Dear Friends:
This is the inaugural newsletter associated with www.childlabor.org. As a first
item, I would like to introduce you to another child labor listserve from India.
The information follows; You can sign up yourself if you wish. I do not want to
duplicate this fine effort, but to supplement it.

There will be more new information in Newsletter #2.
Sincerely,
Sarah Bachman
Asia/Pacific Research Center
Stanford University


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>Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 19:09:54 +0530
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>Subject: [EduSearch] CHILD LABOUR NEWS SERVICE
>
>
>CHILD LABOUR NEWS SERVICE
>
>1 July 2000
>
>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
>**********************************************************
>** NEGOTIATIONS MARK COPENHAGEN PLUS FIVE
>
>** CHILD LABOUR UNDER SCRUTINY IN US
>
>** ITALY COMES TO THE RESCUE OF SENEGALESE CHILDREN
>
>** NEWS-IN-BRIEF
>**********************************************************
>
>NEGOTIATIONS MARK COPENHAGEN PLUS FIVE
>
>Sharp differences over strategies to reduce poverty, promote
>employment and contend with the forces of globalisation dominated
>the negotiations during the five-day United Nations General Assembly
>special session on social development held in Geneva.
>
>The Social Summit was attended by representatives of 186 countries,
>including 117 heads of state or government.
>
>The main aim of the special session was to evaluate the implementation
>of the 1995 World Summit for Social Development and developing
>new initiatives to promote social development.
>
>During the session, developing and developed countries maintained
>widely varying positions. While developing countries emphasised
>the need for greater debt relief and the democratisation of the
>international financial institutions, the developed nations stressed
>the need for realising stronger adherence to core labour standards.
>
>But at the same time, agreements have been reached on significant
>issues. Countries have agreed to a target date of 2015 for reducing
>the proportion of people living in extreme poverty; endorsed
>the idea that health should be an integral part of a country's
>development policy; and also endorsed the goals of the Education
>For All conference that took place in Dakar earlier this year.
>
>The Summit is seen as the first concerted effort by the international
>community to address the needs of people in the age of globalisation,
>and resulted in countries committing themselves to a series of
>goals and targets. It has marked a major shift in promoting international
>attention to social development issues.
>
>But the Global Campaign for Education (GCE) however feels that
>these new targets will too remain unmet in the absence of any
>serious action. Aid levels are at their lowest for 30 years,
>and budgets for basic education, vital for breaking the cycle
>of poverty, and for primary health care each make just about
>2 percent of it.
>
>"Action now means debt cancellation in the first place," stresses
>GCE.
>
>In the years after "Copenhagen" wise words have been spoken,
>sophisticated studies have appeared, many promises have been
>made. But all in all there are no real commitments. "To each
>and every one of the world leaders we say: your intentions are
>good, but where are the resources? We don't need more fine words
>and vague promises but the money, through debt relief and increased
>aid, to supplement to programmes of action. So take out your
>wallet, put your money where your mouth is", says Mrs. Botlhale
>Nong of GCE.
>
>GCE is a world wide coalition of development NGOs such as Action
>Aid, The Global March Against Child Labour, Oxfam International,
>national NGO Coalitions from Bangladesh, Brazil, South Africa,
>and the global teachers unions confederation Education International.
>
># # #
>
>(For further information contact the GCE media team: Paul van
>Tongeren, Tel: (31 655) 357 465 (English and Dutch); Dominique
>Marlet, Tel: (32 477) 506 416 (English and French) or; Marta
>Arias, Tel. (34 629) 866 247 (Spanish))
>**********************************************************
>
>CHILD LABOUR UNDER SCRUTINY IN US
>
>The United States is not doing enough to protect child farm workers
>from what it calls dangerous and gruelling conditions, according
>to a report released by an international human-rights group.
>
>While farm worker groups in Texas agree that changes are needed,
>growers say they're careful not to hire underage workers for
>fear of heavy fines and safety worries.
>
>Human Rights Watch details cases, mostly in Arizona, where children
>as young as 12 are working long hours, often without basic necessities
>such as toilets or drinking water. They also are frequently exposed
>to harmful pesticides, heat illness and injuries that can cause
>permanent disabilities, the group says.
>
>The report, titled "Fingers to the Bone, United States Failure
>to Protect Child Farm workers," covers mostly children of migrant
>farm workers. It does not target family farmers and ranchers
>who enlist their own children for farm work.
