President wants more commitment for child issues

Thursday, 30 September 2004

by Ranil Wijayapala

President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga yesterday appealed to leaders and officials of South Asian countries to work with more commitment to solve issues relating to children in the region specially child abuse, child trafficking and child labour.

Addressing the inaugural session of the South Asia Regional Mid-Term Review of the "Yokohama Global Commitment 2001", at the Taj Samudra hotel in Colombo the President said the Ministers and officers should undertake Action Plans adopted at international conferences giving serious thought to it.

The President said as one of the much populous regions in the world, South Asia has much to do in order to build the world more fit for the children. She said the developing nations cannot go forward unless they take children's issues seriously.

The Regional Mid-Term Review of 'The Yokohama Global Commitment 2001, hosted by the Sri Lankan Government was organised by the UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia in partnership with the South Asia Coordinating Group Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking of Children and Women.

Representatives from eight South Asian countries including Afghanistan are participating in this three day conference.

Addressing the inauguration of the conference, President Kumaratunga said education was the best way to solve the issues relating to children.

"We in Sri Lanka have already embarked on education reforms", the President added. "We are targeting the modernisation of education to make a complete man or a woman who can face the challenges of globalisation," the President added.

She said the deep rooted violence is due to the two decades long ethnic conflict. Children have been affected immensely during the last two decades.

"We are preparing the children of this country to face global challenges effectively in a peaceful manner, through discussion and negotiation rather than resorting to bombs and bullets."President Kumaratunga said Sri Lanka Government has adopted a National Plan of Action from 2004 to 2008 and just began to implement it in accordance with the internationally accepted methods.

President Kumaratunga said the Government has started to appoint school level committees to look into matters related to child abuse.

Women's Empowerment and Social Welfare Minister Sumedha G. Jayasena, UNICEF Regional Director for South Asia Dr. Sadig Rasheed and UNICEF Country Director Ted Chaiban also spoke.

Delegates from Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and representatives form United Nations agencies participated at this inaugural ceremony.

Source: http://www.dailynews.lk/2004/09/30/pol01.html

Media As Weapon Against Child Trafficking

This Day (Lagos)
ANALYSIS
September 29, 2004
Posted to the web September 29, 2004

By Andrew Ahiante
Lagos

Several efforts have been made by different groups to stem the current wave of child trafficking in Nigeria. Andrew Ahiante writes on the latest collaborative effort between the media and the International Labour Organisation (ILO)

"Federal Government Returns 116 Kids to Benin Republic", "150 Deported Nigeria Girls Arrive from Italy", "50 Nigerian Prostitutes Deported from Guinea, Gambia"; "Police Nab Six Migrant Prostitutes"; "Women Held over Child Trafficking"; "Guinean Police Arrest 35 Nigerian Girls Enroute Sex Slavery".... These are some of the highlight of recent media reports on the issue of child trafficking in Nigeria and across the continent. Most celebrated being the historic handing over of 116 trafficked kids to Benin Republic by the Federal Government of Nigeria.

Nigeria is both a receiving and sending country. Thus, apart from receiving trafficked children from the Republics of Benin, Togo, Ghana, Cote d' Ivoire, among others, it also send to these countries and beyond. For some years now, child trafficking has been an issue of concern to the international community as well as attract public opinion.

In Africa, the movement of children goes back to ancient days, values and practices. No doubt, therefore in some of the local dialects they are known omo'odor in Yoruba, odibo in Igbo, while in Hausa the names are numerous including yarigida (female) dangida (male) or ma temakiya and ma'temaki respectively. Even in Benin Republic, it is known in their local parlance as vidomegon and enfant place (placed children) in French language. The names suggest, "child displacement". That is, movement of child from his/her biological parents to another which could be distant relations.

However, it has been known that this movement and its aims have progressively been mistaken and used to provide cheap or even free labour. Thus, through family placement the continent have witnessed more and more, the development of an "informal servitude agreement" through which the parents, believing that their children would be better off with wealthier families, give them up to a third party who ensures their sustenance in exchange for their labour.

For instance, during the forum of discussions and exchanges at the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) Sub-regional workshop on the trafficking of children in domestic service in Cotonou, Benin, in 1998, which had as participants governmental and non-governmental organisations representating about 17 countries from the West and Central African regions, these two concepts came to the front burner.

It was a similar situation in the workshop that followed in Gabon where the Common Platform for Action (CPA) was launched. It was the Sub-regional Consultation on the Development of Strategies to Fight Child Trafficking for Exploitative Labour Purposes in West and Central Africa held between February 22 to 24 2000, in Libreville. Known as the Libreville Appeal, the present collaborative effort between NAN and ILO, could better be appreciated upon this appeal.

Among the component of the appeal include the involvement of media practitioners in the effort to put child trafficking oncheck. Though, launched since 2000, not many media practitioners reporting the issue know much about it. It is not surprising that the ILO, a major stakeholder in the menace and partner to the appeal, is supporting NAN in this regard. Consequently, for the media to effectively carry out this crusade and task of creating awareness about the menace among the people, it needed to be empowered.

It is not surprising that NAN has decided to take the bull by the horn through a collaborative effort with the ILO, an arm of the UN agency mainly saddled with such responsibilities.

At the formal flagoff of the programme recently, NAN's Managing Director, Mr. Akin Osuntokun, described the project as a fallout of NAN genuine concern for the holistic welfare of the Nigerian child who has in the past been subjected to various forms of 'excruciating' abuse and neglect. He said such a collaboration was not a novel idea to the agency.

"Four years ago, the agency, in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), began a project to increase and sustain awareness in the media about population and development issues, as our modest contributions to enhanced living standards of our people. So, we are not new in collaborative activities with the UN agencies as well as with other establishments to set the agenda and improve the living standards of our people", he said, stressing that the project is the first of its kind since the ILO signed a Memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Nigerian government in 2000.

According to him, though Nigerians care for their children whose welfare have also been the responsibility of the extended family, the economic recession, increasing unemployment, grinding poverty, rapid urbanisation, weak institutional framework, breakdown of the extended family system and perverted value system have forced millions of children into new types of labour, which are exploitative, hazardous and prejudicial to their welfare and to development.

"Women's and children's vulnerability and the low status of females, corruption and global markets for sex are also contributory, as well as high demand for cheap and submissive child labour, youths' desire for emancipation through migration and the age-long tradition", he said, were some of the key factors that are fertilising ground for the menace to flourish.

"As the collective responsibility is being eroded, the family is left in the struggle for survival, resulting in the gross violation of the rights of the child. Hence, the emergence of child trafficking, one of the worst forms of child labour. It has now assumed a global phenomenon and attracted deep concern", he further said.

Quoting a UNICEF report, Osuntokun put the estimate of children population in Nigeria who are victims of the menace at 64 million, while the average age of trafficked children, especially girls, is 15 years.

"Out of Nigerian girls in sex trade in Europe, 60 per cent are in Italy, while Belgium and the Netherlands are experiencing an upsurge in the number of such girls.

"The report also says that about eight million Nigenan girls are engaged in exploitative labour, putting them at a great risk of human trafficking, as 43 per cent of them are based in the southern border towns of Calabar, Uyo, Port Harcourt and Owerri. On the average, 10 children daily pass through Nigeria's borders especially at Seme, Maiduguri, Sokoto and Calabar", he noted.

Urging the media for action, he said, recent research study on media perception of child labour in its worst forms showed that although many media establishments in Nigeria have development pages and programmes, children issues attract less significance compared to other facets of development in terms of frequency, prominence and depth of reportage.

Reasons for the perception, according to him, include preferred interests in other issues such as economy, politics and sports, clash of interests between the publisher and the journalist, pervasive commecialism in the media industry, socio-cultural constraints, inadequate working tools, knowledge of the subject matter, access to information, funding and commitment.

"We have observed that the media see the reportage of child labour and child trafficking as a series of events, rather than emerging social, historical and cultural processes connected to development. The reportage is also opportunistic and perfunctory, while the perception is low. Because the issues are not immediate money-spinners like economy, politics and sports, not enough significance is accorded to them, except when such issues are to be sensationalised", he declared.

He ennumerated the objectives of the NAN/ILO partnership to include building a strong media capacity and raise media perception on child labour in its worst forms to enable journalists accord more significance to child-related issues.

"In the next one year or so, we shall embark on measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound strategies activities which would first begin with empowering the media with information to enable them make informed reporting. This media encounter will be on a monthly basis while workshops would be organised not only for the journalists but also for some stakeholders.

"It now behoves on our journalists to make the project an enduring success, for our collective benefits as a nation. Let us turn the media environment to a more child-friendly one. Let our newsrooms always glow with development issues on children as well as the welfare of people. The exposure of the evil of child trafficking is a vital contribution the media can make towards the protection of children.

The ILO National Programme Manager, Mr. MacJohn Nwaobiala, emphasised that ILO has the mandate to ensure that countries progressively initiate policies that promote child rights, espcially with regards to worst forms of labour. Tracing the activities of the body in Nigeria to 1992, he said, the project on the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) began in the year 2000, while further explaining on the partnership with NAN.

"This programme is known as capacity building programme. It is to build the media capacity to respond to child trafficking and child labour", he explained. Accordingly, he said, the programme will run for 18 months. Other component of the MoU signed with the Federal Government of Nigeria, he said, include the development of a national policy on child labour and the withdraw of minors from the streets.

On the whole, he said, a total of 2,000 children would be rehabilitated under the scheme. This, he further said, would be carried out in collaboration with three organisations: Human Development Initiative (HDI), Human Development Fundation of Nigeria (HDFN) and the Women Consurtium of Nigeria (WOCON). He called for concerted efforts among Nigerians to make the programme worthwhile. Though, the media has been doing its best in the prompt reporting of issues of child labour and child trafficking, the current partnership between NAN and ILO is expected to give the media the desired impetus, he added.

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200409290466.html

MCD mobile schools for underprivileged

VIVIDHA KAUL

TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2004 02:31:01 AM]

NEW DELHI: This is school chale hum with a twist. For those who are unable to go to school, the MCD's primary education department now plans to start mobile schools.

Ragpickers along with children of construction workers and sex workers are the ones whom the MCD plans to target as part of this project.

The number of children unable to attend primary school in Delhi is estimated to be 50,000-60,000.

On the cards are brightly coloured and decorated buses with the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan tune playing so as to attract these children.

Besides giving these children a bridge course, the MCD plans to conduct health check-ups and give nutritional inputs too. In the long run, these children will be integrated with MCD schools.

A half-day consultation with leading NGOs and government officers will be held on Friday with regard to the plan. The MCD soon plans to bring out a policy document on the same.

"Government of India schemes like the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) do not have any nutritional or health components. By providing these components, we will help make the schemes more ‘rounded', ‘' said an official.

The teaching component will be taken care of by NGOs. As far as the funds for the programme are concerned, the MCD hopes to generate some from the SSA and the National Child Labour Projects (NCLP).

"We conducted a survey in areas near landfill sites and realised that many of these children who are ragpickers are supporting their families. So the solution is not to simply ask them to stop coming there and go to school instead. That is where the concept of mobile schools comes in," said the official.

Arrangements for creches will also be made in these mobile schools.

This will help attract those children, specially girls, who have to stay home to look after their siblings.

"We will also try and get self-help groups to rehabilitate these children's parents," said the official.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=867194

1.5 million children engaged in child labour

Tuesday, 28 September 2004

Kumasi, Sept. 28, GNA - A household survey conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service in 2003 has revealed that about 1.5 million children under the age of 15 were estimated to be working in Ghana, even though the Children's Act stipulates 15 years as the minimum age for employment.

The survey said 1.031 million children under the age of 13 were in child labour in violation of the minimum age of 13 for light work, Superintendent Elizabeth Dassah, National Director of the Women and Juvenile Unit (WAJU) of the Ghana Police Service, said in Kumasi. Speaking at the opening of a two-day sensitisation workshop on child issues on Monday, she said, the most poignant observation of the survey was the fact that even though the minimum age of employment in hazardous labour was 18 years, children as young as five to 17 years were engaged in this nature of work.

The sensitisation workshop, the first in a series was being organised by the Police Administration under the sponsorship of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Police Chief Inspectors, Inspectors and Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) from Ashanti, Eastern and Brong-Ahafo regions are attending. Superintendent Dassah asked the police to wake up to the reality that, Ghana was a source of transit and destination country for women and children trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced domestic and commercial labour. She said in spite of efforts to stem the problem, a lot more needed to be done as the menace of child labour was not abating and was endangering the lives of the children, who formed the human resource base of the country. Supt. Dassah said, however that, there was no specific law on trafficking and laws under which traffickers were prosecuted were inadequate.

Moreover, she said, the Children's Act does not empower the police to directly take action on offences on child labour, they are only, she said to react to complaints from Labour Officers, members of social services, committees of district assemblies and the Department of Social Welfare.

Above all, the nature of child labour is such that it does not lend itself to easy prosecution. Unlike other offences where the victim willingly report to the police, the victim of child labour feels he or she is benefiting howbeit temporarily from the work and would therefore not co-operate during investigations.

Superintendent Dassah told the police personnel that investigations of this nature demanded painstaking efforts and that, since the services of WAJU were not replicated in every nook and cranny of the country, the regular police and everybody must therefore help in eradicating this social menace.

Mr Ofosu-Mensah Gyeabour, Ashanti Regional Police Commander, who opened the workshop, said the plight of numerous Ghanaian children in hazardous forms of labour was a cause of grave concern to all. He said a demand had therefore been placed on the law enforcement agencies like the police to wake up to the clarion call of enforcing relevant existing laws.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Gyeabour said it was against this backdrop that the Police Administration initiated the training programme to enhance the capacity of police personnel handling the increasing complex nature of child labour.

