EUROPE/SPAIN - 400 MILLION CHILD SLAVES: EXHIBITION UNMASKS SLAVERY “THESE ARE NOT CHILD WORKERS THEY ARE CHILD SLAVES”

Madrid (Fides Service) – “The different faces of slavery: these are not child workers they are child slaves ” is the title of an exhibition which opened on 26 January at the Alfonso X el Sabio House of Culture promoted by the Christian Cultural Movement in Spain in collaboration with the Guadarrama Town Culture Office. The exhibition is part of a series of initiatives organised in view of April 16, World Day against Child Abuse. The symbol of child workers is Iqbal Masih a Pakistani boy who made carpets and became the symbol of child workers hidden in the folds of underground labour. He was killed at the aged of 12 in 1995 on 16 April, the date chosen since then for World Day against Child Abuse.
The exhibition is drawing crowds, especially school children. It will close on 30 January with a conference with the title: “Child Slavery can and must Disappear”.
The exhibition aims to “reveal the causes of child slavery and the companies and institutions which support it. But it intends not only to denounce but also to propose. With photographs and written material on various situations it hopes to stimulate reflection as well as suggesting paths of action to out an end to this evil” José Angel Bueno exhibition co-ordinator told Fides
“The exhibition is part of an international campaign for justice in North South relations: “Thou shall not Kill” started by the Christian Cultural Movement 22 years ago to eliminate structures of injustice in economic systems which are the cause of so much suffering, hunger, unemployment, child labour etc…among people in the south of the world” José Angel Bueno told Fides . (R.Z.) (Agenzia Fides 29/1/2004; lines 21 - words 265)