World leaders reward the Wall Street and fail the children out of school

WEBWIRE – Monday, December 22, 2008

The 8th High Level Group meeting on Education for All concluded in Oslo, Norway last week. This much expected Oslo meeting touted to be the turning point in ascertaining education through mobilizing high amount of political will and resource commitment has once again failed the worlds hard to reach children. This applies to children particularly 218 million child laborers some of whom have never seen the classrooms and others who could not continue complete their basic education. The group of heads of UN agencies, donors, partner governments and civil society meets every year to review the progress made and make new commitments. The participants are going back without any clear assurance of how many teachers would be trained, recruited and retained as 18 million teachers are required to achieve Education for All goals by 2015. Nor any clear indication came out of this meeting that how many countries will map and identify the hard to reach out of school children. This decision of the last year’s High Level Group meeting ironically does not find any follow-up reference in the Oslo Declaration.

The Global March against Child Labor has been demanding additional innovative and coordinated efforts for withdrawal of children from work place, in the lines of the internationally agreed legal framework and enroll them to schools. The Oslo Declaration from High Level Group does not address this vital problem with a sense of urgency. “Close to 2 trillion dollars has been committed by the Governments in the past eight weeks to reward the failure of the market place whereas $ 16 Billion is needed to fund education for all to allow spending on recruiting and training teachers that shape the minds and abilities of every child, reaching even those in the most challenging circumstances with quality education. The poorest and the most vulnerable children must not fall further victim of global recession that was not their making. In the time of financial crisis this is the most worthwhile investment the global community could make” said Kailash Satyarthi, Chairperson Global March against Child Labor and President, Global Campaign for Education.

Commenting on the outcomes Andrew Tagoe, Regional Coordinator of Global March from Ghana said, “Our children will continue to work in the farms and fields of the rich, without their rightful claim to a decent and quality education if the world leaders do not respond to their situations now by putting more money for their education”.

“Full time child labor is complete denial of education, while mixing child work’s and education affects in lower school enrolment, late school entry, grade repetition, poor school grades and overall lowers school performance. There is also strong evidence of school achievement having a direct bearing on expected future wage earning capacity”,Said Cleophas Mally, Regional Coordinator, Global March from Togo.

Daniel Adzo a former child slave from Volta region of Ghana came to Oslo together with the Ghana Agricultural Workers Union, to participate in the opening ceremony of High Level Group together with Queen Rania of Jordan, President of Senegal Abdoulaye Wade, and Prime Minister of Norway Jens Stoltenberg. He was joined by Hem Lata Parik, a 16 year old girl from Rajasthan, India who was married forcibly as a child but later turned into anti child marriage activist as well as girl’s education campaigner now with Bachpan Bachao Andolan. Both the organizations are the national coordinators of Global March in their countries. These two children shared their experiences and challenged the world leaders to act urgently.

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Líderes Mundiales compensan a Wall Street y Fallan a los Niños Fuera de la Escuela

La 8 ª Reunión del Grupo de Alto Nivel sobre Educación para Todos concluyó en Oslo, Noruega la semana pasada. Esta esperada reunión de Oslo concebida para ser el punto de giro para la determinación de la educación a través de la movilización de gran cantidad de voluntad política y recursos comprometidos, ha fallado una vez más a los niños más difícilmente alcanzables del mundo. Esto se aplica a los niños, particularmente, 218 millones de niños trabajadores algunos de los cuales nunca han visto las aulas y otros que no pueden continuar su educación básica completa. El grupo de jefes de organismos de las Naciones Unidas, donantes, gobiernos asociados y sociedad civil se reúne cada año para examinar los progresos realizados y hacer nuevos compromisos. Los participantes están retornando sin una certeza clara de cuántos profesores serán capacitados, contratados y retenidos, en tanto se requieren 18 millones de docentes para lograr las metas de Educación para Todos,  de aquí al año 2015. Ninguna indicación clara salió de esta reunión acerca de cuántos países van a elaborar un mapa e identificar a los niños fuera de la escuela, difíciles de alcanzar. Esta decisión de la reunión del último año del Grupo de Alto Nivel  irónicamente no encuentra ninguna referencia a seguir en la Declaración de Oslo.

La Marcha Mundial contra el Trabajo Infantil  ha venido exigiendo esfuerzos adicionales, innovadores y coordinados, para el retiro de los niños de los lugares de trabajo, en las líneas del marco jurídico internacionalmente convenidos e inscribirlos en las escuelas. La Declaración de Oslo del Grupo de Alto Nivel no se ocupa de este problema vital con un sentido de urgencia. "Cerca de 2 billones de dólares han sido comprometidos por los gobiernos en las últimas ocho semanas para compensar el fracaso del mercado financiero mientras que sólo $16 mil millones son necesarios para financiar Educación para Todos para permitir gastar en la contratación y formación de profesores que dan forma a las mentes y las capacidades de todos los niños, llegando incluso a aquellos en circunstancias más difíciles, con una educación de calidad. Los niños más pobres y más vulnerables no deben caer aún más, víctimas de la recesión mundial a la cual no han contribuido. En momentos de crisis financiera ésta es la mejor inversión que vale la pena que la comunidad mundial haga", dijo Kailash Satyarthi, Presidente de la Marcha Mundial contra el Trabajo Infantil y Presidente de la Campaña Mundial por la Educación

Comentando sobre los resultados, Andrew Tagoe, Coordinador Regional de la Marcha Mundial de Ghana dijo, "Nuestros niños seguirán trabajando en las granjas y campos de los ricos, sin su legítimo derecho a una educación decente y de calidad si los líderes mundiales no responden a su situación ahora, disponiendo más dinero para su educación".
 
