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A new global campaign has been launched to combat the exploitation of children in the workforce, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) says.

 Abuse of child labour has long been a major concern in Asia - particularly in countries such as India, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka and China.

 The ILO along with FIFA, the Asian Football Confederation, and Chinese Football Association joined forces in late July to highlight the seriousness of child labour abuse.

 'The campaign seizes the opportunity offered by the world of sports to sensitise a large spectrum of the population about child labour and to promote the creation of an active world movement,' the ILO said in a statement.

 The campaign was promoted in front of 70,000 spectators on July 25 at Beijing's Workers' stadium.

 The ILO said it has decided to use a Red Card as a symbol to 'stigmatise' child labour. The Red Card would now be displayed during international football competitions, it said.

 The ILO said this would help create greater awareness about the seriousness of child labour abuse.

 The first time the Red Card symbol was used was during the African Cup of Nations in Mali in 2002.

 'The ultimate event in the campaign, hopefully, will be to celebrate the universal ratification of the convention against the worst forms of child labour, at the World Cup football tournament in 2006,' the ILO said.

 The ILO has estimated that throughout the world, 250 million children, aged between five and 17, were engaged in child labour. Within that number, 61 per cent are in Asia, 32 per cent in Africa and seven per cent in Latin America. 

 These children are denied the right to go to school. Instead, they labour on farms and work in mines, factories and shops. Many are also domestic servants. Their wages are among the lowest of any workers. They are frequently overworked and exposed to workplace hazards. Many are also victims of physical and sexual abuse.

 Some are sold and trafficked into slave-like conditions. Others are forced into prostitution or to become child soldiers.
 According to a Human Rights Watch report, 'child labour ranges from four-year-olds tied to rug looms to keep them from running away to 17-year-olds helping out on the family farm.

The Child Workers in Asia website lists the worst forms of child labour in the region as: commercial sexual exploitation of children; trafficking of children; bonded child labour; child domestic work; scavenger children; and using children as soldiers.

 The recruitment of child soldiers has become so widespread in Asia it has attracted international condemnation.

 United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan described it as one of the world's most morally repugnant forms of abuse.

 Last year, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1460 - which called for an end to the recruitment of child soldiers. 

The UN identified 23 armed groups internationally who were using children as soldiers. It estimated that the number of victims was around 300,000.

 A report this year from the global human rights alliance, Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, estimates that at least 100,000 Asian children - some as young as eight - are fighting for government armies and rebel groups.

 While most child soldiers are aged between 15 and 18, many are recruited from the age of 10 and even younger. In some countries, girls are also recruited. Girls are at greater risk of rape and sexual harassment.

 According to the Human Rights Watch, very young children are serving as soldiers in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Nepal.

 'They wield AK-47s and M-16s on the front lines of combat, serve as human mine detectors, participate in suicide missions, carry supplies, and act as spies, messengers or lookouts,' it said.
 The Child Labour News Service has reported that many rebel movements in Asia have also been recruiting child soldiers. This includes the Abu Sayyaf Islamic guerillas in the Philippines and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.

 Earlier this year, UNICEF's representative in Sri Lanka, Ted Chaiban, estimated that about 50,000 children were involved in the conflict there.

 'I am speaking here of children engaged in child labour, child soldiers, children that have been displaced repeatedly, child victims of land mines,' Mr Chaiban said.

The Asia Times online has reported that the Tamil Tigers has also been using children in suicide missions. 

Myanmar has the highest number of child soldiers in Asia. 
A study in the 1990s, No Childhood at all - Child Soldiers in Burma , revealed that many children were often brutally coerced into military service. One of them, Khaing Soe Aung recalled being forced to join the army in October 1990 at the age of 17. 'My father was beaten by... soldiers so I joined the army so my father could feel safe from more beatings,' he said.

 Children are also being forced into 'virtual' slave labour, Child Workers in Asia said. 

 'Children workers are still found in leather tanneries, gem polishing, mines, quarries, and in factories.

 'Children are still among the workers in farms and plantations, sometimes as migrant labourers and often together with their families as farmers increasingly engaged in sub-contracting agricultural labour for big land owners and agricultural corporations,' it said.

 Some of Asia's young end up as 'scavenger children'. These are child labourers who work at dumpsites in the Philippines, Thailand, Nepal, India and Vietnam.

 Others become domestic servants at ages which would be illegal in places like Hong Kong and Singapore.

'Having a helper in the household of middle class and upper class families is a practice historically embedded in almost all Asian countries,' Child Workers in Asia said.

'Many children from poor families are engaged in this work, some as young as eight years old.''

Another problem in Asia is that children have become more vulnerable as former socialist countries develop market economies and adapt to globalisation. This has occurred in Vietnam and China.

 ILO Asia-Pacific regional director Yasuyuki Nodera said the opening up of Vietnam's economy has 'raised the spectre of new forms and patterns of vulnerability for Vietnam's children'. 

 Mr Nodera also blamed the vulnerability on the rise in internal migration and the growing numbers of displaced families living on the fringes of cities. This meant families often had to have all their children working to survive.

 'They can now be found in informal work arrangements that are arduous, poorly paid, unsupervised and unregulated,'' Mr Nodera said.

 'They are also more vulnerable to trafficking, prostitution and the sale and use of drugs.'

 In China, the government has been concerned about the large numbers of children employed in provincial areas. Since 1991, it is illegal to employ children under the age of 16 in the mainland.

 In July 2003, Fujian province issued new guidelines to prevent children being exploited - 'Regulations on the Ban on the Use of underage labourers'. This was after the authorities found many children working mainly in the coastal regions of Fujian in the past three years.

 An estimate from the 1990s said that China had at least 10 million child workers, although it is believed there could be more.
 
 Industries with the highest concentrations of child labour in the mainland include manufacturing and fireworks factories. China's fireworks factories are notorious for accidents and deaths mainly due to explosions and fires. 
 
 Human rights groups are also warning about the prevalence of 'bonded child labour' in Asia. This often occurs when an employer hands an advance payment to a family in exchange for a child. This has been reported in countries such as Nepal, India, and Pakistan.

 'In most cases, the child cannot work off the debt, nor can the family raise enough money to buy the child back,'' Human Rights Watch said.

'The workplace is often structured so that 'expenses' and/or 'interest' are deducted from a child's earnings in such amounts that it is almost impossible for a child to repay the debt,' the report added.

 Another way unscrupulous employers obtain child labour is through the trafficking of children.

 Child Workers in Asia said children were being trafficked for domestic work, farm labour and to work in the sex industry.
 
There have been recent reports that mainland children have been trafficked to Cambodia to work as prostitutes.

 The sexual exploitation of children is one of Asia's worst forms of child labour abuse - particularly as child prostitutes face the growing risk of HIV-Aids infections. Child prostitution has been widely reported in Cambodia, Bangladesh, Nepal, India and Thailand.

'Exploitation of children in commercial sex trade remains the worst form of child labour in our region,' Child Workers in Asia said.
 
'UNICEF estimates that about one million children are lured or forced into the sex trade in Asia every year. A more alarming fact is that people known to them introduce many of these children into the work,' it added.

The International Labour Organisation website is: http://www.ilo.org/



New campaign launched to combat child labour abuse