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ILO World Day Against Child Labor Draws Attention to Plight of Trafficked Children - Social and Economic Policy - Global Policy Forum Trafficking happens in nearly all countries of the world, including the UK. As a result, more than 1.2 million children are living away from their homes and families with people who force them to work. ILO World Day Against Child Labor Draws Attention
One World
to Plight of Trafficked Children
June 10, 2003The ILO (International Labour Organization ) the UN body which regulates the world of work, has adopted 12 June as World Day Against Child Labor. This year the focus is on child trafficking, and the damage it can do to children, families, communities and ultimately whole countries. Anti-Slavery International, the world's oldest international human rights organization, estimates that tens of thousands of children are trafficked each year in Africa alone.
Under international law, trafficking is a crime. Through coercion, deception, and the threat or use of violence, people are forced into a range of exploitative work. Where children are concerned, it makes no difference if they leave voluntarily or are coerced -- where there is movement of children in order to use them as unpaid, or minimally waged labour, there is trafficking.
Trafficking is not a single action -- rather, it is a series of events that takes place in the child's home community, at transit points and at final destinations. Whenever a child is relocated and exploited, it is trafficking. And those who contribute to it -- recruiters, middlemen, document providers, transporters, corrupt officials, employers and service providers -- are all traffickers.
Gymfoe was trafficked in Ghana when she was 12: "The woman told my mother I'd go to school, I was so happy. But that's not what happened." In reality she was forced to work long hours in harsh conditions. She received no money and was denied her rights to school and rest. If she could, she said, "I would go back to my village and tell other children that all they would do was work in the city with no food."
Since 1999 the fight against trafficking has been reinforced by ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (No. 182), which denounces child trafficking as a practice similar to slavery. Altogether the ILO estimates that 8.4 million children are in slavery, trafficking, debt bondage and other forms of forced labour, forced recruitment for armed conflict, prostitution, pornography and other illicit activities.
Efforts to prevent children from falling into trafficking can make an impact. Yu Wanjiao, a primary school child from Yunnan province, China, said: "After I learned about trafficking prevention, I understood how easy it is to cheat a person who has no knowledge and no skills. I will share with my brother and sister what I have learned and tell them not to follow strangers. If they are trafficked, they will have no freedom."
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