The Conference is the latest in a series held amid mounting concern for some million children who often work in exploitative and hazardous conditions and face injury, illness and even death.
Ministers of development cooperation, labour, education, social welfare and justice, as well as leaders of trade unions and employers' organizations, non-governmental organizations, United Nations and other multi-lateral agencies, and leading experts on child labour will work together to forge a new, comprehensive strategy for battling child labour, focusing on development cooperation as the key.
Globally, child labour is most prevalent in the less-developed regions. In absolute terms, Asia has the largest number of child workers approximately 61 percent of the world total as compared with Africa 32 percent and Latin America 7 percent. The Conference opens Monday, 27 October, at the Radisson SAS Scandinavia Hotel in Oslo with a two-day technical session to discuss ways of preventing and eliminating child labour through practical actions including legislation, education and social mobilization.
For the first time, particular emphasis will be placed on the role of development cooperation. Following the technical discussion, a political session will open on Wednesday, 29 October with a statement by the new Prime Minister of Norway, Mr. Kjell Magne Bondevik. Ministers will then consider an "Agenda for Action" containing principles and options for the global elimination of child labour. By adopting a four-point global campaign that includes mobilizing political will, backing it with a time-bound action programme that includes ending all extreme forms of child labour immediately, adopting a new international Convention against such extreme forms of child exploitation and translating the power of worldwide concern into international social and economic policy programmes.
And education is the single most effective tool we have for eliminating child labour. According to a recent ILO study Endnote 1 , some million children aged are working. About half, or million, work full-time, while the remaining children struggle to combine work with schooling or other non-economic activities. Among the findings:. The figure of million working children is considered to be an under-estimate.
