A report of the conference hosted by the United States Department of Labor, in collaboration with the International Labor Organization, on May 17, 2000 at the United States Department of Labor in Washington, D.C.

Preface

DOL-ILO Conference on Advancing the Campaign Against Child Labor

On May 17, 2000, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) co-sponsored a conference with the International Labor Organization (ILO), entitled Advancing the Campaign Against Child Labor: Progress Made and Future Actions.  The conference brought together representatives of government, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, and civil society to share their experiences and discuss strategies for overcoming exploitative child labor around the world.  A webcast of the day's events also allowed several secondary schools from around the United States to observe and even participate in the conference by posing questions to panels of child labor experts.

Through this conference and these proceedings, the U.S. Department of Labor and the International Labor Organization hope to draw greater international attention to the child labor issue and to encourage broader and more coordinated action to end the exploitation of the world's children.  This volume contains an edited collection of the speeches and papers prepared and presented for this meeting, as well as news feature stories and photos documenting many of the efforts discussed.  It seeks to highlight some of the innovative and effective strategies being used in various countries around the world to address the problem of exploitative child labor.

Today, it is widely known that child labor is a problem that touches every country and every region of the world.  While the number of working children remains large -- the ILO estimates that at least 250 million engage in child labor worldwide -- there is much cause for hope.  Over the past decade, the international community has seen a dramatic increase in the attention shown to the issue of child labor.  Governments that once hesitated to recognize the issue are now accepting the challenge to collaborate to end this global problem.

The 87th International Labor Conference, held in June 1999, demonstrated the international community's heightened awareness to the plight of working children.  As President Clinton proclaimed, speaking as the first U.S. President to address the International Labor Conference in Geneva, "Today, the time has come to build on the growing world consensus to ban the most abusive forms of child labor -- to join together and to say there are some things we cannot and will not tolerate." Joining together, the delegates to that conference adopted ILO Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor, saying to the world that our children should be nurtured not neglected, educated not exploited.  More than fifty countries -- roughly a third of the ILO's total membership -- have already ratified this Convention, making it the most quickly ratified treaty in the ILO's 81‑year history.  The Convention, which passed through the U.S. Senate with record speed, was signed by President Clinton in December of 1999 and formally came into force as international law on November 19, 2000.

The Advancing the Campaign Against Child Labor Conference builds upon this growing momentum within the international community.  In the conference's opening session, U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexis M. Herman called for broader and bolder action to address child labor globally.  She called for programs that seek on a national scale to remove children from hazardous and abusive work, increase their access to quality education, and create economic alternatives for their families.  ILO Director General Juan Somavia, in turn, urged advocacy on a worldwide level to create a climate of moral outrage that would make continued exploitation of children unprofitable and ultimately impossible.

The Conference also included several notable speakers from the United States, including U.S. Senator Tom Harkin, U.S. National Economic Advisor Gene Sperling, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, and U.S. Council for International Business President Tom Niles.  Each called for expanding efforts on behalf of the world's children.  Senator Harkin described child labor as the single most important practice inhibiting economic and social growth and emphasized education as the best alternative for working children.  National Economic Advisor Gene Sperling spoke of the remarkable opportunity the United States has to form a new consensus and partnership with developing countries to make progress on a range of issues including promoting core labor standards, ending the most abusive forms of child labor, and promoting universal education.

In his remarks, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney expressed the commitment of America's working families and unions to endingBanywhere in the worldBthe vicious cycle that traps families into poverty and despair and creates the desperation that drives children into harmful work.  Calling the global struggle against child labor a question of values, he decried the economic imbalances that result in children being valued, not for who they are or who they will become, but for what they can represent in terms of cheap, docile and expendable labor.  U.S. Council for International Business President Tom Niles similarly cited poverty as one of the prime causes of child labor, but suggested that globalization, under proper conditions, could promote economic development and contribute to a solution to the problem of child labor.

Speaking on behalf of their respective governments, Minister of Labor and Social Security Jorge Nieto Menéndez of El Salvador, State Minister for Labor and Transport Surendra Hamal of Nepal, and Deputy Minister of Labor and Youth Development William Lukuvi of Tanzania announced their governments' commitment to launching national and comprehensive programs to eliminate child labor using a "timebound approach." These programs will involve a set of comprehensive and integrated initiatives intended to show visible results in eliminating the worst forms of child labor in these country within a specified period of time.  It is hoped that progress in these countries will provide models and encouragement for additional countries to pursue this comprehensive, national approach.  The governments of these three countries should be applauded for taking this important step forward, helping to set the bar for which other countries can now reach.

A highlight of the conference was the participation of three former working children from Bangladesh, Guatemala, and Tanzania, who shared their stories with us all.  Speaking with Secretary Herman, Director General Somavia, Senator Harkin and National Economic Advisor Sperling, the three children -- Julekha Akhter, a 15-year-old girl who worked in a Bangladesh garment factory; Juan Alberto Hernández, a 14-year-old boy who worked in a Guatemalan stone quarry; and Mwaja Mahundi, a 13-year-old girl who worked as domestic servant in Tanzania -- described their experiences as child laborers.  For each of these children, engaging in child labor meant giving up the opportunity to go to school.  Thanks to the ILO's International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC), however, these children left work and returned to school.  IPEC programs are also instrumental in helping families of working children identify income generating alternatives that reduce their dependence on the labor of their children.

Following the conference's opening session, representatives of government and nongovernmental organizations from around the world participated on several child labor panels.  The expert panels covered a range of topics under the following headings:  Raising Awareness Against Child Labor, Implementing Effective Strategies in the Workplace, Providing Educational Opportunities, and Reworking the Economic Equation: Raising Family Earnings Potential.  The panelists shared their insights on issues related to child labor, spoke of lessons learned and best practices, and debated next steps in the global campaign to end child labor.

In closing, I would like to thank Secretary Herman, Director General Juan Somavia, Senator Tom Harkin, National Economic Advisor Gene Sperling, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, and U.S. Council for International Business President Tom Niles for their leadership and tireless efforts on behalf of the world's working children.  I would like again to acknowledge the historical commitment made by the governments of El Salvador, Nepal, and Tanzania to ending the worst forms of child labor within their borders within a set time frame.  Moreover, I would like to say a special thank you to the three former working children -- Julekha Akhter, Juan Alberto Hernández, and Mwaja Mahundi -- for sharing their lives and experiences with us and enriching us all in the process.  For their efforts in making this conference and this publication a reality, I would like to recognize Associate Deputy Undersecretary Macarthur DeShazer, the co-directors of the Department of Labor's International Child Labor Program (ICLP), Marcia Eugenio and Maureen Jaffe, along with the staffs of the ICLP and ILO's IPEC program.  Finally, thank you to all those who participated -- in person or via webcast -- in this landmark conference.  I believe that together we can and will defeat child labor and ensure for the world's children a future free of abuse and exploitation and full of hope.

Andrew James Samet
Deputy Under Secretary
for International Affairs

U.S. Department of Labor
Washington, DC
December 2000

Table of Contents

Introduction

I.  Introductory Addresses

Alexis M. Herman, Secretary of Labor
Juan Somavia, Director General, International Labor Organization
Tom Harkin, Senator
Tom Niles, President, US Council for International Business
John Sweeney, President, AFL-CIO
Gene Sperling, National Economic Advisor

II.  Addresses to the Conference by Ministers of Labor

Jorge Nieto Menéndez,  Minister of Labor and Social Security, El Salvador
Surendra Hamal, State Minister for Labor and Transport, Nepal
William Lukuvi, Deputy Minister for Labor and Youth Development, Tanzania

III.  Conversation With Former Working Children

Julekha Akhter, Bangladesh, age 15
Juan Alberto Hernández, Guatemala, age 14
Mwaja Mahundi, Tanzania, age 13

IV.  Panel Presentations

1. Panel A:  Raising Awareness Against Child Labor

   1. The Global March Against Child Labor, Kailash Satyarthi

   2. Brazil: Mobilizing Journalists to Advocate for Children´s Rights,
      Geraldinho Vieira

   3. The Philippines:  Advocacy and Awareness-Raising Campaign Against Child Labor, Alcestis Mangahas

   4. In Focus:  Where there's School, there's Hope, by Luz Rimban

   5. Tanzania:  Awareness-Raising and Social Mobilization to Prevent Child Domestic Servitude, Vicky Kanyoka

   6. In Focus:  The Plight of Young Girls in Domestic Work, by Rose Haji

   7. Kenya: Utilizing the Grassroots Structure of Local Trade Unions in the Movement Against Child Labor, Francis Atwoli

2. Panel B:  Implementing Effective Strategies in the Workplace

   1. Bangladesh: A Multilateral Collaboration to Eliminate Child Labor in the Export-Oriented Garment Industry, Anisur Rahman Sinha

   2. In Focus: Reaching for Bigger Dreams, Aasha Amin Mehreen

   3. Pakistan:  Eliminating Child Labor in the Soccer Ball Industry, Aseema Zahoor

   4. In Focus:  Light in Bhagwal Awan, by Salman Rashid

   5. Central America: Cooperative Effort to End Child Labor in the Coffee Industry, Rijk van Haarlem

   6. In Focus:  Coffee's Children, by Maite Puertes

   7. Guatemala: Finding a Long-Term Solution to Child Labor in the Coffee Sector, William Hempstead Smith

   8. Turkey: Using Training to Promote Local Ownership of Interventions to Eliminate Child Labor, Dr. Irfan Yazman

   9. Nepal: The Rugmark Way of Restoring Childhood, Saroj Rai

   10. In Focus:  The Children Who Made Carpets, by Naresh Newar

3. Panel C:  Providing Educational Opportunities

   1. Thailand:  Developing Quality of Life -- "Sema Pattana Chivit" -- for Girls at Risk of Being Lured into Prostitution, Savitri Suwansathit

   2. In Focus:  Life before Death: Making the Choice, by Chitraporn Vanaspong

   3. Kenya:  Capacity Building for School Dropouts, Paschal Wambiya

   4. India: Bridging the Gap Between Home and School, Shantha Sinha

   5. In Focus:  Torch-Bearers of Tomorrow, by Geetha Raghuraman

   6. Dominican Republic: A Program for the Elimination of Child Labor in Commercial Agriculture, Karen Ovalles

   7. In Focus:  Sandy Goes to School, by Ruth Herrera

4. Panel D:  Reworking the Economic Equation: Raising Family Earnings Potential

   1. Guatemala:  Child Labor in the Stone Quarries of Retelhuleu, Maribel

   2. Rodríguez

   3. In Focus:  "The Boys at the Beach", by Carlos Bendfeldt

   4. Peru:  Elimination of Child Labor in the Huachipa Brick Sector,  Rochelle

   5. Beck

   6. Nepal:  Toward the Elimination of Bonded Child Labor, Uddhav Raj

   7. Poudyal

   8. In Focus:  Freedom At Last, by Naresh Newar

Introductory addresses

Host and leading speaker:
Alexis M. Herman
United States Secretary of Labor

Guest speakers (in order of speaking):
Juan Somavia
Director General, International Labor Office

The Honorable Tom Harkin
United States Senator

Tom Niles
President, US Council for International Business

John Sweeney
President, AFL-CIO

Gene Sperling
National Economic Advisor

Alexis M. Herman, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor

Child labor is a global problem that demands a worldwide response. An estimated 250 million children between the ages of five and 14 work, half of them full time, and tens of millions work under conditions that threaten terrible harm to their physical, moral and intellectual development.

