In Rwanda a joint research project conducted by government statistics offices says child labour has dropped by nearly four percent in the last five years.

The research, commissioned in July this year, shows that child labour had dropped from 9.6 in 2002 to 3 percent in 2007.

In Rwanda, child domestic service is widespread practice in urban areas.

Child domestic workers come from extremely poor families, have been abandoned or orphaned, or come from single parent families.

They are normally employed as house girls and boys, and have been abused in one way or another.

The Ministry of Public Services and Labour, said that a research conducted on child labour activities in the pilot district of Karongi showed that child labour is declining due to good governance policies against the practice.

A steering committee to study the problem has been instituted by the government, which has already warned those currently employing children as house boys and girls to send them back to school.

NEW DELHI: The Government plans to raise spending on the project to eliminate child labour to over Rs 3738.91 crore in the Eleventh Plan, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Wednesday.

Replying to supplementaries during Question House, Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes said budgetary allocations for the National Child Labour Project (NCLP) during 2006-07 and 2007-08 were Rs 127 crore and Rs 175.05 crore respectively.

"Under the NCLP, children withdrawn from work are put in special schools where they are provided education, nutrition, vocational training, stipend and regular health check-ups so as to prepare them in a maximum of three years to join the mainstream education system," he said.

The NCLP is at present being implemented in 250 districts of 20 states and it will be extened to all districts in the country by the end of the current Plan.

As per the 2001 census, 1.26 crore child labourers in the age group of 5 to 14 years were identified in the country. Of these, 12.6 lakh were working in hazardous conditions, he said.

The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 prohibits employment of children below the age of 14 in 15 hazardous occupations and 57 hazardous processes.

Abidjan, 26 November 2007 - At an international meeting on trafficking in children and armed conflict taking place from 26-28 November in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Antonio Maria Costa, urged governments of West and Central Africa to reduce the vulnerability of children to human trafficking.

Young victims of human trafficking can be found in many countries of the region: children - drugged, coerced, and forced to carry guns almost as big as themselves - become killers, child soldiers on the frontlines of savage conflicts; boys, with stones tied around their ankles, are forced to dive into dangerous waters to untangle nets (like on Lake Volta); girls, caught up in conflict, are forced into sex slavery; children, who should be at school, are working long hours in coco fields or in mines doing back-breaking work for almost nothing.

Mr. Costa warned that this crime has an impact far beyond the trauma suffered by these children, "for how can West Africa build a peaceful and prosperous future if its youth is being exploited, recycled, and scarred for life?"
Since many child soldiers are hooked on drugs, the UN's drugs chief underlined the need for drug treatment as an integral part of post-conflict rehabilitation.

He also stressed that more attention should be given to the plight of girls who are caught up in conflict situations because "they are twice as vulnerable: first, as victims of rape and sexual harassment perpetrated by armed groups; and second because they are seldom involved in disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration processes, nor provided with special rehabilitation programmes". He pointed out that this misery is compounded by HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases contracted as a result of being victims of human trafficking, leading to further stigmatization, trauma, and disease. "Let's make sure that victims of conflict do not become victims of trafficking", he said.

Noting that internally displaced people and refugees are highly vulnerable, Mr. Costa urged governments to make "extra efforts to ensure that safe havens do not become recruiting grounds for traffickers". He added that "it goes without saying that peacekeepers themselves should abstain from becoming part of the problem. The UN must show zero-tolerance for peacekeepers involved in sexual abuse and exploitation."

Mr. Costa appealed to the private sector in Africa, and doing business in Africa, to ensure that their supply chains and employment practices do not supporting human trafficking, warning that "your reputation is at stake".

He also urged consumers to use their purchasing power more forcefully: "do you really want to eat chocolate, drive on tires, or wear diamonds dripping with the blood and sweat of slave labour?"

To fight human trafficking, Mr. Costa called on all governments of West and Central Africa to implement the UN anti-trafficking Protocol which includes measures designed to criminalize human trafficking, prevent trafficking, prosecute the traffickers, and protect the victims. He also urged them to improve regional cooperation, and collect data on trafficking cases and trends so that policy is evidence-based.

During his visit to Cote d'Ivoire, Mr. Costa met with President Laurent Gbagbo and government ministers, and observed a basketball clinic against child trafficking and child soldiers in the former war-torn region of Bouake.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EGUA-79CRMR?OpenDocument

In northern Guinea-Bissau, in the dark of night, a dilapidated bus carrying 17 children is parked on a quiet side road. Its driver awaits a signal from a bus up ahead in the convoy illegally crossing the border into Senegal.

For 24 hours, the children do not eat or drink as the bus waits and waits. The signal never comes. At midnight the first bus is intercepted by police before reaching the border. The next morning, the second one is stopped. The third and final vehicle in the convoy is never found. All three were taking children from Guinea-Bissau to work in the cotton fields of southern Senegal. The convoy was one of three alleged child trafficking operations – involving more than 140 children from all over the country – stopped by Bissau police in the last month.

Seven people – one from Senegal and six from Guinea-Bissau – are in police custody in the north-central city of Bafatà. Child trafficking is common between Guinea-Bissau and Senegal, where – as in the rest of West Africa – borders are poorly guarded. But increasingly, police and local leaders are trying to quell the tide of youth smuggled to the cotton fields in Senegal’s southern agricultural area or to the busy streets of the capital, Dakar. In a detention area in Bafatà – there are no proper prisons here – Aliu Mballo sits on the grass, smiling.

He is among those arrested in the latest alleged smuggling operation, but he does not see his actions as criminal. “I do this regularly,” the recruiter, in his 30s, told IRIN. He said the trip to Senegal allows the children – between four and 19 years old – to earn money for work they would normally do for free. “The young ones fetch firewood and water. The older ones work the cotton field. It’s the same as they do at home.” But the majority of children brought into Senegal from Guinea-Bissau end up as talibés – children forced to beg on the streets in return for an education by religious leaders or marabouts.

