Today marks the start of the Global Conference on Child Labour in Brasilia.
The aim of this third conference (following those in Amsterdam in 1997 and The Hague in 2010) is to examine the progress made but also to take stock of what must still be done in order to reach the desired goal: to eliminate the worst forms of child labour by 2016. The conference runs until Thursday and offers a special day on Wednesday. You can tweet your questions.
Overview: In 2010, during the second conference, a “roadmap” was created in order to “promote coherence and direction in national and international policies leading up to the 2016 target.” (Piet Hein Donner, Minister of Social Affairs and Employment in the government of Netherlands) This roadmap calls for any progress that is made, ultimately, to be monitored.
Thus the Brazilian government organised a new conference to fulfil this wish. It will be a question of pressing home the advances and means implemented so far to combat this scourge.
On 23rd September last year, the International Labour Organization published its latest report entitled “Marking progress against child labour” in which it is estimated that the number of child labourers around the world has decreased by a third since 2000. However, this encouraging figure is not sufficient to allow us to hope for the eradication of child labour by 2016. That is why during this conference the means by which the fight against the worst forms of child labour can be effectively accelerated will also be discussed, with the aim of observing the set deadline of 2016.
The conference programme:
- The Director General of the ILO, Guy Rider, will open the Conference alongside the Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff on Tuesday 8th October at 10am local time;
- On Wednesday 9th October at 15:30 GMT, a question and answer session on Twitter will be organised live from the Conference on the theme of child labour. Questions can be posted on Twitter @ILONews in English, Spanish and French using the hash tag #NOchildlabour;
- On the last day of the Conference the ILO will announce its “Red Card to Child Labour” campaign. This large-scale global awareness campaign has already received the support of many artists and activists, including Tim Roth.
Citizens of the world, you too can take part in this conference via Twitter. Go ahead!
For more information about the conference, clic here.
More information about the Child Labour.
“Roadmap” of 2010