The problem is urgent, and yet this conference is right to focus on "Progress Made and Future Actions" -- because there has been significant progress in recent years and we do have a strong foundation for future action.

The Department of Labor has worked with the International Labor Organization's International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor since 1995.  During that time, we have seen the Clinton-Gore Administration's annual spending on child labor issues dramatically increase -- with bipartisan Congressional support.  The United States is now IPEC's leading contributor.

The President's budget for fiscal 2001 proposes $100 million to combat child labor.  I am proud of the President's leadership and deep concern about children all around the world.

Programs funded by the Department of Labor provide more than 120,000 children in Africa, Asia and Latin America -- children like the three who are with us today -- with an opportunity to  attend school, and also provide thousands of families with income-generating alternatives to child labor.

This international crusade reached a historic milestone in Seattle last December, when President Clinton signed an international agreement (ILO Convention 182) under which many nations will work together to eliminate the worst kinds of child labor.  "This Convention enables the world to say, no more," the President declared.  

Even more recently, in March, President Clinton's visit to Bangladesh focused international attention on a program that has removed an estimated 10,000 children -- all of them under the legal working age of 14 -- from work in garment factories.  This program, and others in Pakistan, Guatemala, Tanzania and elsewhere,  has shown the world that children can be rescued from abusive child labor.

The worldwide abolition of child labor is long overdue.  I doubt that we could have held this meeting five years ago.  But the world has moved past denial to determined action.  We meet today not only with the strong support of this Administration but of the American people.

This is the moment for broader, bolder action.  In the past, we have focused on building a framework, public awareness, national committees, statistical surveys and targeted demonstration programs.  Now, we must accelerate our campaign and work closely with countries to move their efforts to the next level B national  plans with specific goals and specific timetables.

Our goal is not success at some distant, uncertain date, but the elimination of the worst forms of child labor in our time.

El Salvador, Nepal and Tanzania, with the support of the ILO, are initiating ambitious new national programs to remove children from hazardous and abusive work, increase their access to quality education, and create economic alternatives for their families.  We look to them for leadership as we enter a new stage of the international battle against abusive child labor. We pledge them our support.

We do not say that no child should ever work.  We do mean no child should be placed in forced or bonded labor . . . no child should be brutalized and exploited by the commercial sex trade . . . and no child should be placed in hazardous work.

There is only one word for that kind of work:  intolerable.  At the dawn of the 21st century, we must leave the darkness of abusive child labor behind.

Rather, children throughout the world should be nurtured not neglected . . . educated not exploited . . . and helped not harmed.

We recognize that economic opportunity for parents offers the best hope for children.  But we reject the claims that in its absence children face only a choice between poverty or exploitation. That is a false choice.

Child labor will not cure poverty.  It will only perpetuate it.

Nations cannot rise on the backs of their children.  There is another way, a better way.  It is the path that leads children to the classroom -- not to workrooms.

We must see that children everywhere have access to basic education.  As President Clinton has said, "If we want to slam the door shut on abusive child labor, we must open the door wide to education and opportunity." 

At the same time, we must offer families of working children economic alternatives that allow them to choose school over work for their children.  We must empower families, by such means as training adult family members in marketable skills and opening up access to credit so parents can start businesses.

Millions of children around the world look to us for help and the hope of a better life.

Juan Somavia, Director General, International Labor Organization

Imagine a country the size of the United States, in which the entire population -- 250 million -- is child laborers.  Then imagine, within it, the worst forms. An underclass of children -- some 60 to 80 million at least.  Roughly the population of California, Texas and New York combined.

Child labor, in many ways, is an abuse of power.  Adults are exploiting the young, weak, vulnerable, and insecure for personal profit.  Child labor is lack of opportunity for parents, and it is the biggest failure of development efforts.  Together with the 1.3 billion people living in extreme poverty, it is the dark side of the global economy.

Is eradicating child labor from the face of the earth an impossible dream?  I believe it is not.  It should not be.  It cannot be. That is why we are here today.  All of us are committed to this course.  We want to act, participate, contribute, and be part of a growing global movement.  To make it happen we must begin by understanding local realities, reaching concrete communities, children with names, parents with faces, families in need.

During the last eight years some 90 countries have formed an alliance that has turned the issue into a global cause.  From just one donor country (Germany) and six participating states in 1992, IPEC  now has more than 20 donors and 65 participating countries.

IPEC and other field projects are vital, but they are not enough.  Worldwide advocacy is necessary, focusing on the worst forms.  A campaign that mobilizes by expanding and deepening commitment.  A campaign that creates a climate of moral outrage making it uncomfortable, unprofitable, and ultimately impossible for the exploiters of children to continue in their ways.

At the same time opportunities for sustainable development are needed so that children and their families can find alternatives to the vicious circle of poverty and exclusion.  Often, a child's pay is the only family income.  Experience has shown that education for all is crucial.  Schools for children, and decent work for their parents.

One year ago, delegates from the ILO's member states - governments, employers, and workers - voted unanimously to adopt the new Convention on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor.  Ratifying governments commit themselves to immediate action to protect children and provide them with education and rehabilitation.  Today 15 countries, including the United States, have already ratified the Convention.  Many more report that they will be doing so.^[1]

Increasingly, societies are no longer willing to countenance the intolerable.  They are ready to assume responsibility for the destiny of their children.  National policy and international cooperation can be brought together in comprehensive time-bound programs for the eradication of the worst forms of child labor.  Countries that move in that direction should be recognized and supported.

I trust that this conference will put us firmly on that road.

Tom Harkin, Senator, United States Senate

Not long ago, few wanted to speak about this issue and those who did speak out went largely unheard.  Yet we have all come together:  Labor Ministers, non-governmental organizations, business and labor leaders, to share best practices and find long-term solutions for children forced to toil in fisheries, factories, and fields.

I am proud to call myself a friend and supporter of IPEC since 1994.  I have visited some of these IPEC schools and have spoken with the children learning there.  I can say it is an uplifting experience to see excitement in the eyes of these children as they learn to read and write.

I'm happy to report that the United States contributions to IPEC have risen ten-fold, from $3 million in Fiscal Year 1998 to $30 million in Fiscal Years 1999 and 2000.  Just last week my Committee funded IPEC at $45 million for Fiscal Year 2001.  To date, US-funded IPEC projects have provided over 120,000 children in developing countries around the world with educational opportunities they would not have otherwise had.  This is something we can truly be proud of.

But more needs to be done.  We are releasing the sixth DoL report on child labor, for which I have again helped secure funding.  It confirms the importance of education for future economic development.

This report affirms that children are better off over the course of a lifetime if they go to school.  Better educated kids grow into more productive and better paid adult workers.  Education also benefits society as a whole:  educated adults are generally healthier; more involved in the political process; less dependent on social support programs; and more apt to save and to innovate.  In fact, I believe the single most important feature, institution or practice of developing nations that inhibits their economic growth, inhibits their social growth, is the use and practice of abusive child labor.^[2]

Tom Niles, President, United States Council for International Business

As we look at the issue of child labor worldwide, to me it is a bad news/good news story.  The bad news is that child labor remains widespread in large parts of the world.

The good news is that the problem of child labor has assumed a much higher profile of late.  This conference today is an example of that.  The adoption last year of Convention 182 and its speedy ratification in the United States is also a very good sign.

My organization took a leading role in the process that led to Convention 182, and we're proud of that.  We worked together with our affiliates, our colleagues from other business organizations that participate in the ILO.

Convention 182 is an important document from two perspectives.  One, in terms of what it does, and that is to call for the elimination of the most abusive forms of child labor, and, secondly, for what it isn't.

One of the reasons why we were able to move so quickly in the ratification of Convention 182 in the United States, and I think it's happened in other countries as well, is that it's not an overly-detailed and proscriptive convention, and those are the kinds of conventions that we in the business community believe the ILO should really focus on, so that we cannot only secure ratification but implementation of these conventions.  It does not benefit the workers of the world or the children who are in abusive child labor situations if a convention is ratified and then not implemented.

Child labor is not a result of the process currently underway in the world which goes under the general heading of "globalization."  Globalization is not the cause of child labor.  UNICEF estimates that only five percent of the child workers in the world today are engaged in what's considered the Aexport sector.  So, trade in itself does not have a major impact on encouraging child labor.

The cause of child labor, at least one of the principal causes of child labor, is poverty.  Poverty is a result of under-development.  Under-development can only be solved through development, which depends upon the growth of trade and investment, among other things.

So, the answer, at least partly, to elimination of child labor, is economic development, sustainable economic development, through trade and investment.  And far from being the cause of child labor, under proper conditions, globalization can be one of the solutions to the problem of child labor through increased economic development.

What are the requirements for this positive process?  One is that developed countries should open their markets more widely to the goods and services of the developing countries.  A good example of what we should do is the recently-enacted Bill on Trade Preferences for Africa and the Caribbean Basin countries.

We should encourage similar efforts elsewhere, including within the World Trade Organization, to encourage economic development around the world.  This will produce at least some of the resources required for more education and for economic growth, which will make it possible gradually to eliminate child labor.

John Sweeney, President, AFL-CIO

Around the world, children are employed in some of the most dangerous and degrading forms of work -- doing work and performing tasks we may not even think of as a job.

A lot of this work is invisible.  It is dirty, dangerous and even, at times, deadly.  And it is work that may require very little skill -- only the strength and stamina of a desperate, hungry child.

