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How the richest have broken their promises Larry Elliott 1 July 2006 A full-scale audit shows that the G8 partners have not delivered on their pledge to the world's poor. The G8 countries delivered on only debt relief; they were "completely off track" on trade and were inadequate on aid France is the only G8 country that has met its aid commitment FIRST full-scale audit of how the G8 group of leading industrialized nations has performed on their promises to the world's poor since last year's Gleneagles summit has revealed that rich countries are failing to meet almost all the targets they set themselves. A year after billions watched last summer's Live 8 concerts, the report, published by Data (Debt, Aids, Trade, Africa) — the organization set up by Bob Geldof and the U2 singer Bono — said the industrialized countries had delivered on only one of their three priorities, debt relief. They were "completely off track" on trade and were doing less than half of what was needed on aid. On current trends, more than 1.5 million people would be deprived of treatment for HIV/AIDS by 2010. Launching the report on Thursday, Mr. Geldof demanded the countries of the G8 make good their promises in full amid this evidence of backsliding since last year's summit. "The full promises must be implemented and nothing else will do," he said at a press conference. "To the people who are backsliding, I say this: we are not going to give up." The Gleneagles summit was the high point of Britain's presidency of the G8 in 2005 and — after strong pressure from Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown — the meeting agreed to cancel debts owed by the poorest countries to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the African Development Bank, to increase aid by $50 billion a year and to agree a trade deal that would help African nations to export. The Government has been pressing other G8 nations to keep their promises, and Mr. Blair this week set up a monitoring group chaired by Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General, to ensure the momentum is maintained. Nigeria pays $11 billion of debt France, the lobby group said, was the only G8 country that had met its aid commitment. Britain, however, using debt relief granted to Nigeria to swell its development assistance, was one of the countries told by Data that it needs to do better on meeting the Gleneagles agenda. Nigeria paid $11 billion to Western creditors to rid itself of debt, including $3 billion to Britain — the equivalent of the U.K.'s entire aid budget for sub-Saharan Africa. Once Nigerian debt relief was stripped out, U.K. aid had increased by only $211 million in 2005, less than was needed to meet the Gleneagles goal. "In order to keep its commitment, the U.K. must increase aid to Africa in 2006 by not less than $778 million, to a total of $4.249 billion." Hilary Benn, the U.K. international development secretary, said: "The U.K.'s aid budget is rising and will continue to do so. Last year, our assistance to Africa increased by £140 million — and we have tripled aid to Africa since 1997. The Department for International Development exceeded its target to spend £1 billion in Africa this year and this will rise to £1.25 billion in 2007-08. We're the first government in British history to commit to a date to achieve the U.N. target of providing 0.7 per cent of national income as aid. We've set a timetable to reach 0.7 per cent by 2013, two years ahead of the EU target of 2015." Data said that given the U.K.'s leadership and "its strong ownership of the overall Gleneagles pledge," the pledge should be brought forward to 2010. In a foreword to the report, the former South African President, Nelson Mandela, urged the millions of campaigners from 2005 to keep up the pressure. "Because you came together and acted as one, world leaders made promises that have the potential to help millions escape the prison of poverty. That is a great achievement. But now we face the difficult task of making our governments turn their promises into the actions that will save millions of lives. Don't give up now — let your politicians know you are watching every step they take. They made promises — now they must make them good." In a keynote speech this week, Mr. Blair accepted that much of the $25 billion increase in aid in 2005 had been the result of debt relief to Nigeria and Iraq. "We know that this means — for some — there is a real challenge to ensure aid figures don't fall again in 2007 or 2008. But we are facing up to that challenge. The truth is we have done a lot. But we have got to do even more." Jamie Drummond, Data's executive director, said the report showed that recent increases in effective aid were already saving lives. "What's also clear is that the G8 are not yet doing enough — or what they promised — to build on this proven success. The G8 are completely off track on their trade promise to Africa and rates of increase are less than half what was promised on development assistance and the fight against HIV/AIDS. Thankfully, they have kept their debt promise. "The challenge now is clear: to get back on track, the G8 must aggressively pick up the pace and offer not less than a $4-billion increase in development assistance to Africa in 2006 and each year through to 2010. They also must demonstrate a far greater sense of ambition, urgency and focus on Africa in world trade talks." Delivering on the G8 promises would mean that by 2010 four million Africans with HIV/AIDS in urgent need of life-saving treatment would have access to anti-retroviral drugs, 600,000 children's lives would be saved from malaria and 30 million more children would go to school. - Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 (Larry Elliott is the economics editor of The Guardian newspaper.) http://www.hindu.com/2006/07/01/stories/2006070104051300.htm Top Poor Pakistani children head to sea for a living By Waheed Khan 28 June 2006 The Boston Globe KHARO CHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - A year in an Indian jail hasn't put 13-year-old Rasool Baksh off returning to Pakistan's Arabian sea coast and going back to sea. Baksh was arrested in 2004 for fishing in Indian territorial waters near the disputed Sir Creek, between India's Gujarat state and Pakistan's Sindh province. Released last year as part of a hesitant peace process between the nuclear-armed neighbors, life for Baksh has not changed. "It was hard in the Indian jail but fishing is our business. It has been passed to us down the generations. We can't do any other job so we take the risk," Baksh says. He and his relatives stock up their wooden boat with food, fuel and ice and set sail from their village in Thatta district 100 km (60 miles) east of the city of Karachi. They hope for a good catch but all of them know they could end up in jail. Baksh, dressed in a worn-out shalwar kameez baggy tunic and trousers, is a member of an estimated 50,000-strong force of children working in the fishing industry along Pakistan's 1,125 km (700 miles) coastline. "I can't read or write. From childhood I have only seen my father, uncles and brothers catching fish. I like following them," says Baksh, his teeth stained from chewing a betel nut and tobacco concoction known as gutka. Child labor is widespread in Pakistan. A government survey in 1997 counted 3.3 million children working in different industries. No survey has been done since. For many fishing families, children are essential workers in an industry that is being increasingly squeezed by foreign competition. Children go out to sea with their older relatives in small, slow boats where they have to compete with big, deep-sea trawlers. The government has given permits to trawlers from South Korea, Japan and China to fish off Pakistan, but not within 35 nautical miles of the coast. But Mumtaz Mandhrio, an official at the Pakistan fishermen's forum, says trawlers come well inside that limit and devour fish stocks. "I'M NOT SCARED" Amjad Baloch, 12, says he sometimes has to stay out at sea for 40 days to ensure a good catch. "I'm not scared of doing it," says Baloch, who lives in Mubarak, a village near Karachi of 7,500 people with no power, gas, or source of clean drinking water. It has a primary school but no teacher. One-room village houses are built out of mud