THE UN's labour organisation and sports goods giants have joined forces to try to stop child labour in Pakistan, where up to 10 000 children work full-time stitching two-thirds of the world's soccer balls.
The International Labour Organisation, in a statement issued in Geneva, said it signed an agreement with Adidas, Reebok, Nike, Umbro, Mitre, Brine and 50 others as well as with industrialists in Pakistan to remove child labourers from the industry.
The city of Sialkot, the centre of Pakistan's sports goods industry, produces two-thirds of the world's hand-stitched soccer balls for an export market worth $1 billion a year in retail sales, the lLO said.
Under the deal, signed in Atlanta, the ILO will help soccer ball manufacturers to remove child labourers from their work with the help of financing from the US government and the Soccer Industry Council of America.
The International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA) hailed the agreement. "While we've been concerned about the negative publicity created for football by reports of child labour... our main concern has of course been to help solve the problem itself," said the FIFA general secretary, Mr Joseph Blatter.
In Pakistan, the ILO will co-operate with Sialkot's Chamber of Commerce and Industry to monitor the industry, increase awareness of child labour among producers and assist children removed from the workplace.
One objective is to set up a $1 million fund to pay independent monitors to inspect ball-making sites and to make children aware they are being exploited, industry sources, quoted by the New York Times, said.
The agreement also calls on soccer-ball companies to register the names of all contractors, individual workers and work locations.
Industry officials said the children, under the age of 14, work up to 10 hours daily stitching leather balls for around $1.20 a day.