SPECIAL CONTRIBUTION or someone who is a student can do within their own sphere to help remove this problem? Child labour is not an isolated problem and cannot be solved in isolation. It is very directly connected with overall human development and with human rights. If the rights of human beings, families and communities are not protected, children are not protected. Similarly, without sustainable and inclusive development, child labour cannot be eradicated in isolation. I have been emphasizing for over 30 years that poverty, child labour and illiteracy form a kind of “vicious triangle.” They are the cause and consequence of each other, and one cannot be solved without solving the others. While 168 million children are in full-time jobs, millions of adults are jobless. Many of these adults in developing countries are the very parents of these child labourers. Children are preferred because they are the cheapest —or even free, if bonded—labour. They are physically and mentally docile, they do not form unions or go to court; so no challenge for the employer and thus perpetuating this vicious cycle. Child labour is also interconnected with health, education and poverty eradication issues. I’m working to pose the agenda of the complete eradication of child labour, slavery and trafficking, as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. This is very important as we live in a world where children are not safe. On the one hand, a lot of growth, a lot of development, a lot of legal protections are being talked about. On the other hand, the world is becoming more and more difficult and unsafe, frightening for the children, for reasons that include terrorism and intolerance. We are not able to assure a safer future for our children, especially in developing countries. The violence is increasing. My strong belief is that violence and human development cannot coexist. We have to put an end to violence to ensure human development. I am very confident that until and unless we make a safer world for our children, we cannot protect human rights. Protection of human rights, inclusive development for society, as well as getting rid of violence are interconnected issues, and we have to begin with our children. People should raise their voices against all kinds of violence against children. Denial of education is also a violation of children’s rights beside child labour, child trafficking and the like. Ordinary people can get engaged in many ways. One is to help in creating, spreading and deepening the knowledge among their own peers and friends and relatives. Things are happening around the world against children. Let us spread the knowledge and create more consciousness and concern. Second, as responsible citizens, one can definitely ask local politicians, parliament members and the government to give more attention to the cause of children in both developing and developed countries, with a very strong notion that no problem in the world is an isolated problem and no problem on the planet could be solved in isolation. The solutions are interconnected, as are the problems. Problems can begin in one part of the world, and other parts would suffer. We have to think globally and after 9/11, and after knowing more about global warming, one must know that we have to be united as global citizens in solving the problem of child labour and illiteracy of children. As consumers, one can demand that we buy only those products that are free of child labour—from toys to sporting goods to aprons to shoes. This will help in
generating pressure on the industries to ensure that they are much more responsible and much more accountable. As citizens, as consumers, as someone who is really connected with the social media, we can use that to raise voices on behalf of children. Young people, especially those in universities and colleges, can gather information about child labour, and as responsible young people they can just push some of the buttons on their smartphones and computers and can help in raising awareness of the problem of child labour and violence against children. With the Sustainable Development Goals in the offing, what would be your message for the international community, particularly for advancing the rights of all children? Even before the Millennium Development Goals, were rolled out, I was very concerned about their place in the international agenda and organized a number of meetings in the corridors of the UN. We tried to send a clear message that we cannot attain many of the goals without ensuring the abolition of child labour and violence against children—whether education for all, poverty reduction through reducing unemployment, ecological issues and health issues (85 million children are in hazardous employment). We have seen some progress but also failures among these goals. Now there is a campaign with like-minded organizations and trade unions asking for: • Strong language against child labour in the Sustainable Development Goals, which has been introduced and should be retained. • Strong language for education, which has also been included. • Explicit language against child slavery and children in forced labour, which does not exist right now. The number of child slaves did not go down, in spite of the number of child labourers having gone down, as I mentioned, from 260 million to 168 million. According to the International Labour Organization, the number of children in forced labour or, what we call, child slaves is still stagnant at 5.5 million. My sense is that there are more. The international community must realize that if we cannot protect our children, we cannot protect our development. We have to end violence against children. When it comes to implementation, I have also been urging UN agencies to work in much closer cooperation on children’s issues, because sometimes we see a compartmentalized approach and compartmentalized reactions, segmented by the respective agency mandates. One child gets fragmented into different agencies. We have to be more strongly coordinated and be more proactive, rather than just reacting to things that happen against children. How will your Nobel Peace Prize impact the most marginalized children in terms of protection from violence, inclusion in education and improving their health and human development? My spontaneous reaction to the prize on the day the announcement was made was that this is the first ever, the biggest ever recognition for the
Chapter 1 Work and human development—analytical links | 43