In today's imbalanced global economy, these children are valued not for who they are, or for who they will become, but because they are cheap, docile and expendable.  They suffer from illness, injury and disease.  They are part of families who struggle every day to survive, where adults are without work, where families are locked in a cycle of poverty, hopelessness and despair.

With all that we know and understand in this vaunted information age, who would have thought that we could not solve a problem which wreaks such devastation?  We have conquered the moon and mastered the stars.  We have designed machines to dig the deepest wells and lift any boulder. We can move goods production anywhere in our global village in a matter of days.  We can split atoms and clone sheep.

Yet we have not been able to end child labor, which destroys lives and homes and communities as surely as any hurricane, fire or flood.  It is one of the genuine nightmares of our time, one from which millions of children have not been able to escape.

We must fight the exploitation of children wherever it may be.  Sometimes child exploitation has been taken head-on -- on plantations in Kenya, in garment factories in Bangladesh, rug looms in Nepal and garbage piles in Indonesia.  Other times we've taken our battle to classrooms or conference rooms, sometimes to Capitol Hill or union halls.

In Kenya, workers have mobilized against child labor B harnessing community activism in areas where child labor is rampant. Village chiefs and teachers identify at‑risk families.  Local unions, churches and officials pool resources to educate working families about financial aid and family counseling.  Teachers organize youth groups to provide parents an alternative to taking their children into the fields.  Employers help distribute information while workers weigh in their coffee.

In Pakistan, unions exposed the contradiction of young children who suffer serious injury while making and polishing the surgical instruments used in American hospitals.

In Nepal and Bangladesh, we established schools for children rescued from bondage.

We at the AFL‑CIO are proud to be playing a supportive role in these movements through our Solidarity Center, at the same time as we are humbled by how much more we could -- and should B do.

This struggle is about our basic values:  what we will stand up for, and what we will put up with. What we are prepared to fight for, and what we are prepared to stomach.

America's working families and our unions are committed to fight to end the vicious cycle that traps families in poverty and despair anywhere in the world.  We want to end the conditions that create the desperation that drives children into harmful work.

Gene Sperling, National Economic Advisor and Director of the National Economic Council, United States

We have a remarkable opportunity in the United States to make a major leap forward in forming a new consensus on our partnership with developing countries and their economic development.

But if we're going to do that, we have to see the interconnections.  We have to see the whole. There are disagreements that exist between this Administration and some of our friends on some trade issues, but that is only one aspect.

Beyond that, there is an emerging consensus on a range of issues that we can make progress on, and it's not just an emerging consensus between the Administration and some of our friends in Labor, but between religious organizations, between NGOs, between Democrats and Republicans, and those issues are:

Debt relief, going forward on our debt relief initiative that was passed at Cologne, and on which the President went further by calling for a 100 percent bilateral debt relief from the United States.

Secondly, it is an attack on infectious diseases and a new effort to do more for research and funding for vaccines.

Third, it is an effort to promote core labor standards.

Fourth, to attack the most abusive forms of child labor.

Fifth is to look at what we can do to reach universal education by 2015, and increase the opportunities for developing countries to trade with us through instruments like the African Growth and the Caribbean Basin Initiatives.

We have a new initiative that will allow us to deal with more basic education strategies that can complement what IPEC is doing, so that as we're going after the most abusive forms of child labor, we are also helping to ensure that the schools are there.

Our goal can never be to get children out of abusive factory situations just into abusive non-work situations, whether it's drug-running or child prostitution, or even simply inactivity.  Our goal must be to move children into schools, into schools where they can learn.

There is a financial roadblock in so-called free schooling in developing countries, where a parent now has to decide not only to give up the temporary income from the child working, but take a third of their yearly income to pay for school uniforms and fees and all the other costs.

A total of 113 million young children are not in school, 97 percent of them in developing countries.  Forty to 50 percent of all African children are not in school.

We are going to raise this issue at the G8 and the G7, and we are going to also push and ask for the World Bank to do more.  The World Bank's lending for education has varied only between one to three billion dollars over the last few years, and less than half of that goes for basic education.

One thing I've learned is that you can't just look at education funding.  Sometimes the education funding in a country is just going to a few, an elite class.  It is a kind of reverse pyramid where most of the money is spent on a few, and a little is spent on the many to make sure that they're getting the most basic education.

If we could increase dramatically the World Bank funding, it would be part of a comprehensive strategy.

This conference offers tangible actions to show the United States Congress and the G7 what can be done on child labor, education, and on debt relief and health, which affect the budgets of countries and affect their ability to do more for education and fight child labor.

Addresses to the Conference by Ministers of Labor

Ministers from three countries committing to national plans of action for time-bound elimination of child labor were invited to address the conference. In order of speaking, they were:

 Jorge Nieto Menéndez
Minister of Labor and Social Security, El Salvador

Surendra Hamal
State Minister for Labor and Transport, Nepal

William Lukuvi
Deputy Minister of Labor and Youth Development, Tanzania

Jorge Nieto Menéndez,  Minister of Labor and Social Security, El Salvador

No one is unaware that the roots of child labor lie in social and economic factors which are difficult to resolve.  This problem has demanded that El Salvador, its national institutions and the NGO community establish strategic alliances in a coordinated and continuous effort to set in motion a process to eradicate child labor, a goal necessary for the future of our country.

To fight child labor, it is of primary importance to examine the social and economic forces which press parents into sending their children and adolescents to work at such an early age.

We must embark upon actions which allow the capacity of our children and adolescents to be fulfilled.  To this end, the government has implemented a series of programs to combat the worst forms of child labor with the assistance of the ILO and DoL.

In 1996, the government signed an MoU with the ILO, in which it committed itself to the gradual and progressive elimination of child labor. 

This initiative depends on IPEC support to implement specific projects in localities and municipalities where the worst forms of child labor are prevalent.  The government is also compiling a national report on these forms of work, which will provide a reference and facilitate the creation of a basis for a national program.

After the national report has been compiled and the problem investigated, we will be ready to initiate specific actions geared toward creating an integrated, firm, and sustainable policy to gradually and progressively eradicate the worst forms of child labor.

The projects which were implemented with the support of DoL were initiated to address the sectors where one finds the worst forms of child labor, as defined by Convention 182.  We await the adoption of the requisite laws for the ratification and implementation of Convention 182.  The government of El Salvador has offered strong support for ratification.

To be able to implement our national program for the eradication of child labor, we depend on support from the United States government and DoL.

In the field of education it is important to design programs to inform parents of the need to keep their children in school.  At the same time, efforts to prevent child labor should involve the community in identifying the problem and in searching for solutions.  Therefore the first phase of the program, prioritizing areas for projects, should result in better education of children and communities in the problem municipalities.

We know that the strengthening of education and training is essential.  However, education alone cannot eliminate child labor.

Keeping children and adolescents in school can also mean economic sacrifice for the family group.  Some families are willing to send children to school as long as there is the possibility of obtaining income by alternative means.  Therefore, it is important to provide support to parents.

In the field of health, there is a plan to bring attention to and to foster the health of children and adolescents and to offer necessary support to the family group, so that children may energetically pursue their intellectual and physical development. 

In the field of labor and social planning, we have planned actions to improve the living conditions of the families of working children and adolescents. 

Furthermore, the legislation on child labor must be amended, strengthened, promoted and enforced.  Enforcement will be carried out in the first phase of this project in known problem areas.

In El Salvador, ILO Convention 138 was adopted with a reservation concerning the minimum age of children.  Therefore, children's right to work depends upon their age.  The prohibition of work by children who are below the minimum age will be enforced by the Ministry of Labor, with the support of educational and training programs.

As regards the families of child laborers, there should be vocational training projects in productive fields, and support for the organization of cooperatives and unions or guilds, in order to allow families to gain access to micro credit and required technical assistance. 

The gradual and progressive elimination of child labor in our country will not be rapid or easy, but this has not stopped us from continuing with the process to develop a national program to combat child labor in the next four years.  The national program has the moral support of all the sectors of our country's national life and will incorporate participants from all the different sectors which are concerned with child labor.

Surendra Hamal, Minister of State for Labor, Nepal

Exploitative child labor has been recognized as a major social problem in Nepal, as there are 2.6 million children at work, out of which 1.7 million are economically active.  A household survey report of the Ministry of Land Reform and Management indicates that there are 15,152 Kamaiya^[3] households comprising 83,375 persons working as bonded laborers, which includes 15,000 children under the age of 14 years.^[4] In addition, there are approximately 5,000 sex workers in Kathmandu, out of which 1,000 are children.  In mid-western Nepal, there are about 17,000 women and girls who work as prostitutes after having been offered to temples for religious purposes.  Similarly, at least 5,000 to 7,000 Nepalese girls are trafficked to India every year and 25,000 children are engaged in the service sector such as hotels, restaurants and domestic service.

The Government of Nepal is very much concerned by this issue and has followed a proactive policy in tackling the problem of child labor.  We have stood for constitutional, statutory and other developmental measures required to protect the rights of the child and safeguard them from abuse, neglect, violence and exploitation, for their mental and physical development.

We have taken various protective and preventive measures.  The Constitution of Nepal guarantees rights against exploitation.  It prohibits human trafficking, slavery, serfdom or forced labor in any form except compulsory service required for public benefit.  The Labor Act 1991 and the Children Act 1992 restrict and prohibit the employment of children below 14 years.  Our Parliament has recently endorsed a bill concerning the prohibition and regulation of child labor, which will come into enforcement very soon.

We signed an MoU with the ILO for implementing the International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) in 1995.  A child labor section has been set up to formulate and implement policies and programs on child labor.  The National Steering Committee on Child Labor, which is based at the Ministry of Labor and Transport Management (MOLT), has been actively participating in the formulation and implementation of action programs on child labor.

We have implemented an ILO/IPEC Action Program in the country.  Under this program, we have assisted child labor prone families by providing skills training and easy access to micro credit and self-employment activities.  We are now in the process of implementing another IPEC Action Program directed toward the "Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor." Similarly, we are executing a project entitled "Improvement of the Situation of Child Laborers." Most of our programs are focused on abolishing the worst forms of child labor such as trafficking, debt bondage and child domestic labor.  The government  ratified ILO Convention No. 138 in 1997 and is striving for the ratification of ILO Conventions No. 29, 105, and 182 within the year.

The government is committed to abolish the worst forms of child labor by 2005 and all forms of child labor by 2010.  We are also striving to establish a program office to coordinate and collaborate with national and international agencies to improve policies and programs on child labor.