“El trabajo infantil a tiempo completo es la negación total a la educación, mientras que la combinación de trabajo infantil y educación tiene como efecto la disminución de la matrícula escolar, el retraso en el inicio de la actividad escolar, las repeticiones de curso, las malas notas escolares y, en general, disminuye el rendimiento escolar. También hay fuerte evidencia de que los logros escolares tienen una influencia directa en la capacidad futura esperada de ingresos salariales", dijo Cleofás Mally, Coordinador Regional de la  Marcha Mundial de Togo.

Daniel Adzo, un ex niño esclavo de la región de Volta de Ghana, llegó a Oslo junto con la Unión de Trabajadores Agrícolas de Ghana, a participar en la ceremonia de apertura del Grupo de Alto Nivel, junto con la Reina Rania de Jordania, el Presidente de Senegal Abdoulaye Wade, y el Primer Ministro de Noruega Jens Stoltenberg. Fue acompañado por Hem Lata Parik, una niña de 16 años de Rajastán, India, casada a la fuerza siendo niña, quien  más tarde se convirtió en activista contra el matrimonio infantil, así como militante por la educación de las niñas, ahora con Bachpan Bachao Andolan. Ambas organizaciones son las coordinadoras nacionales de la Marcha Mundial en sus respectivos países. Estos dos niños compartieron sus experiencias y retaron a los dirigentes mundiales a actuar con urgencia.

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Les responsables mondiaux récompensent Wall Street et laissent tomber les enfants non scolarises

La 8ième réunion du Comité de Responsables d'Education pour Tous s'est terminée à Oslo-Norvège- la semaine dernière. Cette réunion tant attendue qui devait être le moment décisif pour consolider l'objectif mondial d'éducation en mobilisant des engagements importants de volonté politique et de moyens a une nouvelle fois échoué dans l'aide mondiale aux enfants difficiles à atteindre. Ceci s'applique en particulier aux 218 millions d'enfants travailleurs dont certains n'ont jamais vu une salle de classe et d'autres ont du renoncer à acquérir une éducation de base. Le Comité composé de responsables d'agences des Nations Unies, de membres donateurs, de partenaires gouvernementaux et de représentants de la société civile se retrouve chaque année pour analyser les progrès et fixer de nouveaux engagements. Les participants sont repartis sans qu'aucune assurance sur le nombre d'enseignants devant être formés et recrutés n'ait été formulée alors que le besoin pour atteindre en 2015 les objectifs d'Education pour Tous est de 18 millions d'enseignants. De même, aucune indication claire concernant le nombre de pays s'engageant à analyser la participation scolaire et à identifier les enfants non scolarisés difficiles à atteindre n'est sortie de cette réunion. Comble d'ironie, la décision finale de cette dernière réunion du Groupe ne fait référence à aucune suite dans la Déclaration d'Oslo.

La Marche Mondiale contre l'Exploitation des Enfants (Global March Against Child Labor) a réclamé fermement des initiatives innovantes et des efforts coordonnés pour assurer le retrait des enfants des lieux de travail dans le respect du cadre des décisions légales approuvées au niveau international et leur scolarisation immédiate. La Déclaration d'Oslo du Comité de Responsables, n'a pas pris en urgence ce problème vital. Près de 2000 milliards de dollars ont été garantis par les gouvernements dans les huit semaines passées pour récompenser les erreurs des marchés financiers alors qu'Education pour Tous n'a besoin que de 16 millions de dollars pour financer les dépenses de recrutement et de formation des enseignants qui assureraient l'éducation intellectuelle et pratique de chaque enfant, y compris ceux soumis à des situations particulièrement difficiles. Les enfants les plus pauvres et les plus vulnérables ne doivent pas être les nouvelles victimes d'une récession dont ils ne sont en rien responsables. "Dans une période de crise financière, c'est le meilleur investisment au monde que la communauté internationale puisse faire" a déclaré Kailash Sathiarty, Président de la Marche Mondiale contre l'Exploitation des Enfants et Président de la Campagne Globale pour l'Education.
Commentant les conclusions de la Déclaration d'Oslo, Andrew Tagoe, coordonnateur régional de la Marche Mondiale a déclaré :" nos enfants continueront à travailler dans les fermes et les champs des riches sans que leurs revendications justifiées à une éducation de qualité soient entendues, si les responsables du monde ne prennent pas en compte leur situation actuelle en mettant plus d'argent pour leur éducation".

"Le travail à temps plein des enfants est un déni total d'une bonne éducation. Mélanger le travail des enfants et leur scolarisation conduit à une scolarisation réduite, une entrée tardive des enfants à l'école, des redoublements, des niveaux scolaires et donc des résultats dégradés. Il y a de plus un lien évident entre les niveaux d'éducation et de rémunérations auxquelles les enfants peuvent s'attendre" a déclaré Cleophas Mally, coordonnateur Régional de la Marche mondiale au Togo.

Daniel Adzo, un ancien enfant esclave de la Volta (une région du Ghana) est venu à Oslo avec le Syndicat des Agriculteurs du Ghana pour participer à la cérémonie d'ouverture du Groupe des Responsables Mondiaux en même temps que la Reine Rania de Jordanie, Abdoulaye Wade, Président du Sénégal et le Premier Ministre de Norvège Jens Stoltenberg. Il a été rejoint par Hem Lata Patik, une jeune fille de 16 ans du Rajasthan (Inde) mariée de force lorsqu'elle était enfant et qui est devenue ensuite, au sein de l'organization "Bachpan Bachao Andolan, combattante active contre le mariage forcé et membre de la campagne pour l'éducation des filles. Ces deux jeunes sont coordonnateurs de la Marche Mondiales dans leur pays. Tous deux ont fait partager leur expérience aux responsables et leur ont intimé la demande express d'une action urgente.