Jorge Menendez* was probably around 10 years old when a marabout who knew his father came to his home in Bafatà to take him away. Jorge does not know his age or exactly how long he has spent away from home, but he estimates at least two or three years. (Groups who work with trafficked children gauge the time they spent outside Guinea-Bissau by their ability to speak Wolof, the most widely spoken language in Senegal.) The marabout promised his father he would teach Jorge the Muslim holy book, the Koran, and the boy thought nothing of it.

From Bafatà, he was taken to Gabù, farther east, where he worked on a cotton field for some time before crossing the border into Senegal. Then he was passed over to another marabout in southwestern city of Ziguinchor, where he learned the Koran. Before long, the first marabout came back to take him to his own daara or Koranic school (often the marabout’s home) in Dakar.

The number of child beggers in Senegal represent almost 1 per cent of the population

“I spent all my time begging,” Jorge told IRIN in Dakar, speaking in Wolof. “I had to bring the marabout 350 CFA francs (US$0.79) a day. Otherwise, I was beaten. It’s my worst memory.” In 2004, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimated there were up to 100,000 child beggars in Senegal (close to one percent of the population), the majority of them talibés. The head of UNICEF in Guinea-Bissau, Jean Dricot, says most of those child beggars come from Guinea-Bissau. “They don’t have schools. They don’t have access to healthcare. They sleep 40 or 50 to a room. They spend all day on the street getting money that they have to hand over at night,” Dricot said.

Jorge, the young talibé, is now back in his country, owing to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and a Senegalese government-run welcome centre called Ginddi, two of many institutions assisting in the repatriation of children to Guinea-Bissau. Thanks to increased efforts by local and international organisations, some children have been spared this experience. Police say they have been more proactive since workshops by the IOM, UNICEF and local NGOs informed police, regional governments and local leaders that the unauthorised movement of minors across borders is a crime. That message has trickled down to the village level; the latest arrests were the result of a villager's tip-off to police.

“We want to fight this. We want our children to remain in our homeland,” said Ousmane Baldé, public protection officer in the women and children section of the regional police force of Bafatà. Police have intercepted 301 children en route to Senegal from the Bafatà and Gabù regions this year. The fight is also happening on other fronts. The group SOS-Talibé Children has been trying to dispel a popular belief that begging shapes a young boy’s character by teaching him humility. Giving alms is also a requirement in Islam. “Our weapon [to convince people] is the Koran. It is not an Islamic obligation to exploit children or to send them only to the Koranic schools,” said coordinator Malam Bau Ciro, whose father was a Koranic teacher.

Ciro has translated the Koran into Portuguese, Guinea-Bissau’s official language, in order to support his assertions. With the help of the NGO Plan International, SOS-Talibé runs a school that teaches both Arabic and Portuguese, both the Koran and traditional subjects like math. Plan International has also built five such schools and is supporting another 35, in which the original Koranic teachers are complemented by instructors who teach other material. Despite the efforts, the movement of children from Guinea-Bissau continues and may even be on the rise, some local associations say. UNICEF estimated in a 2003 report that every year close to 400,000 African children are victims of trafficking for domestic work, sexual exploitation, to work in shops or on farms or to be scavengers and street hawkers.

http://www.blackbritain.co.uk/news/details/2605/News/

Child labour is a global phenom enon. The prob lem, however, is most critical in the least developed countries. Child labour, on the one hand, can be taken as a source of economic contribution. On the other hand, it is illegal to employ those who are less than 14 years of age. In such a situation, a balance approach needs to be struck to satisfy both the legal requirement and socio-economic problems of the country.

Statistics
Of Nepal's total population of 25 million, those under 18 years are estimated at 48% and under 16 years at 44%. Child labourers number around 2,600,000, and they work in 83 areas. They are mostly involved in brick factories, stone quarries, restaurant work, portering, mechanical work, carpet weaving, domestic work, street vending and construction work.

Usually migrant children prefer to join small teashops and restaurants initially, because there is guarantee of food and shelter. However, when the physical and economic exploitation becomes intolerable, they tend to shift from one field to another. In the Nepalese context, children's work has always been an integral part of our society. For this reason, it needs to be combated tactfully because changes in the child labour force will affect the national economy.

Child labourers are normally abused, neglected and face all kinds of physical and economic exploitation. Economic exploitation includes low pay, more working hours, no leave facility, having to work at odd hours such as during the night and no health check up facility. They are also abused mentally and verbally, and at times even sexually in their work place or while away from work.

Therefore, those who are concerned with the issue of child rights should think of the following and act accordingly:

*Make known to the civil society how working children are economically being exploited and mentally harassed.

*Hold discussions among all concerned agencies on how the problems can be resolved, keeping in mind the principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

*Develop international relationship and seek their co-operation to combat the problem of economic exploitation of children.

Over the past one decade, Nepal has ratified several international and regional instruments concerning protection of the rights of the child, including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and ILO Conventions 138 for minimum age and 182 for worst forms of child labour.

In line with its commitment expressed both at home and abroad, Nepal has enacted the Labour Act 1991, Children's Act 1992 and Children's Regulation 1994, providing for the legal protection of children from exploitation and discrimination. Likewise, the government had also enacted the Child Labour Prevention and Regulation Act 2000.

Some Remedies
Despite these legal provisions, many underprivileged children continue to suffer oppression in the absence of the strict implementation of these legal stipulations. Millions of children are still living in abject poverty and working for their mere survival. Here are some pragmatic solutions in improving their lot:

*Long-term school support: Compulsory education is necessary to minimise school dropouts and prevent economic exploitation.

*Family reconciliation: Since 75% of the working children have migrated from the villages, they need to be helped with family reconciliation through a counsellor.

*Vocational training: Majority of the working children belong to the 14-16 age group, so they should be provided vocational training.

*Micro-credit: A micro-credit facility should be set up for the economic sustainability of their families.

*Limit working hours: Majority of the children work from dawn to dusk and so their working hours should be limited as in the case of adults.

*Fair payment and timely payment: More than 70% of the working children complain that they are not fairly paid. So they should be paid fairly and in time.

*Stop sexual harass: Sexual harassment of girls has to be stopped since research reveals that seven out of 28 girls spoke openly about their problems. It is usually the owners or local customers who abuse them. They should be punished as per the law. *CRC advocacy: Since people have little knowledge about child rights, advocacy programmes on the CRC is required.