and straw. Despite the grim conditions, Baloch laughs and plays pranks in a cool breeze on a beach where he sorts out nets in preparation for his next voyage. Dada Ibrahim, 14, dressed in a dirty blue shalwar kameez, says he loves fishing as it brings him money, and that means freedom. "If we don't go out and help our families we would starve," says Ibrahim, chewing gutka. If he is lucky, Ibrahim says he can earn 1,000 to 1,300 rupees ($16 to $18) on a trip to sea that might last two weeks. In Keti Bandar, one of Pakistan's oldest ports, brothers Mohammad and Imran Ibrahim sort out a fresh catch. Aged 8 and 10, they are the third generation in a fishing family and say they wouldn't do anything else. "My father wasn't happy taking me out but I love the sea and the breeze. I feel free," says Imran, his skinny frame clad in rags. Their father, Mohammad Yaqoob, says he sent Imran to school for three years but the boy wasn't keen on studying. The fishermen's forum says many fishermen can't afford to send their children to school because they are locked in a cycle of debt to boat owners. Saifullah Chaudhary, an official with the U.N. International Labor Organization, says the government is trying to eliminate child labor and is focusing on the fishing industry. The ILO has started projects in fishing villages to teach children to read and write, improve health and try and provide alternative employment. But Chaudhary says it will take time before children stop heading out to sea for a living. http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2006/06/29/poor_pakistani_ children_head_to_sea_for_a_living/ Top They make footballs, score nothing 27 June 2006 The Hindu Staff Reporter Child laborers in Meerut district churn out footballs by the hundreds everyday. ..   Child laborers from Meerut at a Press conference in New Delhi on Monday. Photo: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar NEW DELHI: While people the world over watch the high-tension drama unfold each day at the ongoing World Cup football extravaganza, they remain unaware of the plight of hundreds of children in Meerut district of Uttar Pradesh who are trapped in the net of child labor churning out footballs day in and day out. "Several multinational companies sign contracts with local bodies to produce sporting goods at cheap rates. These local bodies hire sub-contractors in nondescript villages like those around Meerut, who then employ little children who churn out footballs at the cost of their health and education. They are paid a pittance,'' said Kailash Satyarthi of Global March Against Child Labor and Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) at a press conference here on Monday. The children have signed an appeal to Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) asking them and sports goods companies to make sure that no child was employed in the football-making industry and that former working children were rehabilitated properly. "These children and their families are paid between three and five rupees per football, while their price in the market is not less then Rs. 100 apiece. The children dare not dream of playing with the footballs, as they are too busy stitching the balls together. Even after a full day's work the children can only produce a maximum of two footballs each,'' he said. The hostile conditions the children are subject to have an adverse effect on their health. "They use sharp needles and knives that constantly prick their fingers. The wounds are left untreated, as the work must go on. During surveys made by BBA in villages around Meerut, several children were found with cuts on their fingers that had become septic. The children stitch as fast as they can, sitting in a hunched position that leads to severe back pains. Also, inadequate lighting has caused poor eyesight in several children,'' added Mr. Satyarthi. http://www.hindu.com/2006/06/27/stories/2006062705460200.htm Top Southern Africa: Conference Aims To Reduce Exploitative Child Labor BuaNews (Tshwane) 27 June 2006 All Africa.com Governments and civil society organizations of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland will assemble in Johannesburg in July to focus their efforts on combating child labor in the region. The first of its kind for the sub-region, the Regional Child Labor Conference from 4 to 6 July promises to take forward the recent resolution by the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Geneva to "give child labor the red card". Almost 50 million children aged between five and 14 years are economically active in sub-Saharan Africa - or 26 percent of youngsters in this age group. The continent is the only region of the world where the exploitative child labor has not decreased over the last four years, whereas globally, child labor has declined by 11 percent during the same period. ILO reports that child labor situation in sub-Saharan Africa got worse since 2000. HIV and AIDS is seen as one of the key contributing factors, as are the region's soaring population growth and the expansion of the informal economy, where much of the child labor - particularly the worst forms - is to be found. Child work is defined as exploitative when it interferes with a child's schooling and is harmful to his or her health. It is not only restricted to paid work; it often involves children working in their own homes, at school or in family businesses without any pay. The worst forms of child labor, however, involve commercial sexual exploitation and child trafficking within a country or internationally through which many children enter a cycle of prostitution and drug addiction, or theft, selling drugs or pirated goods, housebreaking and other forms of crime. Other ways in which children are harmfully exploited is hard labor in farms or mines, work on the streets such as rubbish collection or domestic labor. The upcoming conference forms part of a sub-regional project, "Reducing Exploitive Child Labor in Southern Africa" (RECLISA), which is funded by the United States Department of Labor. Through the ILO, the US Department of Labor also funds a sister programme in the same five countries - Towards the Elimination of the worst forms of Child Labor (TECL). "At the heart of the RECLISA project is the critical role of education, which provides children with information and confidence to avoid falling victim to child labor or enables them to escape this form of exploitation if they had been entrapped by it," says Dr Philip Christensen, who directs the RECLISA Project for the Prime Contractor, the American Institutes for Research (AIR). Dr Helene Aiello serves as RECLISA Director in South Africa for Khulisa Management Services, which is hosting the conference. She adds: "The need for coordinated action to eliminate child labor is real. Every day, we are faced with news headlines about exploitation of vulnerable children. To assist with learning and capacity building, we structured the conference programme to highlight successful projects in southern Africa and the results they have achieved to help vulnerable children. "The programme also speaks to the ILO action plans to eradicate harmful child labor by supporting national responses, particularly by introducing them into national development and policy frameworks." All five countries participating in the conference have ratified ILO's Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention. South Africa has finalised a time-bound action plan and has begun its implementation, while the conference will assist other four countries in formulating their plans. The conference programme will profile RECLISA projects in southern Africa, including four South African initiatives that prevent exploitation of children at risk and use education and other social services to rehabilitate children who had been subjected to child labor. Expected to deliver the keynote address is Duncan Hindle, Director General of Education. The closing address would be delivered by Vanguard Mkosana, Director General of the Department of Labor. Professor Mary Metcalfe (Head of WITS Education) will chair the event. http://allafrica.com/stories/200606270436.html Top Child Labor Persists Around Islam’s Holiest Site in Makkah Zainy Abbas, Arab News .. Makkah, 22 June 2006 — The problem of child labor persists in the Kingdom, by day or night. It’s 3.30 a.m. in the