 |
While welcoming the positive results of the 4-day International Conference Against Child Labour which was held in Oslo in October, international trade union organisations have invited governments to put into practice the promises made in the Norwegian capital and have urged multinational enterprises to finance programmes to bring children out of the workplace and into school.
ITGLWF General Secretary Neil Kearney, one of the speakers at the Conference, insisted on the role that multinationals should play, given their share of responsibility for the existence of child labour. He said these companies should contribute to the financing of programmes to rehabilitate child workers and provide them with an education.
The most positive points emerging from the conference were the emphasis on social policy and a fair distribution of wealth; the commitment by several of the countries attending the meeting in Oslo to ratify ILO Convention 138 on the minimum working age (Egypt, Indonesia, Philippines, Switzerland); Thailand and Indonesia's commitment to promote compulsory education; and the promises of money destined for the elimination of child labour from certain industrialised countries. Britain has offered 1.1 million dollars to find alternatives for 7,000 children working for football manufacturers in Pakistan. The Conference, organised by the UNICEF, the ILO and the Norwegian government, was attended by some 300 conference delegates, including ministers from 40 countries, as well as trade unions and NGOs.
The Oslo Conference against Child Labour has been hailed as a great success by virtually all who took part. A strong declaration by governaments, and around US $100 million pledged by donor governments to add to the international war chest to fight child labour. A major impetus was given to the global struggle against the exploitation of children, which the ILO will take forward with discussions on its new child labour Convetion starting next year.
We took the opportunity to push our agenda, calling for all children to be in school, protected from exploitation. Unions want to be at the forefront of broad social movements to tackle the problem, working with responsible NGO's, governments and employers who want to help end child labour.
So all was well in Oslo? Not in the minds of some. Some rather interesting ideas were floating around the fringes of the conference, and the vocal minority pushing these ideas were unhappy that their unique proposals were not adopted. One of the more disturbing suggestions was that trade unions should organise working children as members, or that children should organise their own unions. Only in this way can child labours get better wages and conditions, we are told. Of course, unions do want children to be organised. Organised in school, not in work.
Another new idea was that "children have the right to work". Well, not really a new idea if we look back to the last century, when the same arguments were used to justify children in the mines and factories of the industrial revolution. Of course, every child should lend a hand around the home and maybe earn some pocket money, and proper work experience is a part of any good schooling. But when this work is exploitative or gets in the way of education, it becomes child labour.
So where are these ideas coming from?
Interestingly, some of the loudest voices came from countries like Peru and particulary Colombia where trade union rights are systematically and violenty repressed. We can only trust that these voices will in future be just as loud in condemning the daily violations of union rights in these countries.
It is clear that the views of working children must be heard. Trade unions and NGO's around the world are talking to them, helping to get under-age children off the streets, out of work and into school.
Organising adolescents of working age into unions and negotiating a better deal for them. The overwhelming message from these kids is that they want to get a proper education. They only work becouse there is no alternative, and becouse their parents are unemployed or on poverty wages.
Still, a great deal more needs to be done, by union and by the rest of society to protect and rehabilitate the victims of child labour. But the common objective, to get kids into school and adults into work, risks being undermined by acceptance of half-measures or worse, excuses for the powerful interests which profit from child labour, saying that child labour is o.k., that a giant multinational whose contractors use children is somehow doing the kids a favour, or that governments can keep spending billions on the military and a pittance on education.
As ILO director General Michel Hansenne said at the end of the conference, if the political will exists, child labour can be eliminated within 15 years. For the union movement, the countdown now.
|