Despite our vigorous efforts, the problem of child labor has remained intractable.  We strongly feel that this challenge needs to be tackled through a multi­-pronged approach in an integrated manner, securing support from all concerned governmental and non-governmental organizations, and international agencies.  However, we would like to reiterate that Nepal alone cannot solve this complex problem.  We need to build up partnership and ownership with national and international agencies to execute a national program on child labor in a democratic manner, ensuring effective implementation and sustainability.

The ninth five-year development plan (1998-2002) emphasizes eradication of Nepal's widespread poverty as its major development objective.  It has also given priority to abolition of the bonded labor system, elimination of child labor and combating trafficking of women and children.  To put these words into action, the Government of Nepal is taking a lead role in the development of a master plan of action (2001-2010) in close collaboration with IPEC and with other ministries and other national and international agencies.  The Master Plan of Action will incorporate sectoral plans of action against child labor, bonded child labor and trafficking in women and children (developed under IPEC Action Programs), identify responsible governmental and non-governmental agencies to execute specific components of the plan, as well as develop appropriate strategies.

Furthermore, the Ministry of Land Reforms and Management (MOLRM) has resolved to abolish the bonded labor system both legally and practically within the next four years (2001-2004).^[5]  The MOLRM, with technical assistance from the ILO, drafted a Bill on the Abolition of Bonded Labour and registered it at the parliamentary secretariat for debate during the winter session (December 2000).  The proposed bill provides the legal framework for enforcement of the ban by prohibiting the inheritance of private debt and annulling outstanding loans.]  The MOLRM has already initiated programs aimed at generating income of bonded laborers by providing them with skill-oriented training.  A plan of action has been developed, in collaboration with IPEC, for launching programs in an integrated manner with a view to improving the quality of their life.  The MOLRM is setting up a coordination directorate within the current fiscal year in Nepalgunj (in mid-western Nepal) for coordinating activities of all governmental and non-­governmental organizations working on the issue of bonded labor.  The MOLRM allocated NRs.40 million (US$598,000) during fiscal year 1999/2000 for debt relief, housing and rehabilitation programs.  The Ministry acquired 20 hectares of land for the rehabilitation of Kamaiya families.  Similarly, it has proposed a budget of NRs.20 million (US$294,000) for fiscal year 2000/2001 for the training and rehabilitation of Kamaiya families.  It is expected that the national contribution for the elimination of the bonded labor system in Nepal will increase each year.

Simultaneously, the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare (MOWCSW) has also developed a national plan of action to prevent trafficking in women and children under the first phase of the sub-regional project supported by DoL.  At present, the second phase of the sub-regional project funded by DoL to combat trafficking in children is underway.  The Ministry aims to resolve the problem of trafficking in ten years (2001-2010), and trafficking among children in five years (2001-­2005).  During fiscal year 1999/2000, the MOWCSW has allocated NRs.5 million (US$73,500) to prevent the problem, as well as to rehabilitate victims of trafficking.  In addition, the Ministry has proposed a budget of six million Nepalese rupees (US$88,235) for the fiscal year 2000/2001 to deal with the problem.

We would like to assure you that Nepal is willing to join hands in this global cause and will provide every necessary support required in addressing the problem.

William Lukuvi, Deputy Minister for Labor and Youth Development, United Republic of Tanzania

The government of the United Republic of Tanzania is privileged to have joined the global campaign on child labor in 1994, when we began to implement the IPEC program.  The government and the social partner organizations have since then made considerable progress towards containing the problem of child labor.

It is indeed largely within and through the framework of the IPEC program that we have in Tanzania today, at all the levels of society, a strong commitment and support for the fight against child labor, along with an institutional and policy framework which is increasingly conducive for program interventions on child labor.  We now have, in addition, a considerable level of accumulated experience among the social partners in addressing child labor problems.  The government of the United Republic of Tanzania, having consulted with the social partners, is presently finalizing the preparations for the ratification within the year 2000 of ILO Convention 182 on the worst forms of child labor.

I do not need to state that in our resolve to rid our society of hazardous and exploitative child labor practices, we are constrained, like many other developing countries, by widespread poverty in its different manifestations, a generally weak institutional capacity, limited budgetary resources at the disposal of the government, limited educational opportunities for our children, and so on.

These constraints notwithstanding, I wish to inform this conference that, given the continued support of the ILO, the United States government and other partners, Tanzania is keen to propose and implement a five-year program to achieve the effective and sustainable prevention of the worst forms of child labor, in three sectors to start with.  These sectors are commercial agriculture, mining and commercial sex.

We are of course mindful of the fact that this is by no means a small challenge and that wide-ranging socioeconomic and political initiatives will be needed to achieve this objective.

As an input to the program, the government will implement strategic programs on poverty alleviation, employment promotion, primary education and HIV/AIDS control.  We shall also disseminate and apply a national policy on child labor, which is now under final preparation in consultation with the social partners.

This conference provides us with added inspiration to act immediately on the worst forms of child labor and it is my anticipation that it will send the same signal to all countries around the world.

Former Working Children

Children from three countriesCBangladesh, Guatemala and TanzaniaCwere invited to attend the conference along with their parents.  They were introduced to the audience by Liz Cransky, a senior high school student at Brattleboro Union High School in Vermont and a Steering Committee Member for the Child Labor, Education and Action Project, a group (in attendance) which seeks to educate youth and adults on child labor.  The children, guided by Secretary Herman, explained their experiences as child workers and their subsequent rehabilitation, and went on to answer other questions from the Secretary regarding their hopes and ambitions. Their parents also spoke.

Below is a summary of the session.

Julekha Akhter, Bangladesh, 15

Julekha was seven when she was admitted to primary school.  When she was in class three, her father fell ill and could not work.  To help support the family, at the age of nine, Julekha found work in a garment factory.

After some time, Julekha was approached by IPEC representatives who offered her a stipend to enroll in a school for former garment workers.  Excited by the opportunity, she presented this proposal to her parents, who agreed to it.  The stipend paid the rent for the family home.  Besides general education, Julekha participated in cultural activities like singing, dancing, reciting poems and acting.  One of her poems even won a prize in a program arranged by the British Council. 

After a year and a half at school, when Julekha turned 14Cthe legal working age under Bangladesh's laws, her stipend ended.  Although her parents wanted her to return to work, Julekha was more interested in continuing her education.  She did six months of skills-training and got a job with Dragon Sweater.  Currently, she studies and works under an Aearn and learn program.  Her salary now means that her family is no longer in poverty, and her parents are very proud of Julekha's educational achievements.

Her father told the audience, "I was a very poor person, and I didn't have the money to send my daughter to school . . .  As a father, I want my daughter to study hard and go as far as possible in her education."

Julekha's aim?  "I want to be a teacher."  Her favorite subject in school is environmental sciences.

Juan Alberto Hernández, Guatemala, 14

Juan Alberto started working when he was seven years old in the Retalhuleu stone quarry on a river bank alongside his father, reducing stones to gravel with a hammer.

He worked for six years breaking stones during the afternoons and helping his mother with household chores.  He attended school in the mornings but had difficulty keeping up.

Talking of the work by the river, Juan Alberto said, "I did get hurt on several occasions on my fingers. It was very hard and difficult to work there. Sometimes, I would even cry because it was so hard.  The sun was really terrible, and we had to work all day long, breaking the stones into smaller stones . . . until I filled five containers of smaller stones."

Through a DoL-funded IPEC project aimed at eliminating child labor in the stone quarries of Retalhuleu, Juan Alberto was removed from work and placed in school.  He recently completed primary school and wants to continue studying.

"I would like to be a teacher," Juan Alberto claimed with pride.

His father told the conference, "Juan Alberto is my son and I love him very, very deeply, and I want to give him everything he deserves, and I will continue to struggle so that he will be able to continue studying."

"The program, the people from Habitat ^[6], have given us all their support . . ."

"I learned about the program while we were working at the river.  Some people came and they talked to us and offered us a loan . . .  The truth of the matter is that we were extremely afraid because we didn't understand very well why they were going to give us this money . . ."

"Many of my companions left our group out of fear, and others, amongst them myself, said let us keep on going and see what happens, and they did give us a loan.  We were able to buy a stone-crushing machine . . .   Secretary Herman explained that using the machine meant that the stone-crushing could be done mechanically, and Juan and his siblings could go to school.

Mwaja Mahundi, Tanzania, 13

Mwaja is the youngest child in a family of six children.  Her father passed away in 1994.  In February 1999, Mwaja dropped out of school due to her mother's inability to pay for her school fees and uniform.  She was taken by a neighbor to Dar-es-Salaam to work as a domestic servant for a working class family.

In response to a question from Secretary Herman about the work she did, Mwaja said, "My typical work when I went to take care of a baby, I had to wash the baby's clothes, and to maintain the cleanliness of the baby."  She had to do this every day and was 12 when she started.

"The village chief," Mwaja's mother confided, "came to me and told me that there is a program which can help rescue my child . . .  I was introduced to the people in this program.  They went to where my child had been taken, and they helped me rescue my child and bring her back, and they put her back in school."

In July 1999, Mwaja was withdrawn from work and reintegrated into school through an IPEC action program.  She was returned to her village and reunited with her family.  She is now in grade five.  Her favorite subjects at school are English, science, Swahili and mathematics.  "I'm very pleased to return to school, she remarked, and I'm progressing well with my studies."

"I want to be a pilot," she told the conference, covering her face in case anyone should laugh.  Instead, like the others, she received long and loud applause for her ambitions.  When Secretary Herman asked her what she would like to do in Washington, she replied, "I would love to go to a school and see how children learn their lessons in the United States."