Mesfala neighborhood of central Makkah, about a half-hour stroll from the Grand Mosque. Though it’s still an hour before Fajr prayers, hundreds of faithful of different nationalities can already be seen in the streets heading to Islam’s holiest site. On the street, a child sleeps next to a trash bin. Another stands nearby selling miswaks, the sticks commonly used by Muslims to clean their teeth. A third child is next to him and says he is nine years old and Burmese. The boys, who are brothers, say their father prepares the miswak sticks and sends them to the streets to make money. One of the boys says he arrives in the area after Isha prayers and stays until Dhuhr prayers the next day selling in the street. Afterward, he says they sleep until the next 16-hour shift. It is then that it becomes apparent why one of the kids is sleeping in the street even though he has a home. It is also apparent that all of these three children have, at the behest of their father, replaced school with labor. “The hours are too long and we do not get enough sleep at home,” says the nine-year-old, who did not want to give his name. “I take a nap every now and then while my brothers watch the goods.” The boy says they earn about SR150 a day, SR300 on the Thursday-Friday weekends and more during Ramadan and Haj. They admit that most of the earnings are the product of charity by their customers. The youngest brother, the one sleeping next to the garbage, is still learning from his older brothers the art of selling pity and miswak sticks to passers-by. Nearby another child is seen selling miswak sticks. He says that his shift is based on how fast he can earn SR100 in a shift. The boy claims that his father physically abuses him and sends him to bed without food if he doesn’t come home with the money. “Some people give me money as charity and that helps me get money faster,” said the boy, who is also too afraid of reprisal to provide his name. “If I get one hundred riyals, then I throw the rest of the miswaks in the garbage and go home pretending that I have sold them all.” Nearby a young girl is seen crying and selling napkins. She tells Arab News that she gets pushed around a lot by the flow of pedestrians. She says her father likes the location because crowds make strategic selling locations. “I work for 12 hours, from Fajr prayer until Asr,” she said. “I sell napkins for 50 halalas.” She said that if she earns SR30 in a shift it’s considered a good day. Like the young boys, she admits that most of the money comes from acts of charity. Dr. Sami Al-Luhayyani, a public mental health psychologist in Makkah, told Arab News that in many countries child labor laws are enforced. “We urge police to arrest these fathers and send them to prison and send their kids to social homes,” said Luhayyani. “Forcing these children to work is a crime and will have a negative effect on the children in the future. Criminals could use these children for other bad purposes like crimes.” http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=84204&d=22&m=6&y=2006 Top Darjeeling Diary Trafficking along the eastern himalaya 24 June 2006 By Surendra Phuyal Orphaned at age three, Nima grew up with her neighbors in the shadows of Mt Makalu. Today she's 15 years old. In the shadows of Kanchanjunga, a predominantly Nepali ethnic hill town in northeast India, she is struggling to grow into a normal woman with dignity. This if only after she was trafficked, exploited and sexually abused by her "relatives," who shipped her out of eastern Nepal. That happened about two years ago when she was just 13. "My close grandpa brought me to this place via Dharan and …," she narrates as her teachers, seated next to her in her dormitory, encourage her to do so. She was sexually abused en route. More exploitation followed at her distant folks' place at the nearby Alubarai village here. Months later she fell ill. Suffering from rheumatic fever, she arrived with one of her friends at Edith Wilkins' School, where she found a new life. It is here that her life started to change for the better. Nima is just one among 233 other children -- mostly Nepali girls -- benefiting from this shelter by the Chowrasta slope. By all standards, these kids are lucky. But there are many who are still unlucky. They are in the thousands in the impoverished pockets of Nepal and other areas in the Eastern Himalayas such as Sikkim, Darjeeling, Assam, North Bengal and Bhutan, say experts. They are trafficked for child labor -- and a life of bondage and slavery in the fast-emerging "sex markets" across India. From eastern Nepal alone, around 1,500 to 2,000 children -- including teenage girls -- are trafficked across the border into this part of India every month, according to a recent study by the Edith Wilkins' Foundation, India, and Maiti Nepal's eastern branches at Ilam and Jhapa. About 30 kilometres away from the Nepal border, the bustling town of Siliguri serves as the transit point to North East India, mainland India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal. In worst cases, says Wilkins, 48, who has spent 24 years in Bengal with the needy, "Children are also traded like animals in the bordering towns [of Siliguri, Kakadbhitta etc]." Generally, they are taken to new places by their close relatives. "It's a very chronic ongoing situation, and it needs to be changed." Overall, 12,000 Nepali children and women are trafficked to India for commercial sex work, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO). India serves as a source, transit and destination country for trafficking of women and children. More than 200,000 Nepali girls are sold into prostitution in different cities in India, according to a ten-year-old estimation. That number, activists fear, could be much higher today. As per children trafficked for hazardous work, no data exists. But does anyone care? Non-profit organizations like the Wilkins', Maiti Nepal, Concern in the 'chicken neck' of Siliguri and the dozens of others that have mushroomed up in the region seem to be doing their bit, occasionally rescuing some children and, sometimes, even taking them to shelter homes. Yet the trend of inter-state and intra-state trade in children and women, fuelled by the region's widespread poverty and illiteracy, is showing no signs of tapering off. There are others who blame the economics of demand and supply -- in the face of conflict situations like the one in Nepal; natural disasters; and growing consumerism and "hi-fi lifestyle" as the other related factors. Experts blame "weak law enforcement" and the state and national governments' "inept handling" of the situation for the "exploding ground situation." The West Bengal and Sikkim governments, and the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC), which governs the Darjeeling hills, for instance, spend millions of rupees every year for the welfare of the area's women and children. The Council also gives away monthly IRs 600 to every child as nutrition allowance, and funds some NGOs. Still, trafficking of children and women from here is an issue the Subash Ghising-led DGHC administration has not been able to properly deal with, says a local journalist who doesn't want to be named. "Children are exploited and girls are being trafficked from here, but the administration is doing little," he said. "The problem is that rulers here are low on vision and high on corruption." In India, 400 million out of the over one billion people are children below 18 years of age. So in a country where hundreds of thousands of children are believed to have been subjected to different forms of slavery, the Darjeeling people appear to be faring relatively well. One reason for that is this: The Ghising administration is negotiating with the state government in Kolkata and the centre in Delhi the Other Backward Class and the Sixth Schedule Caste status so as to ensure more "reservations," more "quotas" and more allocations for the hills' tribes; most of whom are of Nepali origin. But fruits of all that bargaining are not trickling down to the poorest strata of the population. This becomes clear from the fact that a good Samaritan like Edith Wilkins has to come to the rescue of Darjeeling's street children. Wilkins School is home to 25 resident and 200 more non-resident "high risk" children mostly from North Bengal, Sikkim and Nepal. South Asia-wide, while