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Prior to the UN Millennium Development Goal Summit, held in New York from 20-22 Sep, Global March is launching a campaign for the inclusion of child labour elimination as a priority to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

A key element of this campaign is a global online petition to support this demand and to link the review of progress of the MDGs during the summit with the acclamation of the Roadmap for Achieving the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour by 2016.

In this respect, the Chair of Global March, Kailash Satyarthi, said: "We are only five short years away from 2015 and we know we are off track on achieving the MDGs. In addition, if we fail to achieve them, then inevitably we will fail to achieve the goal of eliminating the worst forms of child labour by 2016."

The Global March Against Child Labour is an international movement to protect and promote the rights of all children. It began with a worldwide march in 1998, when thousands of people marched together to jointly put forth the message against child labour. EI is a member of the boards of both Global March Against Child Labour and the Global Campaign for Education, a worldwide movement aimed at providing Education for All.

While not explicit in the list of eight MDG's adopted by world leaders in 2000, eliminating child labour is a critical issue that cuts across all the other Goals, aimed at slashing poverty, hunger, disease, maternal and child deaths and other ills by a 2015 deadline.

UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, insisted in the importance of the September summit as a crucial opportunity "to redouble our efforts to meet the Goals. Our world possesses the knowledge and the resources to achieve the MDGs," he also stated in his report in preparation for the event, "our challenge today is to agree on an action agenda to achieve the MDGs."

To sign the petition please click here.