The United Nations' labor agency, the International Labor Organization, has launched a campaign to draft and ratify an Asian regional agreement against trafficking in child labor, including slavery, prostitution and bonded labor. The ILO hopes to have a convention drafted by 1998 and ratified in 1999. Its aim would be to involve governments on a regional basis to work together to improve enforcement of child labor laws.
The labor agency says thousands of girls from Bangladesh and Nepal are sold into brothels in India every year. Children from Burma, Cambodia, China and Laos supply brothels and legitimate businesses in rapidly industrializing Thailand, such as construction projects, restaurants and fishing boats.
Guy Thijs, an ILO coordinator in Asia, said at a news conference in Bangkok there is evidence that child-trafficking problems are increasing. "The prosperity and economic development that Asia has been going through has, ironically, been a contributing factor," he observed.
Middlemen can be found in villages around Southeast Asia, supplying child-trafficking networks, the ILO official said. They sometimes ask a teacher about certain children, then negotiate a cash payment with the parents.
Mobility between countries has helped, as has the availability of jobs and money in countries such as Thailand that are surrounded by poorer neighbors.
Prosperity is a sham if it is achieved through the exploitation of children. Asian governments must face up to the need to stop this abominable practice. The ILO can help, but it cannot succeed without the support of the governments concerned.
It is imperative that the United States continues to assure South Korea of its full support in dealing with developments with its volatile neighbor.
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