Watch this Video from Kodaikanal, India

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India: Can education stop child labor?

15 Dec 2008, 1055 hrs IST, TNN

THE Census of India reports show that the number of child laborers in the country increased from 11.3 million in 1991 to 12.6 million in 2001. They further state that an estimated 87 million children are not attending school.

Due to several reasons "including poverty, child trafficking, child migration and even child marriages " many of these children are often left on the streets to fend for themselves. "Today, it isn’t hard to picture a 10- year-old going to school, while another of his age is accompanying him
holding his heavy school bag. Why is it so and who is responsible? The other child also has a right to education. So, why is he denied this right?" questioned Ashok Agarwal, a social jurist.

To answer these questions, over 500 activists, Union ministers, MPs, bureaucrats and nearly 80 children from across the country participated in the National Convention on "Right to Education and Abolition of Child Labor: Freedom and Dignity for All Children," organised recently by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), Unicef and the International Labor Organization (ILO).

The broader question that emerged was "is education a solution to this increasing rate of child-labor or is it the poor quality of our education system that has led to the increasing dropout rate in schools?

SYSTEM FAILURE

According to V Vasanthi Devi from Campaign for Common School System, it is the miserable and deplorable quality of education, today, that has led to the increasing dropout rate, forcing more children into child labor. She added: "The present system imparts minimal skills to children and overall, the state fails to impart meaningful education to the children. Not only have we failed to universalise elementary education but also, our education system remains exclusionary and privatised."

Shantha Sinha, chairperson, NCPCR, stated that the right to quality education should belong to children at all levels "pre-school, primary, elementary and secondary school. She added, "Most Indian legislation in this regard, including the child labor law, does not cover children in the 15-18
age group. However, being illiterate or school dropouts, these children are vulnerable and often exploited as part of the informal, unskilled and casual workforce. Some are living in zones of civil unrest and are forced into the nexus of armed conflict as child soldiers and others are trapped into drug and substance abuse, living illegal lives, for no fault of their own."

MAKE A DIFFERENCE

"Discard all things made by child laborers," opined Kailash Satyarthi, chairperson, Bachpan Bachao Andolan and Global March Against Child labor. He said, "If we all decide not to but buy products made by child laborers "for instance, tea from tea stalls where under-aged children are
working, " we can make a difference."

Stakeholders agreed on the fact that present laws must be amended in order to abolish child labor and that at least 6% of the country's GDP should be allocated to education. Further, there is also a need to bring children aged 0-6 and 14-18 under the purview of the right to free and compulsory education. According to CRY, by focusing only on the 6-14 age group, approximately 10.6 million children in the 0-6 age group and 17 million in the 14-18 age group are being excluded.

The convention concluded on an optimistic note to take forward the suggestions made and to provide greater national visibility to the issue of child labor and out-of-school children.

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War against child labor yields good results

R. Ilangovan, The Hindu, Dec 15, 08

Creating awareness: Members of Village Education Committee in Salem being sensitized to child labor eradication

SALEM: Salem district has been in the forefront of the war against child labor in Tamil Nadu. It has a dubious distinction of employing children below 14 in both hazardous and non-hazardous industries such as silver anklet, weaving, construction, coir making, beedi rolling, brick kilns, automobile workshops, hotels and dhabas, stone quarries and in some industrial units thus forcing the government to launch an intense child labor eradication programme during 1995-1996.

To monitor and spearhead the movement against this social scourge, the Union Government, under its National Child Labor Programme, formed `SMILE’ (Society for Monitoring and Implementation of (Child) Labor Elimination) with the Collector as its chairman. Its main objective is to identify child laborers and help them join the mainstream in society by providing them quality education. According to Collector J. Chandrakumar, since 1995-1996 the war against child labor has been going on in the district without a let- up. “So far 20,432 children have been rescued of whom 11,850 have been enrolled in SMILE’s special schools,” Mr. Chandrakumar said. A total of 40 such special schools are functioning in which 2,000 rescued children are studying.

Facilities such as Rs. 5 every day for a nutritious meal and Rs. 100 every month as stipend are being given along with free bus passes and uniforms. Many of these rehabilitated child laborers have been admitted to regular schools to enable them pursue higher education. Eight children have passed Plus II this year and two girls and one boy now study in an engineering college - all proud products of SMILE schools.

SMILE in co-ordination with revenue and labor departments have so far carried out 27,630 raids in various industrial units and firms and rescued many children. Those who employed child laborers have also been brought before the law. Till today 99 cases out of total 629 have so far been cleared. The court found them guilty and fined to the tune of Rs 16.40 lakh along with a compensation amount of Rs 5.60 lakh.

“Our firm approach has yielded positive results. But still we have a long way to go to achieve the ambitious objective of total eradication of the child labor,” Mr. Chandrakumar says.

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UK health service wants no products of child labor

Dec 8, 2008

LONDON (AP) — Britain's state-funded health service on Monday published plans to ensure hospitals know where their surgical instruments are coming from, after acknowledging that some may be produced by child laborers in Pakistan.

Many of the scalpels and forceps used in Britain, the U.S. and other Western countries are manufactured in the Pakistani city of Sialkot, which has more than 2,000 instrument makers.

Surgical instruments are among Pakistan's major exports, but labor activists say many are made in tiny workshops by child laborers who earn just a few dollars (euros) a month.

The proposed National Health Service guidelines call on hospitals to introduce "ethical procurement" policies and to consider labor standards when they are buying goods.

Research published in June found there was a "significant risk" some health service goods and services came from places where labor standards had been abused. The report said it was ironic that "the labor standards in the supply chains of products procured by the NHS to administer health care in the U.K. may be unnecessarily damaging the health of workers in those supply chains."