*Club formation: Child club formation is also a part of promoting the participatory rights of children. NGOs and CBOs should play a facilitating role in supporting and talking with their employers.

*Unionisation: Child labour has become a major labour force though it is not legally permitted, and, therefore, they need to unionise for collective bargaining.

*Formation of powerful task force: Formation of a National Task Force to deal with the situation of child workers is also a necessity. The task force will meet time and again to develop plans and programmes along with other I/NGOs.

*Birth registration and citizenship rights: The right to be recognised as a citizen is denied to many child labourers as they have no birth registration certificates. As a result, majority of the child workers do not hold citizenship certificates and are deprived from alternative working options.

*Political commitment: Lack of political commitment hinders the development of the deprived community. The problem of working workers can be solved only when the political commitments are put into practice Legal enforcement: The existing laws must be enforced, while areas needing laws and provisions in line with the CRC must be identified.

Finnish clothing and textile design icon Marimekko has suspended all orders from an Estonian factory suspected of using cotton picked by child labour in its textile production.

"We were immediately in contact with the factory in question and said we will not order anything from them until this matter is cleared up. They are in the process of determining where the cotton they use comes from," said Helinä Uotila, production manager at Marimekko.

She admitted that Marimekko is not always aware of where its material comes from.

"Generally speaking, we know where the cotton comes from, at least from our main suppliers. It is also a question of quality," Uotila said.

On Sunday, the Swedish television channel SVT reported that Swedish clothing chain H&M uses cotton picked by Uzbek children in its garments. The company has strongly spoken out against the use of child labour.

Swedish textile company Borås Wäfveri also uses Uzbek cotton, but has said it will no longer import it. The company's managing director Sven-Olof Kulldorff said the Estonian factory also manufactures products for Marimekko.

As the furniture superstore opens in Málaga, the Olive Press asks if Ikea goes far enough to combat the exploitation of child labour in its supply chain. Apparently not, argue Lisa Tilley and Jon Clarke

IT could not have found a better location. On the Málaga ring road, between the airport and the city centre , the new Ikea superstore is in perfect reach for millions of people hooked on cheap and cheerful furnishings.

Cheap, of course, is the best – and perhaps only - way to describe the massive Scandinavian chain, which has taken Europe by storm since opening its first shop in 1943.

With prices that do not seem possible (lamps for five euros, tables for under ten, a chest of drawers for 30 euros), it is perhaps not surprising it has kept ahead of its competitors and made its owner, Ingvar Kamprad, the richest man in Europe and the fourth richest man on earth.

But, as the Olive Press decided to investigate, what is the real cost?

The truth is, few people know the real reason why Ikea is so cheap. Mostly they just do not want to know when they can furnish their holiday homes and rental flats for a fraction of the prices at El Corte Ingles or most other local furniture stores.

But the facts are that the furniture superstore manages to keep its prices low primarily by out-sourcing production to developing countries, where child labour and exploitation are endemic.
And while the company says it is “against child labour”, it does not mean that its products are never made by them.

In its defence, Ikea says it does its best to prevent this and in turn ploughs millions of euros into Third World social and environmental project . But these do not address the fundamental issue that many production workers are, according to research, simply not paid enough to live in comfort.

After all, there is no such thing as ‘ethical offsetting’.

There is nothing straightforward about furniture – and not just the much-hated, flat-pack battles that most of you will be familiar with.

There are environmental issues involved in sourcing wood: deforestation and habitat destruction are already driving animal and plant species to extinction in many parts of the developing world.

The manufacture of “cheap” furniture only exacerbates the problem as keeping a competitive edge is gained by out-sourcing to the developing world, working in exploitative economies and clocking up further furniture-miles in the process.

But despite all the pitfalls, Ikea still rules as the world’s most popular furniture store, with barely a stain on its oak-veneer finish

The company has an uncanny knack for pre-empting bad press. According to a press release earlier this year: “There has been an increase in child labour in China, and in 2006 Ikea found an increasing number of children working at Ikea suppliers.”

Coming in the company’s own Social Responsibility Report for 2006, it does not even attempt to hide the fact child labour exists in the Ikea supply chain.

Mockery
This makes something of a mockery of the company’s motto that: “Ikea’s business shall have an overall positive impact on people and the environment.”

And surely Ikea’s chief executive Anders Dahlvig was talking about a different company when he said: “We are lucky because our business ideas, values and vision point us towards taking social and environmental responsibility… It is in Ikea’s DNA, so to speak.”

But ‘socially responsible’ Ikea was delivered a number of blows in the 1990s when investigative journalists showed suppliers were using child labour in the Philippines, India, Vietnam and Pakistan, where shocking pictures of children tied to a weaving loom caused protests.

Not long afterwards, the poor working conditions in Romania caused the International Federation of Building and Wood Workers to threaten to boycott the firm.

But apparently the company has not taken heed.

Indeed, it is now outsourcing almost half of its production to developing countries (up from 32 per cent in 1997 to 48 per cent in 2001).

China, of course, is now Ikea’s biggest supplier and, it has been claimed, that most of the “Made in Sweden quality” products are actually manufactured in Asia.

 “Low prices always incur a high social cost,” argues a report published in Le Monde Diplomatique, co-authored by Denis Lambert, the secretary-general of Oxfam in Belgium. And even Dahlvig concedes that problems exist: “There will be things we do not see. You cannot protect yourself from problems altogether.”

In fact, one of Dahlvig’s first tasks when he joined Ikea in 1999 was to pen the ‘Ikea Way on Purchasing Home Furnishing Products’ otherwise known as ‘the IWAY’.

The IWAY is Ikea’s code of conduct in dealing with the supply chain, outlining the standards the firm demands from suppliers. It uses norms from the United Nations and the International Labour Organisation and ‘outlaws’ forced, bonded or child labour in the supply chain while pledging to pay the national minimum wage.

But does this go far enough in eliminating exploitation?

Lambert and his co-authors’ investigation suggest not. They refer to the case of Shiva, an Indian woman employed by an Ikea supplier. Shiva earns 2,300 rupees a month (about 40 euros) but her monthly transport costs to and from the factory came to 500 rupees (about nine euros).