>
>The human rights group is calling for child farm labourers to
>be protected under the same laws that prohibit underage hiring
>and limit working hours in other occupations.
>
>"Agriculture is the most dangerous occupation in the nation that's
>open to minors, but it's the least protected," said Jo Becker,
>a spokeswoman for Human Rights Watch. She says that child farm
>workers account for only 8 percent of working minors in the United
>States but 40 percent of work-related fatalities.
>
>However, an industry spokeswoman says that most injuries are
>sustained by farmers' own children, and that there have been
>relatively few violations of child labour laws in agriculture.
>
>"Basically, they're trying to fix a non problem," said Sharon
>Hughes, executive vice president of the National Council of Agricultural
>Employers. "In practice, the growers just don't hire children.
>There's too much liability involved, and you can't get the worker's
>compensation for them."
>
>In Washington, a Labour Department spokesman says the agency
>has increased fines for violations in agriculture, and stepped
>up enforcement. Also, Senator Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, twice has introduced
>legislation calling for child farm workers to be treated the
>same as children in other occupations, although the measures
>have stalled.
>
>"We've always said that farm work is very dangerous for adults,
>so we can only imagine the dangers for children," said Juanita
>Valdez-Cox, co-ordinator for the United Farm Workers Union in
>South Texas. "Our concern is not only with pesticides or problems
>with high heat, but the very dangerous machinery that's used."
>
>She supports changes to child labour laws that Human Rights Watch
>is advocating. She says she's seen children as young as 8 working
>alongside their parents in Rio Grande Valley onion fields.
>
>Two years ago, some produce growers in the Valley were fined
>as much as $250,000 for employing children.
>
>But in those cases, an industry spokesman says, migrant farm
>workers brought their children with them without the knowledge
>of owners - and they dispute whether they were actually doing
>fieldwork. They called it an isolated incident.
>
>All the same, they say, growers have become more vigilant.
>
>"No grower in the state of Texas is employing child labour anymore,"
>said Bruce Frazier, president of Dixondale Farms in Carrizo Springs,
>Texas, which raises cantaloupes and onions. The farm employs
>as many as 125 workers, but never anyone younger than Mr. Frazier
>says.
>
>He said he's also quit contracting with crew leaders who bring
>their own workers, in order to keep closer tabs on his employees.
>The Texas Farm Bureau additionally is opposed to changing current
>laws, for fear that it could eventually affect regular family
>farms or ranches.
>
># # #
>
>**********************************************************
>
>ITALY COMES TO THE RESCUE OF SENEGALESE CHILDREN
>
>ROME: Italy plans to help finance an initiative aimed at fighting
>child labour in Senegal, where nearly 500,000 minors work in
>virtual slavery conditions.
>
>The two-year programme, to get underway within the next three
>months, will be carried out in conjunction with the United Nations
>children's fund (UNICEF) and several Italian non-governmental
>organisations that are active in that west African country.
>
>The Italian government will provide 1.2 million dollars in funding
>for the programme, which will also focus on getting children
>off the streets, where they are exposed to a broad range of abuse,
>including child prostitution and sex tourism.
>
>One of the most widespread forms of exploitation of children
>is domestic work, with girls as young as eight working more than
>12 hours a day, seven days a week.
>
>Most of the young domestics were sent from the provinces by their
>parents, who could no longer feed them, to the capital to find
>work.
>
>But those who are unable to find work as domestics in Dakar end
>up living on the streets, where they are vulnerable to rape and
>other kinds of abuse.
>
>The programme will also include a drive to register children,
>to enable them to go to school. Most families in Senegal do not
>register births, as many are unable to afford the fees involved.
>
>But the most dangerous aspect of that phenomenon, is that since
>the children do not legally exist, it is a simple matter for
>them to disappear at any time, abducted as sex slaves, abused
>and murdered, or for the purpose of organ harvesting.
>
>Another danger is that some extreme Islamist centres to which
>families turn over their children to learn the Koran send them
>out to panhandle.
>
>''They send them out with a can to beg, and force them to bring
>back a certain amount of money every night. If they fail to do
>so, they are beaten,'' said the official.
>
>The project will also help the government of Senegal to improve
>treatment of minors by the justice system. Presently, juvenile
>delinquents are sent to the same prisons as adults.
