The main objective of this meeting was to evaluate the efforts developed in
the region addressing the eradication of child labor since 1998, as well as
the identification of the main themes and key challenges for the work of the
Global March in each country and for the region, looking to strengthen the
work of Global March for Central America, Mexico and The Caribbean, within
an International, regional and national context.
Achievements
The Global March is an international movement that mobilizes efforts to
protect and to promote children's' rights, especially the right to access
quality education, and to be free of the economic exploitation and any
another activity that injures their social, moral, spiritual, mental, and
physical development, having the Convention concerning Minimum Age for
Admission to Employment C 138 and the Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention
C182 of ILO, as well as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child as framework.
Global March works to eradicate child labor at national, regional and
international levels through developing monitoring and advocacy actions.
Since 1998 the movement mobilized efforts with the objective of promoting
and impacting the elaboration and ratification of the Worst Forms of Child
Labor Convention of ILO, C182.
In Central America, Mexico and The Caribbean, the Global March has addressed
it works around mobilization and raised awareness of the child labor
problematic in the region, it also has promoted the elaboration of national
legislation concerning the protection of the working children, as well as
the ratification of international human rights instruments, mainly the C 182
and C 138 of ILO. Global March has provided a valuable support in the
definition of national positions respect the child labor problematic, and
has participated in the construction of the national plans for the
eradication of the child labor, as well as in the characterization of the
worst forms of child labor. The establishment of the new mechanism of the
Global Task Force on Child labor, Education and Poverty was hailed and it
was seen as an important first step in the direction of addressing the cross
cutting issues of structural poverty and prevalence of child labor.
It was expected that this new mechanism will enable guide the work of the
countries that have very high rates of poverty and endemic child labor
situation. The context of Central American countries in this regard was
important because of very high percentage of aggregate poverty and
deteriorating child labor situation. It was stressed that ILO should re-
invigorate itself to face this challenge of particularities of Central
American countries.
After the evaluation, national coordinators studied the progresses and
current limitations, this way they present the need to establish a strategic
action plan for the next years. The following are the priority perspectives
that the national coordinators defined:
To promote and guarantee children's active participation at national
and regional levels to eradicate the child labor.
To intensively promote the integration of the child labor
elimination in the national plans, strategies in the ongoing efforts on
poverty alleviation, education for all and the Millennium Development Goals.
The regional consultations concluded that the only way to ensure success in
the realization of the MDG's rests on addressing the issue of elimination of
child labor on priority. The National Coordinators will dedicate themselves
in working with the Governments on making conscious adjustments in the
national plans, strategies and resources allocation from this perspective.
To promote and strengthen the existing alliances within trade union
sectors, mass media and business sector in order to combine efforts in the
eradication of the child labor in the region.
To strengthen the monitoring and demanding process to put pressure
on governments to carry out the international commitments, regarding the
application of the public policies and legislative and institutional reforms
and social investment, in order to develop the nationals plans of child
labor eradication.
To strengthen the capacities of the national coalitions, and the
articulation and coordination links between the national and regional
coordination of the Global March in Central America, Mexico and The
Caribbean.
To promote the agenda of mobilization of Global March to a regional
level, about the child labor issue: such as the access, permanence and
quality of the education, child labor and child domestic work, trafficking
and sexual commercial exploitation, child labor at the informal sector and
the relation within the migration process and its impact in migrant child
workers.
To study and analyze the implications and impact of the coming into
effect of the Free Trade Agreements, globalization process and the
structural adjustment policies from the perspective of children's rights, in
order to raise awareness and to incorporate the effect and incident of these
processes in the fulfillment of children's human rights, especially in the
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, on the approach of the politics and
economic programs. It was also stressed that the new thrust of the work will
be to invest in identifying the involvement of the child labor in the supply
chains to the markets in European Union and the United States in goods,
products and commodities. |