To ensure a holistic approach, he said, the Police Administration would liaise with relevant agencies to form more child panels and family tribunals in order to speed up the backlog of cases involving child welfare and family related issues, adding that, the activities of these tribunals will go a long way to create congenial environments for children.

Mr Emmanuel Otoo, Programme Manager of ILO said the sponsorship of the workshop by ILO and UNICEF was to aid the police to be able to eradicate child labour and other children related issues.

He noted that after the enactment of laws, the chunk of the responsibility to enforce them, then rested with the police but wondered whether the police were adequately informed about child labour.

The workshop, he said, was therefore to strengthen the skills and sharpen the knowledge of the police in the area of child labour and also called for suggestions and proposals from the police on how to combat the problem completely from society.

Source: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=66792

Poverty drives young kids to stone crushing

[India News] Siliguri, Sept 28

West Bengal's Siliguri District, it seems, continues to openly flout a central government ban on child labour.

This is starkly apparent at stone quarries in the area, where hundreds of children, driven by hunger and poverty, are forced to engage in stone crushing activity.
Under the Constitution, the employment of children under 14 years of age was first prohibited in 1948, and then in 1986, child labour was banned in 17 industries considered hazardous. These strictures notwithstanding, there are still close to 11 million children working instead of going to school.

In Siliguri, children aged below 10 spend eight hours a day by the riverside fishing out stones and breaking them into gravel with hand tools twice the size of their tiny hands. Most of these kids have either been abandoned or are orphaned, and some, are the crucial breadwinners for their even younger sibling.

The constant hammering ends up blistered hands and feet and the prolonged exposure to fine limestone dust leaves many with serious and possibly life-threatening respiratory disorders.
Scared and shy, they are fearful about speaking to strangers, lest they lose their jobs and source of livelihood.

"We break stones because there is no money at home. I am illiterate," Santosh, a young boy said.

Kavita, a girl labourer, said: "I do this for money. There is nothing to eat at home. My name was struck off the school list a few years back."

Employed through contract companies, they lose a sizable chunk of their money to middlemen, ultimately earning only Rs.50 a day, which is not enough to buy them even one complete meal.
Poor law enforcement has meant that their employers, who make huge profits from them, have gone unchecked.

Helpless parents say they have neither the courage nor the resources to rebel, and have accepted their sorry state as fate.

"What to do? We are helpless, there is no money to eat so we all have to work. I have no money to send my children to school. We have to work," Rekha, a labourer, said. (ANI)

Source:http://www.newkerala.com/newsdaily/news/features.php?action=fullnews&id=33693

19 Beninois Kids Repatriated

Tue, 28 Sep 2004

By Eugene Agha

The Comptroller of Immigra-tion in charge of Seme Area Command, Mr. Mike Dike, at the weekend handed over about 19 children , over to Beninois Security operatives.

The children were apparently been trafficked into the country for child labour.

The children whose aged were put between four and 17, according to an Immigration source, were arrested along the Badagry-Seme expressway.

Before the children and their traffickers were handed over to the gendarmes, the Comptroller stated that it became necessary to return the children to their mother land following the continues use of children for child labour by some group of people for financial gains.

"These Beninoise were arrested by the Nigeria Immigration Human Trafficking Unit stationed at the Joint Check Point at Gbaji after they have successfully gained entry into the country through the porous routes at the Border" he said.

He said further that the children and their traffickers were intercepted by the officers and men at about 1.35 am and that at the time of the arrest none of the Beninoise has any travel document nor any document to identify them.

According to him, their number, mode of entry and time, raised some security questions.

Source: http://www.thisdayonline.com/news/20040928news22.html

Respect Children's Rights, Urges Ng'uni

The Post (Lusaka)
NEWS
September 26, 2004
Posted to the web September 27, 2004

By Noel Sichalwe
Lusaka

CHILDREN'S rights need to be respected, labour deputy minister Chile Ng'uni has said.

Officiating at the Jesus Cares Ministries caregivers graduation ceremony on Friday, Ng'uni said parents and guardians had a unique role to play in protecting children's rights because they were responsible for ensuring that children were protected from child labour.

Ng'uni said child labour was growing because of the social problems that had affected a lot of families in the country.

He said government was fighting the child labour scourge to allow everyone to afford a decent life.

Ng'uni said government supported the initiatives of withdrawing, rehabilitating and providing alternatives to the child labourers and their families.

"Child labour threatens the future of the nation," Nguni said. "It is a crime against humanity because children's rights are human rights which must be protected at all costs. Quality children and quality families mean a quality future for Zambia. Child labour is a social evil and an affront to the development prospects of the nation."

Ng'uni said those who opposed efforts aimed at combating child labour should be made accountable because they were the ones that contributed to poverty that resulted in children engaging themselves in dangerous trades like stone crushing, prostitution and general streetism.

He said the efforts by Jesus Cares Ministries to combat child labour demonstrated the resolve to serve humanity and complement government efforts.

Ng'uni urged the graduating students to commit themselves and improve the lives of children, especially those crushing stones.

Speaking at the same function, Jesus Cares Ministries director Godfrida Sumaili said she was grateful to her donors that had made the project successful since they started in September last year.

Sumaili, who is also a Human Rights Commissioner, said Jesus Cares Ministries had since withdrawn 1,950 children from the streets out of whom 1,225 have been integrated into formal schools.

She further said under the same programme, 220 cargivers and youths had undergone skills training in various life survival skills.

Sumaili said out of the 120 care givers that graduated on Friday, five young men were withdrawn from stone crushing and had now undergone a one year carpentry course. She said all of them were now in productive employment.

Sumaili also commended the role the community played in implementing the programme.

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200409270632.html

Child labourers rescued in Vellore

Monday, 27 Sep 2004

Vellore, Sep 24 - Officials of the Revenue department and employees of the Child Labour Abolition Support Scheme (CLASS), with the help of women's Self-Help Group members raided automobile workshops, tea stalls and shops and business establishments here yesterday to detect and rescue child workers.

A total of 34 children were rescued. While a large number of child workers in the beedi and match industry have been rescued in the last 8 years and enrolled in regular schools, child labour in automobile workshops, hotels and tea stalls remained to be tacked.

Yesterday's raids were carried out to rescue child workers in automobile workshops on the Municipal Bye-Pass Road and tea stalls and other business establishments at Long Bazaar and Chunnambukkara Street.

The Collector, S. Gopalakrishnan, led the raids at the National Theatre junction, while the District Revenue Officer, C. Gopalakrishnan, led it at Chunnamkubbara Street.

Members of the women's SHGs went to houses and caught hold of children engaged as domestic help. Some child workers, on seeing the officials, escaped. But the SHG members chased and rescued them.

Source: http://www.sunnetwork.org/news/regional/tamilnadu/tamilnadu.asp?id=12566

Man gets 17-year sentence for child prostitution

Sat September 25, 2004

An Oklahoma City man was sentenced Friday to more than 17 years in federal prison after admitting to trafficking child prostitutes.

Michael Wayne Thomas, 43, received his sentence of 17½ years in Oklahoma City federal court after pleading guilty in June to three counts.

"Thomas operated an extensive prostitution enterprise which included transporting juveniles to Dallas, Houston, Denver and Harrisburg (Pa.) for purposes of prostitution," U.S. Attorney Robert G. McCampbell said.

"This sentence is harsh, but appropriate," McCampbell said.

Testimony at the sentencing hearing showed that Thomas prostituted three juveniles and had recruited a fourth, McCampbell said.

Thomas is among 19 people that prosecutors allege shipped for prostitution more than a dozen girls, ages 13 to 18, from the Oklahoma City area to cities in Colorado, Texas, Florida, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio.

Eight federal defendants have pleaded guilty to charges related to the FBI investigation that began in January 2002. Thomas is the first to be sentenced.

Source: http://newsok.com/article/1324901/?template=news/main

Niger Delta Tops List of Child Traffickers - WOTCLEF

From Okon Bassey in Port Harcourt

26 Sep 2004

Wife of the Vice President, Chief Amina Titi Atiku Abubakar, has expressed worry at the rate child trafficking business is booming in the Niger Delta, saying the region has the highest number of human trafficking in the country.

The Vice President's wife expressed her concern, when she paid a courtesy call on the Chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, weekend at the NDDC Corporate office in Port Harcourt.

Mrs. Atiku, who is also the founder of a non-governmental organisation, "Women Trafficking and Child Labour Eradication Foundation? (WOTCLEF)," said her visit to NDDC office was therefore to solicit support from the commission to jointly look for ways to eradicate child trafficking activities in the region.

"I felt the need to visit NDDC in the course of my awareness campaign against trafficking in persons for two reasons. First, it is observed that majority of the trafficked victims in Nigeria, especially the children in their teens, are sourced mostly from the region. And in the course of our counseling and rehabilitation programmes, many children have been rescued from this part of the federation."

Source: http://www.thisdayonline.com/news/20040926news22.html

Social change through children

Monday, Sep 20, 2004

Realising the importance of children in bringing about social change and accepting them as equal and important members of society is a new book, "Bal Panchayat: Celebrating Children's Participation'', which was released at India Habitat Centre in the Capital this past week by the Union Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs, Sunil Dutt, in the presence actress and social activist Nandita Das.

The book shares the stories and experiences of many underprivileged children, their families and communities as they underwent a metamorphosis while bringing about children's participation and ensuring child rights.

It reflects the concerns, joys, aspirations and tribulations of children as they move from a position of victim to a position of empowerment.

In fact, Mr. Dutt was not originally supposed to release the book. On coming to know that he was attending another function at the same venue, the children approached him.

"I couldn't say no to them and that is why I am here,'' Mr. Dutt said, lauding the work of the Bal Panchayat and ensuring more support to children through sports so that they are able to empower themselves.

Recalling her association with the Bal Panchayat, Nandita said the positive thing about children was that they were honest to the core and like adults are not yet tuned in to the world of make-believe.

There is a sincerity of purpose in whatever they do and that is evident in the work of the Bal Panchayat,'' she said.

Talking about the book, the Executive Director of CASP, Bhagyashree Dengle, said it was a tribute to the children's capacity to overcome their circumstances and grow and develop. It recognises children as agents of social change and reflects how given the right opportunities and guidance, even the seemingly most underprivileged children can be our nation's strongest asset.''

Added Bruno Oudmayer, the Country Director of Plan India, which has supported the Bal Panchayat experiment : "Children have both the capacity and the commitment to contribute to decisions affecting their future. The whole community would be better off incorporating the views of all, men and women, as well as children.''

The book traces the story of Bal Panchayat, a children's organisation that has grown from being an informal forum for development to a full-fledged children's group with its own governing committee (made up of children) and programmes and agenda.

Bal Panchayat began as a small activity to educate children and help them break out of their shells. Over the years, it has impacted the lives of over 800 children.

Today, Bal Panchayat is a group of young child rights activists who undertake various social activities like funding children's education, media scanning on child rights, imparting training to NGOs on enabling children's participation and running libraries.

By K. Kannan

Source: http://www.hindu.com/lf/2004/09/20/stories/2004092002170200.htm

UNICEF reveals abuse of millions

Margaret Wenham
21sep04

AN estimated 1.2 million children worldwide are trafficked each year, two million work in the commercial sex trade, more than 13 million are estimated to be AIDS orphans and 250 million are involved in child labour.

These are just some of the sobering statistics that UNICEF deputy chief Kul Gautam will reveal today to the more than 1000 delegates from 58 countries who are attending the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect conference on child protection at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.

In his keynote paper, Mr Gautam said 40 million children under 15 in the world suffered from abuse and neglect and required health and social care.

As well, an estimated 30,000 children were being used as child soldiers in conflicts in more than 30 countries.

In the past 15 years, he said, more than two million children died as a result of war.

Mr Gautam said child-protection objectives linked with poverty eradication and economic development goals, which had been agreed by world leaders, would not be met while children were still being beaten, trafficked into sexual slavery and being forced to work instead of going to school.

"Poverty is the main cause of child labour," he said.

"Children are engaged in labour largely to help their families and themselves survive.

"The paradox is that child labour actually contributes to poverty (as it) impedes the future potential of a child to contribute to the economic growth or her or his community."

Mr Gautam said HIV/AIDS posed a large threat to children in the world.

He said two-thirds of newly infected 15 to 19-year-olds in sub-Saharan Africa were female, a phenomenon attributed to the sexual exploitation of young girls by infected older men and sexual violence where rape was used as a weapon of war.

"In one hospital in the Eastern Congo, more than 30 per cent of rape survivors tested positive for the HIV virus," he said.

Mr Gautam said governments and communities could do much to build a protective environment for children including legislating against child abuse in its many forms, effectively budgeting for child protection, advocating, monitoring the incidence and nature of abuse to facilitate informed responses and providing recovery services.

He said headway could even be made against entrenched exploitative and abusive attitudes, customs and practices as had occurred in hundreds of Senegalese villages which had abandoned the practice of female genital mutilation.

A key protection measure was the skilling up of all people who came into contact with children – parents, health workers, teachers, police, social workers – so they could recognise and respond to child abuse.

Mr Gautam said the Secretary-General of the United Nations was due to report in 2007 on the progress of the goals set by UN members for the A World Fit for Children program.

By its close tomorrow, about 330 papers will have been delivered at the four-day ISPCAN conference by experts from a range of countries, including Canada, Japan, Norway, Britain, America, Italy, Malaysia, Brazil and India.

Source: http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,
10824265%255E953,00.html

Gov't, CCF join hands to protect Filipino children

Sunday, September 19, 2004

THE Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) has entered into a partnership with the Christian Children's Fund Inc. (CCF), an international non-government organization, in the promotion of the rights and welfare of Filipino children in the local level.

DILG Secretary Angelo Reyes said the DILG and the CCF formalized the agreement at the launching of the Child Friendly LGUs (local government units) project recently.

The Christian Children's Fund (CCF) has been the government partner for years in the promotion of child's rights and welfare in the country.

