Consign child labour to the history books

ONE in seven of the world’s children is involved in child labour affecting their physical, mental, emotional and moral development.

Last Tuesday marked World Day Against Child Labour and all of us need to take a closer look at why the international community continues to struggle with this issue.

We live at a time of immense wealth and yet a tiny percentage of this could potentially consign child labour to the history books.

Recently, an international study concluded that by 2020, the potential benefit to the global economy of eliminating child labour could be as much as $60 billion a year and, overall, the benefit outweighed the cost by seven-to-one. By any calculation, that looks like a worthy investment, does it not?

We live in a country that has emerged in a relatively short time from endemic poverty to being one of the world’s leading economies. The children of this country have more choices than ever before. Don’t all children deserve this?

The 2006 Government white paper on aid provides a detailed strategic approach to tackling poverty reduction, education for all, HIV/AIDS and disaster recovery.

It would be important to ensure that the link is made between these issues and why children are forced to work. This would help reinforce integration and coherence between existing development policies and programmes and prevent vulnerable children from falling through the cracks.

Child labour moves in and out of media coverage on a regular basis and will continue to do so unless more concerted and forceful action is taken to tackle it. We all need to be more aware of supply chain issues and ethical trade.

But, more than that, we need to make sure the incoming government makes even more effective choices in targeting its aid programmes.

Children need to be in school, not in the workplace, and the responsibility to make this happen is one we all share.

What we want to do through our new partnership in Ireland is to encourage Irish aid agencies, NGOs, trade unions and employers to adopt a more coherent and strategic approach to development and human rights.

Tackling child labour does not necessarily mean spending more money — it also means being smarter and more focused in spending what is already available.

Tom Arnold

Concern

David Begg

ICTU

Irish Task Force Against

Child Labour

c/o Concern

Camden Street

Dublin 2