NGOs' transparency records are often under the scanner, some NGO-led drives have yielded encouraging results. Two years ago, activists with a coalition of NGOs called the Global March Against Child Labor rescued nearly two dozen minor girls, mostly Nepali, exploited by a north Indian circus company. These days, however, very few children are working in circuses, claims Kailash Satyarthi of Bachpan Bachao Andolan, which is part of the Global March. "There's hardly any girl child from Nepal or anywhere in India who's working in an Indian circus today," he says. But other activists fear, the region's vulnerable children could be ending up in other hazardous professions like camel jockeying and other small-scale industries. The United Nations run UNDP and UNIFEM may be endlessly talking about "safe migration", but here in Darjeeling and down in Siliguri "high risk children" are on the move as ever. After arriving at New Jalpaiguri Railway Station and the nearby bus and truck stands, "they can be easily approached and lured," says Dolly, a teacher at a nearby school. The street children don't understand development buzzwords like "safe migration". So until safe migration can be ensured, nobody knows what's in store for them. Nobody knows where they will end up. "Safe migration is not possible unless there's a fair amount of government-to-government dialogue," says Anuradha Koirala, of Kathamndu based Maiti Nepal. "That's doesn't seem to be happening." In Darjeeling, meanwhile, Nima is growing into a healthy girl, undergoing stitching and beautician training and learning how to read, write and speak, Nepali, Hindi and English. Would she want to return to her village in Makalu someday? She has no answer. She bursts into tears and expresses a quiet 'No'. http://www.kantipuronline.com/feature.php?&nid=77664 Top Children graduate from kindergarten near Tijuana dump By Anna Cearley Union-Tribune staff writer  23 June 2006 ..   HOWARD LIPIN / Union-Tribune Actress Susan Sarandon toured the Tijuana landfill yesterday as part of her visit to the kindergarten she supports through Responsibility, a San Ysidro-based nonprofit, that operated the classes and programs for children whose parents work at the dump. TIJUANA – As garbage trucks rumbled nearby, actress Susan Sarandon walked through a carpet of discarded plastic parts, shredded cardboard and rotting food. She took it all in at the city's trash dump: The men and women who support their families by picking through piles of recently collected trash for recyclables. The gulls hovering overhead. The stench. None of the people sorting through the refuse seemed to recognize the Academy Award winning actress, dressed in black stretch pants and a white jeans jacket and with large, white-rimmed sunglasses. Anonymity seemed fine with her. “The more people you meet, you realize that people are more alike than they are different and that everyone wants for their families and children the same things,” she said. Tijuana's privately managed dump in the neighborhood known as Colonia Fausto Gonzalez relies heavily on scavengers to ferret out recyclables. An estimated 600 trash pickers work here, but receive no salary. Typical trash scavengers can earn $100 to $200 a month selling what they find, and families live within walking distance in homes of cardboard and metal sheets. For many years, there was no school here. Sarandon, who lives in New York City, has been quietly contributing for about seven years to a San Ysidro-based nonprofit called Responsibility (www.responsibilityonline.org) that runs a kindergarten and computer classes for children of trash dump families in the colonia. On the West Coast for a friend's birthday, Sarandon drove to Tijuana yesterday with Responsibility director David Lynch for a two-hour visit that culminated with her attending the kindergarten's graduation ceremony. The kindergarten is just outside the dump. ..   HOWARD LIPIN / Union-Tribune Sarandon attended the graduation of 42 kindergarten students, who performed yesterday during the ceremony. Sarandon first made a stealth visit to the dump. Once inside, she asked questions about how people haul the trash off the site. Lynch pointed to a man balancing a load of trash over his head. She wanted to know whether children are allowed to work there. A resident who lives nearby said only those who are 14 or 15. Sarandon spoke with a man who attended Lynch's school and became a teacher here. Lynch, who got involved with the dump community 26 years ago, first got in touch with Sarandon to seek her assistance with a fund-raising auction. The two New Yorkers struck up a friendship, and Sarandon said she was drawn to Lynch's vision and the fact that he ran a small operation that could use some of her help. “He's making such a difference,” she said of Lynch, a former Long Island special-education teacher. “Education is the key to changing any situation, really.” Sarandon has visited trash dumps before. She stopped at one in Brazil a few years ago as part of an effort to bring attention to child labor practices there. As a United Nations goodwill ambassador, she has met with people in impoverished communities in Africa and India to highlight health issues. She said she's most interested in programs that help women and children, but Sarandon's activism hasn't always been embraced by others. In 2003, the United Way of Tampa Bay canceled an event featuring Sarandon after it received complaints about her views of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. She told The Associated Press during her Tijuana visit that the United States should help build schools in Mexico rather than fences along the border, but didn't elaborate. Sarandon, 59, who is filming a children's movie in New York in which she plays a wicked stepmother, said acting and activism aren't so different. “I think that most actors are curious about other people, and your job as an artist of any kind is to challenge people's perspectives,” she said. “In my business what you really develop is empathy and imagination, and that's the root of activism.” The kindergarten ceremony was held in the nearby community, at the elementary school playground. Girls dressed in blue and pink shiny gowns danced a waltz with their male classmates. Forty-two children graduated from Responsibility's kindergarten yesterday. More than 700 have attended the school since it opened 14 years ago. Responsibility also built the elementary school, though it is now managed by the Mexican education system. Students of all ages benefit from a computer lab and art classes run by Responsibility, Lynch said. “I think it's changed the lifestyle and goals of these families a lot,” he said. Few people attending the ceremony knew who Sarandon was, though several said she looked familiar. “It's good that she comes here,” said Juana Chavolla, 37, whose husband works at the trash dump and whose 6-year-old daughter, Evelyn, graduated from kindergarten. “It brings more significance to this community.” Over the years, Lynch, who has a knack for networking, has received support from other personalities, businesses and organizations. Lynch said television commentator Bill O'Reilly, the Gap Foundation and the Target Foundation have helped pay for teacher salaries and other expenses. The aim of Sarandon's visit, Lynch said, was to put her in touch with the community. But Sarandon said she hoped others would be inspired to help. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20060623-9999-7m23dump.html Top Far East, Far Out The International Children's Games take place in Thailand August 21-30, 2006. By Rachel Byrd Richmond.com 20 June 2006 ..   Rachel Byrd / Richmond.com Gov. Kaine chats with student-athletes from Chesterfield County Public Schools. Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine had good advice for the students and teachers from Chesterfield County Public Schools who will be traveling to Bangkok in August for the International Children's Games: be safe, have fun and bring some medals back. The 17 Chesterfield children, who are the only participants from Virginia who will compete in the Olympic-style games against other children ages 12 to 15 from across the world, will be accompanied by six coaches. Events include gymnastics, tennis, track and field and basketball, according to a news release. Team members, who were selected based on academic and athletic skill and their interest in the exchange program, will donate $200 to a school in Thailand that is working toward ending child labor and more then one hundred books to the Thailand Ministry of Education, according to a news release. The games, established as a festival to promote global peace and friendship aimed at increasing children's knowledge and acceptance of different cultures, were first held in Slovania in 1968. There have since been 37 games, the last being held in Cleveland in 2004, and participating countries have increased from nine in 1968 to 49 in 2004. Gov. Kaine chatted about the team's upcoming trip. He made sure that someone will send reports on the team's progress while they are gone August 21-30 and invited the team to meet with him again after their trip. Traveling abroad is the least of Matoaca Middle School student Lauren Simard's worries. Simard, the 2006 Virginia state champion for the floor exercise gymnastics event, lived in Korea for three years and visited Sweden last summer. The real challenge for Simard, who has been doing gymnastics for eight years, will be working on her routine. "I have to get new tricks for all my events," Simard said. The team will support the Global Campaign for Education, which promotes education for all children as a means to stop child labor. In addition to two days of athletic competition, there will be a tour, opening and closing ceremonies, and daily cultural festivals. http://www.richmond.com/education/output.aspx?Article_ID=4304130& Vertical_ID=127&tier=1&position=5 Top Jamaica: New law to address child labor Jamaica Newsweekly 20 June 2006 The government is drafting new legislation to eliminate child labor locally, despite the progress made in reducing abuse of the current laws. Politicians say the country needs to do away with child labor altogether before it becomes a system pervasively abused. Remarks such as these punctuated the opening ceremony of national consultation on tackling child labor at a hotel in New Kingston yesterday. The program was organized by the International Labor Organization, which says that there was a reduction in child labor globally, with Latin America and the Caribbean only having five per cent of the region’s children engaged in employment. Locally, a 2004 survey reported that 2.2 per cent of the population, or 16,000 children between the ages of five and 17, were engaged in some economic activity, a slight decline from the 1998 survey. One piece of legislation being considered to eliminate the problem completely is the Occupational Health and Safety Act, currently with the Chief Parliamentary Counsel. http://www.jamaicans.com/news/weeknews/jamaica-newsweekly-for-th-130.shtml Top Poverty heightens child labor in Yemen Yemen Times 15 June 2006 By Mohammed Al-Jabr ..   Many children in Yemen have to work as they live under poverty line. They bear responsibilities beyond their age. YT PHOTO “We live in danger. We don’t go to school and we have no friends. We suffer terribly from various diseases because we work for hours under the sunrays, which have changed our skin color. We bear responsibilities beyond our age. We know not the sense of comfort, nor do we have a chance to play like other children. We no longer know how to laugh or smile because some of us have been exploited, hit and humiliated. I feel ashamed of working in the streets but I have no alternative. No one will respect me, even if I become grown up,” the boy said. He went on to say that he was happy to know that his message would be conveyed to the prime minister. He pointed out that there are hundreds of working children in need of centers to help them. He urged Bajammal to offer them free education, reduce study hours and allow them to study only basic subjects. He also wished that citizens would not regard them with contempt. According to Minister of Industry and Trade Khalid Sheikh, poverty is the main reason for child labor and trafficking. “Child labor is associated with poverty and unemployment. For the most part, those children working for themselves do so at the cost of their education. Those who work for others are subject to sexual, physical and economic exploitation. Ninety percent of children work with their families’ consent. If there is no awareness about this problem, child labor will continue.” Local experts and reports indicate that as a developing country, Yemen experiences significant child labor and child trafficking, with 38 percent of children between age six and 17 outside of basic education. Dr. Abdulhakim Al-Sharjabi, Director of the Ministry of Planning’s Poverty Unit, said there are 326,000 child workers and 35,000 street children in Yemen, according to a 1999 workforce survey. “Families have a wrong concept about child labor. They think that when a child reaches age 10, he is able to work. This is one major reason for the increase in child labor. Many don’t see this as violating children’s rights.” Additionally, Al-Sharjabi clarified that semi-unemployment also figures prominently in increasing child labor. “When a father receives insufficient income to maintain his family, he obliges his children to work,” he explained, affirming that children resort to working only if they are in need. Subsidies for poor families don’t meet their needs, so they oblige their children to work, he noted. Jamila Ali Raja’a, head of the Sana’a office of the International Program on Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC), said child labor isn’t a problem in Yemen because it’s part of the social trend and an acceptable issue. “The problem of Yemen is how to implement international child labor conventions. Child labor has become familiar to us,” she said, adding that many girls work secretly, but there are no specific statistics on this. According to Raja’a, IPEC implemented a 2000-2005 child labor program aimed at matching Yemeni child labor laws to international standards, as well as withdrawing and rehabilitating some child workers. Child trafficking is most marked in northern Yemen’s Hajja governorate, namely because it’s near Saudi Arabia. Hajja Mayor Mohammed Al-Harazi said the phenomenon began when some Yemeni families emigrated to Saudi Arabia in search of a better life, returning with a good living standard. Afterward, some unseemly citizens formed what seemed like a gang to seduce other families into letting their children work in the kingdom. “Citizens began sending their children with this gang to Saudi Arabia and the phenomenon became a profession instead of a disgrace,” he explained, “As a local council, we and some MPs made field visits, hoping to learn how the phenomenon occurs. After launching investigations, we discovered a deal between the family and the gang, whereby the family receives an amount of money, while the gang gets the greatest share. We met with Haradh district security authorities, Prosecution and judiciary in order to arrest the gang there. We arrested some members and the phenomenon now is reduced by half.” Al-Harazi noted that special centers exist in the district for children arrested while attempting to infiltrate Saudi Arabia. “The problem is that some children come from other governorates. They refuse to tell us from where they come or about their families. This way, we can’t contact their families to inform them about the danger of this phenomenon.” For his part, Deputy Minister of Social Affairs Abdu Al-Hakimi pointed out that child labor isn’t confined to Yemen, but is found in both developed and developing countries. He noted that Yemen’s government has taken some steps to curb child labor, including: 1- Establishing the Higher Council for Motherhood and Childhood 2- Passing 2002’s Child Rights Law No. 45 in an effort to implement 1989 International Child Rights Conventions 3- Cooperating with international organizations, namely the IPEC 4- Establishing a national strategy to help reduce child labor 5- Conducting many studies to identify the size of the phenomenon Al-Hakimi added that the ministry also is focusing on visiting work fields in various governorates, where they met more than 500 child workers. It also is focusing on professional health issues, especially for those children working with herbicides. Former 2004 Child Parliament member Izz Addin Al-Ariqi said Child Parliament members made field visits to