UNICEF, the U.N.'s children's agency, estimates there are 3.6 million working boys and girls under age 14 in Pakistan, mostly engaged in carpet weaving, brick making, agriculture and deep sea fishing.

Various U.N.-backed initiatives try to encourage them to go to school part- time, and the Sialkot surgical-supply industry insists most manufacturers do not exploit their workers.

The issue gained attention in Britain after a London surgeon, Mahmood Bhutta, wrote about it in the British Medical Journal two years ago. Bhutta said surgical instruments should be bound by the same fair trade standards as coffee or bananas.

Health Minister Ben Bradshaw said Britain's health service spent 20 billion pounds ($30 billion) a year on goods and services, and was "in a strong position to influence improvement in labor standards across health care supply chains."

A consultation on the guidelines runs until April. They could take effect by mid-2009 but would be voluntary.

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In Togo, a 10-Year-Old's Muted Cry: 'I Couldn't Take Any More'

As the Global Trade in Domestic Workers Surges, Millions of Young Girls Face Exploitation and Abuse

By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 26, 2008; A01

LOME, Togo -- Adiza ran scared and crying into the street. Ten years old and 4-foot-9, she fled the house where she had worked for more than a year, cleaning and sweeping from before dawn until late at night.

She ran to a woman selling food in the street and told her that since the day she had arrived in this capital city from her village in the country, her employer had beaten her almost daily and kept her in slavelike conditions.

"I couldn't take any more," recalled Adiza, a slight girl with close-cropped hair and almond-shaped eyes, who talked in a halting whisper as she described how her employer beat her with her hands and with cooking pots before the November day she ran away.

Rarely making eye contact, Adiza spoke in a shelter here surrounded by other tiny girls who had suffered physical or sexual abuse in the growing global trade in domestic servants.

The number of girls like Adiza, who leave their communities or even their countries to clean other people's houses, has surged in recent years, according to labor and human rights specialists. The girls in the maid trade, some as young as 5, often go unpaid, and their work in private homes means the abuses they suffer are out of public view.

The International Labor Organization (ILO), a U.N. agency based in Geneva, said more girls under 16 work in domestic service than in any other category of child labor. The organization said that maids are among the most exploited workers and that few nations have adequate regulations to safeguard them.

Rights groups say rural families often send their girls off to work willingly, as a way to escape poverty, not understanding the risks of abuse. And the employers are often only marginally better off. Having climbed a step or two on the economic ladder, they can afford one of the first trappings of prosperity: a girl to do the chores.

Human Rights Watch has documented nearly 150 cases of female domestic workers from Indonesia who killed themselves in recent years in Singapore, many jumping to their deaths from high-rise apartments. In Saudi Arabia, thousands of girls and women from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Indonesia and other nations have fled abusive employers, according to the New York-based rights group.

In Lome, a seaside city of about 700,000 people in this former French colony, hundreds of girls a year seek protection from abusive employers. They have filled up the shelters here, many with faces, backs and arms covered with bruises and burns.

"This is an alarming human tragedy that the world has yet to wake up to," said Roger Plant, a top ILO official who specializes in human trafficking. "You have several million girls who are in these desperate situations, and they are off the radar screens."

A Fraying of Trust

Adiza was raised in Kpatchile, a few mud huts scattered among fields of corn and yams 250 miles north of Lome. The village is 12 miles from the nearest paved road, and Adiza's home is another quarter-mile down a tiny path through the tall brush.

"Everybody wants to leave," said Yacoumon Djatao, the aunt who raised Adiza, sitting in the shade on a 102-degree day, fighting fever and nausea from her latest bout of malaria -- a common ailment here. Rust-colored sorghum plants were drying on the roof of her thatched hut. She will grind the dried grain into porridge, her main food until the next harvest, six months from now.

Djatao said she had raised Adiza since the child's parents separated, years ago. She said Adiza was a cheerful little girl who was happy to work around the house and in the fields.

One day in the local outdoor market, Djatao said, she saw Adiza getting into a car that everyone knew was heading to neighboring Nigeria. Alarmed, Djatao stopped her and brought her home.

Togolese girls leave places like this every day. They have little or no schooling and no skills other than sweeping and cleaning. So they leave to keep house for richer people in Lome or neighboring countries or places as far-off as France, Germany, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.

Often the girls are placed in jobs according to an African tradition known as "confiage," or entrusting. Rural families send their daughters to live with a relative, friend or someone else with a connection to their village, in arrangements often managed by a go-between who is known to the family. The agreement is that the girls will do domestic work and that in exchange they will be paid, sent to school and maybe even be able send some money home.

That system has broken down in Togo as the country's economy has faltered. Villagers have grown more desperate and the go-betweens less scrupulous, often placing girls with strangers and keeping their pay for themselves.

Visions of Opportunity

For nearly four decades, Togo suffered under the rule of Gnassingbé Eyadéma, a president who suffocated his country politically and economically until he died in 2005. His son, Faure Gnassingbé, is now president.

In the countryside, where 90 percent of the people are impoverished, many girls see hope in the capital, where only a quarter of the population lives in poverty, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Some leave the country altogether, seeing Nigeria -- where the per capita annual income is $2,100, compared with Togo's $900 -- as a land of opportunity.

Madjinteba Seritichi, a local government official, said many of the intermediaries are people who come to shop in the local markets. He said they often use the signs of their success -- cellphones and expensive jewelry and clothes -- to entice girls to come with them.

"Given our poverty, the parents are all too willing to hand over their children," said Seritichi, who said he has handled seven recent abuse cases in his small collection of villages.

He said two of the girls went to Lome, one went to Gabon, and the four others went to Nigeria. All were beaten, several were sexually abused, and none was paid.

Djatao said she had worried that Adiza might fall into the same trap. But the elderly aunt saw what she thought was a safe opportunity one day when a woman she knew from the local market said she was looking for a girl to work in Lome.