>
># # #
>
>**********************************************************
>
>NEWS-IN-BRIEF
>
>-- INDIAN CHILD LABOURERS DEMAND ACTION
>To mark the first anniversary of the adoption of the Convention
>on Worst Forms of Child Labour, over two hundred rescued child
>labourers under the aegis of South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude
>(SACCS) staged a demonstration in the Indian capital, Delhi,
>to demand tough action against the exploitation of children.
>Gathering at the mausoleum of Mahatma Gandhi, the protestors
>passed around petitions and called on the Indian President, K.R.
>Narayanan, to impose a ban on children working as domestic servants.
>SACCS estimates there are more than 60 million children at work
>in India, despite the fact that child labour is illegal in the
>country.
>
>-- US ABUSER OF HONDURAN STREET KIDS JAILED FOR LIFE
>A Florida Atlantic University Professor, Marvin Hersh, was recently
>jailed for 105 years or having travelled to Honduras to sexually
>abuse street children and for trafficking a 14-year-old boy back
>to Florida as a "sex toy". Affidavits described Hersh as a long-time
>paedophile who travelled to Central America and Asia to find
>victims. His friend, Nelson Jay Buhler, was convicted with travelling
>for the purpose of sexual contact with a minor and aggravated
>sexual abuse of a child in Honduras. According to federal statute
>it is a crime for any American citizen to travel abroad with
>the intent to sexually abuse children. These are the first convictions
>under the "Mann Act" extra territorial laws in the US.
>
>-- LTTE CONTINUES TO CONSCRIPT MORE CHILD SOLDIERS
>Reports reveal that LTTE, which is suffering from an acute shortage
>of manpower, has forcibly recruited 200 schoolchildren and conducted
>a 14-day military training course for them. The newly trained
>members are assigned the task to recruit more and more cadres
>to the LTTE. These new cadres have already been sent to schools
>situated in the uncleared areas to engage in propaganda work
>to attract more students to the LTTE's fold. There are also reports
>that LTTE is continuing to conscript little children despite
>vociferous protests from parents and thereby violating international
>human rights.
>
>-- STREET CHILD MIGRATION VICTIMS BROUGHT TO THE ATTENTION OF
>WORLD COMMUNITY
>Casa Alianza- Latin America, a child advocacy group, brought
>the plight of hundreds of thousand of Latin America street child
>migrants to the attention of the world community during a follow
>up meeting to the 1998 Summit of the Americas held in December
>1998, organised by the International Organisation for Migration
>(IOM) and the Inter American Commission on Human Rights in Santiago
>de Chile, to discuss ways to uphold and protect the human rights
>of all migrants workers. Falling outside of most conventional
>definitions of migrant workers, the thousands of street children,
>despite their large numbers, continue to fall through the cracks
>of safety nets designed to protect migrant workers. 15% of all
>street children in Guatemala City alone are from surrounding
>Central American countries.
>
>-- NEPAL'S TOURISM INDUSTRY BRANDED 'HAZARDOUS'
>Nepal's tourism industry, considered too dangerous for child
>workers, will no longer be able to employ those below the age
>of 16, announced Labour Ministry official Dev Ratna Tamrakar.
>The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 2000 considered
>tourism a hazardous industry, he informed. "The act seeks to
>eliminate the worst form of child labour," he said.
>Under the Labour Act of 2000, people found guilty of employing
>children in trekking, white water rafting, hotels, resorts, casinos,
>bars, pony trekking, gliding and mountain climbing could be sentenced
>to up to a year in jail and fined 50,000 rupees. Tourism including
>trekking and mountain climbing is a major source of foreign currency
>for Nepal, which earned 12.17 billion rupees from tourism in
>1998-99. However, child rights activists say about two million
>children including debt-ridden bonded labourers, agricultural
>workers and domestic servants are working in the country of 22
>million people.
>
>-- ADMINISTRATION BACKS STRICTER LIMITS ON TEENS JOBS
>Clinton administration has agreed to support legislation seeking
>stricter limits to work by teenagers. The bill, sponsored by
>Senator Tom Harkin, proposes to change existing U.S. laws to
>increase the minimum age for farm work to 14, set limits on the
>hours teenagers can work in agricultural jobs and, make it illegal
>for children under the age of 16 to work as commercial street
>peddlers or in door-to-door sales. An increase in fines for
>violations of child labour laws is also sought. The five most
>dangerous jobs held by teenagers, according to a recently released
>ranking by National Consumers League, are delivery and other
>driving, working alone in small retail stores at night, street
>peddling and door-to-door sales, cooking, and construction work.