streets, where they met many child workers. “We met them and found that poverty is the main reason behind their working. We also found that they left school and that they were treated badly.” Former Child Parliament member Ala’a Al-Haifi emphasized that child workers also experience sexual and physical defects. A December 2001 study revealed that Yemeni society is still young, with children under age 14 comprising more than 46 percent of the total population in 2000 due to high 3.5 percent population growth. Such a demographic situation implies a high dependence ratio (41.6 percent) and strong annual workforce growth (4.4 percent), resulting in severe pressure on services and resources. This in turn has pushed children into the labor market, as reflected in declining school enrollment of 60 percent or even less in rural areas and among girls. The study also mentioned that Yemen’s Labor Law sets the working age at 15; however, human resource statistics had set it at 10 until 1999, when 15 was adopted as a minimum work age. Within the last decade, Yemen’s child labor force expanded at an average annual rate of 3 percent, now estimated at 326,000 children age 14 or under (of whom 51.4 percent are girls), with 9 percent of children officially registered in school actually in the workforce. Hajja governorate is worst in this regard, with 14 percent of the national child workforce, and Aden is best, with 0.03 percent. A Yemeni General Federation of Workers’ Trade Union (YGFWTU) study found that, of those children surveyed, 96 percent had joined school, 52 percent are studying while working and the rest left school after either grade three or six. According to the study, there is a direct relationship between child workers and the profession of their family breadwinners. Results of a 1999 Yemeni workforce survey conducted nationally revealed that most child workers have family breadwinners who are employed: 92 percent are agricultural workers, 4.8 percent are in services, 2.5 are unskilled laborers and 0.7 percent are semi-skilled professionals. Child labor in Yemen is confined entirely to private business, particularly in the informal sector. This is the result of the civil service law, which regards the minimum work age as 18. The same tendency is evident in military establishments. Additionally, the YGFWTU study clarified that statistics indicate that the majority of Yemeni child workers work for their families. Of those working outside the family, male children comprise 83.2 percent. This is especially the case in rural areas. Outside the family, the informal sector has become the last resort for child workers. This is problematic because Yemen’s informal sector is huge and lacks social insurance or protection regarding vocational health and safety, thus subjecting children to significant dangers. http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=955&p=report&a=1 Top Children in Yemen still suffer labor and trafficking 15 June 2006 Sana'a, NewsYemen Some governmental bodies are talking about fighting child trafficking and some others deny it has become a phenomenon. But the fact is that many children are being trafficked, burdened weighty works, nevertheless some bodies try to benefit from the phenomenon to get foreign aids under the pretext of fighting child trafficking and labor. According to press reports, thousands of Yemenis are being deported back from Saudi Arabia through Haradh border outlet including children. Nass Press website quoted head of the Freedoms and Human Rights Committee at the Parliament Mohammad bin Naji al-Shaif as confirming that 2000 to 3000 Yemenis are deported every day from Saudi Arabia to Yemen, referring the child trafficking to poverty and parents illiteracy. Yemeni children do not face only the dangers of illegal immigration and smuggling, but they also face troubles when they come back to homeland. Ali Suaid, 14 years, from al-Zahra area in Hodeidah said narrated the story of his coming back trip. "I went with my cousin Mohammad, 19 years, to a farm on border where my father works, to take some money for my family. But when I came back, the Yemeni security arrested me in Haradh. They tried to confiscate my money. When I refused to give up my money, SR 240, they put me in prison for many hours. Then they took SR 40 and released me in return," said Suaid. You may feel embarrassed when you enter the Housing Center in Haradh border outlet, northwestern Yemen, which was established by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor and supported by UNICEF. The services being presented by the center are not sufficient as the bodies that run it claim. The center only keeps children whom Saudi authorities deport till the Yemeni authorities come to take them to hand them over to their families after taking confirmations they will not try to enter the Saudi lands again. Mohammad Dahal, who is still in a prison in Haradh, said "if local security authorities arrest you in Haradh and you have not money, they will put you in prison for illegal entry to Saudi Arabia, but if you have money you can avoid imprisonment by paying them 10 or 50 Saudi rials." Official reports say that more than two million Yemeni children, 6-14 years, were out-of-school in 2004 and 2005. A study, recently prepared by minister of social affairs and labor Amat al-Razaq Humad and conducted by the Arab Women Organization, exposed that the percentage of out-of-school girls in 2005 reached 55.3% (over one million), and that the percentage of boys reached 22% (639.208). The study explained that the low level of basic education and its outputs resulted in an increase in the number of girls who escape secondary school and widened the gap between boys and girls enrollment to secondary education. It indicated that the percentage of boys in secondary schools in urban areas is 72.2% boys and 26.8% for girls. But, it says that the gap gets wider in rural areas as boys have 82.6% and girls have only 17.4, the difference is 65.2%. Although the minister Humad said the problems that Yemeni children face are not different from those in other countries, UNICEF representative in Sana’a Ramesh Shresta said Yemeni children face two different problems, carrying arms and chewing Qat (leaves Yemenis chew for hours, usually in the afternoon). To enable children to actively participate in solving their problems the government formed the Children Parliament, which does not exist in other Arab countries. But, if we look at the number of children who participated in the children parliament elections this year, we will find that only 20 thousand children participated because Yemen has two million children out-of-school. Also the child labor in Yemen is still a big problem and there is no indication that it will be controlled in near future. Head of the National Project for Fighting Child Labor, Jamilla Ali Raja’a, said the increasing rates of poverty complicate the situation and make the end of child labor in the country unreachable. “The rising of poverty rate in a country where 48% of population already live under poverty line as well as the wrong belief of parents who find no problem in child labor make our responsibility more difficult,” said Raja’a. Raja’a told Newsyemen the program is currently focusing on the riskiest forms of child labor that threaten child life, health and dignity such as spraying insecticides in farms, fishing and operating heavy machines. Human rights activists and lawyers see that ignoring laws that prevent child labor makes the phenomenon worse. The report of the US Department of State on human rights in Yemen for 2005 criticized the government careless to apply laws that prevent child labor. “You can find 4-year children working in workshops, agriculture or sellers,” said the report. The report pointed also to human trafficking in Yemen including children and women. According to local statistics that NewsYemen got a copy of which say that 200 to 300 children enters the Saudi Arabia per week. Local source in Hajja, the most known governorate for child trafficking, told NewsYemen that the key reasons behind child trafficking are poverty, unemployment, and unawareness. It added that schools are in a poor condition and they are not equipped with modern techniques to attract children to continue their education. Early marriage is another obstacle hindering girls, particularly