Shiva’s income from Ikea supported herself, her mother and her teenage son, hence she was reluctant to criticise her employer for fear of losing her job. She praised her bosses for giving her tea breaks and protective equipment while working.

However, when the researcher asked what she might do with an extra 1,000 rupees (18 euros) a month, she said: “We would get a gas cooker with a bottle - cooking over a fire is a nuisance because the smoke gets in your eyes. In the rainy season it is hard finding dry wood, and collecting it is a lot of work.”

Lambert and his co-researchers concluded the social responsibility ethos of Ikea fails to improve the “hard lives” of those who make Ikea products.

As a supposedly “ethical enterprise,” its workers should earn a “decent living - this does not mean luxuries - televisions or mobile phones - just enough money to buy more food, keep their children at school without needing to do two jobs, and have a proper day off every week.”
The main problem with the IWAY is it states suppliers should pay the minimum wage set by the national government concerned, but in many developing countries, this is not enough to cover basic living costs.

Not realistic
The Olive Press asked the company why it does not go further by reviewing living costs in its supplier nations and pay enough to guarantee workers a comfortable existence. After all, a minimum wage is not a maximum wage - there is no law against paying more than the minimum.

Charlotte Lindgren, spokesperson for Ikea, told the Olive Press that Ikea accepts and pays the minimum wage because “it is not the role, nor is it realistic, to put the responsibility for these calculations on individual business like Ikea.”

The company did not mention that the subsequent rise in production costs would no doubt push up Ikea’s famously low prices.

The IWAY also outlaws child labour in Ikea production, but again relies on local legislation to define what constitutes ‘a child.’

In some countries, we have discovered, 12 to 15-year-olds can legally manufacture Ikea furnishings without even violating the Ikea code of conduct.

Inadequate as the IWAY may be, according to Lambert and others, infringing the code of conduct is not even enough for Ikea to withdraw from a factory.

“Ikea believes in long-term relationships and does not end relations with suppliers due to IWAY non-compliance,” explains the company in its Social Responsibility Report.

In fact, by Ikea’s own admission, only 13 per cent of its Asian suppliers comply with the IWAY standards – a 3 per cent drop even on 2005.

In 2003, an investigation of 2,000 Ikea workers in Bulgaria, India and Vietnam found the national minimum wage was frequently not being paid and employees often worked seven-day weeks.

Ikea’s factory inspections have been criticised for failing to review the conditions of the workers sufficiently.

Toneesh, a factory quality controller, had two visits from Ikea auditors during 2005: “They ask a few questions, on product quality, to check production. Some are Europeans, who only talk to the top-level management. Because of the language barrier the workers cannot talk to them directly.”

Ikea claims if suppliers are found to repeatedly violate the IWAY, it terminates the contract. But during 2006, just six (out of over 1,500) suppliers were cut out of the supply chain by Ikea for non-compliance.

Consumer ethics magazine Ethiscore suggests those worried about buying Ikea goods made by exploited workers should simply avoid furniture from “low-wage economies such as China, Vietnam and India.”

In its defence, Ikea’s involvement in social and environmental projects is admirable and has gained it the respect of many Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).

Ikea donated 1.7 million euros to a Greenpeace forest campaign and worked with USAID in Indonesia in a drive to prevent unsustainable deforestation and protect orang-utans. The company is also committed to helping the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) as well as sourcing wood approved by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

All of this led Ethiscore to name Ikea the “best environmental choice” for new soft furnishings.
In addition, Ikea withdrew all business interests from Burma when it became apparent that foreign trade and investment were financing the brutal military dictatorship in the country. The company also works closely with Unicef and Save the Children to combat the root causes of child labour in supplier countries.

At no point does Ikea deny exploitation exists in its supply chain, nor does the company suggest the issue will be resolved quickly, as Charlotte Lindgren told the Olive Press: “In certain areas improvements will take time as fundamental changes to society need to take place. These problems are not specific to Ikea.”

It seems unlikely that Ikea will solve the conundrum of how to churn out cheap products without exploiting human beings in the process - but in the meantime, the company is doing a good job of drowning out much of the negative publicity.

For the child laborers, the conditions are often hard. "We stay in the building of a kindergarten or school. We sleep on a concrete floor. There are no windows," says a 12-year-old boy from the central Uzbek city of Bukhara. "We get a piece of bread and tea in the morning, some pasta for the dinner, and a thin soup for lunch."

But because as much as half of the country's "white gold" harvest is said to come from child labor, a group of rights activists is now urging the international community to boycott Uzbek cotton. And with one of every four garments in Europe containing cotton from Uzbekistan, activists say that the business brings huge profits only to the ruling elite.

New Campaign
On November 16, rights activists living inside and outside Uzbekistan sent an open letter to the European Union and the governments of the United States, Russia, and China, as well as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank, the UN's children agency (UNICEF), and the International Labor Organization.

According to the letter -- signed by 65 people and sent also to the International Cotton Advisory Committee, the Gdynia Cotton Association, and the Bremen Cotton Exchange -- cotton picking involves some 450,000 children and is the "result of a deliberate coercion policy adopted by the central government." It does not, they add, occur because of the poverty or illiteracy of the population, as in many other developing countries.

Thomas Grabka, a German photographer who has worked for "Der Spiegel" and "Stern," has spent time photographing cotton pickers in Uzbekistan.

"You always find cotton fields where children are working," Grabka says. "Maybe not in Tashkent -- I heard that children in Tashkent do not need to go to the fields -- but in the countryside, all these children between nine and 16-years old, they have to go to pick cotton. Even when I visited schools, they [were] all empty."

One schoolteacher from the western Khorazm region, who wished to remain anonymous, says this year has been harder than previous ones.

"The conditions with [work in the cotton fields] have never been as hard as this year. All the schoolchildren are in the cotton fields. Kindergartens are closed. The people who work there are all forced to pick cotton. It's never been as hard as this time," the schoolteacher said.
According to the rights activists' letter, Uzbek children work "at least eight hours a day" in cotton fields with no days off and "inhale dust saturated with the residues of chemicals, pesticides, and defoliants [that are] abundantly used in the cotton fields before the cotton harvest."

