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OPA News Release: [12/19/2003]
Contact Name: Mike
Biddle or Lisa Gates
Phone Number: (202) 693-4676
U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao Helps Launch $2
million DOL Anti-Trafficking Project
Catholic Relief Services to Manage Project in
Benin
KINSHASA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO—U.S. Secretary of
Labor Elaine L. Chao was joined today by Minister of Family, Social Protection
and Solidarity Massiyatou Latoundji Lauriano to launch the $2 million
Department of Labor fund Education First project, which will
provide increased access to education for children removed from or at risk of
being trafficked for exploitive purposes. Catholic Relief Services will manage
the project. The launch was part of Secretary Chao’s four-day visit to
Africa to highlight the United States’ working with Africa nations to
combat abusive child labor, such as child soldiering, the worst form of child
labor, and to promote workplace programs to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.
“As President George W. Bush recently said at the United Nations
General Assembly, trafficking is a special evil that should be
eradicated,” said U.S. Secretary Elaine L. Chao. “I am pleased that
the U.S. Department of Labor is funding this critical and worthwhile program.
Working with communities and stakeholders, Education First will
give renewed hope to trafficked children, especially girls, who are often
exploited as laborers and denied access to education.”
Education First will increase educational opportunities for at risk and
trafficked children, especially girls; provide immediate care to recovered
trafficked children; provide short-term reintegration services to recovered
trafficked children; design and conduct awareness campaigns; identify and
provide assistance to parents’ associations (APEs) and village committees
to combat child trafficking; and, develop initiatives to identify and recover
trafficked children.
Since 1995, the U.S. Department of Labor has received $313 million to
fund international projects aimed at preventing and eliminating the worst forms
of child labor. The department has already obligated $275 million of the money
received for child labor projects in more than 60 countries. These projects are
designed to remove children from hazardous work environments and exploitive
conditions, to provide educational opportunities for child laborers and to
conduct research and raise awareness about the child labor issue.
The United States is a signatory to ILO Convention No. 182, which
condemns the trafficking of children as one of the worst forms of child labor
and calls upon countries to assist one another in eliminating all adverse forms
of child labor as a matter of urgency.
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