One primary goal of our campaign is to empower working children and to encourage them to advocate on their own behalf. One excellent example of such an advocacy action is presented by the Children’s Advisory Committee (CAC) from our partner Children’s Voice Today in Rwanda.

They initiated an advocacy dialogue with political decisionmakers, representatives of child rights organisations and the media. The CAC members had prepared a presentation on common cases of hazardous child labour that still occur within the district, and on the impact this has on children’s lives. They also proposed solutions on how to address the issue of children engaged in harmful work, including  identifying children engaged in harmful work, gather all the information about them, gain their trust, remove them from harmful work, and reintegrate them into their families, as well as sensitizing parents, children, and employers on child labour.

The decision-makers acknowledged the issues raised by children and committed themselves to join efforts to combat child labour by carrying out community awareness on the effects of child labour, reinforce inspections, sharing information on child labour, the support of the child labour steering committee from village to district level to monitor and report child labour cases, and thoroughly implementing government programs aimed at reducing poverty, and  punishing the perpetrators.

The advocacy dialogue was also covered in local media.