The woman, Nefisa Wuregawu, was a well-known trader who bought corn and beans in rural markets and resold them in Lome. She told Djatao she could get Adiza a job working for a good family in Lome.

"At least this way I knew the person who would take her," said Djatao, who said goodbye to Adiza 14 months ago, when the girl climbed onto a sagging, overcrowded bus with Wuregawu for the 12-hour drive to the capital.

Sitting in her extended family's little compound of huts, where she lives with 23 people, Djatao said she was upset to learn that Adiza had been mistreated. But, she said, she still wasn't sure if that was reason enough for Adiza to come home.

"I didn't know she would be harmed," she said. "But we have nothing here."

'More Like a Spanking'

When Adiza arrived in Lome after the day-long bus trip, she recalled, it was the first time she had seen tall buildings, or television, or the ocean.

She went immediately to work in the home of Alimatou Abdulai, 53, who runs a small business selling rice in her local market.

One recent day, Abdulai, a tall woman with strong, broad shoulders, sat beneath the two big mango trees that shade her family home.

Abdulai's house is comfortable by Lome standards. It has electricity and a television and plenty of room for Abdulai, her husband and four of their six grown children. In the street, women have their hair braided and styled in a pleasant outdoor beauty salon on a shady corner nearby.

But Abdulai's family finances are still modest. None of the men in her house has a job, so her earnings of about $1 to $5 a day constitute the main income.

Her two daughters had married and moved away, she said, so she was looking for a girl to help cook and clean. By local tradition, men don't help with housework.

"I needed a domestic so I could run my business," Abdulai said, saying that the 20 cents a day she agreed to pay Adiza was a good investment.

Abdulai said that she didn't know it is illegal in Togo to hire a girl younger than 15 and that she had no qualms about hiring Adiza when she was just 9. "The work she did for me is not work that requires strength," she said.

Abdulai said she paid Adiza's wages directly to Wuregawu, the go-between. Over the past year, she said, she had given Wuregawu about $42, or seven months' salary, on the understanding that Wuregawu would take the money to Adiza's family.

She didn't send Adiza to school, she said, because "that's her parents' responsibility."

"I was teaching her how to cook," she said.

Sitting in her yard, Abdulai denied that she beat Adiza -- except for one time, on the day the girl left. She said Adiza had left the house the night before and not returned until after midnight. Furious, Abdulai hit her a few times around the head and shoulders.

"It was more like a spanking, not a beating," she said.

Just Trying to Help

Wuregawu sat on a wooden bench in a Lome neighborhood last week, wearing flowing red African robes, a matching head scarf, and gold jewelry dangling from her neck and ears.

"I'm not a trafficker," she said, laughing and waving her hands, dismissing the idea. "I'm a trader. The families of these children need help, the employers need help, so I provide for both of them."

She said bringing Adiza to Lome was a "service," for which she wasn't paid.

"When you go to the villages, you see that the people are suffering because they are very poor," she said. "They think that if they can go to the city, they will not suffer. So I help them."

Wuregawu said she had brought only Adiza and one other girl to Lome.

She confirmed that Abdulai had given her $42 for Adiza's wages and said she used the money to buy clothes for Adiza to put toward her wedding dowry, which she was storing for the girl in her home.

Asked if a 10-year-old girl might need the money, or the clothes, now rather than later, Wuregawu said she was simply following local tradition.

"In our country, when a girl gets married, she has to have money and clothes," she said. "That's our culture."

She said she didn't know if Adiza had been beaten. "I can't tell who is telling the truth and who is lying," she said.

Togo passed a law banning child trafficking in 2005, and about 20 people -- mostly women -- have been prosecuted since then for trafficking children across Togo's borders, said Abra Tekpo Agbezo, head of the national police department's child protection unit.

But, she said, not a single case of internal trafficking has been prosecuted, even though her officers go out an average of twice a week to rescue girls in domestic service who are being abused.

"This is something that has been going on for a long time," Agbezo said. "It will take even longer for people to change their attitudes."

Wuregawu, sipping a milky drink from a big plastic cup, said she had no idea it was illegal for a 10-year-old child to work.

"I am not aware of those legal things," she said, laughing heartily.

'Tip of the Iceberg'

When Adiza ran away from Abdulai's house, the food vendor who saw her crying and listened to her story took her to a local political official. He called the Oasis Center, the largest of several shelters for abused children in Lome.

Run by a Swiss charity, Terre des Hommes, the center shelters more than 600 children a year -- more than 400 of them girls, mostly abused domestic workers.

"These are just the ones we reach," said Jerome Combes, the organization's head in Togo. "It's just the tip of the iceberg."

Combes said that the shelter's social workers and lawyer try to investigate each case but that it's often impossible. They notify police about the worst cases of abuse. But mostly they try to make the girls safe, negotiate for back wages and tell employers about the child labor laws.

In Adiza's case, center officials found Abdulai and urged her to come in for mediation. She came to the office and paid Adiza an additional $42, the balance of her wages. They were trying to track down what happened to the money she paid Wuregawu.

Interviewed several times over the course of a week, Adiza answered questions with one word or a nod, fiddling with her hands and picking absently at her toes.

She said she would like to learn to be a seamstress and make dresses back in her village. But at the shelter she has been making Christmas decorations and learning carols in French.

Click Picture for Photo Gallery

Sometimes she and the other girls put on little blue soccer uniforms and head to Lome's wide, palm-lined beach to kick a ball around. Adiza rarely smiles, but on the beach, playing with her friends, she sometimes laughs so hard she doubles over.

Combes said Adiza's options are limited. At 10, she is far too young to work legally, and in the local culture, she is seen as too old to start school.