It had been operating for the last 50 years in provinces like the Mt. Province, Ifugao, Quezon, Laguna, Batangas, Sorsogon, Capiz, Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, Iloilo, Cebu, Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga del Norte, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi and Jolo, as well as the cities of Baguio, San Pablo, Dipolog, Pagadian and Zamboanga.

Reyes said the department through the National Barangay Operations Office (NBOO) has been encouraging local government units to strengthen their Local Council to the Protection of Children (LCPC) in promoting Child Friendly LGUs.

Under the Local Government Code, all LGUs are mandated to organize their own LCPCs.

However, according to NBOO records, only 69.62 percent or provinces, 71.30 percent of cities, 77.49 percent of municipalities and 78.87 percent of barangays nationwide have organized their respective LCPCs.

Under the agreement, the CCF shall collaborate with the DILG in the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of programs to promote Child Friendly LGUs in the Cordillera South Luzon and other identified areas.

It shall also provide funds for carrying out the approved plans in the said areas and assist in strengthening the LCPC to make them effective in overseeing the implementation of children's programs.

The DILG, on the other hand, shall coordinate with the CCF in the implementation of the Area Strategic Plan in the identified areas.

It shall conduct capability-building projects to enhance the skills of LGUs, provide assistance in planning and implementing community programs in project areas to promote Child Friendly LGUs.

The CCF programs include health and sanitation, nutrition, early children development, micro enterprise development, emergency relief and education, community health and family planning. (Jonathan F. Fernandez)

Source: http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/man/2004/09/19/news/gov.t.
ccf.join.hands.to.protect.filipino.children.html

Children Welfare Team Commissioned

The Monitor (Kampala)
NEWS
September 20, 2004
Posted to the web September 20, 2004

By Michael J. Ssali
Masaka

The World Vision has passed out a team of 20 volunteers to work as Community Orphans and Vulnerable Children care Takers (COCT).

The District Chairman, Mr Vincent Ssempijja, commissioned the team on September 17 at Butale Primary School in Kabonera sub-County, Masaka District.

The team had spent week undergoing training on how to uplift children's welfare, protect children from violence, neglect, child labour and early marriages. The volunteers are to work in ten parishes in Kabonera sub-county.

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200409200917.html

Pakistani children being trained for war

Monday, September 20, 2004

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Children in Pakistan are being trained and used in armed conflicts according to a report by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC)

The SPARC report expressed disappointment over the fact that Pakistan has not yet ratified the optional protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) on the involvement of children in armed conflicts. Article 38 of the UNCRC states that, “no child below the age of 15 shall have any part in hostilities or shall be recruited in the armed forces. States shall also ensure the protection and care of children who are affected by armed conflicts as described in international laws”.

The report observed that Pakistani children had suffered worst form of violence after US invaded Afghanistan in 2001. “Recruitment of children continued despite the government's attempts to curb the use of madrassas (seminaries) as breeding grounds for jihadis. Factors including poverty, unemployment, adventure, physical punishment, religious glory and feeling of being powerful at a young age prompt children to join the jihadi outfits that manage many of the madrassa networks,” the report said. It claimed that there were over 70,000 madrassas in Pakistan and some were still involved in recruiting thousands of children to fight in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

The report appreciated government's madrassas Reforms plan that would spend millions of dollars on modernising some 8,000 seminaries despite the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal's (MMA) disapproval.

According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), over 40 million children around the world are displaced. The UNICEF estimates that more than two million children have died in conflicts, six million have been maimed and more than a million orphaned over the past ten years.

The SPARC report said: “Children are also recruited by political factions, various sects and nationalist movements to wage an internecine war inside the country. Boys as young as 14 have been victims of such conflicts in Pakistan. In sectarian conflicts, young boys are recruited to kill members of opposing groups.”

A survey from the Pakistan Paediatric Association in NWFP suggests that 203 children had been victims of landmines in Bajaur Agency. The survey found that landmines were the main cause of child deaths in the tribal belt along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border as they caused 56 percent of the deaths. The SPARC report noted with disappointment that landmine victims in the tribal areas had little access to medical or rehabilitative facilities. “The people in the tribal belt are little informed about the laws regarding the use, sale and trade of landmines. Reports suggest that landmines continue to be used to settle personal enmities,” it said.

About 1.2 million children between the ages of three and 18 are living in the streets of major cities in Pakistan, according to a survey conducted by the Centre of Research and Social Development. These children are the most defenceless and victims of brutal violence and sexual exploitation, abject neglect, chemical addiction and human rights violations, according to the survey.

The SPARC report alleged that 1.2 million poor and marginalised children were trafficked for various forms of child labour ranging from forced labour in hazardous conditions to sex exploitation. Trafficked children, both male and female, were used for prostitution, camel races, organ transplants, drug smuggling, begging, forced child marriages and other purposes, the report claimed.

Source: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_20-9-2004_pg7_24

NGOs: gladiators of freedom

Deprived of a childhood

20 September 2004

Working on the ground and in international campaigns, NGOs have managed to shed a glimmer of hope on the lives of hundreds of thousands of child slaves - Louise Corradini and Asbel López

At five in the morning, well before most children get up to go to school, 12-year-old Abula sets out on a six-kilometre barefoot trek along a road made of mud and stone to work on a coffee plantation in Bouafle, Côte d'Ivoire.

When he gets there, wet and tired, the foreman tells him where he is to plant that day. “You have to work fast because they threaten to punish and starve us if we don't do the set amount of work,” he says. “If we can't work because we're ill, we risk being physically tortured. One day I saw them torture two friends of mine who wanted to escape. Both of them ended up dead.”

Abula was rescued by Anti-Slavery International, which was founded in London in 1839 and proclaims itself the world's oldest NGO.

Along with other international organizations, such as the ILO, UNICEF and the European Union, NGOs have grown much more effective in their fight against child slavery and gone beyond simply trying to make governments and international bodies aware of its most extreme expression. Their most valuable work lies in rescuing and rehabilitating dozens of children suffering the cruellest forms of exploitation.

These NGOs work though close coordination between North and South. Those in the South gather evidence and testimonies, while those in the North publicize the issue and help organize international campaigns, the most striking of which was the Global March Against Child Labour in 1998, when groups set out from Asia, Latin America and Africa to assemble outside the ILO's headquarters in Geneva and denounce all exploitation of the world's children.

Anti-Slavery International is now pressing governments and political leaders to make the fight against child workers part of their political programmes. It maintains permanent contact with NGOs in the South and funds projects there to investigate the situation of child workers.

One such NGO is the Bangkok-based Child Workers in Asia (CWA), which recently highlighted the case of a child who was being atrociously exploited. Like Abula in Africa, 14-year-old Devi Lina Sari also rose before dawn to go to her job on a sugar plantation in Medan, Indonesia. “I set out at 6 a.m. every day except Sunday,” she says. “I start work at seven and finish at four in the afternoon, with an hour's break at midday.”

Like all children of her age, she'd like to play with her friends, but after cutting sugar-cane for eight hours she is too exhausted to do anything but rest. “If I cut myself with the machete, the boss pays for medicine but I have to reimburse him. If I'm ill and can't work, I don't get paid.”

When CWA identifies a child worker being exploited, one of its officials goes with a policeman and a social worker to rescue the child and return him or her to the parents (if the child has been taken away by force), or else hand him or her over to a rehabilitation centre or volunteer family if the youth has been sold as a slave. Children who have had the traumatic experience of slavery are rehabilitated over a period of three to six months.

The worst kind of child exploitation is sexual. Maria, a 12-year-old Honduran girl, was kidnapped in her country, sold in Guatemala and taken from there to Mexico, where she was bought by the owner of a bar who forced her to become a prostitute, servicing 20 men a day.

This tragic case was discovered by Casa Alianza, founded in Guatemala in 1981 and now the Latin American branch of Covenant House, a New York-based NGO. Casa Alianza started out by rehabilitating street children in Central America, but for the past four years it has focused on exposing the sexual and commercial trafficking and exploitation of children, which includes pornography, sexual tourism and child prostitution.

This is a massive task, but it has already proved effective: Costa Rica's special judge dealing with sex crimes acknowledges that two-thirds of the cases coming before him have been raised by Casa Alianza.

The journalists Louise Corradini from Argentina, and Asbel López , from Colombia, are with the Spanish-language broadcasting service of Radio France Internationale. Mr López has written many articles on information and communication technology topics.

The UNESCO Courier: June 2001

Source: http://www.mondialogo.org/mo/site/?key=-1.10.30.07

“Dear Labour Commissioner ...''

Do you see the children working on the road?

Friday , September 17, 2004

G.R. Vora

Mumbai, September 16:: This is to bring to the notice of the authorities concerned with the employment of five to 15-year-old children by various shopkeepers and others to hawk their goods or beg at traffic junctions. This is a serious matter as several issues are raised that affect the well-being of the child and society.

Often, it is found that children are made to beg or sell articles such as newspapers, drinking water bottles, flowers, foodstuff, car-cleaning cloth and brushes to motorists. This is encouragement to child labour. Children are used as they come cheap and don't demand much. Doesn't this violate the rules of the Child Labour Prohibition and Regulation Act, 1986?

In addition to being a traffic hazard, it is observed that women go about begging at signals with a child in their arms to arouse sympathy and seek some loose change in the bargain.

This is an encouragement to poor couples to ‘rent' their infants for begging purposes. It is also an encouragement to child traffickers, as reported in the media some time ago. Children are kidnapped and maimed solely for the purpose of making them beg.

Thirdly, the brisk business these urchins do is an incentive for more and more kids to drop out from school. Thus, our support to these urchins and lack of penal action against them leads to a rise in their numbers.

It also creates more and more hawkers on our streets. Slumdwellers push their kids into hawking as they find it more profitable than spending on their education.

On one hand, we find the municipal corporation floundering over the issue of removal of unauthorised slums which have come up after 1995.

On the other, this begging and hawking by urchins encourages formation of more slums and hawkers on roadsides, highways and major junctions.

Keeping in view the rise in child labour and violation of the basic tenets of the Child Labour Act and the chain of detrimental effects the tolerance of begging and hawking at traffic junctions has on society, we urge the Labour Commissioner and other concerned authorities like the BMC and the police to take strict penal action against shopkeepers and others who employ streetkids to hawk at signals so that child labour and its consequences are curbed.

G R Vora Sion(East), Mumbai

Source: http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=99850

The Fizz Of Child Labour

Web Sep 16, 2004

In the guise of celebrating team spirit, the latest Pepsi advertisement on TV romanticises child labour and offers it celebrity endorsement. Perhaps the Advertising Standards Council of India needs to step in?

S. ANAND

In recent times, we have seen the Indian cricket team get into a huddle each time a bowler takes a wicket. This was interpreted to convey that a hitherto-unseen team spirit was suffusing the team; that the team had shed its brahminical aversion to physical contact between players (The Retreat of the Brahmin). But it may well be that this apparent display of team spirit has been entirely sponsored by an MNC that has signed on a majority of the team members.

Once the Indian huddle became a regularity, Pepsi was quick to issue an advertisement, where the second fall of the wicket, even before the real playing team huddles, a Pepsi-recorded image of a cluster of blue shirts is shown celebrating for a few seconds. It was almost like saying: this wicket was sponsored by Pepsi! And now, beginning with the Natwest series and carrying into the ICC Champions Trophy, we have this new advertisement.

A young boy carries eleven bottles of fizz in one hand and an old transistor-radio with another listening to the commentary. On the field, Irfan Pathan has taken a wicket, the huddle is on, as the muffled background commentary (in Hindi) talks of how this is the world-famous huddle, India's newfound team spirit. Cut to the boy, probably 9 or 10 years old, abandoning his radio, and making a dash through a secret tunnel…

It is not clear whether he is running through a sewer--with exhaust fans and pipes in the quick, underground shots--but he might well be. On the field, the huddled team begins to move in unison towards a point on the field as a woman spectator from the stadium points to the strange movement. From the middle of the huddle, as Sachin signals with a sly, shrill whistle, the boy emerges with eleven bottles of Pepsi to quench the team's thirst. The eleven players sip through extra-long straws.

At this point, Saurav asks the child, ‘Hey Hero, aur ek Pepsi milega?' (Remember, the punch-line is ‘Yeh pyaas hai badi'.) And the child, who always sports an expression of perpetual delight, shoots back: ‘Ek aur wicket milega?' The huddle crumbles and the players get back to the game, hopefully to get another Pepsi-driven wicket. The boy is sucked back into the manhole from which he emerged and is seen with his radio awaiting the fall of the next wicket.

This entire scenario, played out in about a minute, has several stories wrapped in it. If you are really generous, and immoral, you could say that it depicts the reality of child labour in India. The advertisement simply portrays a lived reality and there need not be any pointless moral indignation over it. Several model players like Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar are such good philanthropists anyway. Sachin has posed for photographs with CRY (Child Relief and You), which deals with issues of child labour. Most players make time to visit spastic children homes, HIV+ children, children with cancer, orphanages etc. The media promptly covers these moments. So the Indian team does have a conscience and indulges in occasional displays of social responsibility.

Given this, the Indian team and Pepsi, it may appear, do not directly contribute to the problem of child labour in India, which has an estimated 120 million working children. For that matter, how many times do journalists like yours truly refuse to drink a glass of tea served by a child labourer? In how many Chennai restaurants have I not eaten where the tables are cleaned by 9- and 10-year-olds? Have I picked quarrels each time, and have I been able to resolve the problem? If no, do I have the moral ground to point a finger at the Indian team and Pepsi? Since I have no easy answers, should I just sit back, ignore the offensive advertisement, and carry on with life? Will writing this piece make a difference?

