EI to participate in the Global Conference on Child Labour
A delegation of Education International will bring the teacher voice at the 3rd Global Conference on Child Labour, which will be held from 8 to 10 October 2013, in Brasilia, Brazil.
The conference, which is of an advisory nature, will evaluate progress and adopt strategies to further eliminate child labour by 2016. It is a key event in EI’s child labour work, and the expertise of education unions is highly valued.
A delegation of teacher union representatives from 14 countries will participate in the conference with the aim of lobbying all conference stakeholders (Governments, employers, civil society organisations and, of course, workers) to commit to an empowering declaration.
Every day teachers, supported by their unions, take actions to eliminate child labour from their communities. In some countries, teachers visit families when children are about to drop out, in others they bring about change in curricula or in teaching frameworks so that children freed from child labour feel welcome and respected in the classroom.
Governments acknowledging their prime responsibility – in cooperation with employers’ and workers’ organizations, and other civil society actors – in preventing, eliminating child labour and rescuing children; and committing to improve access to free, compulsory and quality education for all children; this is what is expected from this Global Conference on Child Labour. Coming out from Brasilia with such a strong declaration would provide a good basis for teacher unions to be decisively supported in action on the field.
The Brasilia conference is to take stock of all the actions taken in the fight against child labour and to widely exchange and share good practices and initiatives. It will be an unique opportunity for EI and teacher unions to share their experience in this field.
EI will also intervene at the Conference Session on Education on 9 October. EI Senior Coordinator, Dominique Marlet, will be a co-panellist with UNICEF.
The EI advocacy on child labour is a key component of the Unite for Quality Education campaign which has been launched on 4 October. The campaign aims to catalyse large support for universal access to quality education to remains at the top of the agenda for a sustainable, peaceful and prosperous global future.