It is almost certain, Combes said, that when Adiza leaves the shelter she will end up cleaning someone else's house. So the center will tell her about her rights and how to avoid being exploited. "The best we can do is to teach her to protect herself," he said.

Watch Video Adiza’s Story

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Philippines: World Vision, DepEd: Eradicate child labor

Pasig City (30 December) -- Some 30,000 child laborers are expected to benefit from a training of public school teachers on how to combat child exploitation spearheaded by the World Vision Development Foundation (WVDF) and the Department of Education (DepEd).

"Through this training, our teachers will be better equipped to empower the working children, out-of-school youth, and children at risk and help improve the quality of their lives," said Education Secretary Jesli Lapus.

Metro Manila and the provinces of Bulacan, Camarines Norte, Cebu, Compostela Valley, Davao, Davao del Sur, Iloilo, Leyte, Negros Occidental, and Negros Oriental are areas with a high prevalence of the worst forms of child labor.

The training of 40 teachers who comprised the first batch runs from December 2, 2008 to May 22, 2009 in Ecotech in Lahug, Cebu City.

The training will enhance the teachers' capacities in five aspects of social development namely research, advocacy, networking, direct service and documentation.

The training series will develop among the teachers a deeper understanding of the child labor issue and the importance of education as intervention. It is part of the ABK2 Initiative or Pag-aaral ng mga Bata Para sa Kinabukasan. Its project associates include Christian Children's Fund (CCF) and Education Research Development Assistance Foundation (ERDA).

Lapus added: "Educating our teachers, the community and the children on the menace of child labor is very critical to stop this exploitative practice."

DepEd has vigorously pursued non-traditional programs to bring children back to school specially those burdened by difficult circumstances. Part of DepEd's commitment is to increase the participation and retention rates of public school children.

WVDF executive director Elnora Avarientos identified that child labor is particularly rampant in commercial agriculture (sugarcane plantation), domestic work, pyrotechnics business, mining, quarrying, sexual exploitation and scavenging.

Last December 2-4, the teacher-trainees had completed "Module 1: The Teacher as a Researcher," where they were introduced to the significance of research and planning and programming based on data.

The upcoming modules are Module 2: The Teacher as an Advocate and Network Builder – on February 2-6, 2009; Module 3: The Teacher as a Direct Service Worker, slated on March 23-27, 2009; Module 4: The Teacher as a Chronicler for April 27-30, 2009; and Module 5: The Training of Trainers' Workshop on May 18-22, 2009.

Daphne Culanag, Project Director of the ABK2 Initiative explained that the fifth module is a culmination of the participants' learning from the series. "This module will equip teachers with skills in crafting a training design, facilitating, and conducting training programs. By the end of this experience, the teacher-trainees are ready to execute their own training programs as well," she said.

The teacher training series is a continuation of an accumulated and synthesized lessons derived from the previous teachers' training in ABK 1.

According to Culanag, the project hopes to train 500 teachers and 200 para-teachers within the project life until 2011." There is also an expected rollout or replication of the training series to other teachers in the districts and/or communities of the participants to broaden the network of child rights advocates.

"We hope that these education initiatives radiates to other communities and engage everyone in building a community without child labor," she stressed.

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ACCESS-Plus: Focus on fighting child labor in Yemen

Eman al-Jarady, Dec 23, 2008

An American-run project worth $ US 3.5 million seeking to combat both child labor and trafficking was launched Sunday in Sana'a in presence of American and Yemeni officials. The 3-year project is set to run from 2008-2011, and will help these children attend schools in Hodeida, Taiz, Hajja, and Aden, and falls under the broader Access-Plus program seeking to expand school-enrolment in Yemen.

Access-Plus was launched after a similar program, Access-Mena, was also implemented with American support in Ibb, Hajja, and Abyan between 2004 and 2008.

Access-Plus is seeking to withdraw 4,100 children from the worst forms of child labor (WFCL), to prevent 3,000 children from entering the WFCL, and to provide them with both education and life developing services in Hudaydah, Taiz, Hajja, and Aden. Using alternatives to combat child labor through education and sustainable services is part of ACCESS-Plus’s mandate to combat hazardous child labor in Yemen. The program is being organized by the United States Department of Labor, Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor and Human Trafficking awarded CHF International and the local implementation partner, Charitable Society for Social Welfare (CSSW). 

The ACCESS-Plus program builds on the successes of the ACCESS-Mena program, implemented from 2004 to 2008 with US Department of Labor funding in Ibb, Hajja and Abjan governorates. Through ACCESS-Mena, CHF and CSSW withdrew 2,818 children from child-labor, and prevented another 4,949 from entering the worst forms of child labor by enrolling them in educational programs. These programs consisted of formal education with additional remedial classes, and other assistance by means of teacher training and social services. Also included were literacy courses and vocational training classes. In addition, ACCESS-MENA created awareness about child labor and child trafficking through media campaigns, working with local imams to include the issues of child labor and education in their Friday Khutbas, and through national advocacy. 

ACCESS-Plus will create the necessary critical mass of awareness, support, and action necessary for Yemen to eliminate the worst forms of child labor in the country. In addition, ACCESS-Plus will work directly with children to withdraw them from child labor or prevent them from entering hazardous work environments, and enroll them in education programs. Its activities will target children working in the fishing industry, agriculture, urban jobs and those who are trafficked to Saudi Arabia to work or to smuggle goods across the border.  
On September 30th, 2008, the United States Department of Labor, the Office of Child Labor, and the Forced Labor and Human Trafficking Association awarded CHF International and the Yemeni Local Charitable Society Welfare (CSSW) 3.5 million dollars for the three-year program. The program will be launched under the slogan “Alternatives seeking to combat child labor through education, and sustainable services-plus (Access Plus) to combat child labor in Yemen.” The Yemeni government is seeking international support in this respect. 

