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The FIET Child Labour Campaign got started in 1987 Combating child labour has been high on FIET’s agenda for many years. Already before the issue became a focal point of widespread interest outside the specialised agencies working with the problem, FIET started developing its own approach for awareness-creation and concrete action. In a resolution from the 23rd FIET World Congress in Lomé, Togo in 1987, FIET demanded that the abolition of child labour be recognised as a "central goal in efforts to achieve a fairer economic and social order in the world" and that "ILO Conventions and Recommendations are applied to the full in all workplaces, even when child labour is involved." The resolution pointed at social clauses in international agreements on free trade as one of the ways to go about this and also called for awareness creation and a plan of action to be drawn up.  Guinea in West Africa is one of the countries all over the world where FIET conducts extensive organisation development and education activities. To combat child labour is an important issue in this work. Following up on this first policy decision, the FIET Youth Committee initiated a campaign to combat child labour. The Committee called for action to be taken by the international community to create better education opportunities for children, to reduce poverty and to curb child labour. FIET and its affiliates were called upon to intensify their efforts to prevent the sale and purchase of goods and services produced by children. Child labour has been a major item on the Youth Committee’s agenda all through the 1990’s. FIET Commerce starts to take concrete action against child labour The EURO-FIET Commerce Trade Section that represents all leading commercial workers’ trade unions in the world has responded to the challenge of the Youth Committee and placed child labour on its agenda. In 1994, the issue was raised within the formal European Social Dialogue for Commerce, as an initiative for joint action by the social partners, EURO-FIET and EuroCommerce. In 1995, an agreement was concluded whereby the social partners in wholesale and retail trade in Europe, with the support of the European Commission, aim at speeding up the process of eliminating child labour by excluding all goods produced through exploiting children as labourers from European markets and calling for measures to provide support and alternatives for children and their families in the countries concerned. The Joint Statement by the European social partners in commerce will be followed up in co-operation with the European Commission and the social partners and governments of the European Union Member States. Many of FIET’s affiliates have already negotiated and concluded agreements with employers and employers’ organisations about this issue, as a follow up to the Joint Statement. They are also participating in setting up the necessary verification measures and in the opinion building that is involved. The World Congress in Vienna speaks out against exploitation of children Child labour was one of the major issues discussed by the thousand trade unionists representing the 11 million FIET members in 110 countries from both industrialised and developing countries in all parts of the world, at the FIET World Congress in July 1995 in Vienna, Austria.  Also FIET's
affiliates are actively participating in the fight against child labour. The commercial
workers' union in Sao Paulo, Brazil works with the city's thousands of street children.
The mobile clinic is an important part of this work, giving medical and dental services to
street children all over Sao Paulo. The global campaign
against child labour, Agreement
between Euro-FIET and EuroCommerce The Euro-FIET
Commerce document to NEW: EU - US Meeting on Codes of Conduct, February 1998
Our e-mail address
is: jan_furstenborg@fiet.org
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