Panels & Panelists
Panel presentations and discussions composed the second part of the conference. Presentations were organized under four themes:

Raising Awareness on Child Labor
Moderator:
Carol Bellamy, Executive Director, UNICEF

Panelists:
Kailash Satyarthi, Chairman, Global March Against Child Labor, India
Geraldinho Vieira, Executive Director, The News Agency for Children's Rights (ANDI), Brazil
Maria Alcestis Mangahas, IPEC National Program Coordinator, The Philippines
Vicky Kanyoka, IPEC Program Coordinator, Tanzanian Federation of Trade Unions, Tanzania
Francis Atwoli, General Secretary, Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers' Union, Kenya

Implementing Effective Strategies in the Workplace
Moderator:
David Miller, President, Toy Manufacturers Association of America

Panelists:
Anisur Rahman Sinha, President, Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), Bangladesh
Aseema Zahoor, IPEC Monitor, Pakistan
Rijk van Haarlem, Chief Technical Advisor, IPEC Coffee Project, Costa Rica
William Hempstead Smith, Vice-president, Funrural, Guatemala
Dr. Irfan Yazman, Advisor to the President of Credit Guarantee Funds, Confederation of Turkish Tradesmen and Handicrafts (TESK), Turkey
Saroj Rai, Executive Director, Rugmark Nepal, Nepal

Providing Educational Opportunities
Moderator:
Marcia Reback, President, American Federation of Teachers

Panelists:
Savitri Suwansathit, Inspector-General, Ministry of Education, Thailand
Paschal Wambiya, Education and Training Project Coordinator, IPEC, Kenya
Shanta Sinha, Secretary Trustee, M. Venkatarangaiah Foundation (MVF), India
Karen Ovalles, Project Coordinator, Projoven Dominicano, Dominican Republic

Reworking the Economic Equation: Raising Family Earnings Potential
Moderator:
James Michel, Counselor, USAID

Panelists:
Maribel Rodriguez Rodriguez, Consultant, Guatemalan Association for Sustainable Development (HABITAT), Guatemala
Rochelle Beck, Consultant, Ibero-American Association for Development and Marketing of Handicrafts (AIDECA), Peru
Uddhav Raj Poudyal, Bonded Labor Project Coordinator, IPEC, Nepal

Raising Awareness Against Child Labor

The Global March Against Child Labor

Presented by Kailash Satyarthi

Kailash Satyarthi founded the South Asian Coalition on Child  Servitude (SACCS) in 1989.  SACCS strove successfully to forge a partnership with 500 partner organizations, human rights groups and trade unions throughout South Asia.  Satyarthi is considered the architect of ARUGMARK, a voluntary non-commercial tool to label child labor-free carpets.  He was the driving force behind the international movement which culminated in the Global March Against Child Labor.  Mr. Satyarthi's efforts have been honored by awards from various countries, including the Aachener International Peace Prize B Germany (1994); Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award -- USA (1995); Trumpeter Award -- USA (1995); Golden Flag Award -- Holland (1998); La Hospitalet Award -- Spain (1999); and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Award -- Germany (1999).

Background

The problem of child labor is one of the most serious, widespread social issues facing the world today.  With an estimated 250 million children working as laborers, the issue touches the lives of most of the world's poorest people.  While the problem is most prevalent in developing countries, even in the wealthiest countries children are found working under exploitative and degrading conditions.

During the eighties and nineties, there was a slow crescendo of public awareness and concern about the issue.  The media took an active role in highlighting cases of child slavery and abuse, and the grassroots campaigns of several organizations built a base of public concern on the issue.  High-level policy discussions also took place at the international level.  But despite these developments, the issue was not a worldwide concern, and little movement occurred in the towns and villages where children were working.

Objectives

To address this situation, a number of leading child rights and human rights organizations met in The Hague in February 1997 to plan a Global March Against Child Labor.  The objectives of the March were to mobilize worldwide efforts against child labor and in favor of education, and to dramatically increase the level of global awareness and concern about the problem.

The founders of the March felt that an issue of such magnitude could not be addressed by a handful of organizations or projects, but would need a broad mobilization of civil society throughout most of the countries of the world.  Organizing the March would bring together a coalition of NGOs, trade unions, activists, government officials, academics, journalists, religious leaders, celebrities, and children.  Such coalitions, in turn, would be capable of the sustained pressure needed to ultimately eliminate child labor.

Similarly, raising overall public awareness was a core objective of the Global March.  The organizers realized that for the issue of child labor, public awareness was critical on two counts.  The first was that public awareness is essential in motivating governments to take strong steps against child labor.  In the absence of national or international attention, few governments would be willing to challenge the vested interests and the cultural practices that perpetuate child labor, or to make the budgetary allocations needed to provide education and rehabilitation to children.  The second aspect was that increased public awareness could produce a direct reduction in the incidence of child labor.  Millions of people use girls and boys as domestic servants, subcontractors and small business owners directly employ young children, and individual consumers purchase products made by child slaves.  Public awareness on the issue would influence people's individual decisions and thus help reduce the exploitation of children.

Process

The Global March initiated the process of global mobilization by issuing a worldwide appeal to join the movement.  Internationally, this appeal went out through the various networks of NGOs and their partners, through international trade unions and their affiliates, and through a direct written appeal to over 20,000 organizations.  At the national level, coordinators organized meetings of key partners, informed the media about the March, and initiated a dialogue with the government.  A series of networking trips was also critical in spreading the movement into many countries that had not seriously considered the issue.

This broad movement then focused on the core task of organizing a high-profile March stretching across Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe.  The March kicked off in Manila on January 17, 1998 and traveled 80,000 kilometers before arriving in Geneva for the start of the International Labor Conference.  For  March organizers, a certain amount of time was spent managing the logistical details of moving people from place to place and country to country, but the bulk of the efforts were devoted to public awareness-raising.  These activities included:  organizing large public rallies; producing posters and other public materials; coordinating special media features and documentaries on child labor; making presentations to schools; collecting thumb prints and messages of support; and establishing child labor sites on the Internet.  The Global March received a ringing endorsement from many of the world's leaders, including Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Pope John Paul II.

In this whole process, the participation and leadership of children was vital.  Hundreds of thousands of children participated in the rallies and short marches held as part of the Global March.  Millions of small thumb prints from children around the world added to the call to end child labor.  And at the forefront, the Child Core Marchers who bravely traveled thousands of miles from their homes shared with the world the reality of their experience and pleaded that children should no longer be subject to such exploitation.

Achievements

The Global March has been an unprecedented success.  Indeed, at the close of the 20th century it marks a turning point for the struggle against child labor.  At the time of the Global March, the massive global alliance which was formed included 1,400 partners in over 100 countries.  Since then, the movement has further grown to involve over 2,000 partners in 140 countries.  The national coalitions of the Global March have mobilized broad public support for the cause and have been leading civil society action against child labor.

The Global March and the follow-up year of advocacy work were crucial to the development of a strong new Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labor.  The children of the Global March were specially recognized by the drafting committee for their human impact on the process.  Now the Global March is playing a key role in making sure that the Convention is universally ratified and fully enforced.

Finally, the level of public concern about child labor has increased many times over, and it has been clearly established as one of the leading issues of our time.  This awareness extends deep into even remote villages and towns where children are working.

Lessons Learned

The success of the Global March demonstrated key lessons for the campaign against child labor:

• Children who have lived through child labor are the most effective advocates on the issue.  They can speak from the heart about their own experiences and convince even the most powerful people that no child should be exploited.

• Society must be broadly mobilized to support this issue.  A national coalition involving NGOs, trade unions, activists, government officials, academics, journalists, religious leaders, celebrities, and children can be extremely effective in achieving social change.

• Local ownership and leadership are paramount in the process.  This leadership is essential for having a sustained impact on local and national decision-making.  It is also fundamental to the whole process of social mobilization.

• The media must be involved throughout the process.  This includes not only coverage of the activities being organized, but also in-depth reporting on the issue and involvement in political dialogue.

• The scale of the effort must match the scale of the problem.  With the problem affecting 250 million children in almost all countries of the world, the mobilization of society and resources must be on a similar level to have a significant impact.

• Efforts must be made with a clear sense of purpose and vision.  This genuine sense of mission is what inspires people to join the cause and devote themselves to the struggle for a world free of child labor.

Brazil: Mobilizing Journalists to Advocate for Children's Rights

Presented by Geraldinho Vieira

Geraldinho Vieira is a journalist and the Executive Director of the News Agency for Children's Rights (ANDI).  He was previously the editor of the Brazilian newspaper Jornal de Brasilia.

Background

Brazil is a big country, a very young country that is only 500 years old.  It is one of the world's ten biggest economies . . . but we are living in economic apartheid:  Brazil has the worst indices of distribution of wealth on the planet.

Children and adolescents are the first victims:  three million of them, under the age of 14, are working.  Two years ago, the number was four million.  We believe in eliminating child labor without having to define the Aworst forms of slavery.  We want the best education for all.

Slavery is like ethics . . .  You either have it or you don't.

ANDICthe NGO that I'm in charge of as Executive DirectorCwas founded eight years ago with only three people.  It was set up two years after the signing of a progressive bill called the "Statute of the Rights of Children and Adolescents."

Today, we are a group of 60 people, including professional journalists and students of journalism.  Forty people work at ANDI in Brasília and 20 work in four different cities in different geographic regions.  This Rede ANDI (ANDI Network) is an alliance with other NGOs that reproduce the methods of media training and mobilization developed by ANDI.

When ANDI was launched, the country was in shock regarding revelations about street kids, child labor and the sexual exploitation of little boys and girls.  These problems still exist, but we are proud to say that, today, we are talking a lot more about the main solution:  education.

The Brazilian government, with IPEC, is giving financial support to 140,000 children and adolescents who must work to make a living.  The idea is now being taken up all over the country, especially by municipalities, sometimes with private support.

Process

Unlike a regular news agency, ANDI does not write stories to merely distribute them to the media.  Our goal is to create a culture in which the press gives priority to children as a strategic issue.  This is only possible if we create a dialogue between the press and the organizations that deal directly with boys and girls.

This is why ANDI´s institutional mission is to generate a professional, ethical and intense dialogue between the private sector and the media.  We work on the principle that investigation, in journalism, cannot be synonymous with the mere publication of scandals.  ANDI's main focus is to stimulate the understanding of the paradigm of Afinding solutions.

The idea of finding solutions is not synonymous with sensationalist journalism.  We seek a different reaction from the public; that is, the sooner society knows the actions and public policies that are effective and that prove that changes are possible, the greater the impact of the stories.  Once journalistic investigation confronts a social problem with its solution, the reporting of wrongdoing assumes a different aspect:  the investigation of solutions relates not only to the reporting of problems, but specifically to the inaction of government officials and of civil society in general.  We are sure that the roots of the problems are based on lack of action.

Inaction is worse than all the horror stories put together, and this is the message that is mobilizing the country.

Presenting facts

The News Agency for Children´s Rights is a kind of reference center where journalists can find the best stories, the best analysis for the best ways of telling stories, and up-to-date sources of informationCa guide for getting in touch with innovators and specialists.

Our site on the Internet (www.andi.org.br) has 100,000 genuine hits every month, 70 percent of them by journalists looking for social projects in all the relevant areas and new perspectives to old problems.

