Child Labour (Hansard, 4 November 1997)

§ Clare Short

The Conference was organised by the Norwegian Government with the joint support of the ILO and UNICEF. Building on an earlier conference in Amsterdam, as well as three subsequent regional conferences in Asia, Africa and Latin America, its purpose was to achieve agreement on an Agenda for Action, to be taken forward by governments—41 were represented, the majority from developing countries; representatives of multilateral organisations, trades unions, employers associations and NGOs were also represented at the conference.

The Conference was a success. It produced a sensible and balanced agenda for action; it provided the opportunity for the different constituents to understand each other's viewpoints and agree more collaborative ways of working together. While some further work will be required to achieve agreement next year on the new ILO Convention on Intolerable Child Labour, the Oslo Conference will have strengthened in-country and international partnerships for tackling the problem on the ground.

The Conference was largely devoted to working sessions on the themes of legislation, education and social mobilisation. Views on priorities and sequencing between these themes depended largely on each participant's constituency and country of origin. Cutting across each working group was a discussion of how to take measures to end child labour while protecting the livelihoods of working children and their families.

In my statement to the Conference I said that the industrialised world should re-read its own history concerning our own past exploitation of children and then approach this subject with due humility. But our own history reminds us how destructive child labour can be. It stunts childhood and damages health, and the deprivation of education it entails sentences the child concerned to a lifetime of poverty. At the same time, child labour undermines the wages of adults and entrenches families in poverty. If the poor countries are to develop, they must ensure that the children are in school and their parents at work.

I mentioned the great public concern in the UK about child labour. UK consumers are increasingly supporting ethical movements and are not prepared to buy goods produced by exploiting children. But we have learnt that boycotts or over-night exclusion of children from 92W industries can drive the children into worse exploitation. So we must devise strategies that benefit the children and their families. Football stitching is not the most intolerable type of work for children in Pakistan, but it is one which drew international attention. We have to start work where we can. I therefore announced our intention to fund Save the Children to implement a social protection programme in Sialkot so that when, at the end of next year, children stop working in the football stitching industry, they are not forced into more hazardous and exploitative work. We intend that the model developed in Sialkot will then be adapted and applied in another province, focusing on removing and protecting children from more intolerable forms of work which are less susceptible to pressure form international consumers.