Stop Child Labour - School is the best place to work

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News

World Action Week - April 2008

April 2008: Global Action Week 2008 is coming soon! In a little over a month, Education International affiliates and national coalitions of the Global Campaign for Education will highlight the need for universal quality education.

World Day Against Child Labour

12 June: This year the World Day against Child Labour will be marked around the world with activities to raise awareness that Education is the right response to child labour. We hope that the World Day will be widely supported by governments, employers and workers organizations, and all concerned with tackling child labour and promoting education.

Turkey must end child labour

Brussels, 10 December 2007: The government of Turkey has serious work to do when it comes to both legislation and practice dealing with the country’s trade unions and the conditions of its workers, a new ITUC report makes clear. Released to coincide with the Trade Policy Review of Turkey at the World Trade Organisation, the report finds that Turkey continues to limit workers’ rights to organise in trade unions and for their unions to bargain collectively, that the Turkish labour market is marred by various forms of discrimination and that hundreds of thousands of children are engaged in work they shouldn’t be.

Report on the Roundtable Conference

On Tuesday 27th of November 2007 The Stop Child Labour – School is the Best Place to Work campaign organised a Roundtable in Brussels to discuss the EU’s contribution to strategies which aim to support education programmes and eliminate child labour in a number of African countries. With representation from North and South civil society organisations, members of the European Parliament, the European Commission, ACP Embassies (African, Carribean and Pacific Group) and Permanent Representatives, the Roundtable facilitated lively discussion and debate on the key issues.

MV Foundation visits Central America

5 December 2007: Two delegates of Stop Child Labour partner MV Foundation in India as well as a delegate from the Albanian Trade Union Federation of Education, made a tour through Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica) to exchange experiences and knowledge about the linked issues of child labour and education. This initiative was a follow up of the regional conference on Stop Child Labour that was organized by the campaign and local partners in Honduras last year.

Round Table Conference

27th of November

This Round Table, organised by the Stop Child Labour campaign will discuss the EC’s (European Community) support to education and the elimination of child labour in its aid programming up to 2013. In order for the EC to make a genuine contribution to the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by 2015, it is essential that their Country and Region Strategy Papers contain concrete strategies on education, stop child labour, health, HIV/Aids, the environment and gender equality. Read more.

20th of November - Universal Children's Day

We launch our new website on November the 20th. In 1954 the General Assembly of the UN recommended that all countries institute a Universal Children's Day, to be observed as a day of worldwide fraternity and understanding between children. It recommended that the Day was to be observed also as a day of activity devoted to promoting the ideals and objectives of the Charter and the welfare of the children of the world. The date 20 November, marks the day on which the Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, in 1959, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in 1989.

‘Stick with India’

‘Stick with India in Spite of Child Slave Scandals’ Buyers Urged (press release http://www.itglwf.org/)

Global brands and retailers sourcing production in India were warned today not to cut and run from existing suppliers or from India but to work with producers and the authorities to build a culture of compliance with national and international legal standards. Quitting errant suppliers without attempting to bring them into compliance would rightly invite condemnation.

GAWU fights child labour

The Ghana Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU) fights child labour at the four biggest palm oil plantations in Ghana. Two of them are Unilever plantations. No children are at work there since multinationals successfully banned child labour under international pressure. But although Unilever has a code of conduct which prohibits child labour in the whole production chain (i.e. including the suppliers) it appears not easy to control the small farmers' personnel. When Unilever suspects child labour, they can stop the collaboration with the supplier, but usually threatening to do so is enough.