This year -- with Uzbekistan scheduled to hold a presidential election in December that Karimov is widely expected to win -- the authorities reported that the country exceeded its goal of 3.6 million tons for the cotton harvest.

In a televised speech on October 16, Karimov congratulated the Uzbek people on "a great victory" and said the harvest was the result of "selfless work" and "wide-ranging reforms being carried out in the country's agrarian sector."

Children picking cotton in Uzbekistan is nothing new -- and protests against the illegal use of child labor have been voiced in the past.

One of the signatories of the letter, exiled Uzbek dissident writer Yodgor Obid, remembers picking cotton in Soviet times.

"From the first grade of school to the seventh grade we were kicked out to the cotton fields. We picked cotton even in the winter, in December," Obid says.

This Soviet practice continued after Uzbekistan gained independence in 1991, despite the fact that the country has signed major international children's rights treaties (such as the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 1999 Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention).
Cotton revenues are a major source of hard currency for Uzbekistan, but rights activists say the business is especially lucrative for Uzbekistan's ruling elite, in particular President Islam Karimov's family and his cronies.

The Uzbek government has reacted harshly in the past to criticism of its cotton-picking practices. After a BBC documentary on October 30 showed Uzbek children picking cotton for clothing sold in Britain, the Uzbek Embassy in London denied that child labor is used in Uzbekistan's agricultural sector.

The documentary showed how children were accompanied by a police escort, which cleared the road for buses and trucks loaded with mattresses to take the kids to cotton fields or back to the barracks.

The Uzbek Embassy's press service said children were only used as cotton pickers in Uzbekistan 15-20 years ago and added that the Soviet practice has ended and that current law "bans children's labor in cotton fields or other sectors of agriculture."

There are some indications that the government's stance on the issue seems to have hardened in recent years. Three years ago, photographer Grabka organized a rare exhibition in Tashkent that showed children working in cotton fields.

He says the Uzbek authorities were very "unhappy" about the exhibition, titled "The Cost of Uzbek White Gold," and that the secret police tried to close the exhibition down.
And the reaction of international cotton buyers could be crucial in forcing the Uzbek government's hand.

Activists believe a boycott will force the Uzbek government to stop using child labor and will provide farmers with real economic freedom.

Elke Hortmeyer, a press officer at the Bremen Cotton Exchange, confirmed to RFE/RL that they had received the Uzbek activists' letter and that the organization is considering the matter.

New Delhi, Nov. 17: Children under 18 who have broken the law or been abused will for the first time have the right to influence decisions affecting their future.

Till now, the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act had no provisions for the child’s opinion to be considered. All decisions were taken unilaterally by the government or child courts.

Now, new rules prepared by the Centre enshrine the right of a child to be heard “in all matters affecting his interest”.
The women and child development ministry has sent the rules to all states, senior officials have told The Telegraph.
The states have to pass the rules in their Assembles or prepare a set of guidelines, which the Centre can scrutinise.
The officials are, however, silent on how the right is to be implemented and some child rights activists say this has left scope for its misuse.

Chapter 2 of the new rules, which lists the guiding principles for implementing the act, explains the “right to be heard” in some detail.

“Every child’s right to express his views freely in all matters affecting his interest shall be fully respected through every stage in the process of juvenile justice,” one provision says.

If the child is physically or mentally disadvantaged, it is the government’s responsibility to create “developmentally appropriate tools and processes of interacting with the child”.

The aim, the rules say, is to promote “children’s active involvement in decisions regarding their own lives” and to provide “opportunities for discussion and debate”.

“This is really positive. It is a right we have been demanding for a while, and it is positive that the government has finally accepted the right of the child to be heard,” said Shireen Miller of Save the Children, a child rights NGO.

Kailash Satyarthi, the head of Bachpan Bachao Andolan, however, called the right a “double-edged sword”.

“If a child is asked by a of police officers what he or she wants to do, the child is likely to say what they want to hear out of fear,” Satyarthi said.

A child’s views must be presented before a team including social activists and psychiatrists to avoid such misuse, he added.

Officials said the new rules were in keeping with India’s commitments to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. “Several of our earlier rules were out of tune with UNCRC requirements,” an official said.

DAKAR (Reuters) - Akissi was not even 10 when she was sent abroad from Togo to work as a domestic servant for a woman who beat her and twice forced chilli peppers into her vagina to punish her.

Now 15 and struggling to care for her 6-month-old baby and a husband who beats her, Akissi's tale was discovered by researchers investigating the psychological effects of child trafficking in West Africa and the way it encourages abuse.
Researchers for U.S.-based non-profit development agency Plan International, who shared their findings with Reuters ahead of Monday's World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse, gave the girl the pseudonym Akissi to protect her identity.

Working with researchers, Akissi drew a "life-line", with flowers to represent good experiences and stones for bad ones.

A green flower marks her return from domestic servitude in Benin to her village in Togo at the age of 12. A black stone indicates when she was raped there before her next birthday.

Akissi is severely traumatised by past and present abuse, and is at serious risk of committing suicide by consuming agricultural chemicals, having already tried to do so once, Plan researchers say.

"There are very few institutions ready to help them ... there is no psychological support for these children. Their families do not understand, and sweep it under the carpet," said Plan's Serigne Mor Mbaye, who worked on the pilot research programme in Togo that interviewed Akissi.

"This really is the tip of the iceberg," he said.

"MODERN SLAVERY"
The U.N. Children's Fund UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children are trafficked every year into what it calls "the modern-day equivalent of slavery".

This trafficking takes many forms in West Africa, encouraged by a tradition of "placing" young children with families of wealthier relatives to receive an education or learn a trade.

"It's a high-risk practice," Mbaye said.

"Many of those who are placed are victims of abuse. This traditional practice continues to happen, but (social) solidarity does not function like before," he said, adding that many children are placed these days with unrelated strangers.

The Plan research in Togo found most trafficked children went to Nigeria, girls generally as domestic servants and boys working in agriculture, markets or serving food.

