Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Agenzia Fides) - “In Nepal there are 2.6 million child workers” says the director of a Centre for Street Children. “At our Centre at the moment we have 23. Last week there were 35, but a few have since run away.
In Kathmandu alone at least 500 children live on the streets, begging and sniffing glue to forget hunger and tiredness. Some earn a few Rupee selling pieces of plastic found on garbage dumps, or drawings to some passing western tourist or social worker.
12 June, the 5th World Day Against Child Labour, was marked with initiatives and demonstrations all over the world to increase awareness and support efforts to stop abuse of boys and girls. In Asia 127 million minors (60%) are involved in child labour, in Africa about 61 million (29%).
About 5,000 Nepalese children took part in a protest organised by the International Labour Organisation ILO through the city centre of the capital Kathmandu. Aged between three and sixteen, the children paraded in an orderly manner past market stalls, small and large Hindu temples, down narrow streets crowded with bicycles and rickshaws. Smiling school children in smart white or blue school uniforms and street children in their crumpled clothes walked together carrying the banners of local organisations which fight to stop child labour. Here, as in the rest of the country, children of all ages are forced to do the hardest jobs: porter, dishwasher, builder’s boy, vendor of spices and junk. (AP) (17/6/2006 Agenzia Fides; Righe:24; Parole:283
