Fight against child labour and exploitation

From the Global March International Secretariat

Childhood is a sacred time. It’s a time to play to learn, to grow and to enjoy friendships and family. It’s a time when every child should have a chance to develop their potential and enjoy bright plans for their future. But for too many children childhood is a lost dream

. Around the world an estimated 250 million children are found working, well before their fragile bones and impressionable souls are ready. They are toiling from the early hours of the morning until well past dark. Maybe you’ll find Flavia selling flowers to passing tourists on the street of Rio, maybe you’ll spot Mohan hunched over in a darkened carpet factory near Mirzapur, or maybe you’ll watch Esther sweeping the floors of a middle-class Nairobi household. The sun never sets on the world of the working child, when at every moment of every day there are tens of millions of young children working somewhere on the earth.

In a world that has advanced so much over recent years, it is almost unimaginable that we can still force children, the most vulnerable section of society, to give up their future and work for their survival. But the truth is that nothing will change unless we are determined to change it . This is why a group of leading social organisations came together to plan a Global March Against Child Labour. They decided that to stop this intolerable abuse of children, they would need to organise a Global March that called the world’s attention to the problem and demanded action. The mission of the March would be:

"To mobilise world-wide efforts to protect and promote the rights of all children, especially the right to receive a free, meaningful education and to be free from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be damaging to the child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development."

Within six months the movement had grown to include over 350 organisations spanning 82 countries and representing over 200 million people. Now the Global March is shaping up to be the largest single social intervention in history for the benefit of children.

In Asia the March will begin in Manila on January 17 before it travels through neighboring countries and proceeds westward across Asia.
In Latin America the March will start in Brazil on February 25 before heading south to Argentina, crossing over the Andes and working its way north along the coast.
In Africa the March will start at the continent’s southernmost point on March 21, Freedom Day, before starting its long trek north to Nairobi.

Winding through their long courses the core groups of Marchers will carry the message that the time has come to guarantee every child their childhood, that no child should lose their chance to learn and develop by being forced to work all day long. Along their way they will be joined by millions of people from the very young to the very old, marching in solidarity with the cause. The program of the Marchers will be common for all:

raising widespread awareness about child labour
urging governments to ratify and enforce laws that protect children and provide them education
mobilising greater national and international funding to support education for all children
mobilising public opinion and action against the broader injustices that contribute to child labour
demanding the immediate elimination of the most exploitative forms of child labour
promoting positive actions by employers and consumers
ensuring the proper rehabilitation of child labourers

By the first day of June, the Marchers will finally arrive together in Geneva, when leaders of almost all nations’ governments, businesses and labour turn their attention to the question of what can they do to end child labour, And then, when the whole world has been shaken with the crisis of child labour, they may finally begin to act.

What can you do to help the March?

I The Global March is foremost a people’s March. Everyone is welcome to join and carry us closer to a world without child labour.

You can:

join the March as it passes through your country
organise public events against child labour to coincide with the March
help with the organisations coordinating the national program for the March
write to your government in support of the demands of the March
encourage other people to join you in the March

To become involved in the March, please contact:

Global March International Secretariat
L-6 Kalkaji, New Delhi-19, India
Tel: (91 11) 622-4899, 621-0807
Fax: (91 11) 623-6818, 621-8210
E-mail: yatra@del2.vsnl.net.in
mukti@saccs.unv.ernet.in

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