Different types of child trafficking networks have sprung up in other parts of West Africa.

Police in tiny Guinea-Bissau uncovered a trafficking network last week when they found over 50 young boys headed to Senegal, where hundreds of children sent from neighbouring countries to attend Koranic schools end up begging for coins on street corners.

"You should have seen the state they were in. Aged between 4 and 21, these exhausted children were barefoot, poorly clothed, some naked from the waist up," said Carlos Abdulai Djalo, governor of the Bafata region where the 52 children were found.

Rights activists have campaigned against the use of "child slave" labour on farms in Ivory Coast and Ghana, which together produce most of the world's cocoa beans. But researchers have said the situation is often more nuanced than appears, with children working on family-owned fields in traditional fashion.

The child trafficking debate has been revived by the arrest last month in Chad of French humanitarian activists on child kidnapping charges over a bid to fly 103 children to Europe.

The children were presented as orphans from Darfur, even though most turned out to be from villages in the Chad/Sudan border area and had at least one living parent.

Nina C George The cases of trafficking in migrant children has been steadily increasing by the year in Bangalore.
They are the children of a lesser god. For Bangalore City does not deem them to be its own. In fact, born elsewhere they migrate to the City in pursuit of a livelihood, only to be ruthlessly gobbled up by unscrupulous traffickers for whom they are just another reserve army for all kinds of exploitation.

Not less than 400 children, mostly girls, migrate to the City every year and ready-made fodder for human trafficking. The cases of trafficking in migrant children has been steadily increasing by the year. Almost 70 per cent of these child migrants are trafficked in one form or another. The bulk of trafficked children are migrant labourers. While most trafficked children are girls, increasingly boys are being recruited in the sex industry, besides for menial labour.

According to an NGO working among migrant children, most of the these children who come to the City belong to lower echelons of the society: Lower castes like SC/STs, minority religious and ethnic groups and broken families. “Most children trafficked are from rural areas. But trafficking from other urban centres are also on the rise,” reveals C C Poulose, State Convener, Campaign Against Child Trafficking- Karnataka.

Child migrants turning traffickers
A member of the Child welfare committee says most of these children come into the City from neighbouring states like Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Children do come from the north as well: mostly Delhi, Chandigarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. He observes that migrant children end up in the City on their own or sent by their parents or guardians. Once in the City, the search for subsistence leads them to the traffickers who haunt railway stations and bus-stands looking for their quarry. Children do end up in the traffickers’ net in their home towns or villages as well.

A social worker with an NGO that has rescued several of these children, says trafficking can take different forms. He observes that novel types of trafficking have emerged all over and in fact human trafficking has become the fastest growing business in organised crime.

Children are mostly trafficked for labour. “Trafficking children for the purposes of domestic servitude, bonded labour, or work in hazardous industries, factories, restaurants and construction sites has grown. The number is growing as children are perceived as commodities prone to easy manipulation, nimble in work and can be exploited for a longer period,” he says.

The mushrooming of unlicensed and unregistered orphanages, faith based welfare/charity homes have opened up a whole new avenue for trafficking of children, avers this social worker. Children are sold and relinquished at these institutions, some are picked up if found abandoned or missing, some are voluntarily handed over by parents.

Pay according to age
Trafficked migrant children are paid according to their age. The older ones aged between 15 and 18 years earn anywhere between Rs 800 to Rs 1000. The younger ones get paid Rs 500. Children from northern and western parts of the country do end up on the alms street. Physically challenged or maimed children are preferred for beggary.

According to Shobana Kulothungan, coordinator of Makkala Sahayavani in the City, children are brought from Hubli, Shimoga, Dharwad and Davanagere into the City for a lump sum of Rs 5000 by employers for a period of one or two years. “Parents don’t know the going rates and often get cheated. These children then get tortured and abused,” she observes. Most distress calls received by Makkala Sahayavani are related to cases of child abuse and exploitation.
Meera Kumari, a lady constable who heads the rescue team at Makkala Sahayavani says most of these children are shocked and confused because they have strangers who take them in on the pretext of giving them jobs and exploit them in all ways.

India can run, but it cannot hide: Gap scandal highlights big problem
BY CHRIS NELSON

Shahpur Jat Village – a tiny, underdeveloped urban neighborhood on New Delhi’s south side – is best known among Indians as the location of the 1951 Asian Games Village and, more recently, an up-and-coming hub for the country’s fashion industry. But beneath Shahpur Jat’s hip veneer lurks a seedy underworld that is a poorly kept secret in New Delhi but virtually unknown outside India.

That changed Oct. 28, when the British newspaper The Observer splashed an undercover investigative report across two pages detailing child labor in a textile factory that produced garments for American retail chain Gap Inc.’s GapKids line.

The damning report alleged that children as young as 10 toiled in conditions described as “close to slavery” – they were observed working from dawn until late in the evening in dimly lit rows of garage-like tailoring units flowing with excrement from a clogged toilet. The children also told the newspaper that they were routinely threatened, and those that cried were hit with a rubber pipe or forced to take an oily sock in their mouths.

The revelations provoked outrage in Western nations, where people have grown accustomed to reading about India’s rise as an economic power, and rocked San Francisco-based Gap, which adopted rigorous social audit systems several years ago to weed out child labor and improve the working conditions in its production processes.

“We strictly prohibit the use of child labor. This is a nonnegotiable for us – and we are deeply concerned and upset by this allegation,” Marka Hansen, Gap North America president said in a statement issued the same day The Observer published its report. “As we’ve demonstrated in the past, Gap has a history of addressing challenges like this head-on, and our approach to this situation will be no exception.”

Gap has worked to hard to shed the “sweatshop retailer” image it gained in 2004, when it admitted to widespread problems – from unsafe machinery to child labor violations – in the thousands of factories it uses around the world to produce clothing for its retail chains.

The company detailed the findings in a 42-page “social responsibility” audit that year, which revealed some of its suppliers engaged in abuses like forced labor, physical punishment, coercion, child labor and paying workers less than minimum wage. Gap followed the report by severing ties with 136 vendors that it determined manufactured garments in deplorable working conditions, and in 2006 the company ended contracts with an additional 23 suppliers that were found to be in violation of the company’s own Code of Vendor Conduct and international labor standards.