in rural areas, to continue their education. Reports say that girls, under 12 years, are being married in many areas. Although law does not allow families to marry girls under 15 years, the government does not apply the law in most rural areas. The ministry of social affairs and labor said that the working children, 6-14 years, reached in 2005 half a million. It said they represent 10-15% of the Yemeni labor forces. http://www.newsyemen.net/en/view_news.asp?sub_no=4_2006_06_15_6150 Top Chile government pledges to end child labor: First national study on Chilean labor spurs government to eradicate child labor 14 June 2006 The Santiago Times Labor Minister Osvaldo Andrade vowed this week to eliminate illegal child labor in Chile by 2010 when Chile celebrates its second bicentennial. Speaking Monday at an event commemorating the 5th International Day Against Child Labor, Andrade pledged an end to 14-year-old (or younger) workers, and predicted that special legislation will be enacted to protect young workers aged 15 to 18. A study commissioned by the U.N.’s International Labor Organization (ILO) – “The First National Poll on Chilean Labor” – confirmed that 196,000 children are working in Chile – 66 percent boys and 34 percent girls. More than 74 percent of Chile’s child workers are 15 to 18 years of age, and 55.7 percent do not attend school. The ILO study found that at least 107,000 young people are working at jobs that are “unacceptable” for children, that is, working on shifts that last more than eight hours, working at night, working in unsafe conditions or working rather than going to school. “What we are saying is that we have to create conditions so that families have the certainty that they can live in dignity,” said Andrade. “If we can do this, then we can allow children to be children, which is the final objective of our efforts.” Andrade added that Chile is commissioning a child labor study of its own to help monitor progress in reducing child labor. Data gathered by Chile’s National Children’s Service (Sername) suggests that 26.1 percent of Chile’s child labor force is involved in sex trade and 19.8 percent in other illegal activities. Guillermo Miranda, the ILO’s Southern Cone director, commended Chile for announcing its intention to eliminate illegal child labor and insisted it was an achievable goal. As bad as the child labor figures may seem in Chile and around the world, ILO officials expressed optimism that child labor is decreasing for the first time in known history, from 250 million in 2000, to 218 million in 2004. “An end to child labor is in sight,” said Frank Hagemann from the ILO in Geneva. “For a long time this target has been seen as a very distant goal, closely linked to tackling poverty. The theory was that the only way to eliminate child labor was by establishing global prosperity.” Hagemann and his team were surprised to discover that between 2000 and 2004, child labor fell by 11 percent without any corresponding drop in world poverty. “Even so, the figures are still shocking,” he said. Some 218 million children worldwide are forced to work, 126 million of whom do so in dangerous and difficult trades such as prostitution or in mines and quarries. Some 100 million children across the globe don’t go to school and, as a recent ILO report concluded, improving school attendance would be a major step towards ending child labor. “An increasing number of countries contributed to tackling child labor by introducing compulsory schooling up until the age of 14,” the ILO said. In South Africa, many of the country’s child laborers are AIDS orphans, while in Vietnam they tend to be refugees from Burma. In the U.S., they more often than not come from immigrant Hispanic families. In India, they tend to be children from the lower castes, explained Alok Vajpeyi of the Indian NGO Global march Against Child Labor. Vajpeyi conceded that awareness of the problem has grown considerably in India in recent years, but said the government had done little to help and too many children still fail to attend school. A number of African governments have been better about clamping down. In Uganda, the government has introduced a special agency to tackle child labor that works closely with international organizations. Andrew Mawson, head of child protection for the UNICEF office in Uganda, where 1.8 million of the country’s 2.7 million child laborers work in unacceptable conditions, said that improvements have taken place in the commercial farming sector, but marked just the beginning of what need to be wider reforms. “In certain areas the government has not yet found a way,” he said. “Domestic labor, for example, is potentially abusive but it is very widespread.” Another ILO study suggested that reforming chile labor can pay economic dividends. Even though the cost of replacing child labor with education would amount to some US$760 billion (600 billion euros), it estimated that the economic benefits of the investment would be almost seven times greater. In Latin America, Brazil and Mexico have shown the greatest advances in reducing child labor. The number of child laborers in Latin America and the Caribbean has decreased by five percent to 11.1 percent in various countries, said regional ILO director Juan F. Hunt, while the number of working children between the ages of five and 14 has declined by 66.5 percent during the past four years, from 17 million in 2000 to 5.7 million in 2004. According to the ILO, some 400,000 children between five and 17 work in quarries extracting gold, silver, tin, coal, emeralds and clay, mainly in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Child mineworkers are exposed to dangers like explosives, toxic substances and overwork. SOURCE: PUBLIMETRO, LA TERCERA, DEUTCHE WELLE By Steve Anderson http://www.tcgnews.com/santiagotimes/index.php?nav=story&story_id=11567&topic_id=1 Top Indian Bishops Targeting Child Labor 13 June 2006 NEW DELHI, India (Zenit.org) - India's Catholic episcopate has made a number of proposals to stop the scourge of child labor, which involves more than 100 million children in the subcontinent. Progress in India has not been accompanied by a decrease in the "social malady" of child labor, stated Auxiliary Bishop Joshua Mar Ignatius of Trivandrum, president of the bishops' Labor Commission. Bishop Ignatius' concern is expressed in a letter entitled "Awake, Arise and Stop Child Labor," which he addressed to the nation's Catholic community on Friday, ahead of today's observance of "No Child Labor" Day. Poverty is not the only reason for child labor in India, noted Bishop Ignatius in his message, but also the carelessness of society. The prelate suggested that instances of child labor be reported, and that adults refuse, for instance, to be served by children in hotels. Hotel managers should be questioned about the age of their employees, if one suspects they are minors, he added. The bishop further urged that needy families be helped to send their children to school and that work be done through nongovernmental organizations to motivate institutions, offices, small hotels and shops to put up a sign reading "No Children Are Employed Here." http://childlabor.typepad.com/child_labor/2006/06/indian_bishops_.html Top Congo’s child miner shame 12 June 2006 By Orla Guerin BBC New, Katanga To commemorate World Day Against Child Labor, BBC News has spent a day in the Democratic Republic of Congo with child miners, who work for about one dollar per day. At Ruashi mine, in the Eastern province of Katanga, almost 800 children dig for copper and cobalt. At eight years of age, Decu has never owned a football, or played a video game. He has no computer, and no TV. He's never been to school, though he passes young pupils in uniform every morning, as he sets off for work. He is a child, born into poverty in what could be one of the richest places in Africa - the Eastern province of Katanga, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. There are vast mineral deposits beneath the soil here, but this treasure trove has always benefited the leaders not the people. Decu's day begins at dawn. Usually he does not eat, just drinks a little water. Then he sets off on a two-hour walk with his twin, Kaba. Both have torn sweatshirts and trousers with holes. By their side is Cedric, their friend and neighbour, who is 15. He's a quiet