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IN-DEPHT STUDY |
| 6 JANUARY – MISSIONARY CHILDHOOD
DAY |
| LOW COST LABOUR |
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Iqbal Masih is the name of 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.
Iqbal was a slave to a carpet marker for many years and then he was
ransomed by am association. He told his story and his words were an
accusation against the bosses of illegal child labour. Death reached
him on the street by an anonymous hand. But his smile remains to remind
us of the many children condemned like him to a hard destiny.
Latest estimates speak of 211 million child labourers under 14 who
should be going to school. Instead they work in the fields (the majority
about 70%0, they pick through garbage, they beg on streets, their
hands grow stiff at the loom, they faces are blackened in factories.
Wherever they can earn a little cash for many hours of work to help
themselves and their family survive. In this hidden field poverty,
ignorance, discrimination violate the rights of little men and women
victims of illegal exploitation.
In exchange a child-worker produces for his owner.
Especially in what the International Labour Office calls pockets of
abuse in Asia and Africa in particular, childhood represents a vast
reservoir of cheap labour.
Realities well known to the world despite their illegality and which
are denounced on the Convention to ban worst forms of child labour
presented in 1999 by the ILO.
The United Nations Convention on Children’s Rights issued on
20 November 1989 also condemns abuse of child workers by adults a
social scourge hard to eliminate, not only in developing countries.
In fact there are many baby-workers in countries with a medium income
(5 million in Eastern Europe a figure which is growing because of
the difficult situation of transition to a western style market economy)
and they are not lacking in Europe.
Poacket of illegal child labour are found in Portugal, Greece and
also in Italy where the most recent ISTAT report spoke of 145,000
while the figure estimated by the CGL was three times as high. |
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