Durban, May 19, 2022 - Last Sunday, the fifth world conference was ceremoniously opened in Durban in South Africa. It is organized by the International Working Organization (ILO) and the South African government. For the first time, a children's forum is also intended in the program, where working children discuss their perspectives and recommendations with adult decision -makers themselves.
Kindenothilfe and Terre des Hommes have been working together as part of the Dialogue Works campaign for several years to ensure that the right -wing children have been realized in participation in political dialogues. »For years we have been with the ILO in dialogue about the need to not only talk about working children, but also to give them a voice at events such as this conference. We are all the more pleased that five children from our children's committees in Zambia, Kenya and Guatemala are now discussing on site in Durban. It was high time that those who have the most to say as working children have to say. They speak from their own experience and bring a differentiated view of their work into politics, «says Antje Ruhmann, child rights officer at Terre des Hommes and coordinator of the campaign. Many working children are particularly important that a distinction is made between exploitation and child labor: easy activities often only enable school visit. On the other hand, there is agreement that any form of exploitation must be ended as quickly as possible, as it harms the development of the children and prevents school visit.
The conference agenda includes important topics such as education, social security, the effects of covid-19 pandemic or child labor in supply chains. »The children's forum is a first important step to translate these topics from the children's perspective in a practical way into political measures. With regard to the future, we consider a permanent and institutionally anchored participation of the children to be indispensable in order to achieve more effect in the long term, «summarizes Lea Kulakow, Advocy-Officer of Kinderothilfe and co-coordinator of Dialogue Works for the future. This corresponds to the wishes of the child workers: "Millions of children have the same dreams, but not the same conditions to realize them," explains Lupupa from Zambia, who visits such a conference for the first time. "We need more opportunities to be able to participate in the political events." But he will be delegated to the children's forum on Thursday. Interested parties can follow the forum through the live stream of the conference.
Dialogue Works (2020-2024) is a campaign by Kinderothilfe and Terre des Hommes, which supports working children from 15 countries in participating in political dialogues from local to global level. In the previous project »Time to Talk!«, Almost 2,000 working children from 36 countries were initially published by their view of their work. This formed the basis for the then political dialogues. This work is financed by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).