Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
San Paolo (Agenzia Fides) – The 11th World Social Forum (WSF) returns to Africa, in Dakar (Senegal), to be held from 6 to 11 February 2011. The presence at the WSF 2011 of associations working to combat the worst forms of child labour is a key witness to rethinking strategies for creating “another possible world”. According to a note sent to Fides by Salinari Raffaele, President of the International Federation, “Terre des hommes”, and Cristiano Morsolin, operator for international networks for the rights of children and adolescents, that has been working in Latin America for ten years, the numbers of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) are clear: more than 300 million children between 5 and 14 years are currently being exploited by the “worst forms” of child labour, which means early death or irreversible mutilation.
It is not a mystery that the economies of poor countries should exploit the resource of their children in order for the families' survival, and that the delocalisation of production processes puts them in competition with just the poorest countries, forcing them to lower the price of labour and thus the age of workers.
In Brazil, the so-called “underground” child labour, namely, the clandestine factories - especially in the south - which sew clothes in dank basements, or the exploitation of child prostitution, of begging, or of children as agents for organised crime, are all growing phenomena and of which we speak only in terms of repression. The country has become, in recent years, a real hub for all the European child prostitution, which is fed by human trafficking from Eastern Europe or the coast of Africa along with the illegal adult workers, arms and drugs. This business is calculated to reap profits in the order of three billion euro each year. So not only does the exploitation of child labour exist, but these extreme forms far outweigh those “classic” jobs as labourers or in construction. The economy of Liberia has extended the scope of exploitation of labour to incorporate it within those “grey areas” of the criminal economy which encompass a broad spectrum of new forms of child exploitation: internet pornography, sexual exploitation in third countries through guided tours, illegal organ transplants and child soldiers.
They are the “new frontiers” of child labour, in constant growth, as shown by the statistics and the news that we are sent more and more frequently about children treated and sold even before birth, in the womb. There is no war in Africa, Asia or Latin America where irregular armies do not employ child soldiers. The statistics, by default, on the use of children in the sex industry, speak of two million children in Asia alone, and an equal number coming from Eastern Europe to America. Speaking today of child labour thus means to completely revise our perspective, our concept of Labour Law, it means expanding the tools of protection against these new forms of barbarism, now completely outside the awareness of both the general public and labour legislation. (SL) (Agenzia Fides 4/02/2011)
