3071-The political economy of new slavery

Rachel Nizan 155
13. IPEC, launched in 1991, carries out work and studies in the field of child
labour in partnership with local organizations and develops plans for action.
At the same time, it helps raise awareness of the problems of child labour,
as well as assisting ‘countries strengthen legislation and enforcement and
monitoring capacities’. The work of the IPEC – local alliance is based on a
‘Memorandum of Understanding between the [local] government and the
ILO, detailing areas of cooperation’ (UNICEF, 1997, p. 22).
14. The compensation for families with school-age children is a grant of
approximately the ‘equivalent to the monthly minimum wage’ (www.hri.ca,
Bolsa Escola).
15. This chapter uses the IMF’s definition of poverty. In this sense poverty can
be understood simply as lacking the necessary income to cover one’s basic
needs (IMF, 2001, p. 9).
16. Salazar points out that the economic contribution of children varies from
country to country and region to region. It varies from ‘insignificant’ in
Colombia to 15 per cent in Guatemala and even more significant in Brazil
(2001, p. 180). This is arguably also why the Bolsa Escola programme is
successful in Brazil.
17. See also Crawford, 2000, p. 7.
18. Neither literature nor practitioners so far speak about child slavery in the
Honduran context, but some forms of child labour and the conditions in
which they are carried out might point in that direction.
19. The chapter refers to child labour and to unacceptable forms of child labour as
the WFCL (worst forms of child labour), as defined by Convention 182. The
chapter agrees with the basic premise that it is the element of exploitation,
which makes child labour unacceptable and calls for its eradication.
20. Raman refers to Cornia, Jolly and Stewart 1987.
21. See, for example, Becerra, 1999.
22. Page numbers for Groves refer to the unpublished version of the paper.
23. The HIPC initiative was set up by the IMF and the WB in 1996. The idea was
to offer ‘a comprehensive approach to reduce the external debt of the world’s
poorest, most heavily indebted countries...[while] placing debt relief within
an overall framework of poverty reduction’ (World Bank, http://www.
worldbank.org/hipc/about/hipcbr/hipcbr.htm [accessed 17 August 2002]).
24. In this regard see http://www.imf.org/external/np/prsp/2001/hnd/01/
083101.pdf. For a more critical view on the HIPC initiative and the PRSP
see the Press Release, August 2002 of the Social Forum of External Debt
and Development of Honduras (FOSDEH). See also Groves, 2003, p. 4.
25. The total number of child labourers in 1999 was 491,740 (ten to 17 years).
This figure includes children who work at home and do not go to school
(Comisión Nacional, 2000a, p. 5).
26. It is too early to see what kind of impact the adoption of Convention 182
has had on child labour. However, the implementation process includes a
project on ‘the Gradual and Progressive Eradication of Child Labour’, which
aims to reduce child labour by 20,000 children per year.
27. Problems arise, for example, when referring to age groups; one statistic may
refer to ten to 13 year olds, while the other one refers to ten to 14 year olds.
At the same time there is no agreement on the exact number of children
working, as different reports give different figures.