Ethiopia. Rod Waddington/Flickr. CC (by)
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC) has provided for children to be heard in all matters concerning them. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has excluded anyone under the age of 18 from the IV Global Conference on the Sustained Eradication of Child Labour, currently taking place in Buenos Aires. Supposedly for their protection.
In October, around 300 children, adolescents, academics, NGOs, governmental representatives from Bolivia and working children from Latin America, Europe and West Africa gathered in La Paz, Bolivia, as an alternative meeting to discuss the policies of the ILO and the Bolivian government. The Bolivian government has been heavily criticised by the ILO for its law on children and adolescents adopted by the parliament three years ago. Because that prioritises the protection of working children against a general ban of their work. In addition, the working children took stock of 41 years of their organisational history.
