ILO: NEARLY 48 MILLION CHILDREN DO HAZARDOUS WORK IN ASIA

P.VIJIAN

NEW DELHI, May 8 (Bernama) -- Grinding poverty continues to push many
children in the Asia-Pacific region into "hazardous work", with an alarming
number of 48 million underage children being forced into work, according to a
global agency estimate.

One in eight children in the Asia-Pacific region are in some form of child
labour. Young people in this region have faced increasing vulnerabilities
related to conflict and natural disasters, said the International Labour
Organisation (ILO).

"Progress is uneven, neither fast enough nor comprehensive enough to reach
the goals that we have set," said ILO Director-General Juan Somavia in a
statement.

"New and large-scale efforts are needed. The situation calls for a
re-energized campaign against child labour. We must scale up action and move
into higher gear," he added.

ILO's latest Global Report on Child Labour, said recent conflicts and
natural disasters, floods and earthquakes, in Afghanistan, Indonesia, Nepal,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Philippines, had destroyed schools and displaced
families, subsequently affecting children's welfare.


South Asia, home to nearly 1.5 billion people, had been identified as the
region with highest concentration of child labour.

"The critical fight against child labour has to be won in South Asia, where
the greatest number of child labourers are to be found.

"Often it is the poverty of policy rather than poverty itself that keeps the
mass of children out of school and in child labour," noted ILO.

-- BERNAMA