Upon learning of the situation at the Shahpur Jat factory, Gap destroyed the garments that were produced there and canceled its contract with the vendor, which Hansen did not identify.

“As soon as we were alerted to this situation, we stopped the work order and prevented the product from being sold in the stores,” Hansen added. “While violations of our strict prohibition on child labor in factories that produce product for the company are extremely rare, we have called an urgent meeting with our suppliers in the region to reinforce our policies.”

The scandal highlights the widespread problem of child labor in India, which the United Nations has labeled the world capital for child labor – the International Labor Organization, a U.N. agency, estimates that India is home to 40 million to 50 million workers under the age of 14 who account for roughly 20 percent of the country’s gross domestic product – and raised concerns about large retail chains outsourcing their clothing production to India. Some of the largest Western retail clothing brands source their products from India, including Polo Ralph Lauren Corp., J.C. Penney & Co., Hennes & Mauritz AB (a trendy Swedish chain operating as H&M) and Mothercare, a British chain that sells clothing and other products for babies and young children.

The Indian government officially responded to the allegations contained in The Observer report Oct. 30, when Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath suggested at a global business conference in New Delhi that they displayed ulterior motives. Though he did not specifically cite the newspaper, Nath said the country is seeing “increasing efforts, driven by nongovernmental organizations, to come up with reports that show India in bad light.”

Nath also said that developed nations are displaying an increased tendency to erect nontariff barriers, some of which are based on campaigns that portray India negatively. “There will be pressure on India to take retaliatory measures,” he added, without providing any details.

Indian business leaders have reacted with similar anger. The day after Nath made his comments, Amit Mitra, secretary general of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said in a speech at the Higher Education Summit 2008 in New Delhi, “Do you think they can do this [media coverage] in China?”

Child labor is an unregulated, gray area of the Indian economy, so statistics illustrating the scale of the phenomenon vary considerably. The Indian government estimates some 13 million of the country’s children are employed in agriculture, as domestic helpers, in roadside restaurants and in factories making glass, textiles, and countless other goods. Many charities and nongovernmental organizations around the world argue the figure is much higher.

Human Rights Watch, a New York-based organization that tracks more than a dozen issues, puts the number of child laborers in India at 60 million to 115 million.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s 2006 international child labor report estimates that 4.1 percent of boys and 4 percent of girls ages 5 to 14 are forced to work in India. Most work in agriculture, but children are employed in many other, often hazardous, industries. Living conditions frequently are poor, and abuse is common. According to Bachpan Bachao Andolan (South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude), a New Delhi-based nongovernmental organization that fights child labor, children may be purchased for labor in impoverished villages of India for as little as $12.50.

Child labor laws have been in place in India for decades; among the earliest was the Children Pledging of Labor Act of 1933, which prohibits bonded labor. Indian lawmakers severely restricted the use of children in the workplace in 1986 when they passed the Child Labor Prohibition and Regulation Act, which bans employment of children under 14 in factories, mines and hazardous employment, and regulates the working conditions of children in other employment. Most recently, the government enacted a law in October 2006 banning domestic help and hotel work by children under 14. However, it provides no protection for children between the ages of 14 and 18, who also face exploitation and abuse by their employers.

“If you look at their labor laws, on the Ministry of Labor’s Web site, the laws are spelled out very clearly, but it is very easy to find loopholes in them,” James MacNeil, senior office manager at Boston-based World Education Inc. said. “For example, India’s labor laws list the kinds of child labor that are prohibited, but agricultural labor is missing. Agricultural labor involves tending livestock and helping out on the family farm; livestock require a human body to follow them around and kids like doing that. All this gets back to the question of why so many Indian children are not in school.”

MacNeil lived in New Delhi recently for about two years, working on a World Education project that aims to get Indian children who were not attending school back into the classroom. Registered as a private voluntary organization, World Education provides training and technical assistance in nonformal education in more than 50 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, as well as in the United States.

While it is easy for families and employers to circumvent India’s anti-child-labor laws, MacNeil said the bigger problem remains putting them into place and enforcing them. “India needs to do a better job implementing and enforcing its laws, because that’s where things get a bit dodgy,” he said, noting that Indian lawmakers have yet to ratify the “Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor,” a resolution adopted by the International Labor Organization at its 182nd convention that identifies bonded child labor as one of the “worst forms of child labor.”

Despite the extensiveness of India’s child labor problem, the country is taking steps to eliminate it, as demonstrated in the four days after The Observer published its story. During that period, New Delhi police carried out a trio of raids in Shahpur Jat that freed more than 100 children who were found working in miserable conditions:

•The afternoon of Oct. 28, police descended on the same factory that the newspaper accused of using child labor to produce Gap-branded clothing, finding 14 children in a single workshop. Children's aid workers and journalists accompanied the police.

•The next morning, police – acting on a tip from Bachpan Bachao Andolan – raided the factory again, freeing 28 children. Factory managers ordered reporters who were covering the raid to leave the premises, but not before they recorded images of barefoot, shirtless boys at work. One boy – 10-year-old Sheikh Ali – told police that he had been in training, without pay, for the last three months.

•Police carried out their largest raid Nov. 1 when they rescued 77 boys, 8 to 14 years old, who were embroidering saris and Indian wedding clothes in dingy rooms. Kailash Satyarthi, the founder and current head of Bachpan Bachao Andolan, said the boys were mostly from poor families in Bihar, India’s most impoverished eastern state, and had been brought to New Delhi to work in its small embroidery factories.

 “These children were trafficked and sold by middlemen. Such incidents show that holistic perspective is required in eliminating child labor,” Satyarthi said. “We firmly believe that mere cancellation of orders is not a solution. The business houses must ensure that the contracted manufacturing units do not employ children. They also have to regularly monitor their contractors and sub-contractors for the compliance of labor laws.”

The U.S. Department of Labor, which in 2004 partnered with the International Labor Organization and the Indian government to launch the INDUS project – a $40 million program to combat exploitive and hazardous child labor in India – has expressed its support for India’s efforts to end the practice.

