Every 5 years representatives of governments, unions, employers, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and civil society come together to review the situation of working children worldwide, the progress made to eliminate the worst forms of child labour and the methodologies and approaches that proved successful to support that end. In 2022 this “Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour” will be set in Durban, South Africa.
As most of you know, it has been our goal from the start to ensure the participation of working children in this international forum. We have therefore had many meetings and discussions with different parties engaged in the organisation of that conference, primarily from ILO and the South African Government. While those meetings were at times challenging, we are happy to announce that in the end, selected civil society organisations were invited to send 5 children each to the conference in Durban, Dialogue Works included. We discussed this invitation with our Global CAC and chose 5 representatives to join the Conference.
These children will, together with 30 children from South Africa, attend a preparatory workshop on May 18th and a subsequent children’s forum on May 19th.
Given that this final decision was only communicated 3 weeks prior to the start of the conference, we are now trying our best to secure passports, visa, accommodation and flights four delegates. Any updates from our participation in the V. Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour will be communicated via our mailing list, our website and on Twitter. It is a great opportunity for Dialogue Works and working children to participate in global high level political debates and hopefully is a first step to institutionalise the participation of working children and youth in matters that affects them.