One of the most effective strategies that we adopted is to conduct research on the topics with the greatest press coverage, with the social actors listed as sources of information, and analyze the confrontation between the Ainvestigation of solutions and the publishing of scandals.

Every day we analyze the 50 most important newspapers and eight national magazines. During 1999, these papers and magazines published 60,000 stories on children and adolescent issues, 20 times more than the number recorded eight years ago.  This observation leads us to conclude that editorial behavior has developed a consolidated culture of Asolution finding.  Finding solutions has resulted in a major development: when Brazil started to bring the child labor issue to the top of its agenda, coverage on the subject of education, which ranked eighth among the themes published in 1992, began to improve; this year, for the second straight year, it was ranked first among the topics observed in research.

Special sections for education are being created in almost every important newspaper and magazine.  Last year, ANDI analyzed 9,500 stories on education and almost 2,000 stories on child labor.  ANDI is also the coordinator of a permanent forum on media & education which involves more than 150 journalists and 15 important foundations.

Three years ago we were behind the creation of the Arden Senna Grand Prix of Journalism.  This is an award that intends to encourage stories that seek solutions to problems related to children and adolescents.  It is the major press award in the country, with 1,200 related stories every year.

We also are involved in the organization of another award that recognizes specific actions of the judiciary system that contribute to the creative and efficient application of the law.  This award, which has more than one hundred candidates every year, gives us information for new story ideas that provoke the media to work on pieces about adolescents in conflict with the law . . . the kind of story idea that does not come up spontaneously.

We have a dream:  to create an international network of journalists, recognizing some of them, every year, as Journalist Friends of Children.  In Brazil, this program of capacity building is already working with 115 media professionals.

We are sure that our work would not be possible without the support of institutions that believe that communication can be a strategic instrument for promoting the changes we all want to make.  They include UNICEF, Arden Senna Foundation, UNESCO, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Avina and other national institutes and governmental organizations that support our initiatives.

The Philippines: Advocacy and Awareness-raising Campaign Against Child Labor

Presented by Alcestis Mangahas

"Thetis Mangahas is the IPEC National Program Coordinator in the Philippines and has led the advocacy campaign against child labor in her country.  She has extensive experience at home and abroad in social development projects.  She holds an MSc from the London School of Economics and a political science and economics degree from the University of the Philippines School of Economics."

Background

When the IPEC Philippines country program was launched in 1995, child labor was not a new issue. Despite the years of exposure and the creation of structures to deal with the problem, there was a lingering sense that it refused to go away.  The numbers of child workers were increasing and, at the same time, the nature of the problem seemed to have become more severe.  In local communities, especially those with high levels of child labor, apathy and indifference ruled.

Objectives

Central to the IPEC strategy is the belief that in all action, learning must result in a change in knowledge, attitudes and skills.  The strategy has been based on:          

• The availability of comprehensive national statistics,

• A national media campaign (print, radio and television),

• The demonstration and cumulative effect of field action programs, and

• The competence of key players.

Process

The 1995 National Survey of Working Children of the Philippines, implemented by the National Statistics Office, provided the necessary numbers as well as a broad overview of the situation, and highlighted the various hazards and risks.  Obtaining information on "invisible" children required creative approaches, more akin to investigation and surveillance; reasonable estimates were nonetheless made.

One of the first action programs in the IPEC campaign was the production of a documentary on child labor called "No Time for Play," made by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism.  It brought special attention to the problems of children in mining, pyrotechnics, sugar plantations and young workers illegally recruited from depressed communities in rural areas to work in Metro Manila.  A second documentary made by the Center for Investigative Journalism drew even greater attention nationally.  Produced by the Ateneo Center for Social Policy and the Archdiocese of Manila Labor Center, it became one of the most effective communication tools in raising public awareness on the worst forms of child labor.  Several other documentaries followed.

Print media has covered the child labor issue extensively, especially the Global March and the adoption of the new ILO Convention 182 on the worst forms of child labor.  The launch of the Global March against Child Labor took place in Manila in January 1998 and was a demonstration of the Philippine partners' strength in mobilizing action.  The international marchers were joined by 15,000 children and advocates at the launching ceremonies.  Countryside marches were held in all the three major island groups of the Philippines.

The Advocacy and Awareness-raising Campaign Child Labor Network publishes a child labor newsletter called "Bataman" and makes photo exhibits and multi-media presentations available to all partners.

Social mobilization at the community level is undertaken by councils or committees, which perform watchdog functions such as monitoring progress and lobbying for greater resources and/or services for working children.  Examples of such committees are Barangay (Local) Councils for the Protection of Children (BCPC) and other similar privately initiated committees.

Typical action at the community/local level brings together two or three IPEC partner organizations.  Community organizing and advocacy are core elements, implemented by a lead organization.  As community mechanisms are formed (such as BCPCs) and children identified, specialized agencies join the lead agency in providing specialized services in education, health, and economic alternatives.

In several IPEC action programs, child workers and their families have taken the lead in forming associations of child workers as a venue for sharing experiences and seeking assistance for their problems.  Theater groups help project the children's views on child labor and their needs and problems.  Training programs have been put in place for labor inspectors, program implementors, law enforcers, defenders and dispensers of justice, and child and youth leaders.

Challenges & Achievements

The major strength of the Philippine child labor campaign is its broad-based and strongly committed allianceCa network of government, employer, trade union and civil society organizations acting in concert.

From a position of hesitation and caution, the government position on the ratification of the international labor standards on child labor has changed to one of endorsement.  The parliament  ratified ILO Convention 138 in 1997, setting the country's minimum age of entry to employment at 15.  The ratification of Convention 182 on the worst forms of child labor is expected during 2000.

The importance of labor inspection in identifying and monitoring of children most at risk has been reaffirmed.  In 1997, the Department of Labor and Employment issued an administrative order giving priority to the inspection of establishments classified as hazardous or high risk.

A "Magna Carta on Child Labor", Senate Bill 1530, was recently filed in the Senate.  The new bill consolidates child labor protective legislation and provides regulations for work conditions of young workers.  It restates government responsibility for basic education, training and welfare services, institutionalizes the national child labor committee and requires regular monitoring and reporting.  Another bill has been filed to provide a legal framework for protecting domestic workers.

At the provincial, city and municipality levels, local governments have passed legislation on the protection of children.  Other government units have passed ordinances protecting children from prostitution and trafficking and/or banning the employment of children in specific occupations such as fireworks, mining and quarrying.

IPEC has started direct action in communities with a high incidence of children in hazardous work.  These include communities with children working in ports; sugar plantations; farming and fishing; mining and quarrying; home-based work relating to garment production; commercial sex; domestic service; and scavenging.  IPEC is currently working in 18 project sites with 20 active partners.  While the impact of prevention programs may be difficult to measure, the advocacy program has reached more than half a million households with its media campaign.  It has directly served some 34,000 working children and their families.  There are other less quantifiable changes, such as self-sustaining and self-initiated activities at various levels for "Return to School" programs; access to livelihood and other community services; and interest in greater development issues like poverty alleviation, environment care, and workers' rights.

The National Child Labor Committee is sponsoring its own strategic planning activities to mainstream child labor concerns into the country's major development programs.  The entry of larger integrated programs poses new challenges to the provincial and regional committees, such as coordination and management of child labor initiatives at the local level.

Lessons learned

In the Philippines' experience with the Advocacy and Awareness-raising Campaign to date, the following basic elements for an effective national program have been established:

• Focus on priority groups,

• Participation and consultation,

• Effective communication,

• Integration and complementarity, and

• Flexibility.

• Capacity building, and

• Networking and collaboration.

The main goals for the coming two years are:

• Integrating child labor into national development planning and programs, and

• Expanding community services for working children, with emphasis on children in hazardous work.

Where there's School, there's Hope
By Luz Rimban

On any other Saturday, 11-year-old Gernieh Bahandi would be squatting at a roadside, crushing into gravel the rocks his teenage brothers chip off a hillside near their home.

This Saturday, Gernieh is taking a holiday of sorts.  He and five other boys, all quarry workers, are racing around the lawn of a rest house not far from where they live.  Indoors, their mothers are huddled in a conference, members of the year-old federation "Parawagan," which aims to put an end to child labor in Montalban.

Child labor has been this town's nagging problem.  Perched on the edge of Metro Manila's urban sprawl, it has attracted migrant families from destitute provinces like Leyte, where Gernieh's family comes from.

In Barangay San Rafael, whole families toil in quarry sites.  It was Gernieh's father, a seasonally employed carpenter, who found his family a puwestoCa nicheCalongside several other families at the quarry site in Tabak.  Five of Gernieh's eight other siblings take part in various stages of the workCchipping rock off a mountain face, crushing it, or shoveling stones onto wheelbarrows to be carted off to trucks which buy themCsix days a week.

Quarry families like the Bahandis in Tabak and at least two other sitios in San Rafael form the base of what is one of the most successful community movements against child labor in the Philippines.  True, they have few options outside the quarry at the moment, but community action has shown them there are alternatives in the horizon.

The residents of the three sitios organized themselves into neighborhood associations to find alternatives and formed Parawagan, a federation dedicated to eliminating child labor.  Parawagan's latest offspring is the organization of young quarry workers, past and present, called ECHO or Empowering Child's Heart Organization.

In July last year, one of the neighborhood associations, Tabak Community Development Association (TACDA), began a small peanut butter processing plant for quarry families.  Parawagan also engaged in sewing and selling rags.  In the last school year, with funding from IPEC and ERDA (Educational Research and Development Assistance),

 the federation made scholarships available for 129 high school and elementary children in the quarry areas.  That figure has now risen to 150.  The federation has also become active in dialogue and in collaborative efforts with government agencies and the private sector.

Parawagan is now a force San Rafael cannot ignore.  Barangay officials have formed the Barangay Council for the Protection of Children (BCPC), which provides assistance to the community groups and further helps prevent child labor through awareness-raising and mobilizing the community for dialogue.  The Montalban town council has approved a resolution creating the Local Council for the Protection of Children (LCPC), which formalizes the collaboration between the federation and the municipal government.

The Mayor has promised to channel money to Parawagan and donate three sewing machines for the federation's rag-making business.  "We have managed to reduce child labor by 50 percent, but more squatter families are coming in," Mayor San Diego says.

But for Gernieh, the future does not look as hopeless as it once did.  The 11-year-old, who has been crushing rocks since he was seven, says his membership in ECHO helped him relate more with children like himself.  He is also proud of his Parawagan scholarship, which provides him with a school bag, a ruler, paper and crayons.

