Deputy Speaker, World Day against Child Labour will be celebrated on 12 June 2010. It comes just one month after a major global conference on Child Labour that was held in the Netherlands. The International Labour Organisation, ILO, launched the first World Day against Child Labour in 2002 as a way to highlight the plight of these children.
The day is intended to serve as a catalyst for the growing worldwide movement against child labour, reflected in the huge number of ratifications of ILO Convention No 182 on the worst forms of child labour, and ILO Convention No 138 on the minimum age for admission to employment.
Hundred of millions of girls and boys throughout the world are still engaged in work that deprives them of adequate education, health, leisure, basic freedom and which violates their rights. Of these children, more than half are exposed to the worst forms of child labour such as working in a hazardous environment; slavery or other forms of forced labour; elicit activities such as drug-trafficking; and prostitution as well as involvement in armed conflict.
The ANC-led government ratifies ILO laws against child labour as a way of stepping up opposition to the practice. The ANC believes that all children have the right to be protected from child labour and any other form of economic exploitation which endangers the child's mental, physical or psychological health and interferes with ... [Time expired.]