The culpability of the Indian team in justifying and accepting child labour as a service has far greater implications than the action or inaction of an individual in everyday life. Pepsi, as an MNC brand, seems to acknowledge that part of its profits are made by young child workers who are robbed of school, play (perhaps cricket) and innocence in the process. By beaming this image onto the televisions of millions of middle-class and upper middle-class households, both Pepsi and members of the Indian cricket team are conveying the message that it's okay to be serviced by child labour.

That thousands of middle-class Indian homes employ child domestics and treat them inhumanely is a dirty little secret we all love to keep (A Few Blind Spots). This Pepsi advertisement assures these middle class families they are not doing anything wrong. It conveys the same message to privileged children in these families: it is alright for some children to sweat while others study. Most families get away with abuse because India has no law that makes employing child labour a punishable offence. The Child Labour (Regulation and Prohibition) Act, 1986, merely bans work by children below 14 in hazardous processes and industries like match factories, bidi-making units, carpet-making or cinder picking. According to Indian law, the labour that the nameless ‘Hero' of the Pepsi ad performs is non-hazardous and hence not illegal. This is similar to child labour in the hotel industry that has the sanction of law.

The Pepsi advertisement romanticises child labour and offers it celebrity endorsement. It justifies and encourages the use of child labour. Perhaps the Advertising Standards Council of India will see reason and urge the PepsiCo India to immediately withdraw the advertisement. Colas not only seem to have permitted levels of pesticides that could harm your body; their ads have permitted levels of irresponsibility that can harm the moral fabric of society.

Source: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=
20040916&fname=anand&sid=1

Exploitation of tribal children continues

AJAZ AHMED

TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2004 06:28:57 PM ]

DUMKA: The thirty-year-old infamous Chirudih massacre case, which recently got the media attention following the arrest of JMM supremo Shibu Soren, is said to be an outburst of the tribal community against Dikus (non-tribals), who had cheated them. Much has changed since then. Many movements were launched to protest exploitation by Dikus and many leaders emerged and rose to prominence at the national level also. However, tribal people, particularly in rural areas are still being exploited.

Recently, two tribal girls, Vimal Pujhar (13), daughter of Bhushan Pujhar, and Panu Besra (12), daughter of Perme Besra, both belonging to Jhajhapara village under Ranibahal panchayat were allegedly sold in Kanpur (UP).

These girls were missing since September 3. According to sources, they were on their way to school situated in Dumka. On the way, they were trapped by Pratima Pal, who sold them.

After being nabbed by the natives, Pal, who sells murhi in villages only to find soft targets, accepted that she along with her husband had sold both the girls for Rs 8,000 each, to a person who took them to Kanpur.

Four months earlier, one more girl, Nirashi Pujhar (16), daughter of Bhusan Pujhar, had also disappeared from the village. Police have arrested Pratima, but the missing girls are yet to be recovered and another accused Laxmi Kant is also absconding.

In another incident, on September 5, four tribal boys fled away from the institution where they came with the hope of getting free education, fooding and lodging. After being intercepted by natives of adjoining village, they alleged that instead of educating them, the organisation had engaged them as labourers in building construction.

On the basis of their complaint, the labour department has registered a case under Child Labour Prohibition Act 1986. Though the concerned organisation, 'The Peace Foundation' has denied the allegation of child abuse, the role of such organisations has now come under clout.

Many tribal children are being exploited sexually or physically. But neither the tribal leaders nor the government has ever taken the matter seriously. Two years ago, when an NGO claimed that hundreds of tribal children are working in the district as bonded labourers much hue and cry were raised.

"Though the figure given by the organisation may be exaggerated, the existence of bonded labour in the district could not be negated," clarified Nalini Kant, a social worker.

Zanzibaris cautioned of mushrooming child labour

16 Sep 2004

By Issa Yussuf, Zanzibar

Zanzibar has been cautioned to stand firm against child labour, or risk its pessimistic impact including commercial sex.

According to the ‘rapid assessment report', presented by the Zanzibar labour commissioner, Iddi Ramadhani Mapuri, at the two-day workshop last Monday, child labour in Zanzibar is becoming rampant, and that all institutions must work together in fighting the ill treatment of children.

Mapuri told workshop participants here including Journalists, district and regional executive officers from Pemba and Unguja regions, that the situation must be checked with immediate effect.

Giving their views, participants questioned the role of courts and police in the country, in taking action against people and more specifically parents who are involved in the open and secret child labour in the Isles.

The identified areas where child labour was deafening in the archipelago island include fishing, clove peaking, petty business, such as selling cakes, business at the port, house care and commercial sex in the tourism attractions areas.

It was said in the workshop that some children had left school because of their parent's laxity and some of them in Pemba and the mainland, under the age 18, were being locked up secretly in a number of Unguja Island homes to work for their masters for inefficient payment or “nil payment.”

Kiwengwa and Nungwi in the north of Zanzibar were cited to be leading tourists destinations practising widely commercial sex involving children under 18 years of age, most of them are alleged to be from the Mainland.

In his opening remarks, the Zanzibar principal secretary, ministry of Youths, Labour, Children and women development, Omar Dadi Shajaki, highlighted what he saw as deformity in the war against child labour. Saying people think Zanzibar is clean from child labour. Which was a wrong conception.

Shajak said: “Child labour exists in Zanzibar. People should be aware of that, and take all the necessary means to wipe out the unacceptable employment of children. Parents, journalists, government and NGOs should work hard to stop the malpractice. ”

It was time, he noted, that those charged with child labour re-assessed their move to ensure it was at unity with the society's need to burry the inhumanity against children.

However, the participants noted that lack of awareness, poverty, and delay in salary payments contributed to the increase of child labour.

“The international donors organizations and the Zanzibar government should find ways of reducing poverty as many children are forced to work to subsidise for their daily basic needs”, several participants observed.

In his closing remarks, Mapuri told the participants that his department would undertake a survey, to find out the “current” statistics and nature of child labour, in the less than one million population of Zanzibar.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) under the International Programme for Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) is struggling to put to an end child labour around the globe.

It is also pressing governments and NGOs in different countries to set laws and policies that fight child labour.

Source: http://www.ippmedia.com/ipp/guardian/2004/09/16/21407.html

Unicef, ILO call for ending worst forms of child labour

Thu. September 16, 2004

The Unicef and ILO have called on the government and the civil society to take effective action to end worst forms of child labour, says a press release.

The call came from a meeting to review the project 'Addressing Child Labour in the Bangladesh Garment Industry'. The meeting ended in Dhaka yesterday.

It looked at interventions and practices linked with the industry over a nine-year period from 1995.

Participants called for continued efforts to ensure that children are not engaged in hazardous employment, while at the same time not being thrown into a life that deprives them of their right to education and economic well-being.

"Getting children out of work is necessary but not sufficient to end worst forms of child labour. Alternatives must be put in place as they are removed from employment," said Louis-Georges Arsenault, deputy programme director of Unicef.

Eliminating the worst forms of child labour is a global priority under ILO's Convention 182, said Frans Roselaers, director, International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, ILO.

A synthesis paper based on assessments of programmes conducted over the nine years was presented at the symposium.

The meeting recommended that getting under-age children out of work and into school is the right strategy but safety nets should be in place prior to removing children from work to mitigate the negative welfare effects and ensure that children do not end up in even worse conditions.

It also called for a monitoring and verification system to keep workplaces free from child labour.

It also suggested introducing an effective birth registration system for proper targeting of underage children.

Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/2004/09/16/d40916060358.htm

Active participation of children in Rs. 14b UNICEF Action Plan - President

Thursday, 16 September 2004

by E. Weerapperuma

President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga said her Government was comitted to do its utmost to create a world for children that would be fit to produce good and successful citizens of Sri Lanka.

Addressing Ministers, officials of the UNICEF, Save the Children, Sarvodaya and children present from all districts including the North and the East at the launching ceremony of the" National Action Plan for Children" at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute, the President observed that children were committed and talented and would perform well if given the responsibility in implementing the National Plan of Action for the Children of Sri Lanka since they were consulted in preparing the NPA document.

"Going further we hope that we would be able to get the active participation of children "Our Future" in the implementation of the Plan, President Kumaratunga said.

In her address the President pointed out that the cost of the Four Year Action Plan beginning from 2004 to 2008 would cost around Rs.14 billion and said that her Government was able to contribute only 20 per cent of this sum for the moment adding that this would be raised with donor assistance.

She said children had no agendas and is of little ambition. "We hope the relevant Ministries, Provincial Councils and other donor agencies will make arrangements to bring children to act with us".

She recalled the May 2002 Special Session on Children in the United Nations and said that she was invited to address this session organised by the UNICEF where the heads of government present, committed themselves to prepare and implement "An Action Plan" to create a better world for children following the process outlined in the "World Fit For Children" document." My Government and I remain committed doing our best in Sri Lanka to create a world for children that will be fit to produce good and successful citizen for Sri Lanka", she added.

President Kumaratunga observed that Sri Lanka has a special problem concerning children. She said children suffered during the past 35 years and were the victims of the terrible violence. Children in different districts suffered differently and the violence witnessed today was perpetrated by youth against adults and it is committed against themselves as well. They have also become victims of drug and alcohol." We have no human resources sufficient to handle the situation.

These problems could reach crisis level unless we manage them. We are fully aware of this and we cannot solve it by ourselves. We need the continued support of our friends", the President said.

She also noted that the majority of our youth were below the age level of 35. " At one point our young population was 65 per cent but due to various reasons including birth control we have a lower level of the young population today and there is an increse in the number of the aged ".

Additional Director General/Department of National Budget B. Abeygunawardena giving the background to the preparation of the NAP for Children of Sri Lanka, said that the Government policy statement had given the highest priority for serving the children and the illiterate among the poorest of the poor.

He said that special attention would be given in the areas of education, health, nutrition, child labour, juvenile justice, water and sanitation and protecting the disadvantaged child.

UNICEF Representative in Sri Lanka Ted Chaiban said that Sri Lanka was one of the first countries to have spoken about the children at the UN special session 2000, and said that over 400 children took part in that session.

Three children on behalf of the child population of Sri Lanka spoke in appreciation of the opportunity they got to express their views in the preparation of the Action Plan.

Source: http://www.dailynews.lk/2004/09/16/pol01.html

President to launch National Plan of Action for Children

Wednesday, 15 September 2004

President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga will launch the Government's National Plan of Action for Children today, states a press release from the Presidential Media Unit.

A National Plan of Action (NPA) was developed by the Planning Department of the Ministry of Finance with UNICEF assistance and will enhance its programs and services for Sri Lankan children over the next five years.

The NPA is designed to help meet goals for children set by Governments from around the world at the UN Special Session for Children.

In May 2002 at the UN's Special Session for Children in New York, President Kumaratunga and other World Leaders, made a commitment to create a world fit for children and to develop a National Plan of Action. Sri Lanka is one of the first countries to develop its NPA, highlighting the Government's concern and commitment to children's rights.

In her address at the UN's special session for Children, President Kumaratunga said: "Children are Sri Lanka's greatest asset, and as such it is up to all of us to invest in our children to ensure a brighter future for our country."

The Sri Lankan Government has concentrated its efforts for children in areas such as health, nutrition, education, child protection, water and sanitation, child labour and juvenile justice.

The NPA will form the key policy and operational document for fulfilling these goals for children in Sri Lanka.

As a strategy benefiting children, the Sri Lankan Government worked with UNICEF and other partners to ensure that children had an opportunity to help formulate priorities, review the NPA, and provide feedback to make sure the Plan was truly designed to meet the needs of the country's children.

Children will also be involved in monitoring the progress of NPA activities.

The Government plans to invest Rs. 14.2 billion in children's programs and services over the next five years with support from international partners.

Source: http://www.dailynews.lk/2004/09/15/new02.html

‘Govt failing to control child labour'

11 th September 2004

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: The government has been unable to remove child labourers from hazardous and exploitative situations, according to a research report compiled by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC), a non-government organisation.

“Four years have already passed and not a single step has been taken so far to get children withdrawn from the worst forms of child labour,” says the report titled the ‘State of children in Pakistan'.

On May 10, 2000, the federal cabinet approved the National Policy and Action Plan to combat child labour in all economic sectors of Pakistan. The draft of the action plan was submitted to the cabinet on January 24, 2000. When approving the plan, the government set a deadline of five years to withdraw children from hazardous and exploitative situations, but the report said the government had failed to make any progress in this respect. “This is despite Pakistan's signing and ratifying the ILO (International Labour Organisation) Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour (No 182) on August 17, 2001,” the report added.

It quoted an ILO-sponsored survey of 1996, according to which there were 3.3 million child labourers in Pakistan between the ages of 5 and 14. “The fact that they are not going to school is alarming. Whether or not they are working, Pakistan cannot progress unless all its children of school-going age are attending school,” it said. “With a gross enrolment of 74 percent at the primary school level and a steep decline thereafter, the majority of Pakistan's 46 million children between the ages of 5 and 18 are not attending schools, making them potential child labourers,” it added.

It observed that the widespread societal acceptance of child labour has obscured the fact that it is exploitative and that many forms place the child's health and development in jeopardy.

Child labour survives in Pakistan in innumerable occupations and patterns. Children work primarily in the informal sector in small workshops, home-based operations and casual mining. The report stated that almost all child labour prevention activities in the country are being funded by foreign donors, with the ILO supporting the majority of them. “The only significant government initiative relating to child labour is the establishment of 33 schools throughout the country for the rehabilitation of child labourers and supported by the Pakistan Baitul Maal,” it said.

Source: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_12-9-2004_pg7_31

Street Children: a Sierra Leonean Menace

Concord Times (Freetown)
NEWS
September 13, 2004
Posted to the web September 13, 2004

By Kaday Jalloh
Freetown

The definition of who a child is varies from one country to another.

Under International law, anybody below the age of 18 is categorized as a child.

In Sierra Leone, the law provides that a 14 year old and below is referred to as a child between 14 and 17 is a young person. The statutory authority for these assertions is provided for under the children and young persons Act - Chapter 44 of the laws of Sierra Leone, 1960.