Still, Gernieh does not see himself out of Tabak's quarry areas, at least for now.  Working assures him of the four pesos he needs every day for fare to and from the San Rafael Elementary school where he is in fifth grade.  "My father won't give me money for fare to school if I don't work," Gernieh explains.

But it will probably take more than a lack of fare money to keep Gernieh from finishing his studies, and maybe even someday fulfilling his dreams of becoming a doctor.

Tanzania:  Awareness-Raising and Social Mobilization to Prevent Child Domestic Servitude

Presented by Vicky Kanyoka

Vicky Kanyoka joined the trade union movement in 1991, and has been involved in the implementation and coordination of child labor programs in Tanzania as part of the Tanzania Federation of Trade Unions since 1995.  She is the current coordinator of the IPEC child labor program for the union.  Ms. Kanyoka is also the head of the Women and Organization Department of the Conservation, Hotels, Domestic and Allied Workers Union (CHODAWU).  An educator by profession, she has attended a number of union training courses in Tanzania and around the world, as well as several international conferences on child labor.

Background

The rural districts of the Iringa region in southwest Tanzania have a high incidence of poverty, with large families and limited access to basic education.  These factors invariably push many children into child labor, especially domestic labor involving young girls.  It is estimated that 40 to 50 percent of domestic servants working in particularly hazardous and exploitative conditions in the major urban centers are girls aged ten to 15, recruited from villages in the region, notably Kiponzelo, Tanzangozi, Ilula, Izazi and Migoli.  These children often escape from domestic labor only to end up in even more hazardous work in stone quarries.

Objectives

With IPEC support, the Conservation, Hotels, Domestic and Allied Workers Union (CHODAWU), an affiliate of the Tanzania Federation of Trade Unions, proposed and is implementing a package of strategic activities aimed at providing children and their families in the five targeted villages with alternatives to child labor.  They also aim to increase the capacity of the village communities to identify, monitor and prevent recruitment of children.

Process

Community awareness-raising and social mobilization were chosen as the initial approach in order to sensitize parents, village government officials, school teachers, women's groups and religious leaders on the negative consequences of domestic labor.  The sensitization campaigns were conducted through radio, community seminars, newspapers, features and brochures in Kiswahili, as well as via public meetings on child labor.  Child labor committees were formed and provided with training and orientation on addressing the problem of child labor in the community, including how to formulate and apply bylaws, how to carry out a census on working children and so on.  It was foreseen that once the village communities understood and appreciated the need for prevention, they would identify and implement practical measures themselves, with the support of the trade unions.

A total of 200 very poor households were identified by the village governments and child labor committees in the respective villages, and are benefitting from a revolving fund that enables them to undertake small-scale income generating activities.  The parents from these households have been provided with entrepreneurial skills training, organized by the trade union.  Skills provided have included: business planning, business management skills, marketing, record keeping and cost analysis. 

To date, a total of 100 poor parents have started small businesses.  These include the operation of food stalls, general merchandise kiosks, gardening and horticulture services, tea and snack rooms, local brewing and secondhand clothes businesses.  These families' living conditions have subsequently improved, and children from these households are attending school instead of working.

The revolving fund operates as follows:  the trade union has opened a bank account in the Iringa region, and after the beneficiaries are identified and recommended by the village government and the child labor committee, funds are released to a cooperative group of five parents.  After successfully operating their businesses for three months, the groups start repaying the loans into the bank account in installments, through the village government and under supervision and monitoring by the trade union.  It is planned that, from the loan recoveries, a  savings and credit union for poor households will eventually be established in each village.

It was also anticipated that such community-grown, grass-roots institutional structures would take the role of formulating community bylaws to regulate and restrict recruitment of children into work, including the monitoring of primary school enrollment and retention of school-age children.  It was also expected that community awareness-raising on domestic labor would result in the identification and eventual withdrawal of 800 children from work and the provision of appropriate alternatives, including reintegration into primary schools and vocational skills training.     

Challenges & Achievements

To date, the following achievements have been noted:

• 512 children withdrawn from work and provided with either vocational skills or reintegration into primary school.  The target of 800 children withdrawn is well within reach.

• Establishment of community child labor committees in the five villages, comprised of school teachers, parents, and community and religious leaders.

• A total of 250 community leaders made aware of the negative effects of child labor and the need to take immediate measures to prevent domestic child labor.

• Identification by the child labor committees in each village, in collaboration with the village government, of 200 very poor households to undertake income-generating activities through the revolving fund.  A total of 100 poor parents to date have started small income generating activities.  Their living conditions have improved and children from these families are attending school instead of working in domestic service.

• Withdrawal and repatriation of working children from urban centers and their reintegration into families and schools in rural areas.  A total of 192 female domestic workers have benefitted.

• Direct support provided, including uniforms and payment of school fees, to enable children from poor families to attend school.  To date, 271 girls have benefitted.

• Monitoring of the child labor committees carried out to determine the extent to which they are formulating interventions, including bylaws on child labor.

• The incidence of recruitment of girls from the five villages for domestic work in urban centers dropped from 454 to 262 after eight months of activities.  As a result of the bylaws which restrict the employment of children, parents are now more responsible for their children, making sure that they enroll in and attend school.

• Parents are learning how their children are treated by their employers and about the exploitation and abuse they endure.

Lessons learned

• The best practice of this project has been to bring about a community-based program by strengthening capacity and establishing networks of various agents or partners at the grassroots level.

• The program is replicable because it makes the grassroots community more responsible and is not costly.  It also addresses the main cause of child labor:  poverty.

• Promotional and awareness-raising materials are most effective when printed and distributed in the local language.

• More strategies are required for capacity building, starting with intensive awareness-raising.

The Plight of Young Girls in Domestic Work
by Rose Haji  

Monica Aloyce (not her real name) says, "It's better to earn a little and be spared the rigors and miseries of domestic work."  She is now a member of a self employment project called "Kibamku Group."

Monica is one of ten girls aged 10 to 16 in July 1998, who were identified and registered for withdrawal and reintegration from stone-crushing sites, commonly known as "Machimbo," on the outskirts of Dar-es-Salaam, by the Dogodogo Center for Street Children.

Born in Ilula village in Iringa region, Monica joined her uncle in the Kilimanjaro region.  He supported her primary education up to age 12, after which she was not selected to join a government secondary school.  She was therefore obliged to go back to her home village.  There too, her dreams of continuing with schooling proved futile.  "I really wanted to proceed with secondary school, but the fact that both my parents were and are still financially incapable let me down."

Monica's home, the Iringa region, leads in the recruitment of girl child domestic workers, who are normally sent to big towns by their parents to supplement family income.  Abject rural poverty is the predominant factor pushing girls like Monica into domestic servitude, commercial sex and other extreme forms of child labor.  Large family sizes and limited access to education are also contributory factors.  According to a survey by the Tanzania Media Women's Association (TAMWA), girls come also from several other regions.

The girls are normally poorly paid, between Tshs.2,000 (US$3.50) to 12,000 (US$ 15) a month.  Most of the children come from poor families who cannot afford to pay school fees.  The average family size is six to 12 children.

Monica was forced into employment as a domestic servant in Dar-es-Salaam after her parents moved there in search of income earning opportunities.  While her father ran a fruit and vegetable stall, her mother decided to join a group of women in the neighborhood in the stone-crushing business.

"Domestic work was not worth it," Monica says.  "I could go the whole month without a salary.  I had a very heavy workload but often I was not given food or sufficient clothing.  I sometimes fell sick but my employer never cared about my health.  After three months I decided to run away from my employer to join my mother at the stone-crushing sites."

"I have a sister and a young brother, but neither of them has proceeded with studies, and unfortunately, they didn't even complete standard seven.  They are at 'Machimbo,' helping our mother," Monica says.

The health of more than 200 children helping their parents at "Machimbo is at great risk," observes Ms. Amina Mtunguja, coordinator of the Kibamku project.  "There is a health risk currently looming here of which the government is not aware," she says.

If the government does not act immediately, many children will die of tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases resulting from fatigue.  "To be honest, the children here face terrible health and social threats," Ms. Mtunguja remarks.

The plight of Monica and nine other young girls at the stone-crushing site, all former domestic child workers aged ten to 16, came to a happy ending when the Dogodogo Center, an IPEC implementing agency targeting children working under hazardous conditions in the urban informal sector in Dar-es-Salaam, visited Mtongani.  The young girls were removed from the site, provided with rehabilitation and various types of training (depending on their ages), and were subsequently organized into a cooperative-self-help group in November 1998.

"We 'tie and dye' clothes and produce batik," says Monica, now 15.  "Presently we are facing market problems for our products as we are not selling much.  However, I believe, sooner or later we will start earning more, as the number of our customers is gradually increasing."

"It's better that we can finally do a job like anybody else for ourselves.  The previous one (domestic work) was terrible and you certainly would have not found us in this state."

"It was, terrible, terrible," another girl in the group chips in.

Monica's story represents the plight of girl-child domestic workers, children trapped in one of the worst forms of child labor.  Life as domestic servants is often so tough that they opt for other forms of employment, possibly more hazardous, elsewhere.

Monica and some of her colleagues now running the Kibamku project were lucky.  But what of the many others who are still at the hands of the so-called domestic lords, suffering silently,  struggling for their daily bread?

Talking about the Kibamku group, Ms. Mtunguja says, at least, with these few, I can say they have been rescued, thanks to the Almighty God.  But what is the fate of the others who are currently working in domestic service and elsewhere?

Kenya: Utilizing the Grassroots Structure of Local Trade Unions in the Movement Against Child Labor

Presented by Francis Atwoli

Francis Atwoli is a lifelong trade union activist.  In 1997, he was elected Executive Board Member of the Central Organization of Trade Unions in Kenya, having also served as the Director of Organization.  Mr. Atwoli was elected General Secretary of the Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers' Union in 1994, a position he continues to hold.  He has attended numerous courses and seminars on labor and industrial relations and has traveled extensively throughout his career.

Background

An estimated three million children between the ages of six and 14 work in Kenya, a large percentage of them in the potentially hazardous agricultural sector.  Many do not go to school, or do not attend full-time.  In addition, many parents cannot afford the cost of school fees or supplies.  Furthermore, many families living in and around the project target areas felt that sending their children to work was of greater benefit than schooling.

