17 are only allowed to work if there are protective mechanisms in the working environment," said department spokesperson Zolisa Sigaba.

The director of the Campaign Against Child Labour, Francesca Velaphi, said Aids, poverty and being too old for their grade resulted in many children seeking jobs.

"You find that households that take care of Aids orphans require them to work excessive hours, or to do work that is inappropriate for their age," said Velaphi.

Poverty at home also causes children to seek jobs on farms or in factories, where they are often exploited.

"Neglect by parents also causes children to go out and look for ways to make a living, like prostitution, for example," said Velaphi.

She said if labour inspectors stopped a child from working, however, the child needed to be offered an alternative, such as being helped to access social grants.

The justice system also needed to clamp down on adults who use children to commit crime, she added.

"These adults should be made to take responsibility. We must not let the children face the music alone," she said.

In 2006, governments and civil society organisations from Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland met in Johannesburg to share ideas on how to combat child labour in sub-Saharan Africa.

Sigaba said it was estimated that more than 50 million children in sub-Saharan Africa between the ages of 5 and 14 were economically active.

The Campaign Against Child Labour began on April 16 and ends on May 16. - African Eye News Service

MUSCAT — Some countries of the region have introduced major modifications in their labour policies in recent years, particularly with respect to foreign workers, a key International Labour Organisation (ILO) official said here on Saturday.

Nada Al Nashef, Beirut-based Regional Director for Arab countries, said there had been some ‘serious and positive’ changes in labour strategies in a number of the region's states. These include an unemployment compensation scheme introduced by Bahrain and labour reforms in Oman, the UAE and also Bahrain, she added.

"These changes," Nashef said, "reflect a strong interest by these countries to improve the status of foreign labour and give them equal treatment in pay and care as fundamental labour rights dictate."

She was speaking at the opening of a three-day regional seminar on the ILO 'Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work'. The meeting, hosted by the Oman government in conjunction with ILO, was inaugurated by Manpower Minister Dr Juma bin Ali bin Juma.

The declaration, adopted in 1998, aims to ensure that social progress goes hand in hand with economic development, and commits member states to respect and promote principles and rights in four categories: freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining, the elimination of forced or compulsory labour, the abolition of child labour and the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

It also underlines that that these rights are universal, and that they apply to all people in all states, irrespective of the level of economic development. The declaration particularly mentions groups with special needs, including the unemployed and migrant workers, besides noting that economic growth alone is not enough to ensure equity, social progress and to eradicate poverty.

Nashef termed the Muscat seminar as a starting point towards ‘creating mechanisms of trilateral dialogue’ between production parties in the GCC countries which, she said, "will be rewarding in terms of improving the performance of the labour market and establishing sustainable socio-economic development in the region."

She said Oman's experience in social and economic development was "exceptional and an example for others to follow as the Sultanate is always a leader in respecting and adopting international laws and standards, especially those in regard to labour."

Nashef said the decision by the Manpower Ministry to reform the labour law and give labourers the right to organise themselves within unions was a very positive example.

Othman Al Tuwaijri, Director-General of the Executive Council of GCC Ministers of Labour and Social Affairs, stressing the importance of the meeting, said its focus was on the application of international labour standards and their follow up in the GCC countries, as well as mechanisms to eliminate forced work and human trafficking.

"This seminar shows the region's firm determination to create better social dialogue between parties of production," Tuwaijri further said, adding: "This will help find efficient representatives capable of defending the rights of each party and protect their interests which increases their ability to make a difference and have a stronger say in making applicable strategies and laws."

Puducherry, May 4 (PTI): The Labour ministry in Puducherry would conduct a survey this year to assess of the prevalence of child labour, if any, in the union territory, Health and Labour Minister E Valsaraj on Thursday informed the assembly.

Replying to views expressed by members on various departments during a debate in the house, Valsaraj said the governemnt was keen on abolishing child labour, particularly in hazardous industries.
The governemnt had also designated the inspectors of the department as officers to take action against those employing children.

He said a committee would go into the details of the port development at Thengaithittu. The committee would study the issue raised by different sections of the people in the wake of the plan of the governemnt to have the port.

Based on the decision of the committee and the directions by the Supreme Court on the matter appropriate action would be taken with due consideration by the cabinet, he said.

He said that with a view to tackling the situation arising out of shortage of doctors in government hospitals. Doctors would be appointed on contract basis and they were being paid salary on par with the salaries of regular staff. Non practisiing alowances as per rules would also be given to the doctors serving in the rural areas.