An international conference in Oslo on child labour yesterday adopted a plan to outlaw the worst kinds of child abuse, including slavery, prostitution and bonded work in factories and fields. The Agenda for Action against child labour was the centrepiece of the four-day conference called by the Norwegian government and attended by UN agencies such as UNICEF and the International Labour Organisation, trade union, employer and non-governmental organisations, and government ministers from 39 countries.
The conference chairwoman, Norway's Minister of Development and Human Rights, Ms Hilde Johnson, said the agenda "will be decisive in the work we have to undertake to combat child labour".
The non-binding agenda, a set of goals and principles to combat child labour, says "priority should be given to the immediate removal of children from the most intolerable forms of child labour and to the physical and psychological rehabilitation of children involved."
The agenda states: "In line with such measures, adequate alternatives to these children and the families have to be provided."
There are still differences among countries over what constitutes "intolerable forms of child labour," but there is agreement over slavery, debt bondage or serfdom, the use of children in prostitution and pornography and the drug trade and other forms of dangerous and hazardous work.
The International Labour Organisation estimates that in developing countries as many as 250 million children between the ages of five and 14 are working when they should be at school.
