Global march core principles 2013

From Exploitation to Education Global March Against Child Labour is a worldwide coalition of civil society, teacher and trade union organisations united in their determination to protect and promote the rights of all children, in particular the right to receive a free, meaningful and good quality education and to be free from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be harmful to their physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.

The Global March began its journey to raise awareness of the prevalence of child labour through a physical march launched in Manila, Philippines, on 17 January 1999. The torch was taken up by organisations in over 100 countries on all continents and the march travelled 80,000 kms across the globe before arriving in Geneva, Switzerland, where it propelled the discussions on ILO Convention No. 182 on eliminating the worst forms of child labour as a priority for the international community.

ILO Convention No. 182 has been the fasted ratified Convention with 177 country ratifications. And ILO Convention 138 on Minimum Age of Employment has leapt from fewer than 50 ratifications in the 1990s to 165 today.

The march marked a turning point in the fight against child labour, bringing together like-minded organisations, institutions and individuals in a worldwide movement of national coalitions in about 140 countries. These coalitions have sustained efforts in their countries to raise public awareness, support positive policy changes, foster partnerships and enhance knowledge to help reduce the exploitation of children.

10 Things About Global March 1. A unique movement of workers, teachers and child rights advocates

Global March is the largest and most representative international coalition of civil society and trade union and teachers organisations united around the common platform of eliminating child labour across the world. It is in the process of reinforcing and reinvigorating its structures, programmes and activities based on a comprehensive independent evaluation.Emerging from this process, it is situating itself strategically in driving forward global civil society efforts to eliminate child labour, ensure education for all and tackle global poverty.

2. Collective action through coalition building

Global March, since 1998 has mobilised more than 2000 institutional partners in over 140 countries for the common goal of elimination of child labour and education for all children.

3. Targeting the most endemic form of child labour - child labour in agriculture

Global March has focused the attention on most endemic sector for child labour – agriculture and allied activities through the International Conference on Child Labour in Agriculture in Washington DC, USA in 2012. The conference brought together nearly 160 representatives from 40 countries spanning the range of key stakeholders on the issue, and committed to work on a Framework of Action.

4. Business not as usual for child labour free supply chains

Global March has engaged with businesses and supply chain actors, trade unions, civil society and government for a strategic and operational plan to reduce incidences of child labour in the garment manufacturing sector, sports goods industry, cocoa farming and the cotton and cotton-seed farming.

Launched World Cup Campaign 2002, to focus on use of child labour in the sports goods industry.

Organised “Fair Chocolate For the World” campaign, to focus attention on the use of child labour in the chocolate industry. Global March Chairperson is on the Board of the Cocoa Foundation, an initiative to create a child slavery free cocoa beans industry in Africa.

5. Dynamic campaigns to tackle new challenges - trafficking for forced labour and violence against children

Global March is not only about partnerships and coalition building. More importantly, it helps the partners work together on new and emerging challenges - such as trafficking of children for forced labour and violence against children, based on partners and countries own strategies.

6. Making the invisible visible

Global March drew attention to the hidden form of child labour and slavery ‘domestic child labour’ repeatedly through Child Domestic Labour Campaign 2001, 2006, 2011 and again in 2013.

7. Fostering inter-agency collaboration on child labour and education

Despite significant progress on reduction in child labour and education for all, there are large gaps in policy and programme coherence. To drive policy coherence and programme coordination, Global March organised High Level Round Table meetings in New Delhi (2003), Brasilia (2004) and Beijing (2005). This culminated in the formation of Global Task Force on Child Labour and Education, an inter-agency collaboration by the UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP, The World Bank, Education International and Global March to to find ways to better integrate work on child labour and education.

8. Bottom-up collective planning, strategy and action

Global March’s strategic plan of action for 2012-2016 prioritises knowledge building and management, strengthening coalitions and partnerships, and advocacy to end child labour and achieve education for all through a bottom-up process linking partners in countries, with regional structures and global policy priorities for poverty reduction and development.

9. Children advocating for their rights

Global March holds child participation and leadership is central to its work, and through the Children’s World Congresses (Florence, 2004, and New Delhi, 2005), it facilitated the Children’s Declaration on Child Labour and Education. The Children’s Declaration drafted by more than 150 children from over 55 countries is prioritised in the Global March’s strategic plan for 2012-2016.

10. Contributed to reduction in child labour and more children in schools, and learning

Global March has contributed to an overall reduction in child labour from 256 million at the turn of this century to 215 million in the last estimate in 2008, and about 57 million out-of-school children.

Strategic Plan of Action 2012-2016 The overall mission of the Global March is to support the elimination of child labour by developing strong knowledge management, strategic alliances, actions of political impact, social mobilisation and awareness till 2016.

Strategic Objectives: • • • •

To compile and disseminate a broad framework of knowledge, making the organisation a central point of reference on child labour.

To bring together a range of stakeholders to build and strengthen a coherent worldwide movement for the elimination of child labour.