“We have limited resources, and an exploding population, so the difficult economic situation is responsible for child labor. We do not deny that the government cannot deal with this problem without the cooperation of international organizations” said Hesham Sharaf, Deputy-Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, who attended the ceremony’s launch program.
Drawing awareness to the widespread issue of child labor in Yemen will be the aim of CHF and CSSW in cooperation with the Ministry of Labor, the Higher Council for Motherhood and Childhood, ILO, and other local and international partners. CHF will conduct additional research to better understand the dangers to which these children are exposed, and identify existing alternatives for child laborers.

CHF and CSSW will work closely with government offices and other stakeholders in building sustainable support for children through an outreach program, and a national campaign to eliminate child labor in order to achieve the goals of ACCESS-Plus. CSSW will upgrade facilities in 24 schools to provide better and more specific services for children withdrawn from child labor. These upgrades will include rooms with special resources and tools for teachers and children that will assist them in teaching and learning. ACCESS-Plus will leverage national and governorate level media events, festivals, NGO networks for information sharing and educating national officials to create awareness about the pain and cost of child labor. They will also seek to identify effective methods to reduce the number of children involved in exploitive child labor. As part of the program’s start-up, CHF is in the process of conducting a baseline survey in the target governorates to better understand the situation of child labor and child trafficking. They will also seek to determine how it can best work with the Yemeni Government and other actors to prevent children from entering child labor and assist children who will be rescued from child labor. 

Deputy-Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Hisham Sharaf will launch the ACCESS-Plus program on December 21 at the Hadda Hotel. 

Founded in 1952, CHF International serves as a catalyst for long-lasting positive change in low- and moderate-income communities around the world. They help families and communities improve their economic circumstances, environment and infrastructure. The organization provides technical expertise and leadership in international development, including development finance, community mobilization and entrepreneurship. Funding for this project was provided by the United States Department of Labor under Cooperative Agreement number IL-17761-08--75-K. 

Kamal Mohammed, age 13 Kamal dropped out of school when the fees and supply costs for him and his 11 siblings became too great for his parents. While the enrollment fee in Yemen is low (around US$1), books and uniforms end up costing close to US$10 per student, which proves beyond the financial capacity of many poor Yemeni families. Kamal had dropped out to help his father on their farm, tilling the soil and looking after their livestock.

After a meeting with the coordinator for the ACCESS program, Kamal’s father agreed to re-enroll him in school. ACCESS covered the basic requirements of his school fees and the costs of a new school uniform. ACCESS has also helped the school Kamal now attends employ a teacher trained in psychosocial support for children and introduce new methodologies in providing remedial education.

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United States: The Maid Trade: Exploiting Child Servants

The Washington Post, December 30, 2008

Adiza ran scared and crying into the street. Ten years old and 4-foot-9, she fled the house where she had worked for more than a year, cleaning and sweeping from before dawn until late at night....

"I couldn't take any more," recalled Adiza, a slight girl with close-cropped hair and almond-shaped eyes, who talked in a halting whisper as she described how her employer beat her with her hands and with cooking pots before the November day she ran away.

The number of girls like Adiza, who leave their communities or even their countries to clean other people's houses, has surged in recent years, according to labor and human rights specialists. The girls in the maid trade, some as young as 5, often go unpaid, and their work in private homes means the abuses they suffer are out of public view.

The International Labor Organization (ILO), a U.N. agency based in Geneva, said more girls under 16 work in domestic service than in any other category of child labor. The organization said that maids are among the most exploited workers and that few nations have adequate regulations to safeguard them.

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15.2 Million More African Children Enrolled in Primary School

Education Fast Track

Tsitohaina and her cousin Fitahiana on their way to the Ambohimandroso Elementary school, located in a small village at 13 km from the capital city of Antananarivo

52% more children enrolled into primary school in 22 African countries supported by the education for All Initiative Fast Track Initiative

Most countries supported by EFA FTI on track to enroll all children into the first grade by 2010

Gains in education now under threat to unravel as the global food and economic crises push people back into poverty

January 5, 2009—On school holidays, nine year-old Tsitohaina, takes turns from her brothers and sisters selling fritters and sandwiches during a local festival in the village of Ambohimandroso in Madagascar.

She has no difficulties taking orders from the clients and giving back the change, even when clients pay with banknotes of 5.000 ariary, the second highest note in local currency.

“She is in the third grade of primary school and she is pretty good in mathematics,” her mother Bako says proudly.

Tsitohaina is the second youngest of the family’s eight children, and one of the few who attends primary school in the village.

Her father Bernard hopes she will have a long school career. “I hope that that she can at least go to high school,” he says. “It will allow her to have a better life than we have.” Tsitohaina’s one older sibling never went to school, three attended two years of primary school, and two didn’t go beyond the fifth year.

Tsitohaina’s parents, Bako and Bernard Rabemanantsoa, are farmers and, occasionally, street vendors, who often have difficulties making ends meet. A lack of money was the reason why their older children couldn’t continue their education.

But since primary school fees were abolished in 2003, Bako and Bernard haven’t had difficulties in sending their three youngest children to the village school and letting them attend it longer than the older children. “Our costs also went down as the state provides for school bags and school materials,” says Bako.

Madagascar is one of the countries endorsed by the Education for All Fast Track Initiative (EFA FTI). In 2005, the county received two grants from FTI’s Catalytic Fund totaling $145 million for the period 2005-2010. Since the number of children attending primary school has steeply increased and schools are often over-crowded, the grants will be used to train and hire new teachers, build schools and improve overall quality of education.

Today, it’s one of the 36 countries endorsed by the Education for All Fast Track Initiative (EFA FTI), which have made tremendous progress in the education field over the last five years.