boy with an earnest look. He has no shoes, just flip flops on his feet. Cedric used to go to school, but now his family can't afford to send him. Informal By seven or eight each morning, the boys arrive at Ruashi mines, where huge mounds of red, brown and grey soil scar the landscape. They join the ranks of child miners - close to 800 of them, working alongside fully grown men. It's all unofficial, but it's also highly organized. We stand at the top of one enormous mound of silky soil, looking down into a crater about 40 metres deep. All the way down there are ghostly-looking figures digging for copper, coated in choking grey dust. There are no safety standards. No-one wears a hard hat. In the midst of all this, there are some boys as young as Decu and Kaba, working with bare hands and bare feet. Many of the local middlemen prefer to use younger children, because the older boys get paid more. The children here can be as young as five or six. "We saw boys standing waist deep in toxic water, washing soil away from nuggets of copper. One, Antoine, told us he was ten. Inherited For Cedric and the twins, the first job of the day was sifting away soil from mineral deposits. It was heavy work, especially for Decu. As he worked, he told me he wanted to be like children in Europe. "They go to school," he said. "I saw them on TV. But my father can't afford to pay my school fees. That's why my life is so hard." As the day wore on the twins dug for nuggets of copper with their bare hands, but didn't find much. A local buyer gave them a few grubby notes, enough for one small pastry each. Cedric moved on to cleaning cobalt with his bare feet, in a lake of toxic water. Between the three of them that day, the boys did not make enough to buy an evening meal. The new owners of this mine, Metorex Limited from South Africa, would not give us an interview on camera. They inherited the informal miners when they bought the mine. The company says it's a difficult situation because so many local people depend on the mine. A manager at the site told us that they do not condone child labor and, in time, they want all the informal miners out, including the children. The irony is that without what they can scrabble together at the mine, life for Cedric and the twins might be a lot worse. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/5071172.stm Top Hundreds of child slaves sold into UK every year By David Harrison 4 June 2006 Telegraph.co.uk ..   Handout: A child begs for money in Bucharest Children as young as six are being brought to Britain in their hundreds every year to be used as "slave labor" in sweatshops, private homes and cannabis factories. The children are transported from all over Africa, Asia and eastern Europe by ruthless and highly organized gangs of traffickers. Many are taken with the unwitting consent of their parents, who pay up to £3,000, believing the traffickers' claims that their children are going to a better life - and will be able to send money home. The victims are smuggled into Britain or brought in on false passports by adults posing as relatives. They are put to work immediately, live in appalling conditions and are subjected to physical and sexual abuse. The scale of the crisis - which has spread from London to Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle - is revealed in a consultation paper presented to the Home Office by a coalition of nine charities including Unicef, Save the Children and the NSPCC. Last night, the charities accused the Government of failing to tackle the problem and called for urgent action to end the "cruel and shocking exploitation of children". Christine Beddoe, the director of the coalition - called End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking (ECPAT) - said: "This is modern child slavery." Another senior charity official described the traffickers as "21st-century Fagins - only much crueller", a reference to the character who ran teams of child pickpockets in Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist. In the consultation document, passed to The Sunday Telegraph, the charities say there are "no specific support services" for victims of child trafficking and they accuse the Government of using "an unsympathetic and punitive asylum process" to treat them as illegal immigrants rather than victims. Most trafficked children who come to the authorities' attention are deported immediately, they argue, and then face persecution and re-trafficking. The charities want the Government to introduce measures to help police, immigration officials and social workers to identify, rescue and protect them. Children from China, Vietnam and Malaysia, have been found in sweatshops, restaurants and suburban cannabis factories. African children are often put into domestic servitude, working long hours for little or no reward. Eastern European children tend to be used to beg and steal - and many more are likely to arrive next year when Romania and Bulgaria are expected to join the European Union. Charities and police believe most trafficked children are used for slave labor rather than prostitution, but the report says they are "sexually exploited in informal locations, such as private flats, where they are expected to have sex with groups of men". ECPAT calls for a national strategy, including safe houses for victims, counselling and legal and medical support, and an independent Child Trafficking Rapporteur. It urges the Government to ratify the European Convention against Trafficking in Human Beings to allow victims to stay in the UK to recover from their ordeal and receive help so they can testify against the traffickers. Ms Beddoe estimated that "hundreds" of children were trafficked to Britain each year but said the true figure could be much higher. The ECPAT research has identified suspected victims in all but one of 33 London boroughs. The charities are also investigating child trafficking in Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle. Police said there was a "pressing need" for a national strategy. A senior Scotland Yard detective said: "It is hard to believe that there are child slaves in Britain in the 21st century but we are determined to end this appalling practice." The Home Office will report on the consultation at the end of this month and will publish an action plan in the autumn. A spokesman said: "We are already taking steps to stamp it out and the action plan will help us to end the children’s misery.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/06/04/ngangs04.xm Top 39 bonded children who working in inhuman conditions in a zari unit in Delhi were released on May 23, 2006 ..             In a massive raid in an industrial unit in the congested Sarai Kale Khan of South Delhi, Global March Against Child labor India partner Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) with the help of police rescued 39 children working in exploitative conditions. Most of the rescued children are from Kathihaar district of Bihar. The rescued children aged between 7 to 12 years were forced to work from 8:00am in the morning till 12 in night for as little as Rs. 40 per month.  "I have been working in zari industry for a year and a half now; my day starts at 8 am to 12:00 at night. We get food twice a day: rice, dal and potatoes. I was paid Rs 40 every week. I was not allowed to go anywhere", says 12 year old Mohd. Saraaj. "Any time there was a small error while embroidering, the owner used to beat us mercilessly. I was promised to be sent to school in Delhi and teach some craft so that I can go back and earn a decent living, but it was all lies. Says 11 year old Taquir. 9 year old Wahid, said: "I don't miss home. I thought it would be better to work rather than just stay at home." But as the time passed and he realized that he is going to meet his parents, the mask of bravado started to fall down and the tears began to flow. Ill health or injury, work must go on. Wages differ from Rs 500 a month to Rs 40 a week, to nothing, depending on experience. And this amount must take care of meals, clothing and some money to send home. Working in such poor conditions also has debilitating effects on their health. Their eyesight weakens drastically and they also develop problems in their legs. Thousands of children slog in sweatshops like the zari units in Delhi, mostly trafficked from Bihar and neighbourin