Much as the laws of Sierra Leone provide that a child is anyone below the age of 14, yet, anyone above the age of 10 can be criminally liable for any offences committed.

Under international statutory regulations, a lot has been codified in a calculated attempt to safeguard and protect the rights of a child universally. These rights are expected to be adopted by state actors (legislators) across the globe. One major problem that has affected the effective adaptation of these rights is the unfortunate reality that many governments are slow, and in most cases unwilling to regulate these rights as they are exactly dictated by the Convention on the Rights of the Child .

The Convention on the Rights of the Child categorized the rights of the child into the following segments:

1. Survival Rights - these include things that are necessary for the child's existence, the right to food, the right to shelter, the right to life, the provision of clothing and Medicare.

2. Development Rights -they include education, religion, culture, recreational facilities.

3. Protection Rights - this encompasses the right against forced labour, exploitation, violence, drugs, neglect and all forms of abuse. Prominent amongst, sexual abuse.

4. Participation Rights - broadly speaking, these rights deal with the child's welfare. Broadly speaking, Articles 2, 3 and 12, under the principles of the convention on the Rights of the Child, clearly suggest that whatever decision that should be taken, in relation to a child, must be taken with particular reference to the best interest of the child.

From above, it could be argued that if these child-rights are respected by member states, of which Sierra Leone is one, then the world would have been a paradise for children. The struggle and sufferings of children is not peculiar only to Sierra Leone; it has become a global problem that the world must concertedly make urgent effort to correct.

The Sierra Leonean situation is unique in many respects.

The issue of street children cannot be divorced from the legacy of the decade old civil war, poverty ,and illiteracy. The rebel war undoubtedly accelerated the multiplication of street children. Many became orphans, parading the streets of every major town in the country. Many of them have no one to take care of them. Some were fighters, who perpetuated so much atrocities in their communities that they have now found it impossible to return to such communities; for fear of reappraisals.

Poverty and its attendant consequences have also played no small role in facilitating the menace of street children. Sierra Leone, which has persistently occupied the top from the rear position in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) human index report, has built itself a reputation for poverty.

Against this backdrop, many parents find it very difficult, and on many occasions find it impossible, to take care of their children. Since these parents cannot afford to send their children to school or to do anything to make them economically viable in society, these children have taken matters into their hands to fend for themselves, since the home cannot provide the basics. Some became gun totters, some 'professional' petty thieves.

Another factor that has contributed immensely to increase the population of street children in Sierra Leone is illiteracy. A large percentage of illiterate parents have made it a priority to use their children to raise money through petty-trading as against sending them to school.

Consequently, they become peddlers, thereby exposing them to a lot of societal ills that are actually not to the child's advantage. They quickly inculcate the habit of making themselves street property rather than their homes'. Gradually, they begin to assert their 'independence' to try the streets without restrictions or care.

Because of these factors, the number of street children has sky rocketed across the country. Many non-governmental organizations coming to right the wrongs against the child have emerged. Sadly enough though, most, if not all have proved to be dangerously ineffective.

In recent past, a child rights organization has been named for allegedly facilitating child trafficking.

Other organizations have pocketed monies donated by International Organizations for the advancement of the rights of children. Whether or not these allegations are true or not, the harsh reality is that the number of children that have graduated into the rising column of street children is increasing by the minute.

The government, in concert with both local and international organizations, must act fast to improve the dismal situation and menace of the street child drama.

The Author is an FBC Human Rights Clinic Research student on internship!

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200409131167.html

UNESCO literacy project launched

Malu Cadelina Manar  / MindaNews / 11 September 2004

COTABATO CITY -­ Thirty-two non-government institutions and people's organizations signed this morning a memorandum of agreement (MOA) that called for a Mindanao-wide ‘intensive' advocacy to raise consciousness on worldwide “Education for All” project of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The signing took place at the Japan-Philippines Resource Training Center at Krislamville Subdivision, this city.

The planned activities coincide with the UN's declaration of September as International Literacy Month. “This year's celebration is doubly significant being the third year of the United Nations Literacy Decade,” said Myrna Lim, executive director of the Notre Dame Foundation for Charitable Activities-Women in Enterprise Development (NDFCAI), the lead NGO of the Mindanao-wide advocacy.

The Mindanao NGO Literacy also selected four NGOs in Mindanao and Education Network to implement peace literacy classes in their identified areas. These are the Andres Bonifacio College in Dipolog City, Community Alliance for Peace and Empowerment in Sultan sa Barongis, Maguindanao, Gender and Development (GAD) Advocates in Marawi City, and FIORALS Development in Camiguin province.

The functional peace literacy classes will continue from three to six months and would serve at least 150 learners from each area.

Lim said the “Education for All” (EFA) project supports the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The Convention states: "All children, young people and adults, have the human right to benefit from an education that will meet their basic learning needs, improve their lives and transform their societies.”

The project hopes to expand and improve comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children and ensure that by 2015, "all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, would have access to a complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality.”

It further aims to achieve a 50-percent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially for women, and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all adults.

“We also aspire that in the next years to come, we would be able to eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education,” said Lim.

Source: http://www.mindanews.com/2004/09/11nws-eforall.html

Rs 430 cr for primary education in UP

SRAWAN SHUKLA

TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2004 03:20:24 AM ]

LUCKNOW: Identifying education as an important parameter of overall development, the Mulayam government is all set to pump in about Rs 430 crore in 2004-2005 to improve primary education in Uttar Pradesh.

With Central aid under the ambitious Education for All (EFA) project, the government plans to open about 5,000 new primary and junior high schools in the state at an estimated cost of Rs 136.69 crore. The target is to take every child to school and reduce dropout rates. If the backlog under the EFA is added, a total of about 12,267 new primary and junior house schools would start functioning in 2004-05 taking the total to more than 1.3 lakh schools.

"Infrastructure development is the thrust area to increase accessibility in rural areas. The government has prioritised filling of vacancies to bring down the current teacher-student ratio to 1:40 from 1:70," claims JS Deepak, Director EFA.

Under the EFA, 2,576 new primary schools would be opened in 2004-05 at an estimated cost of Rs 67.5 crore. Each school would be sanctioned a grant of Rs 2.59 lakh for construction of building, toilet, hand pumps etc. Similarly, Rs 69.19 crore would be sanctioned for opening 2,413 junior high schools in all 70 districts of the state.

Basic Shiksha Samitis in all districts have been directed to select sites and send the report to the headquarters for release of grants. "We have already released grants in 15 districts which have submitted their reports," said Deepak.

Besides opening new schools, Rs 130 crore have been sanctioned under the EFA to build 15,699 additional classrooms in primary schools and 2,853 in junior high schools to increase capacity. Request letters are being sent to DMs to begin the work at the earliest.

The government has also sanctioned Rs 66 crore for reconstruction of 2,181 dilapidated buildings of primary schools and 508 of junior high schools in different districts of the state. A fund of Rs 53 crore has also been released for the repair, white-washing and works of similar nature.

Despite having a force of 3.38 lakh teachers, one of the major challenges before the state government is to bring down teacher-student ratio. In the current year, the government plans to appoint 31,000 ' Shiksha Mitras ' taking the total to 70,000.

"If targets are achieved, elementary education in the state is certainly heading for a qualitative change. Currently ranked 18, Uttar Pradesh may cross the 60 per cent barrier by the end of this academic session to come close to all-India literacy rate of 65.38," hopes the director EFA.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/844816.cms

Child illiteracy and child labour are the continent's main social ills

9 September 2004

ASIA

One fifth of India's GNP is generated by exploited minors working in farming sector.

Geneva (AsiaNews) – As the school year began yesterday in many Western countries, the world celebrated International Literacy Day. Organised under the auspices of UNESCO, the event had “Literacy and Gender” as its main theme. According to the UN agency's own data there are 860 million illiterate adults, more than two thirds women. The number of minors not attending school exceeds 110 million, 56 per cent girls.

Illiteracy is directly related to poverty and underdevelopment, circumstances that force millions of children to leave school before they become fully literate and work in conditions where they are easily exploited. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has estimated that throughout the world, 250 million children, aged between five and 17, were engaged in child labour, 155 million in Asia alone.

In Asia child labour has become a virtual system that is particularly abusive of girls. Sexual exploitation has in fact become a major social ill in many Asian societies. Many girls are forced into prostitution in countries like Cambodia, Bangladesh, Nepal, India and Pakistan . “About one million children are lured or forced into the sex trade in Asia every year,” reports Child Workers in Asia, an organisation fighting child exploitation. “A more alarming fact is that people known to them introduce many of these children into the work,” it adds.

Children in Asia are used in different types of work: farming, making leather goods, stone-cutting, mining, toy making, textiles, making brick in kilns, construction, dumpsites. The problem is accentuated by western multinational companies setting up Asian branch plants in many manufacturing sectors, especially textile.

The many wars in Asia compound child exploitation for they provide opportunities to recruit boys into armies. Tens of thousands of them have thus been recruited and are being recruited, often by force, by armies and paramilitary groups. Human Rights Watch reports that many, very young children are serving as soldiers in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Cambodia. Many others have been recruited by groups such as the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines.

Worse still is the situation in India where human rights activists have denounced child debt bondage. At least 5 million children are forced to work to repay debts their parents contracted or for the cash advances they received. According to Human Rights Watch, very few children are ever ransomed from bondage. Asian Labour Monitor estimates that one fifth of India's GNP is generated by exploited minors working in the farming sector, mostly children of landless families. With 44 million minors working, India has the unenviable world record in child labour. (MA)

Source: http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=1448

Focus on fight against sexual abuse of kids

Greater international co-operation was needed to stamp out computer-aided crimes against children, an American child rights lobbyist said in Cape Town yesterday.

"To combat global networks of child pornographers we must become global networks of child protectors," Dr Sheila Johnson, a board member of the US-based International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, said.

She was speaking at a discussion organised by the centre, funded by Microsoft and backed by Interpol, on "computer-facilitated" crimes against children such as child pornography and luring.

The discussion was attended by child welfare groups, parliamentarians, police and prosecutors, and representatives of the IT industry and Cape Town city council.

It coincided with a week-long specialist course, also organised by the centre, on the same theme for law enforcement officials from 14 countries, mostly African, at the police training academy at Paarl.

Johnson said the privacy and accessibility that made the Internet a force of social good could also make it a force for evil.

"The children of the world are our future and by exploiting them we are destroying the fabric of societies around the globe."

"The sexual exploitation of children is an offence to the dignity of all humanity."

Interpol crime intelligence officer John Stamnes said thousands of suspects had in the past been identified in anti-child porn operations largely in developed countries.

However, all this law enforcement effort had only led to offenders travelling to third world countries to continue their activities.

This was why there was a need to educate and develop an understanding among law enforcement officials in those parts of the world.

Interpol was working very well with South Africa "but the (southern African) region needs more updated legislation", he said.

The regulating director of Internet service provider Mweb, Richard Heath, said a problem was that offensive sites reported by South African Internet users might be located in countries "10 000 miles away", which raised all sorts of legal and jurisdictional issues.

"The Internet simply does not have borders," he said.

Engaging through a network like Interpol would allow the problem to be dealt with more effectively.

"We need to engage internationally as well as nationally," he said.

The centre's director for law enforcement, Ruben Rodrigues, said the use of technology was merely facilitating a crime that had been in existence long before computers.

"I want to get people away from the thinking that this is a new crime, because it isn't," he said.

He said computer-facilitated crime against children was a growing problem worldwide.

"As more countries come on line there are individuals that will use that technology to their own devices - the exploitation of children. It's faster, easier to do it."

The director of children's online safety for Microsoft, Pam Portin, said the corporation was developing software, hopefully available by the end of the year, which would allow law enforcement agencies to keep track of child porn investigations at an international level.

Microsoft would continue to work closely with law enforcers around the world to make the Internet a safer place.

Source: http://www.pretorianews.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=665&fArticleId=2219366

ILO to Rehabilitate Domestic Child Workers

This Day (Lagos)
NEWS
September 9, 2004
Posted to the web September 9, 2004

By Andrew Ahiante
Lagos

International Labour Organisation (ILO) is to rehabilitate 2000 domestic child workers as part of the agency's International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC).

National Programme Manager, ILO-Nigeria, Mr. McJohn Nwaobiala, hinted newsmen yesterday at the formal takeoff of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)/ILO project to strengthen media capacity in eliminating child labour and trafficking.

He named three other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the project as the Human Development Initiative ((HDI) Women Consortium of Nigeria (WOCON) and Human Development Foundation of Nigeria (HDFN).

Nwaobiala said the partnership with NAN will last for 18 months, while also revealing some of its other programmes in Nigeria to include supporting the federal government to develop policy on child labour and promotion of children participation in child labour issues.

Managing Director of NAN, Mr. Akin Osuntokun, described the partnership as first of its kind since ILO signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Nigerian government in 2000, emphasising the objective of the project as a means of building a strong media capacity to raise media perception on child labour in its worst forms so as to enable the media accord more significance to child related issues.

"In the next one year or so, we shall embark on measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound strategic activities which will first begin with empowering the media with information to enable them make informed reporting.

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200409090093.html

Korea Must Counter Foreign Reports on Child Prostitution

09-08-2004 17:14

By Moon Gwang-lip

Staff Reporter

South Korea should conduct comprehensive research on the present condition of child prostitution in the nation in order to prevent distorted or exaggerated foreign reports on the problem, a visiting Dutch legal expert on human trafficking said.

``Research should be implemented as soon as possible on a national level to prevent distorted news articles on the South Korean sex industry from spreading,'' Anna Korvinus, Dutch rapporteur on trafficking in human beings, told The Korea Times on Tuesday.

The Dutch prosecutor came to Seoul to participate in the annual conference of the International Association of Prosecutors.