To have clear and measurable impact on policies and programmes related to child labour through advocacy activities carried out in partnership with stakeholders.

To contribute significantly to meaningful and positive social change in favour of children’s rights through informed awareness-raising in partnership with stakeholders.

The Governing Board and regional coordination structure of the Global March is: • International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) - global workers union • Education International (EI) - global teachers union • WAO-Africa - Francophone Africa regional coordinator • Ghana Agricultural Workers Union - Anglophone Africa regional coordinator • Backward Society Education in Nepal - South Asia regional coordinator • CESIP - South America regional coordinator • Defense for Children International Costa Rica - Central America regional coordinator • American Center for International Labor Solidarity (Solidarity Center) - North America regional coordinator The regional coordinators are recognised networks or organisations either from the trade unions or child rights organisations, while the national coalitions are grounded in local contexts.

Alliances and partnerships International Union of Food workers (IUF) has a strong alliance with the Global March to end child labour in agriculture and allied activities. With the International Labour Organizations’ (ILO) International Programme for Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), Global March plays a key supporting role as a representative worldwide movement against child labour.

The Strategy for Change Strategy 1: To compile and disseminate a broad framework of knowledge, making the organisation a central point of reference on child labour.

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Global online platform for compilation, management and dissemination on experiences and lessons learnt on child labour, to enable their exchange with the child labour advocates and the grassroots organisations, including the legal framework in countries on child labour and ascertaining the commitment compliance country-wise.

Undertaking researches and studies on different emerging aspects of child labour, namely, business and child labour, child labour and hard-to-reach and out-of-school children, trafficking of children for forced labour.

Compiling a repertoire of policy and advocacy tools on child labour, business responsibility, out-of-school children, child labour and conflict affected areas, child labour in post-2015 agenda, child labour and violence against children for a documentation ad research centre on child labour.

Strategy 2: To bring together a range of stakeholders to build and strengthen a coherent worldwide movement for the elimination of child labour.

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Organise 3 regional consultations (Africa, Americas and Asia) on child labour, trafficking of children for forced labour and education for all to develop regional and national plans of actions for common action and advocacy.

Regional workshops organised on child labour with new stakeholders such as businesses, farmers organisations, sectoral trade unions, faith based groups, etc. to develop minimum agendas on child labour elimination in specific sectors (identified regionally).

Build the capacity of civil society organisations and non-traditional actors in at least 6 countries across 3 regions for advocacy to end child domestic labour.

Undertaken capacity building of young workers to influence and mobilise support in demand of their human rights in 3 countries across 3 regions.

Strategy 3: To have clear and measurable impact on policies and programmes related to child labour through advocacy activities carried out in partnership with stakeholders.

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Promote decent employment for young workers and transform hazardous child labour into decent young employment especially in agriculture through programmes in 6 countries across 3 regions.

Build strategic alliances on child domestic labour, child labour in agriculture, child labour and supply chains, and trafficking and slavery for public awareness and advocacy campaign, globally, regionally and nationally.

Participate in discussions and advocacy on policies and programmes on child labour at national, regional and global level on a regular basis - namely, with decision makers, technical committees on child labour, task forces on child labour, etc.

Contribute to discussions and evidence based advocacy on child labour in the education agenda, violence against children and post-2015 development agenda, through presentation of policy briefs, compilation of country-wise information, reviews of commitments, and others.

Strategy 4: To contribute significantly to meaningful and positive social change in favour of children’s rights through informed awareness-raising in partnership with stakeholders.

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Undertaken evidence based awareness campaign on rural education and child labour in agriculture.

Expand on the process of engaging and sharing information with non-traditional actors on hazards of work for children and protection of young workers across 3 regions.

Develop campaigns with national partners to generate/strengthen/modify policies related to protection against hazardous work and young workers, in at least 3 countries across 3 regions.

With national partners compile country-wise assessments/report cards of commitments vis-a-vis actions for the goal of elimination of the worst forms of child labour by 2016 and education goals by 2015 for awareness raising and advocacy in countries.

Making child labour HISTORY Making education a REALITY The challenge of making child labour and slavery HISTORY and books, pens, teachers, classrooms and schools a REALITY requires major cooperation and resources. Global March is committed to doing this by bringing all stakeholders together, promoting knowledge-based advocacy and campaigns and fostering a culture of partnerships for common goals and actions.

Global March will achieve the goal of elimination of child labour and education for all through actions and activities of its members, notably the trade union organisations represented by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) ; the teachers union organisations through the Education International (EI) and the child rights organisations represented in its Governing Board. These members are able to adopt different approaches for customising the most strategic policy mix for intervention in a country as well as regionally, and translate the learnings for global outreach through committed and competent staff at the International Secretariat of the Global March.

Kailash Satyarthi, Chairperson, E: kailash@globalmarch.org

International Secretariat L-6, Kalkaji, New Delhi 110019, India | T: +91 11 4921 1111, F: +91 11 4921 1138 | E: info@globalmarch.org www.globalmarch.org