During the past 18 months, the Nairobi Regional Office of the AFL-CIO American Center for International Labor Solidarity (Solidarity Center) has been collaborating with trade union organizations to assist in the IPEC-led effort to eliminate the worst forms of child labor in Kenya.

The child labor programs of the Solidarity Center in East Africa are action-oriented and focussed at the grassroots level.  In addition to reducing the number of working children, the programs are designed to assist in returning working children to school, increasing and making better use of family incomes, and reducing poverty in the rural areas.  An advocacy aspect encourages trade union and civil society organizations to address poverty and good governance issues.

On March 31, 2000, the Solidarity Center completed a one-year pilot project which assisted the Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU-Kenya), the Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers' Union (KPAWU) and the Kenya Union of Domestic, Hotel, Educational Institutions, Health and Allied Workers (KUDHEIHA) in implementing a program in commercial agriculture.  The project aimed to raise awareness about child labor, remove children from work and enroll them in school.  Using the unique grassroots structure of the trade unions, the program took a bottom-up approach, concentrating on ten target areas in the coffee and tea growing regions of Kenya.  Families and working children in and around commercial agriculture, including domestic workers, were targeted.

Objectives

The project was intended to enlighten all individuals and groups in the target areas about the short and long term hazards of child labor, and the resulting vicious circle of underdevelopment and child labor.  The objective was to use the existing local trade union structure to create awareness among workers about child labor, focus on returning children to school by empowering communities, and create sustainable local partnerships with managers, teachers, parents, community leaders, health professionals, and other community members to take ownership for improving workers' economic conditions and encouraging them to send their children to school.

The program is based on the belief that awareness, motivation and empowerment through strategic planning methodologies, rather than direct cash payments for school expenses, lead to self-sustaining child labor programs.

Process

Addressing child labor in Africa is most efficiently done by mobilizing a broad alliance of partners and by giving emphasis to community-based interventions.  The project uses the grass-roots trade union structure in the plantation sector to create a community-based approach to monitoring, awareness-raising and withdrawal.  The project reaches families at the local level and trains and empowers them to create partnerships and strategies to combat child labor on and around the plantations.  This approach also engenders local ownership and sustainability.

Twenty grassroots workshops of three days each trained over 550 trade union members, as well as managers, teachers, local chiefs, parents, religious leaders and other opinion makers.  The grassroots workshops make use of strategic planning methodologies, and result in groups of participants returning to their coffee and tea estates with one year and ninety day plans of action.  Over 30 formal follow-up sessions followed the grassroots workshops, and over 20,000 workers, managers, family members and guardians, teachers and community leaders have been reached. The project conducted over 50 monitoring visits which resulted in efforts to establish more than 100 "Community Child Labor Committees" (CCLCs).  The committees are in various stages of development at the district and estate levels.

Challenges & Achievements

In addition to returning 340 children to school, the project was intended to create awareness about child labor.  In order to do this, families had to be made aware about practical ways to reduce poverty and increase family well-being.  Many of these efforts dealt with making the best use of family incomes, the establishment of micro-finance groups, self-help groups, income generating activities and bursary schemes.  Forty micro-finance groups, called Amerry-go-rounds, were formed, along with 132 self-help groups which had a combined membership of over 6,000 members.  A newsletter in both English and Swahili is being produced to share successes and failures, and to motivate child labor activists.

A key to the success of the project has been awareness-raising at all levels, but primarily at the family, village and workplace level.  Almost every aspect of the COTU/KPAWU/ Solidarity Center Project at the plantation, estate and village level is based on awareness-raising before finding means of returning children to school.  It is believed that direct financial interventions to return children to school should be used only as a last resort.  Rather, child labor committees at the district, village and estate level should be empowered to assist parents and guardians to form groups to mobilize resources to return children to school.

A summary of awareness-raising in the various target groups reached by the project follows:

Parents and Guardians

• BEFORE the project, the largely illiterate parents and guardians believed that it was acceptable for children from poor families to work in order to increase family income.  Parents were not interested in sending children to school for many reasons, including the lack of employment opportunities for educated children. 

• AFTER the project, parents in the ten target areas are aware that children have little chance for success in modern day Kenya unless they have a basic education.  Parents are proud of the fact that their children are in school and will be able to compete for more rewarding jobs.  With the assistance of the program, several groups of parents decided to establish literacy classes at the estate level.

Working Children

• BEFORE the project, with an estimated four million primary aged children in Kenya not attending school, it seemed normal to boys and girls in the ten target areas that they too were not going to school.  It was normal to work, and nice to have some money for the family or for a few things that money could buy.  Their highest aspiration was to get a permanent job on the local coffee estate, perhaps even become a driver. 

• AFTER the project, children are aware that they can become a teacher, a pilot, an accountant or even a medical doctor.  Children are aware that community-based efforts can lead to an education and a bright future.  Former child laborers have formed support groups, and have joined the campaign against child labor.  Some older youth have decided to follow in the footsteps of their parents, and have also begun literacy classes.

The Community

• BEFORE the project, the communities accepted child labor as a necessary evil due to poverty.

• AFTER the project, as a result of awareness-raising by CCLCs, attitudes have changed, and many efforts are made to enroll children in schools or to keep them from dropping out.

Teachers

• BEFORE the project, overworked and underpaid teachers had little time or energy for hungry children who didn't come to school.  The problem was overwhelming. 

• AFTER the project, teachers are aware that community-based efforts can effectively put many children into schools.  Teachers have taken up leadership positions in the CCLCs, and are active in promoting self-help groups to generate income.  In Limuru town, a teacher helped a group of AIDS orphans and others begin a rabbit project to help meet school expenses.

Union Leaders

• BEFORE the project, union leaders did not bother dealing with the Anecessary evil.  Clear information on child labor issues was not available.  In any case, it was felt that child labor had little or nothing to do with the union except that those under 18 years of age could not join the union. 

• AFTER the project, all union leaders are aware of the project and are talking about it, says the General Secretary of KPAWU.  It is now very clear that child labor is not wanted and can be dealt with through a union-led program.  Leaders have become aware that activists, particularly women, can recruit workers into the union while eliminating child labor.  During the one-year project, over 10,000 workers joined the union.  Negotiators in a stronger KPAWU are now aware that child labor issues can be put on the bargaining table along with wages, hours and working conditions.  Union leaders and workers are now more aware of the health hazards from pesticides, particularly for children.

Participants

• BEFORE the project, participants in the grassroots workshops were concerned but gave little thought to the Aunsolvable problem. 

• AFTER the project, most participants are aware that community groups can become forces in the fight against child labor and in the improvement of family life.

Estate Managers

• BEFORE the project, members of management saw child labor as traditional and resulting from poverty.  Some saw it as a form of cheap, non-union labor.  Others believed they were doing the families a favor by allowing their children to work. 

• AFTER the project, many management personnel are aware of the destructive nature of child labor, and know that coordinated efforts can go a long way to eliminate it.  Management is aware that unions can play a significant role in solving problems such as child labor.  Management is aware of their tremendous influence for good when they help bridge the gap between management and workers.

Others

• BEFORE the project, an attitude of acceptance toward child labor was held by numerous persons, including government officials, politicians, opinion makers, religious leaders, workers in the informal sector and others. 

• AFTER the project, the attitudes of all have not changed, but significant improvements have been made in raising awareness about the disadvantages of child labor and the importance of education.

One of the most significant results of the program was the involvement of communities in child labor issues.  The CCLCs, in their various stages of development, continue to display a high degree of commitment and enthusiasm.

No changes were made to the basic bottom-up approach but a greater emphasis is presently being placed on the proper use of family income, and joining groups whose purpose is to mobilize funds to meet school expenses.

The program has received limited funding to increase the number of estate level CCLCs in the ten target areas in Kenya, and to expand to a few new areas.  The KPAWU has agreed in principle to provide direct financial assistance to the CCLCs in the ten target areas of the project.  The Solidarity Center is exploring more formal collaboration with ILO-IPEC, particularly to coordinate the program with the new IPEC education program.  With the cooperation of the East African Trade Union Council (EATUC), an international effort will be made to harmonize child labor efforts at the East African Community level.  The Grassroots Newsletter will become a regional publication.  Coalitions with the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) and others will be formed to promote economic growth and good governance, both necessary to achieve free and compulsory primary education. 

• More emphasis will be placed on the sustainability of CCLCs and microfinance efforts.  An internal evaluation of the program, conducted in April, showed that participants in the program recommend:

• More counseling for children and their parents;

• Better communication and transportation arrangements at the estate level;

• The inclusion of more religious leaders in the program;

• Improved monitoring at the estate level;

• The provision of written child labor materials in Kiswahili;

• The provision of information on HIV/AIDS to members of the CCLCs;

• The provision of ILO Conventions and detailed child labor material to teachers;

• The provision of identity cards for child labor facilitators on the estates; and

• Provisions for direct intervention to get extremely needy children into school, particularly AIDS orphans.

Lessons learned

• Programs must put emphasize on using existing local trade union structures as an effective means of  mobilizing grassroots community involvement in taking children out of work and putting them in school.

• By using a multi-union approach, the strengths of different types of unions can be brought together to provide maximum results.  The unions being used have as their members agricultural workers, teachers, domestic workers, local government workers, university staff and others.

• Solidarity Center coordination teaches local unions how to create community-based child labor programs, work in partnership with NGOs, employers and other relevant community leaders, and build local union capacity to effectively sustain existing community-based structures.

This approach is transferrable to other countries where there is a local agricultural union.  The newly trained union activists in Kenya are now in a position to assist other unions in Africa to establish similar programs.

Bangladesh: A Multilateral Collaboration to Eliminate Child Labor in the Export-Oriented Garment Industry

Presented by Anisur Rahman Sinha

Mr. Anisur Rahman Sinha, the chairman of the Opex Group, is currently serving a two-year term as the President of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers' and Exporters' Association (BGMEA), a mandatory organization for exporting garment manufacture employers.  For the last three years, the Opex Group has won the Bangladeshi Government gold trophy for export performance.  Exports of the Opex Group total well over $100 million a year, and the Group employs more than 25,000 people.

Background

The garment industry in Bangladesh has enjoyed meteoric growth, from less than 50 factories in 1983 to over 2,800 in 1999.  During the same period, employment rose from 10,000 to 1.5  million, of which 80 percent are female workers.  At the same time, garment exports increased in value of US$31 million to US$4.02 billion.  This represents approximately 66 percent of the country's exports, 43 percent of which go to the United States.

Concern about the number of children employ