Her advice came amid misleading comments and articles overseas about the situation of child prostitution in Korea.

In July, Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard University, wrongly stated in a lecture in the United States that there were one million child prostitutes in Seoul in the 1970s. After protests, he apologized to the Korean people for his comments, admitting the figure was incorrect.

Last month, the Washington Post sparked controversy here by falsely reporting there were currently half a million child prostitutes in Korea.

Korvinus said, ``The matter is not the number itself. The situation of children being exploited in the sex industry is a huge problem. In that sense, the Korean government should come up with solutions, not just protest against the reports.''

She advised the Korean government to streamline related laws on human trafficking and the sex trade in accordance with international standards.

``I read in some reports that among the human traffickers, there is a complaint of a lack of South Korean women,'' Korvinus said. ``It's crazy. The Korean government should be aware of the danger of the transnational crime and prepare measures to protect Korean women from possible tragedy.''

Korvinus said Korea should adopt the principles of the U.N. convention on transnational organized crime in its law as part of efforts to effectively tackle sex crime. She added that every nation should have a common legal standard.

``Actually, the Korean government is taking a good approach on human trafficking,” she said. “It installed an intra-government task force in 2001, which has implemented a comprehensive set of policies to prevent the crime. However, now is the time for the Korean government to tackle the problem not just by itself, but also through international cooperation. And conducting solid research on the matter would be the first step.''

As human and sex trafficking is a problem that transcends borders, every country should exchange information with others to tackle the problem on an international level, she asserted.

“What I suggest to each nation is to set up a government organization or group of people responsible for the intra-national exchanging of information on human trafficking,'' Korvinus said. “It is more needed now that we have common goals and minors should not be victimized in the sex industry.”

Source: http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200409/kt2004090817122411960.htm

We Are Satisfying Ourselves With Empty Promises On Education for All - Prof Kelly

The Post (Lusaka)
NEWS
September 7, 2004
Posted to the web September 7, 2004

By Mcdonald Chipenzi
Lusaka

WE are satisfying ourselves with empty promises on Education For All (EFA), veteran educationist Professor Michael Kelly has said.

And Prof Kelly has observed that donor imposed programmes such as the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) completion point are just depriving the poor of their right to education and health services.

In an interview yesterday, Prof Kelly, who is a retired University of Zambia (UNZA) lecturer, said it was time countries that committed themselves to achieve EFA by 2015 seriously looked at the target.

"We are satisfying ourselves with empty promises but we are not making the necessary investment to make those promises a reality," Prof Kelly said.

Prof Kelly said every girl and boy from rural or urban areas, handicapped or not, should be kept in school as many years as possible with a minimum of seven years and maximum of nine years.

"We made that undertaking as far back as 1961 even before we became independent, in Addis Abba, Ethiopia where a committee on education committed itself to give universal education to all children by 1980. But we did not achieve that," Prof Kelly observed.

Prof Kelly explained that countries committed themselves during a meeting held in 1990 at a meeting held in Thailand to give children universal education and the promise had not yet been fulfilled.

Prof Kelly recollected that another promise was made in 2000 in Dakar, Senegal on the EFA.

"What is it that we make promises without fulfilling them through action and to fulfil through action, we must have schools, teachers and a good system of education," Prof Kelly said. "Universal education is a right of every child."

He observed that children had been deprived to exercise that right thereby impoverishing the country and exposing more people to the dangers of HIV/AIDS.

"A good education is a way of protecting ourselves against diseases. But we have to ask ourselves, why are we not investing in education in the way that we should? Whose fault is it? Whose responsibility is it?" Prof Kelly asked.

"Is it because the Ministry of Education does not want to do so? I don't think so but that they are not able to do so because they have financial ceilings imposed by the Ministry of Finance which has to abide by the financial conditionalities put by the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) or meeting of the HIPC end point."

Prof Kelly observed that SAP and the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) completion point were supposed to improve people's lives and yet the programmes were depriving the poor of education and health services.

He said there was need to re-visit the issue of EFA from a wider context with the international financing partners.

Prof Kelly appealed to teachers in the country to support the government to get more agreeable conditions from financing institutions.

He emphasised that teachers should work towards total debt cancellation and not just debt relief because the fundamental structural answer to the problem of attaining EFA was debt cancellation.

Prof Kelly has been teaching since 1955 and was a University of Zambia lecturer in the School of Education until his retirement last year.

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200409072161.html

Protecting child rights – Role of schools

6 September 2004

Shantha Sinha

Millions of children in the Third World do not go to schools. Instead, they become subject to untold misery and hardship, working at farms and in factories; in sweatshops and at homes. They live lives of drudgery, surviving against all odds — uncared for, unprotected and unnoticed.

There is a lack of societal shock or outrage that children are out of school and are at work. Tolerance of child labour is explicit in all arguments, beginning with the position that poor families depend on children for their livelihood. “How can families manage without the income earned by the children?” This question is repeatedly asked by almost every section in the society and also by policy making bodies — dealing with protection of children and child rights — operating at the local, national and global levels. It is therefore suggested that arrangements must be made where children can work and learn at the same time. (A kind of win-win situation where both children and their families benefit.)

Elaborations of such a view can be seen in the kind of questions that often get raised: “Aren't poor children better off acquiring skills on the job? Schools are bad and the quality of education poor, is it not a waste of time to go to schools?” In fact, it is also stated that being in schools would only alienate children from their surroundings and render them useless to the community that they belong to. “Would they not be better off if they had a learning process that reintegrates them into their society and culture?” In a way, such arguments imply that children can continue to work till solutions are found to resolve all the issues.

In the international fora, even those countries that made the transition several decades ago often adopt an ‘understanding' approach. As a result they have often endorse less uncompromising views on issues of child rights than those prevailing in their own countries. Improvements in the quality of education and the elimination of poverty are viewed as a pre-condition not only for universalising education but also for eliminating child labour. Consequently, it is on these factors that the emphasis gets laid.

These values and attitudes seep through all layers of society with such ease that they are internalised by the parents themselves. A poor parent's decision to send the child to school is predicated, and pre-decided, by an atmosphere that repeatedly states that they are too ambitious and impractical in intending to do so.

In defiance of conventional wisdom, however, hundreds and thousands of poor parents continue to send their children to schools. With unwavering faith in education, they persistently send children to school, making enormous sacrifices in the process. There are innumerable examples of poor children who have persisted in schools even though schools were inadequate both in terms of infrastructure and sensitivity.

Being in school: A struggle against odds

Given such a set of discouraging social norms, poor parents cannot take education of their children for granted, and have to, in fact, even offer explanations for sending their children to school, something that is otherwise considered normal. All constraints in accessing education through formal schools emanate from this double standard on the issue of education, where there is one set of values for the poor and another for all others.

The universality of the right to education is, thus, compromised systematically at local, national and international forums. This in turn has a consequence for the manner in which schools function, especially for the poor.

Schools function in an environment where children's right to education is considered unachievable and, therefore, it does not matter if half the country's children end up outside the school. This non-seriousness of the school is reflected in its indifference to the learning of children — subjecting them to insults, corporal punishment, emotional stress and general violation of their rights. It makes the poor child's survival in the school system a daily struggle. The result: the continuance of children in school till they finish elementary school or the 8th grade is a sheer accident. The girl child's survival in school is even more precarious, as the social atmosphere condones her being illiterate.

Poor parents in India are easily intimidated by the education system. Often, even the most benign rules and regulations appear deviously intractable and seem to have been formulated for the sole purpose of preventing the child from joining or continuing in school. For example, the poor lack the skill to get birth certificates, medical certificates, income and caste certificates, which need dealing with more than one government department. They are much less familiar with the rules of examination, attendance, promotion, procurement of transfer certificates and so on.

Since the poor are culturally not equipped to handle schools, the formal and informal systems of school management, which have evolved over a period of time, seem intricate and ‘absurd' to them. Alternatively, they feel more at ease in dealing with the employer, familiar as they are with all the rules of transaction.

Building a social norm

In the absence of an uncompromising stand on the abolition of child labour, the focus is on can this be done rather than how this should be done. The entire effort tends to get focussed on understanding why we are where we are, implying an analysis of parents who send their children to work, rather than how we can get to where we need to be, which involves an understanding of how so many parents have learnt to cope with their limitations and are sending their children to school.

Building a social norm in support of poor children's right to education would mean the transformation of a web of relations and interactions among different social groups at all levels, from local to global. A simple act of children being withdrawn from work through a conscious strategy based on the ethical position that all children must attend full-time formal schools imperceptibly disturbs the existing social and economic arrangements.

When a child is sent to school, adjustments are made within the family and in the production processes. New coalitions in favour of protection of child rights are built, redefining the basis of interactions among social groups in the village and also the roles of elected representatives of local bodies. Indeed, this heralds changes in the school governance system and also in the processes of teaching and learning within the classroom. Stated differently, schools became institutions that break the intergenerational cycle of poverty and deprivation. The process of democratisation of schools then begins.

Shantha Sinha is trustee secretary, MV Foundation, and professor of Political Science at University of Hyderabad.

Source: http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/93391/1/5339

Child-trafficking probe turns up chilling revelations

Moradabad teachers on 'noble mission'

Sucheta Kulkarni

Sunday, September 5, 2004 (Moradabad)

Some teachers in Moradabad's Rehmatnagar area have gone beyond mere teaching from textbooks and have taken up the cause of social development.

In this city known for its brass goods, where majority of the children are victims of child labour engaged in the brass industry, the efforts of the teachers show how the spirit of teaching can motivate in changing the social mindset.

Teaching has been a passion for the 36-year-old Kalpana and her team who have taken up the tough task of convincing hundreds of families to send their children to school in Moradabad.

They have also trained their mothers in brass work to make them more independent.

Not an easy journey

But this journey hasn't been easy. After years of repeated efforts, 235 children are beginning to go to school regularly.

"Earlier they were not ready to listen to us. Then we told them that if their children receive education, they will be able to earn more for the family or else they will have to spend on their children's illness," said Kalpana.

Kalpana along with 15 other teachers regularly visit parents to tell them about various means of protecting their children from the health hazards caused by working in the brass factories.

"Madam came and explained to us that we all would have to bear the burden of expenditure of our family. After their training, today I can do any work without fear," said Mubina, a parent.

Hazardous job

And even the children feel almost liberated after being rid of the hazardous job.

"I used to work in the brass factory earlier before joining this school. But then we were approached by these teachers and I joined school," said Savita, a student.

Till the group of teachers came here almost every child was forced to become a child labourer because of poverty.

But not all students are as lucky to be able to go to school at the right age and some had to give up their dreams of being educated in order to support their family.

"I was not forced into this work but later circumstances were such that I had to take up a job in a brass factory," said Javed Alam, who works in a brass factory.

Accepting the challenges of being a teacher in its true spirit, the teachers have taken up the hard task of bringing out the real potential in both students and adults who were once least concerned about education.

Source: http://www.ndtv.com/morenews/showmorestory.asp?slug=Moradabad+
teachers+educate+child+labourers&id=59873

State's child labour laws face overhaul

By Erik Arvidson Sentinel & Enterprise Statehouse Bureau

Saturday, September 04, 2004

BOSTON -- With students returning to the classroom for the start of the school year, state lawmakers on Beacon Hill are debating how late at night 16- and 17-year-olds should be allowed to work when they don't have school the next day.

A proposed sweeping overhaul of the state's 50-year-old child labour laws is in limbo as lawmakers are at odds over whether to allow young people ages 16 and 17 in certain industries to work until midnight on non-school nights.

The only firm area of agreement among House and Senate lawmakers is that minors should not be allowed to work any later than 10 p.m. on a school night.

The key sticking point is a plan to allow all 16- and 17-year-olds to work until 11:30 on a night preceding a school day, with the exception of young people who work at a restaurant or racetrack, who'd be allowed to work until midnight.

Some lawmakers want to make the cutoff point 11:30 regardless of the industry, which they say would give them time to drive home before midnight. People ages 16 and 17, who hold a junior operator's license, can't drive later than midnight.

"child labour laws are there to protect minors. If you allow kids to work until midnight, don't call this child labour reform," said state Rep. Peter J. Larkin, D-Pittsfield. "There are a lot of stupid things that happen after 11 p.m."

Current state law allows 16- and 17-year-olds who work at restaurants and gambling venues to work until 12 a.m. on a non-school night, while minors in every other industry cannot work behind 10 p.m.

Larkin and other lawmakers originally proposed an across-the-board maximum working time of 11 p.m., but the restaurant and gambling industries lobbied for midnight.

"The restaurant industry sees itself as a special industry that inherited this," Larkin said. "I think you'll find very few restaurants serving meals past 10 p.m. They portray it as a small pizza operator, but at the end of the day, we've all been around the block. You don't need 16- and 17-year-olds in that environment."

While minors are not allowed to serve alcoholic beverages even if they work in a restaurant, Larkin said he doesn't understand why gambling establishments and purveyors of alcohol were the lone exceptions. "On its face, it's absurd," Larkin said.

Both the House and Senate have passed differing versions of the child labour bills. The House wants to require an 11:30 maximum time for everybody, while the Senate is calling for exceptions for restaurants and racetracks.

Rep. Michael P. Rodrigues, D-Westport, chairman of the Commerce and Labor Committee, said lawmakers were trying to be sensitive to the fact that many young people live in single-parent households and are trying to pay living expenses and save for college.

"For many young people, work is not an option but a necessity," Rodrigues said. "We also understand that students can get valuable life experiences, learn how to manage money and time, learn how to work with others, and also allow them to make money."

Rodrigues added that the bill makes other important changes to labor laws, including allowing the attorney general to issue civil citations to employers who violate the law. Currently, the attorney general must pursue the matter through a criminal complaint, but the burden of proof is so high that there have not been any businesses charged with child labour violations in years.