>
>-- ILO ANNOUNCES NEW SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME
>Project to be funded initially by Italian Government as follow
>up to the Social Summit
>In a new initiative to implement the Programme of Action of the
>World Summit on Social
>Development (Copenhagen 1995), ILO announced the launch of a
>new programme aimed at promoting sustainable human development
>at the local and national level. Initially to be funded by a
>15 billion lira (US$ 7.5 million) grant from the Government of
>Italy, the "Universitas" programme will seek to promote decent
>work through training of development officials and ILO social
>partners in some 15 developing countries in Central America,
>the Mediterranean, West Bank and Gaza, the Balkans and Africa.
>Additional countries are expected to eventually participate in
>funding the project.
>
>-- LEBANON LAUNCHES PROJECT WITH ILO
>The International Labour Organisation and Lebanon's Social Affairs
>Ministry are joining in a two-year, $600,000 project to improve
>social workers' ability to assist in child labour cases and strengthen
>the ministry's role in enforcing child labour laws. "The aim
>.. is not to impose or enforce laws on children but to work
>with them and their parents to find permanent solutions to their
>problems," ILO specialist Khawla Matar said. The program will
>target children in working conditions that are dangerous to their
>mental, physical or psychological health
>
>-- CHILDREN'S DAY AT GENEVA 2000
>The ILO, in partnership with several institutions, organised
>events focusing on the global campaign to eliminate child labour
>on, 28 June, as a Children's Day for Geneva 2000. It commenced
>with celebration of the ratification of Convention 182 by Switzerland.
>In the presence of Swiss Authorities and approximately 200 children,
>including young activists of the Global March and students from
>various schools of Switzerland, France and Italy, Mr. Couchepin
>formally handed over to Mr. Somavia the instrument of ratification.
>The children also released balloons into the air with the message
>"Libérez les enfants" and "Convention No. 182". It was followed
>by a solidarity concert performed by children and young adolescents,
>on the theme of the elimination of the worst forms of child labour.
>
>-- REPORT ON MURDER OF CHILDREN IN HONDURAS RELEASED
>Marking the UN International Day in Support of Torture Victims,
>on June 26, the Costa Rican regional office of Casa Alianza-
>Latin America made public the findings of an investigation that
>documents the murders of more than 300 children and youth in
>Honduras. The report has been compiled first hand by the organisation's
>legal aid offices in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula and documents
>cases of murdered youth between January 1998 and May 2000. The
>report shows that over 55% of the murder victims were children,
>under the age of 18.
>
>-- NGOS DENOUNCE ANNAN'S POVERTY REPORT
>Some 80 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and people's movements,
>organised in caucuses for the UN Social Summit, called on the
>United Nations to withdraw its endorsement of a poverty reduction
>report, 'A Better World for All', released by UN Secretary-General
>Kofi Annan. The NGOs, charge that the report represents only
>the northern countries, the same as those who are the majority
>shareholders of the World Bank and the IMF. The UN represents
>the nations of the world, the NGOs pointed out in a statement,
>and as such it provides the principal forum for reaching political
>consensus in a participatory process that includes both the North
>and the South. According to Malaysian activist Meena Raman, Annan
>had shared the document with "the perpetrators of the problems
>of poverty and inequality in the world."
>
>-- KENYA TO TABLE CHILDREN'S RIGHTS BILL
>The much-anticipated Kenya Children's Rights Bill is ready and
>would soon be tabled in parliament, the country's Home Affairs,
>Sports and National Heritage Permanent Secretary, Joshua Terer,
>has disclosed. The bill seeks to enforce the recommendations
>contained in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the African
>Charter on the Rights and Welfare of Children and the International
>Labour Organisation (ILO) convention on the Worst Forms of Child
>Labour. Kenya has ratified the three conventions. He, however,
>expressed concern that implementation of most recommendations
>will be compounded by other factors outside the law.
>More than 3.5 million children between the ages of 6 and 14 are
>estimated to work in Kenya's agriculture sector.
>
>**********************************************************
>
>
>