A child sits on a rubbish dump in Guatemala, pulling maggots from a week-old pizza she has found for breakfast. In India, a nine-year-old boy is kidnapped to work as a slave labourer in a carpet factory. Thousands of Mexican-American teenagers working on farms in upstate New York are suffering pesticide poisoning.
The scourge of child labour remains as prevalent as ever, according to the International Labour Organisation, with about 250 million children between the ages of five and 14 at work. At least 120 million of these work full-time.
To highlight the problem, the Global March against Child Labour, an initiative led by trade unions and human rights organisations, is coming to Ireland next month. The march, which started out from the Philippines last January, will proceed from Belfast to Dublin from May 8th-12th, before heading for Geneva in time for negotiations on a new code for eliminating the most dangerous forms of child labour in June.
The general secretary of ICTU, Mr Peter Cassells, said the march was highlights the "intolerable reality" of child labour.
According to Mr Liam Wegimont, of Development Education for Youth, there is a link between the abuse of child labour in the developed world and in developing countries. In Ireland, 17year-olds were working in supermarkets for £2.50 an hour. Some of what they earned was spent on sports goods manufactured in Asia. But in parts of India, 11-year-old girls are earning less than 5p an hour for stitching footballs which retail in Ireland for £15 each. The balls carry the photos of well-known footballers who earn up to £20,000 a week.
Ms Margaret Boden of Christian Aid blamed structural adjustment policies dictated by Western banks for forcing children out to work. Sixty per cent of child workers are in Asia, and 30 per cent in Africa. But the problem also exists in industrialised countries, and is growing in Eastern Europe and Russia. With the World Cup due to start in a few months time, Ms Boden appealed to consumers to buy fairly-traded footballs.
The Global March against Child Labour is co-ordinated in Ireland by ICTU, DEFY and the Irish Council for the Prevention of Cruelty against Children.
