Global Child Labor in Decline - ILO Reports

[loseyourname]

GENEVA (Reuters) - Child labor, especially the worst forms where children's lives can be at risk, is declining for the first time globally and could be eradicated within a decade, the International Labor Organization (ILO) said on Thursday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060504/ts_nm/un_children_labour_dc

I figured the forum could use a little good news for a change. I don't really have a comment on this, but I wonder what everyone thinks. What's the simple solution to this? Is eradication of child labor by 2016 realistic? Can the rates of decline hold?

 

[siddharth]

That's an interesting article. My personal opinion is that, I'm skeptical on whether child labour (including the worst forms) can be completely eradicated by 2016.

This is a detailed report made in 2003 on bonded child labor in India's silk industry by the Human Rights Watch.

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/india/"

I think many of the topics covered in the report, such as problems faced in enforcing the law, still applies today.

Also, from my personal experience, too many children in India are still employed in various forms of work even in the major cities, and are denied the opportunity for basic education.

 

[Pengwuino]

If this is the first time it declined, 10 years ain't happening.

 

[turbo]

Well, as long as people buy jewelry paved with melee stones (tiny faceted gemstones), child labor will go on - at least in India. Next time you see some rap star with a diamond-encrusted gold pendant as big across as your hand, think of the forced labor of the children who cut all those melee diamonds.

 

[Gokul43201]

Is eradication of child labor by 2016 realistic? Can the rates of decline hold?

I believe we will continue to see a decline for the next few decades - largely due to the fact that some of the developing countries are the most populated (China, India, Brazil). Eradication (or reduction below the level of say, 20 million, or about 1% of all the children) will not happen anytime soon - certainly not by 2016.

 

[Astronuc]

While Child Labor may be in decline, it is nevertheless persistent in parts of the world.

Africa’s World of Forced Labor, in a 6-Year-Old’s Eyes
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/world/africa/29ghana.html

KETE KRACHI, Ghana — Just before 5 a.m., with the sky still dark over Lake Volta, Mark Kwadwo was rousted from his spot on the damp dirt floor. It was time for work.

Shivering in the predawn chill, he helped paddle a canoe a mile out from shore. For five more hours, as his coworkers yanked up a fishing net, inch by inch, Mark bailed water to keep the canoe from swamping.

He last ate the day before. His broken wooden paddle was so heavy he could barely lift it. But he raptly followed each command from Kwadwo Takyi, the powerfully built 31-year-old in the back of the canoe who freely deals out beatings.

“I don’t like it here,” he whispered, out of Mr. Takyi’s earshot.

Mark Kwadwo is 6 years old. About 30 pounds, dressed in a pair of blue and red underpants and a Little Mermaid T-shirt, he looks more like an oversized toddler than a boat hand. He is too little to understand why he has wound up in this fishing village, a two-day trek from his home.

But the three older boys who work with him know why. Like Mark, they are indentured servants, leased by their parents to Mr. Takyi for as little as $20 a year.

Until their servitude ends in three or four years, they are as trapped as the fish in their nets, forced to work up to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, in a trade that even adult fishermen here call punishing and, at times, dangerous.

We still have a long way to go to change this.