Working kids: Does someone care?

According to the International Labour Organization, more than 200 million children in the world today are involved in child labour, doing work that is damaging to his or her mental, physical and emotional development.

Children work because their survival and that of their families depend on it. Child labour persists even where it has been declared illegal, and is frequently surrounded by a wall of silence, indifference, and apathy. But that wall is beginning to crumble.

While the total elimination of child labour is a long-term goal in many countries, certain forms of child labour must be confronted immediately.

Nearly three-quarters of working children are engaged in the worst forms of child labour, including trafficking, armed conflict, slavery, sexual exploitation and hazardous work. The effective abolition of child labour is one of the most urgent challenges of our time.

There are tens of thouthands of children are trying to support their families in a difficult life of poverty.

Dear all, here you can find an interesting article on Central Asian child labour by RFE/RL’s Faranqis Najubullah, and small comment from Kyrgyz journalist in Russia Cholpon Arkabaeva, published on http://www.freedolina.net/.

I would like to share some pictures with you. They are from the photo-gallery of the Radio Free Euirope/Radio Liberty’s web-site.