In addition, Rodrigues said, the bill forbids minors from working in a job that requires the use of firearms, and requires that minors working certain late night hours be supervised by an adult. At the same time, the bill requires that students obtain a permit that must be signed by a parent, which allows them to work past 10 p.m.

While House and Senate lawmakers are hoping to come to a compromise before the end of the year, Larkin said he'd be willing to step back and begin discussions on the bill during the next legislative session.

Rep. James Eldridge, D-Acton, was appointed to the conference committee that will reconcile the differences between the House and Senate proposals.

Eldridge said he is open to extending hours that minors can work, but not at the expense of their education.

"I think it's the responsibility of the state government when you're dealing with people who are not 18 to make sure they're focused on their education. Work should not interfere with their education, which is what will have a longer-term value to them," Eldridge said.

Eldridge said students who come from a single-parent home or whose families have limited resources may not have to work as much if more state funds were made available for financial aid and the minimum wage were raised.

"From my interactions with high school students who have done internships with me, most are looking to go to college and already have so many extracurricular activities and responsibilities. I feel they get the same work ethic and appreciation for work through those activities," Eldridge said.

Source: http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/Stories/0,1413,106~4994~2381094,00.html#

Olympic hero joins cause for child rights

New Delhi, Sep 3, 2004

India's Olympic hero Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore joined other celebrities in the national capital Thursday to plead for child rights in the country.

Rathore, along with politician-activist Nafisa Ali and theatre director Faisal Alkazi, urged government action against child labour and for putting all children in school.

"Children are, and ought to be, our primary responsibility," said Rathore, who won the silver medal in double trap shooting at the Athens Games.

Celebrities spoke at a news conference on behalf of the child rights foundation CRY (Child Relief and You) held at the Ansal Plaza mall in New Delhi.

"Children are a very vulnerable section of society," 34-year-old Rathore told IANS. Rathore, a major in the Indian Army, has a son and a daughter. "They cannot protect their interests; so it is up to us to keep their interests in mind."

"There has to be a shift in attitude," said Faisal Alkazi, who is involved in children's theatre. "Children have rights and we need to ensure the entitlement of all children."

CRY estimates that 60 million Indian children below the age of six live under the poverty line, which means they don't have access to basic food and shelter.

"It's time to change the statistics," said Nafisa Ali. "We should demand that government expenditure on education go up to 10 percent of GDP."

CRY is aiming to collect one million signatures from across the country on small, yellow paper wheels. Each person who signs pays Rs.10 as a token contribution to the cause and gets a badge that says "I Stand For Child Rights".

Children under 14 years make up 40 percent of India's more than a billion-strong population.

Less than half of the children between six and 14 years go to school and every second child in the country is malnourished. There are around a million working children in the country, CRY says.

In 1992, India ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, acknowledging children as a special group with rights of their own and promising every Indian child the right to survival, protection, development and participation in expression and thought.

Vanguard (Lagos)
ANALYSIS
September 2, 2004
Posted to the web September 2, 2004

By Adedeji Ajibade

The National Assembly has passed the Child Right Bill into law.

THE global outcry against child labour is indeed a welcome development in an effort to stem the social vices and the world's acclaimed man's inhumanity to mankind. Even though child labour has long existed and is believed to be increasing and becoming more harmful, the actual level, nature, causes and consequences of the practice have not been fully determined in the past.

The main reason for the dearth of data on child labour has been the absence of an appropriate survey methodology to probe into the works of children, which for the most part, is a hidden or invisible phenomenon. In view of this, little is known about many important aspects of child labour at both global and national levels.

There is a wide variety of guess estimates as to the number of working children under 15 years of age, ranging from 200 to 400 million worldwide. Even if such estimates were to be regarded as realistic, more global totals do not provide insight into the various forms of the practice and the problems associated with child labour. According to ILO's Bureau of Statistics, there are at least 120 million children between the ages of five and 14 who are fully at work in developing countries alone.

In the just concluded 92nd session of the ILO in Geneva, Switzerland, report has it that about 700,000 children are found in domestic labour in Indonesia, 559,000 in Brazil, 250,000 in Haiti, 264,000 in Pakistan, 200,000 in Kenya and 100,000 in Sri Lanka. If those for whom work is a secondary activity were included, the total working children in this age group would be more than 250 million.

Lack of reliable data makes it difficult to know the problem and can be counter-productive when it comes to setting national priorities for urgent action. However, following experimental work in the early 1990s, the ILO has developed statistical survey methodologies to assist countries in the collecting and improving information base on child labour.

So far Child Labour Surveys based on recently developed methodologies by the ILO have been carried out in selected areas in several countries of the world, while child labour surveys are yet to have impact in Nigeria amongst other countries in the developing world. Child labour by definition refers to work that is mentally, physically, socially, morally dangerous and harmful to children.

It interferes with their schooling, by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school or forcing them to leave school prematurely. In its extreme forms, it involves children being enslaved, separated from their families, exposed to serious hazards and illness or left to fend for themselves on the streets of large cities at very tender age. On the other hand, child domestic labour is a widespread and growing global phenomenon that traps as many as 10 million children or more -- mostly girls -- in hidden forms of exploitation, often involving abuse, health risks and violence.

ILO 92nd session

The 92nd session of the ILO in Geneva, Switzerland dwelled mainly on the issue of the child domestic labour, which according to the report are usually "invisible" in their communities, toiling for long hours with little or no pay, frequently abused, and regularly deprived of the chance to play or go to school. While acknowledging difficulty of providing precise figures for the number of domestic child labourers worldwide, the figure has attained an alarming level as millions of children work night and day outside their family homes, toiling as domestic child labourers.

Nearly all are exploited; exposed to hazardous work and subject to abuse. It is on this premise that the ILO Director-General, Juan Somavia emphasised that child domestic labour must stop now.

The report defines child domestic labourers as all children in domestic services who are under the legal minimum working age, as well as those above the legal minimum age but under the age 18 who are in an exploitative situation. Many of these working children are very young: the report notes that 10 percent of child labourers in Haiti were under 10 years and 70 percent of children employed by "other households" in Morocco were under 12 years of age. Mr. Somavia reaffirmed that all domestic child labourers, without exception, are at risk because of the very nature of child domestic labour, which is not only widely accepted but often considered a better alternative for children from poor families.

However, this trend is not peculiar to other developing nations alone, Nigeria is also a victim of this global phenomenon, as so many children who are not supposed to be in the labour market find themselves in the labour market, thereby distorting all labour market indices analysis. The intrusion of children into the labour market is indeed a problem, which could deny the nation of skilled manpower in the near future, since these children are exploited by their employers for economic gains.

The mental development of these children is totally being deprived, employers in this case dictate the tune knowing fully well that these children do not understand their rights and would not demand for them. The consequence of this to the labour market, is that there would be capital flights, as the nation manpower would face serious degradation and this could amount to seeking for skilled manpower from other countries of the world.

The continuous use of children in the production of goods and services could also affect the nation's manpower development. This would lead to rural -- urban drift, as so many children are bound to migrate from the rural areas to the urban cities in search of employment. The employers of labour especially in the agro-allied sector have capitalised on the innocence of the children who find themselves in the labour market and engage them for the purpose of minimising cost to maximise profit at the detriment of the health and future of the child and that of the nation.

It was against this backdrop that the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Dr. Hassan Lawal in one his meetings with the representatives of Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA) stated that one of his priorities in the Ministry is to personally inspect factories and the workplace to ensure that the minimum health and safety standards are maintained. This, no doubt will reflect positively on issues such as child labour, casualisation and conducive working environment for the Nigerian worker.

The major causes of child labour have been identified as over population, poverty, ignorance, unscrupulous adults exploitation of children for economic gains, insufficient educational facilities, socio-economic factors, as well as poor enforcement of legislation against the offenders, amongst others. Poverty due to socio-economic inequality has resulted to most parents' inability to fend for their wards. The unemployment and under employment of these parents have left no one in doubt why children are allowed to work in order to support the family.

The parents believe that child labour is part of character moulding and skill development of children. They are not aware of the exploitative nature of child labour and its side effects. Also some parents do not value education, they view going to school as a waste of time. While some are of the view that female children are less in need of education than their male counterparts. Such lead to them being deprived of education or being taken out of school at an early age and thrown into the labour market.

The effect of this is that most of the girls would be sexually harassed by either their employers or co-workers and be exposed to sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS. The outbreak of this dreaded disease could wipe out the children thus affecting the active workforce in the labour market.

Inadequate educational facilities can discourage children from attending primary schools. Many communities do not possess adequate school facilities that will encourage the children to develop interest in learning. Even where schools exist, the education provided is frequently of poor quality and nothing to entice them.

The protection of children against offenders by existing legislation on child labour is also questionable, as most of the labour laws are obsolete and need to be reviewed and amended to strengthen labour protection in all sectors of the economy. More so, deterrent penalties for those employing children should be instituted.

The impact of child labour in children and the nation at large cannot be overemphasised, as children are exposed to dangers arising from street trading, accident, kidnapping, snake bites, harmful chemicals and gas, sexual harassment, sexually transmitted diseases and infections amongst others. The early withdrawal of children from school has a great impact on the country as there is bound to be a high level of illiteracy.

Government's efforts

However, over the years, the Nigerian government has become increasingly concerned about the welfare and protection of children in general and promotion of the rights of the children in particular. In so doing, the existence of exploitative practices and hazardous child labour in the different sectors of the economy including in particular, commercial agriculture, mining, construction, manufacturing and fishing as well as increasingly, the informal sector have to be acknowledged.

It is quite rewarding to note that the government has in recent years joined forces with trade unions, employers of labour as well as non-governmental organisations to begin to systematically identify and analyse child labour situation to prevent child labour in our society. Such progress had been made possible by the technical support of the ILO -- IPEC in which Nigeria has been participating since 2001. The recent launching of ILO-IPEC-WACAP project in Nigeria is aimed at preventing child labour in Cocoa Commercial Agriculture and to maximise impacts of efforts to address hazardous and exploitative child labour.

The Nigerian government through its National Assembly has passed the Child Rights Bill into law aimed at checkmating child Abuse in the country. Efforts by stakeholders in educating parents and guardians on the evils of this social problem needs also to be mentioned.

The NGOs have devoted time in embarking on activities such as Mass Campaign Against Child Labour, rehabilitation and training of children amongst others.

We acknowledge the fact that a lot ought to be done at the national level to meet the challenges of development in our contemporary world. It is on this note that the government of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo introduced the Universal Basic Education (UBE) aimed at providing qualitative nine years of education to the younger generation.

More so, government in efforts to reduce poverty and generate employment, established the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) as well as National Poverty Eradication Programme. At the 92nd Session of the ILO in Geneva, Switzerland, the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Dr Hassan Lawal informed the August gathering that this Administration has articulated and introduced an economic blue-print known as the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS). This agenda, according to the Minister seeks to reposition the economy to achieve a GDP growth rate of seven percent and create seven million new jobs by the year 2007. This is to ensure that skilled labourers are given their share in the scheme of national development.

The Nigeria strategy has placed the provision of decent work as one of its cardinal objectives, which is in consonance with the call by the ILO Director-General for decent work to be made a global objective.

In conclusion, it has been noticed that unfavourable socio-economic conditions of the country was one of the contributing factors to the increasing child labour practice in Nigeria.

The ever-increasing population without a correspondent effort to cushion its effect could be worrisome. Measures should be taken by the government to control population growth so that the rate of economic growth exceeds population growth, as the present policy of one-man four children has not been adhered to.

Measures to be taken include:

Offering family life education,

Improving health facilities and provision of public health education,

Formulating and implementing a comprehensive social security system to cover the majority of the people,

Discouraging socio-cultural factors, which facilitate birth rate.

The government, trade unions, associations of employers and non-governmental organisations should direct their efforts more on poverty alleviation. Measures including the creation of credit schemes, provision of soft loans to support low-income families as well as practical actions to achieve higher level of productivity in agriculture need to be considered urgently.

The enrolment and retention of children in primary school should be enhanced through the Universal Basic Education Scheme using the following strategies:

Educating parents on the importance of education,

Improving the management and administration of education through training and retraining,

Physical infrastructure in schools should be improved

Reviewing the curriculum of various training institutions and making them more work-oriented, and courses on child labour should be included in the school curriculum.

It has been observed that most of our labour laws are obsolete. They should be reviewed and amended to strengthen protection for domestic work, agriculture, self-employment and informal sectors.

There is need to make research and evaluation on child labour an ongoing activity through the campaign against child labour. Also government institutions, trade unions, employers' organisations and all other stakeholders should as a matter of policy, integrate child labour concerns in all their respective development programmes and plans. With these, and many other strategies in place, there is hope that Nigeria would over-power this monster called "child labour".

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200409020080.html

02/09/2004 15:27

The Entrepreneurs Confederation of Azerbaijan and the International Labor Organization (ILO) have embarked on a new project entitled "The role of employers in preventing child labour".

The goal of the project is to carry out research in the area of child labour in the agricultural sector, determine the role of employers in resolving the problem, expand their opportunities in fighting child labour and prepare a plan of activities in this area, a source from the Confederation said.

The program envisioning research in the cotton, tobacco, and tea growing sectors is expected to complete in March 2005.

Source: http://www.azernews.net/view.php?d=4877

01 September 2004

Payal Singhal

NEW DELHI, Sept 1 (OneWorld) - At a meeting in India's capital, New Delhi, a group of child rights activists, media experts and parliamentarians advocated the formation of a joint Parliamentary – Civil Society Forum on Child Rights, to tackle issues concerning the deprived 400 million population, which successive governments continue to ignore.

Participants at last week's conference stressed the urgent need for a child rights forum in order to improve their lot.

Declares Dr Syeda Hameed, member of the Planning Commission of India, "We should take up issues concerning children with a mission attitude. We are planning to create a window in the Planning Commission to enable child rights volunteers to come forward and share their experiences with us."