"The US supports India's efforts to end abusive child labor and prosecute those who prey on children," Elizabeth Fitzsimmons, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, said.

SAN FRANCISCO,  Gap Inc. is pulling 50 percent of its orders placed with a vendor whose subcontracting led to children sewing some of the retailer's clothes in squalid conditions in India.

The penalties disclosed Wednesday wrapped up the San Francisco-based company's investigation into an embarrassing episode that attracted headlines around the world and renewed concerns about abusive labor practices in overseas factories.

To help address the problem, Gap said it would make a $200,000 grant aimed at improving the working conditions in India and would try to recruit retailers from around the world to participate in a forum next year to address child labor issues.

"We are determined to see some good come of this situation," Gap spokesman Bill Chandler said Wednesday.

Gap said it would also partner with the Global March Against Child Labour and other organizations to provide independent monitoring of hand embroidery and beadwork that is typically done in informal settings, not factories. Grants would help establish community centers in India where such work could be performed under better-monitored conditions.

The child labor concerns surfaced last month after the Observer newspaper in London reported children as young as 10 had been sold by their families to an Indian sweatshop. The children said they were sometimes hit with a rubber pipe and forced to work up to 16 hours per day sewing clothes, some of which were destined for Gap's shelves.

After the report was published, Gap terminated its ties with the subcontractor responsible for the sweatshop and promised none of the clothes made there would be sold in its stores. But Gap didn't take any immediate action against the supplier that hired the subcontractor in violation of the company's policies.

Gap's internal investigation concluded that at least one child was seen working on its product in an unauthorized factory in New Delhi.

"What happened here was without the knowledge or approval of Gap Inc. or, we believe, of the vendor," the company said in a summary of its investigation's findings. "Nonetheless, we hold ourselves and our vendor fully accountable."

To punish the vendor, Gap imposed a six-month probation that includes a 50 percent reduction in orders placed with the supplier. Gap declined to identify the penalized supplier, one of the company's roughly 200 vendors in India.

Last year, Gap stopped working with 23 factories that didn't live up to the company's standards. The company, which operates more than 3,000 stores under the Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic brands, employs 90 full-time inspectors to check out the conditions at more than 2,000 factories around the world.

About 1.2 million children of school-age in Ghana are believed to be working under conditions that are hazardous to their health.

Mrs Stella Ofori, a Senior Labour Officer at the Child Labour Unit of the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment announced this at a durbar on “Combating Child Labour Through Education” at Moree in the Central Region.

The durbar was organised by the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) as part of activities marking this year’s GNAT Week and World Teachers Day.

She explained that although the figure was quoted from the Ghana Child Labour Survey of 2003, very little had changed despite the numerous educational programmes on child labour.

Mrs Ofori noted that the effects of child labour impacted negatively on society. She therefore stressed the need for all to join the campaign against child labour.

She underlined that parents had a crucial role to play in reducing the figure by enrolling and helping their children to stay in school.

She advised children to be obedient and make sure that they attended school regularly.

The General Secretary of GNAT, Mrs Irene Duncan Adanusah, observed that the increasing incidence of child labour and child trafficking could threaten the success of the educational reform and the future development of the country.

She, therefore, impressed on those involved in child trafficking and forcing children into labour to desist from doing so, adding that children must be enrolled and kept in school to ensure the success of the new educational reform.

The Central Regional Chairman of GNAT, Mr Frank Eshun, also urged parents to educate their children to the highest level possible since education is the best inheritance they could bequeath to them.

Pupils from the Methodist and Catholic schools at Moree treated the gathering to cultural dances and sketches on child labour and trafficking respectively.

Yesterday heralded the launch of the social mobilisation partners against the worst forms of child labour.

The Social Mobilisation Partners Against Child Labour project has been initiated by the UN run International Labor Organisation to strengthen the relationship between social partners, faith-based organisations, NGO groups and government agencies to better facilitate their fight against the menace of child labour in our society.

"This is a platform to asses, evaluate and articulate our great concerns about child labour, no meaningful change can take place within society without the participation of social partners”, announced Affail Monney, Vice President of the Ghana Journalist Association at the press launch of SOMOPAC.

Mr Monney also described how government and the press had come a long way in refuting the allegations from the global market, but the focus must remain on eliminating the worst forms of child labour which are still existent within Ghana.

“The allegations lack the contextualization of the situation, conversations about slave like conditions in the Western world connotes that kind of activity in Ghana. Many of these people have never been to Africa so they don't even know the kind of farming situation that we have. If you look at Ghana some of the farming is in small family holdings of just a few acres so it would not be possible for children to be working in slave-like conditions”, explained Frema Osei-Opare, Deputy Minister of Manpower, Youth and Employment to The Statesman.

The mobilisation partners were all in agreement with Mrs Osei-Opare and believed that certain experiences within the workplace were beneficial in the vocational sense for children of a certain age.

However, the Ghanaian constitution prohibits the involvement of children in exploitative labour. Such exploitative labour will deny the child of its education, health and social development.

Figures released by the ILO state that over 126 million children worldwide are currently involved in the worst forms of child labour.

Kwame Mensah, spokesperson for the ILO, stated that his organisation will tackle child labour in a holistic manner, providing educational and vocational skills training as well as greatly improving the capacity of social mobilisation partners.

Steps have already been taken by such mobilization partners to minimise the effect that exploitative labour can have on children. Field officers regulate the use of child labour in rice producing centers, coco, rubber and palm-oil plantations.

The Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs is also part of the SOMOPAC collaborative process. In a statement read at the press launch the Ministry hopes to have repatriated over 1000 children back to their families in a bid to reduce child labour.

The Ministry has identified the areas including mining, quarrying and deep sea fishing as key workplaces where children are most at risk.

Mrs Osei-Opare said that the launch of SOMOPAC was a long awaited event in Ghana and she hoped real change would be possible.

The social partners and faith based organisations present included the Ghana Muslim Mission Women’s Fellowship and the Federation of Muslim Councils in Ghana who were both in agreement that the days of selling children into labour for GH¢ 30 are long gone.

SO