Oslo - More than 100 million children under 15 work fulltime, often in dangerous, exhausting jobs that leave them with barely enough time to eat and sleep, much less play and go to school, a 41-nation congress which opened yesterday in Oslo heard.
But some of those children, meeting separately in Oslo, worry that clamping down on child labour means they will end up going hungry. In opening the four-day conference, Norway's Minister of Development and Human Rights, Ms Hilde Frafjord Johnson, recognised the dilemma many poor families face in the developing world. "Addressing child labour is not only a question of political decisions and appropriate legislation but even more of fighting poverty and promoting positive social change," she said.