Unprecedented Progress in Basic Education in Africa

The EFA FTI Annual Report 2008, entitled “The Road to 2015: Reaching the Education Goals,” released last in November, documents the unprecedented progress in basic education in Africa.

Twenty-two of the FTI countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa.  Between 2000 and 2006, 52% more children (or 15.2 million) were enrolled into primary school in those countries supported by the EFA FTI, compared to 23 percent in non- FTI countries, according to the report. 

Overall Education Gains in FTI-supported Countries

Almost half of the newly enrolled children (48%) were girls. 60% of the FTI countries already have an equal percentage of boys and girls enrolled in primary school or will achieve this objective within the next few years.  At present rates, 27 FTI countries will achieve a Primary Completion Rate—the percentage of children entering the last grade of primary school measured against the total number of children in that specific age range—of at least 80% by 2015. “The FTI partnership has been praised by the international community as a good model for donor harmonization,” says Joy Phumaphi, the World Bank Vice-President for Human Development. “Early results show that the partnership has been effective in supporting countries to achieve ambitious education goals. In many countries the quality of learning is the next frontier”.

However, the unprecedented gains in education of the past years are now under threat.  The lobal food and economic crises are pushing millions of people back into poverty who are making the painful choice not to send their children to school.

“We must not let the financial crises undermine what we have achieved so far, but deliver on our commitments,” Erik Solheim, Norway’s Minister of Environment and International Development, said at the launch of the report.

Overall, a large majority of the 36 countries supported by EFA FTI are on track to getting almost all children into the first grade by 2010, which is a vital step toward universal primary education by 2015.“Children living in fragile countries are vulnerable and difficult to reach, but it’s important that we give them special attention. Especially girls must be included in our common efforts if we are to succeed in giving education for all,” he said.

The launch of the Annual Report 2008 was part of a biannual meeting of the EFA FTI partners in Oslo, ahead of the UNESCO High-Level Group meeting dedicated to inequities in the education sector between and within countries.

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Back to school programme bears fruit

Stephen David, India Today,  December 26, 2008 

Back to school. That is the thrust of a statewide government programme that saw nearly four lakh teachers who farmed across Karnataka the last few days seeking to enroll all children aged between six to 14 - whether on the streets of the cities or working as farm hands in the fields in rural areas - back to school.

The young ones are often forced to leave their homes and work for a few rupees a day, whether as a roadside mechanic's assistant or a table cleaner in a low-class city food joint. The government programme Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) - translated "education for all" - seeks to rescue the modern day Oliver Twists who are sucked up in the Dickensian world of poverty, hunger and plain negligence The project aims to getting all the children back to the classroom, wherever they are," SSA state project director S. Selva Kumar told India Today. "SSA provides them a secure life, good food, clean clothes and a place to sleep in." Millions of children around the country are off campus and efforts like SSA seek to mainstream them into a regular school so that they will be on a par academically with kids their age.

The Union government has spent crores over the years for the project. And the pay-off: nearly thirty million children - population of a few countries in Europe - have been encouraged to go back to school, even if it is for a few hours in a day.

Selva Kumar, who oversaw the Child Census 2008-09 that was operational in the state in December 2008, points out, "We want to emphasize that education is the fundamental right of every child. Our departments have initiated the process of enumeration of children across the state and whatever information we gather will help us formulate a proper education policy."

A recent UNESCO Education for All global monitoring report says India - along with Bangladesh and Brazil from among seventeen countries with most children out of school - is on track to achieve net enrolment rate (NER) of more than 97 per cent by 2015. Thanks to ongoing efforts by volunteers from both the government and the non-government sector, only seven million children were out of school two years ago. And with SSA getting all the backing from the government, officials expect the number of those who have not been to school to drop down to less than a million in the next five years.

Reports say the enrolment in secondary education in India has increased from 39 per cent in 1999 to 43 per cent in 2006. With 7.6 million out-of-school children, Nigeria will be worst off, followed by Pakistan (3.7 million), Burkina Faso and Ethiopia with 1.1 million are at joint third spot. In terms of absolute numbers, 80 percent of adult illiterates worldwide live only in 20 countries - 50 per cent of them live in India, China and Bangladesh.

The UNESCO report does not give high marks though. It expresses for Asia in general because 46 million primary school age children are out of school: the continent that has seen some of the most powerful women in power, has about 28 million young girls and 18 million boys who do not attend primary school. That is almost half of the world's children that age who are off school.

SSA is an effort to universalize elementary education by community-ownership of the school system with a clear time frame for universal elementary education. Apart from a response to the demand for quality basic education all over the country, it is also a chance for promoting social justice through basic education.

"The most commendable component is SSA's efforts to give importance to early childhood care and education and its emphasis on community participation and interest in getting children back to the classroom," remarks Princess Franklyn, principal of Bangalore's famous Bishop Cotton Girls High School, and a strong advocate for reaching out with government or non-government programmes that seek to provide education for all.

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Here is a unique opportunity to help rescue, rehabilitate and educate children engaged in the worst forms of child labor, this academic year. Please consider giving a one-time donation of $300 to make possible the raid and rescue of 10 children from forced labor in India! With a 'recurring donation' of $55/month, you can provide 1 child rescued from forced labor with food, shelter, education and vocational training in a rehabilitation center.

Or, send a child from the brick kilns or shoe factories to school in Pakistan. With a 'recurring gift' of only $33/month (or a one-time donation of $396/year), you will provide a child with school supplies, textbooks, a daily meal, and a uniform! Do you know that some Americans spend more than $30/month on dyeing their hair?! With a generous recurring donation of $132/month, you can support 1 teacher of these children.

Please share this letter with friends or family members who might be interested in donating to this very just cause.

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