Representing the Indian government, federal minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, Meira Kumar promises, " I will provide whatever cooperation is required from my ministry. Children in India are helpless because they don't know how to fight for their rights. We need to think of every child as "our child."

Her assurance notwithstanding, financial allocations for children are indicative of the lack of interest in this sector, even as abuse continues to rise. A recent study by Indian nongovernmental organization (NGO), HAQ-Centre For Child Rights states that only 2.44 percent of the Indian federal budget estimates have been allocated for children for the year 2004-05.

"How can we address the needs of children, who constitute 40 percent of India's total population ? During the last three years of the parliamentary session, only three percent of the total number of questions dealt with children and that too with education," protests Enakshi G Thukral from HAQ.

Ever since 2000, HAQ has been conducting an annual analysis of the federal budget from a child rights perspective -- a key resource for monitoring the government's commitment to them.

Shockingly, the 2004 study points out that although child sexual abuse constitutes 20.9 percent of the total reported crime against children in India, child protection does not appear to be the government's priority.

Infact this years budget allocates a mere 0.03 percent to Children in Difficult Circumstances.

According to experts the analysis clearly exhibits the lack of serious thinking and coordination on child rights issues within the government.

Points out V.K Shashikumar, special correspondent of Indian weekly - Tehelka (sensation), "While policies on child rights do exist, the ground reality is very different."

Shashikumar was part of a crack investigating team that recently exposed the booming child sex tourism racket in the popular western Indian beach resort of Goa.

Recalls Kumar, "During our investigation we found a complete collapse of government policies. We went to the Department of Child and Social welfare and were surprised to discover they do not possess data for the number of orphanages and child shelter homes in Goa."

"There are around 40-50,000 street children in Goa who go out and solicit funds in the tourist season," he says.

The condition of child health is as abysmal. HAQ's study states that only 38 percent of Indian children aged between 12-23 months are fully immunized, while three out of four children in the 0-3 age group suffer from nutritional anaemia.

Despite the alarming statistics, only 0.42 percent of the total federal budget estimates has been allocated to child specific health schemes.

Over the years, there have been just half-baked efforts to rectify matters.

In 2003 the Indian government proposed setting up a National Commission on Child Rights -- a proposal which attracted considerable flak from child rights activists.

Declares Razia Ismail Abassi, Convener of the India Alliance of Child Rights, "We don't need a children's commission that will put children in a box. While formulating legislation for children we need to look at the Indian Constitution."

India boasts over 400 million children in the 0-18 age group, who constitute 40 percent of the country's total population.

According to the Ministry of Human Resource and Development, 18.44 percent of the 190 million children aged between 6-14 years are out of school. India also has the highest number of child labourers in the world.

Source: http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/93114/1/

September 2, 2004

By Angela Bolowana

Progress in education in the country's rural areas has been slow. According to a recent report by Human Rights Watch, democracy appeared to have done little for the pupils in farm schools, where the education provided was minimal.

The report accused the Department of Education of falling short of its obligation to ensure that children received compulsory education up to grade nine or the age of 15.

"The South African government is failing to protect the right to a primary education for children living on commercial farms by neither ensuring their access to farm schools nor maintaining the adequacy of learning conditions at these schools," the report stated.

"This violates the Schools Act, the National Education Policy Act and its obligation under the Convention on the Rights of the Child."

According to the report, many children in rural areas had dropped out of school because of issues that could be resolved through good management.

"The South African Assessment report found that approximately 19% of children in rural areas, which includes commercial farm areas and former homelands, were not in school as opposed to 11% in urban areas," it said.

Children were not attending school because of a lack of access to schools, labour disputes between the farmers and their parents, threats of closure of farm schools by farmers and lack of transport.

"In the most severe cases, this involves children walking distances of up to 30km each way. Lack of transport has an impact on truancy, non-attendance and drop-out rates." Teachers, said the report, also experienced transport problems.

According to the Network Against Child Labour, about 188 000 children had dropped out of school and worked on farms. The Nelson Mandela Foundation will release a study on rural education and development later this year.

A spokeswoman for the foundation, Makan Morojele, said: "The work of the foundation in support of rural schooling is based on the idea that rural education and its potential for development are deeply connected with the problems of poverty in rural communities.

"The relative scarcity of resources and poverty of rural communities seriously limits the developmental possibilities that might be achieved through education."

Inadequate infrastructure and services, such as water, electricity and sanitation, poor facilities and inadequate learning materials hindered rural education projects.

The Department of Education has undertaken to enter into contractual agreements with farmers. However, as KZN Education Department spokesman Mandla Msibi pointed out, not all farmers are keen.

Msibi said a number of schools were based on commercial farms. He said the contractual process was "going very well, although we have problems with other farmers. Other people don't want to sign, but quite a number are co-operating".

He said that until the contracts had been finalised the department was unable to develop private land.

About 835 of 4 188 possible agreements with farmers have been signed.

A ministerial committee appointed in February by former education minister Kader Asmal will present its findings and recommendations on farm schools in November.

Source: http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=283&fArticleId=2209514

9/01/04

Turkmenistan has experienced a steady decline in educational standards over the past decade, as the curriculum at all levels has come under the growing influence of President Saparmurat Niyazov's cult of personality. However, as the new school year begins September 1, Niyazov appears to be mulling a change that even his fiercest critics could approve of.

For Turkmenistani students, one of the worst legacies of the Soviet era is their forced and uncompensated annual participation in the cotton harvest. It is not unusual for students at the secondary and higher education levels spend weeks working in fields, rather than studying in classrooms. After decades of this practice, Niyazov made a surprise announcement in May that he would put an end to the use of child labour at harvest time.

Speaking at the third congress of the Turkmen Youth Association, Niyazov said: "From now on let us not rely on schoolchildren to cultivate and pick cotton, as happened before, during the Soviet period." Given Niyazov's mercurial reputation, political analysts are unsure whether Niyazov will actually follow through on these assurances. The start of the school year offers an opportunity for Niyazov to either confirm or disavow the pledge.

The initial signals September 1 did not seem promising for students. In the Dahoguz Region, for instance, there were reports that teachers and school administrative staff would be dispatched on September 15 to pick cotton. A skeleton staff would be left behind to teach grade-schoolers in shifts, with as many as 100 students per classroom.

"I have no doubt that upper-classmen will be deployed to the cotton harvest," admitted one urban teacher in Dahoguz. "There has been no information about that yet, but the principal already told the parents of fourth-graders that after the upper-classmen are sent to the cotton fields, the fourth- and fifth-graders will study in the first shift." Other reports indicated that students in rural regions would be dispatched to the fields in mid September, and would likely not return to their classrooms until late November at the earliest.

If Niyazov opts to keep students in school, the decision could have potentially far-reaching ramifications not only for Turkmenistan but also for neighboring Central Asian countries. Other cotton-growing states, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in particular, also have traditionally mobilized students to help with the labor-intensive harvest. The abandonment of the practice by Turkmenistan could put pressure on those states in the region to follow Niyazov's example.

In addition to the child labour issue, Niyazov has signaled a desire to crack down on corruption. During a July 12 cabinet session, Niyazov railed against the corrupt practices throughout the higher education system. "I am informed about ongoing bribery at Turkmen State University," Niyazov said. "Bribery also exists in a number of other higher education institutions. It is not difficult to know about that in Turkmenistan."

Even if students no longer have to pick cotton, or have to pay bribes in order to gain opportunity, educational prospects in Turkmenistan appear to become bleaker by the year. Since 1993, the education system has been governed by a rigid program, called Bilim in Turkmen, that emphasizes political loyalty to Niyazov's regime over independent inquiry in the liberal arts and sciences.

Since 1993, the government has closed the nation's Academy of Sciences. Officials have also cut the normal length of university study from four years to two. Enrollment at higher educational institutions has plummeted from roughly 40,000 to an estimated 3,500. Conditions in primary and secondary education are not any better. Compulsory education in Turkmenistan is now limited to only nine years. According to the independent Turkmenistan Helsinki Initiative, the state has fired as many as 12,000 teachers over the past two years.

A pro-government web site – Turkmenistan: the Golden Age – posted a commentary in May that encapsulated the country's educational philosophy. Schools should emphasize "the revival of native traditions" and promote "a return to the natural spiritual values." As a result, the educational system must abandon "several educational and scientific directions and subjects of minor importance." As a result, the teaching of algebra, physics and physical education has virtually ceased in Turkmenistan. The article added that the chief task of the educational system is "to play a key role in the national economic and social development of the state."

Niyazov continues to take steps designed to ensure that Turkmen statehood is identified with his own personal authority. Accordingly, Niyazov's spiritual guide, the Ruhnama (or Book of the Soul), serves as the chief textbook for students at all levels. The Ruhnama's influence extends far beyond the education system per se, as, for example, all Turkmen citizens seeking a driver's license must now take a 16-hour course on Niyazov's tract, the Neytralny Turkmenistan newspaper reported August 2.

Students will soon be studying a second volume of the Ruhnama, due to be distributed this month, along with a book of poetry allegedly penned by Niyazov. "I'd like to make the Ruhnama consist of two volumes. … I would like to publish it in the month of Ruhnama [September]," Niyazov said during the July 12 cabinet session. At the same time, the Turkmen leader admitted he needed to "work on it [volume of poetry] a little more" before it was ready for publication.

In addition to courses on the Ruhnama, subjects studied by Turkmen students include "The History of Neutral Turkmenistan" and "The Policies of the Independence of Great Saparmurat Turkmenbashi." To reinforce Niyazov's personality cult, portraits of the Turkmen leader, along with the text of the loyalty oath to the president and fatherland, are found in every Turkmen classroom.

This is the 11TH year that the Bilim program has governed Turkmen education. With an estimated 100,000 students leaving school annually, over 1 million Turkmen, or roughly 20 percent of the population, have been educated according to Niyazov's standards.

Source: http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/rights/articles/eav090104.shtml

September 2, 2004

Nairobi: A child-trafficking probe in Kenya has been expanded to Britain and three African nations, police in Nairobi said yesterday.

"We have cast our nets wide to probe other countries. We want to reach the bottom of this children case," national police spokesman Jasper Ombati said as more parents turned up claiming they had lost newborn babies at the country's largest maternity hospital.

The African countries were Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda, said another police official who asked to remain anonymous.

Nairobi's Pumwani Maternity Hospital, the largest gynaecological facility in the country, is under investigation for alleged trafficking, after several couples reported they had lost their infants there, Ombati said.

The widened probe comes as DNA tests failed to link eight children to Mary Juma Deya, wife of a British-based Kenyan tele-evangelist, Gilbert Deya, who claimed that she bore them "through prayers rather than copulation", police said.

"Of the nine children claimed by Mrs Deya, DNA tests shows that only one is related to her," said a Criminal Investigations Department officer.

Last week similar tests failed to link 11 other children with another woman, Eddah Odera, who also claimed that she bore them though Juma Deya's prayers.

All these children, between three months old and 14 years, are in the custody of the government's children department.

On Monday, Juma Deya, Odera and three other people were charged in a Nairobi court for stealing two children from Pumwani hospital. - Sapa-AFP

Source: http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=284&fArticleId=2209481

By Asma Ali Zain

2 September 2004

DUBAI - Nineteen Pakistani children, aged between two to eight years, who were brought into the country illegally by unscrupulous agents and ‘imposter' parents were flown back to Pakistan yesterday.

Out of the 19 children, 10 had valid passports while nine were issued outpasses by the Pakistan Consulate here, said Pakistani Human Rights Activist and Advocate Ansar Burney whose visit was meant to rescue the kidnapped children and send them back to their ‘original' parents in Pakistan.

Speaking to Khaleej Times, Pakistani Consul-General Amanullah Larik confirmed that nine outpasses had been issued for the children while five adults would accompany them. “The children were brought to the consulate last night and the consulate staff issued outpasses for them on a priority basis,” he said.

Shafi Samana, President of Pakistan Association, Dubai, said that the association had arranged for the air tickets for the nine children and five adults. “As part of its efforts to help the needy Pakistanis in the UAE, the association has donated the tickets to the 14 people from its welfare fund,” he said.

“The whole exercise was not possible without the help of the government authorities who helped us trace the children from all over the emirates. The cooperation of the Pakistan Embassy in Abu Dhabi, Pakistan Consulate in Dubai and the Pakistan Association is laudable due to which I have been able to take these children back to Pakistan,” said Mr Burney.

The 19 children had either been kidnapped or sold by the parents and brought to the UAE from the rural areas of Punjab including Dera Ghazi Khan and Multan, he said. “Five adults claiming to be the parents of the children are also being sent to Pakistan. “Whether their claims are true or not will be verified once we get back to Pakistan,” said Mr Burney adding that the tedious and heart wrenching process of finding the true parents of the children would start once the children are back in Pakistan and are in a state to talk.

Placing the blame on child trafficking in third world countries, Mr Burney said that the issue has to be tackled at its root cause.

“In Pakistan, parents of such children are either duped by unscrupulous agents who claim to “adopt” the child, or in many cases, parents sell off their children for money,” he explained.

“Corruption and poverty led the poor parents to sell off their offspring, which is a very sad problem,” he said.

Describing the condition of the children, Mr Burney said that the children had been brain-washed and were made to believe that the people accompanying them were their true parents.

“The modus operandi of these ‘agents' is that after the kidnap or purchase of the children, they get them endorsed in the mother's passport or get a separate passport for the child after which the child can travel internationally with his ‘parents' without arousing any suspicion.

Giving a background of the child trafficking issue Mr Burney said that children were trafficked from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and several countries in Africa and brought to the Middle Eastern countries for several reasons.

Mr Burney's Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International (ABWTI) has successfully traced out more than 82,000 children from the world over through its ‘Bureau of Missing and Kidnapped Persons' and has delivered them safely to their families.

Source: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theuae/2004/
September/theuae_September33.xml&section=theuae