The Hague Global Child Labour Conference 2010 - Food ...

The Hague Global Child Labour Conference 2010 – Towards a World without ChildLabour, Mapping the Road to 2016 – Conference Report“It is important that we participate in the decisions. I worked gathering shells foruse in buildings. With my friends, we created our own alternative, a movement atthe neighborhood level to train and prepare ourselves for the future. My littlebrother and sister and others who aren’t in our movement, they need to preparetheir own future. Many children work to finance their own studies. With training,fewer submit to exploitation, especially the worst forms. You who are thererepresenting the international organizations can encourage our movement. Youcan support us. When you say that you fight against child labour, we also are alsofighting against it. Join with us in solidarity against the work of children.”Mr. Kinsu Kumar, an ex-child labourer from India addressed the conference, urging theparticipants to work faster.“I was a cleaner, working with my father. I wasfreed by the Save the Child movement inRajasthan. I am now studying and have manyfriends. In the children’s centre, we get love, timeto play and time to study. I want to make anappeal to have a world without child labour. Youhave money and the law so go on to end childlabour. You have to think of the childhoods of200 million children who are still working. In our“child friendly village”, we are going to schooland have our own parliament and make our own decisions. We have a chance toexplain our thinking and what we need and have it recognized by the villagepanchayat. I was taken out of child labour by the Save the Child organization,whose activists in the village brought me to the Centre.”In response to a question about how his family survives now that he does not work, hereplied that his father has to work more. Mr. Kinsu Kumar is now also the top student in hisschool.Adoption of the RoadmapIn the final session, Mr. Melkert, Rapporteur for the Roadmap, introduced the Roadmap forAchieving the Elimination of the worst forms of child labour by 2016. He stated that“following a long discussion in the drafting committee, we have managed to find the wayto the future.” He expressed his pleasure to share thekey conclusions and thanked those who contributed tothe discussion, and added that he had seldom seen somany people in a meeting making concise, actionorientedsuggestions, in the belief that something moremust be done. Mr Melkert stated that “it is a broadcommunity that has joined hands here, and allparticipants in the drafting group have had regularinteraction with their constituents, so this gives us thebasis for acclamation.” He further pointed out that some of the things which have beenleft out of the Roadmap will be included in the conference report and then continued tohighlight some of the main points of the Roadmap:1. It confirms that this is a long haul fight. “The fact that, 13 years after the first childlabour conference, we are still engaged shows that this is not an issue that comes28