[gender-cedaw-vn] UN AGENCIES CALL FOR GREATER ACCESS TO EDUCATION FOR GIRLS TO TACKLE CHILD LABOUR

[Vern Weitzel]

My wife tells me that by the age of 13, she was managing most things around
the house while her parents worked the farm. Her older brother was useless,
because he had to study, and in fact, he graduated from college. She finished
high school. They all had a hard life. Vern

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: UN AGENCIES CALL FOR GREATER ACCESS TO EDUCATION FOR GIRLS TO TACKLE 
CHILD LABOUR
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:00:33 -0400
From: UNNews <UNNews at un.org>
To: <news7 at secint00.un.org>

UN AGENCIES CALL FOR GREATER ACCESS TO EDUCATION FOR GIRLS TO TACKLE CHILD LABOUR
New York, Jun 12 2009  1:00PM
The United Nations today called for greater efforts to combat the underlying 
poverty that leads to child labour, especially better access to quality 
education for girls in poor and rural areas.

As many as 100 million girls worldwide are trapped into working for survival, 
often enduring serious hardships in situations that are out of sight, hidden 
behind the walls of factories, deep in fields or behind the doors of their own 
homes, said the UN Children’s Fund (<"http://www.unicef.org/index.php">UNICEF) 
on the occasion of the World Day Against Child Labour.

Noting that many girls work in the same agricultural and manufacturing jobs as 
boys, Susan Bissell, UNICEF Chief of Child Protection, said that girls “carry a 
higher burden by taking on long hours for unpaid household [work] inside the 
home and working elsewhere.

“What the public does not see is the domestic work done in other households – 
this exposes young girls to other dangers and risks,” she 
<"http://www.unicef.org/media/media_49972.html">added.

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), the worst forms of 
child labour include practices such as selling or trafficking children, the 
forced recruitment of child soldiers, and using or offering children for 
prostitution or the production of pornography.

The most recent ILO report on child labour said that in 2004, there were 126 
million children engaged in hazardous work, and the most exploited were girls, 
orphans, ethnic and minority groups and street children – the majority of the 
out-of-school population.

In a message marking the tenth anniversary of the World Day, the head of the ILO 
said that too many girls “suffer multiple handicaps” keeping them bound to work.

These include the “poverty that deprive them of options, traditions that devalue 
girls and deny them their rights, and education systems and practices that may 
effectively perpetuate their exclusion,” said Juan Somavia, ILO Director-General.

“Investing in girls’ education and training is an investment in equality and 
social progress – a girl with an education is better armed to break the cycle of 
child labour and poverty,” he added.

Ms. Bissell noted that “education provides a safe environment for children, but 
when a family has to choose between a boy or a girl attending school, so often 
the girl loses out.”

Some of the measures advanced to help educate more girls included improved 
schooling for children from poor communities, the guarantee of flexible and 
properly funded education programmes for child labourers and other marginalized 
children, and the abolishment of tuition fees in primary education.
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