WORLD DAY AGAINST CHILD LABOUR

Palais des Nations, Geneva 12 June 2007

 

CHILD LABOUR IN AGRICULTURE

Signing Ceremony

 

Statement by the representative of the IFAP – Mr. David King, Secretary General

 

Mr. Chairman,

The International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) is pleased to be part of this new international partnership between the ILO and key international agricultural organisations on child labour. Children are our future, and their healthy development must be a priority. Children aged between 5-14 years should not be mixing or applying chemicals, or working with potentially hazardous machinery, and they should not be prevented from attending school.

 

IFAP represents 600 million family farmers through a network of 115 national farmers’ organisations worldwide. It is clear from our experience that child labour in family agriculture is a rural poverty issue. It is an indicator of the neglect of agriculture.

 

Child labour is a survival strategy for rural areas. It must to be addressed at the root through rural development strategies and programs aimed at improving rural livelihoods and reducing the economic vulnerability of farm families.  We know that child labour reduces as a country’s income grows.

 

Education is an essential factor for reducing poverty, and building a secure future. It plays a key role in helping to reduce child labour and the level of hazards and risk associated with it. But rural children often have poor access to quality education compared with city children, even if their families are able to afford to pay school fees. We must work to try to reduce this rural/urban gap in education.

 

A key to the success of this ILO initiative against hazardous child labour is to build strong rural institutions. Without strong rural institutions change cannot be brought about. Unless the poor are organised they will remain politically powerless and economically disadvantaged. Thus for IFAP, a successful fight against hunger, poverty and child labour requires well organised partners for governments to work with, especially farmers’ organisations.

 

Mr. Chairman, people are concerned about a lot of things that are happening in agriculture. They want to know where their food comes from and how it is produced. They want to know if production practised friendly to the environment. They want to know if animal welfare has been taken into account. But today, we are dealing with the most important part of all – the welfare of children. Through this initiative with ILO, we will together seek to ensure the conditions that prevent children from having to do work that is harmful to their development, and encourage them to only participate in the sort of work that helps them to learn valuable skills and build self esteem. I hope that this increased attention to agriculture is not only for a day. That is why we have built into the partnership agreement an annual review clause to see if we are making progress and if we are not, to try harder in the future to meet our goals.

Thank you.