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| by Shane Parkhill, age 16, Stratford Central S.S., Ontario, |
Jul 12, 2004 |
Flap Your Wings
The first and most important step to making a difference toward child labour is to know everything about it. Hopefully, you have become a little more informed by reading my piece, but you can never know too much. Take a Sunday off to research child labour and its many forms; check out organizations’ websites such as CIDA, UNICEF, Global March, and Human Rights Watch. Not only will you learn the causes and effects of child labour, but it will help to fuel a desire to help. I really didn’t care about child labour because I took much for granted. But, in researching child labour and writing this, I’ve developed a burning desire to do all I can to help these children. Use this effect on other people. Tell everyone you know about child labour, and the ways they can help prevent it. Let the knowledge infect like a cancer, until the tumorous desire to help these children grows too big to be ignored. The more personalized the issue of child labour gets, the harder it will be for people to take life for granted. Make pamphlets, posters, websites — anything you can. Tell your teachers; encourage them to have class discussions. Talk to your principal; organize an assembly. The more people you inform, the more people they can inform, and a chain reaction of prevention will have begun. Get involved with organizations that are already in place helping children every day, like Street Kids International, Global March, and Free the Children. Make donations, do presentations, or fund-raise. You can also join web-groups and forums to discuss child labour with people around the world. Once again, inform others of your actions and encourage them to partake in such actions as well.
The ultimate goal is to make a difference. Write to your local, provincial, or national government; encourage them to work with other national governments to enforce and uphold laws and conventions that have been made in the past but never upheld, such as ILO Convention 182.
Now this convention may look effective, but politicians like to do that. Just because we’ve come up with a plan and some nice laws doesn’t mean that anything is being done about child labour. If we are going to make agreements and conventions, then they should be followed.
As one person, you may not make much of a difference. Your voice may be lost along the way, or lie unheard under the screams and cries. This brings us back to the most important aspect: inform. Get as many voices as you can behind your message, until your message is so loud the chorus can be heard through closed doors and seen through blind eyes.
References
Azam, F. (1999). Nike and Pakistani Child Labor. Retrieved April 13, 2004, from
http://www.american.edu/TED/nike.htm
Badiwala, M. (1998). Child Labour in India: Causes, Governmental Policies and the Role of
Education. Retrieved April 12, 2004, from
http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Library/9175/inquiry1.htm
Canadian International Development Agency (2004). Child Labour. Retrieved April 25, 2004, from
CIDA Youth Zone Web site
http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/cida_ind.nsf/0/B24B7238F83BCF7985256E2300501723?OpenDocument
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Retrieved April 25, 2004, from United Nations
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
Worst Forms of Child Labour. Retrieved April 12, 2004, from Global March Against Child Labour
http://www.globalmarch.org/worstformsreport/
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