LATEST NEWS FROM YOKOHAMA

Young People Speak up, But not Without Caution

By Johanna Son

Japan's Princess Tamakadowith Sweden's Queen Silvia to her right, at the session with kids.

YOKOHAMA, Japan, Dec 17 (IPS) - ''What if a child wants to work? Is that child labour or a working child?'' asked a Filipino youngster in a workshop at the ongoing global congress on the commercial sexual exploitation of children here .

''Why haven't all the countries approved the Convention on the Rights of the Child?'' a teener asked. ''What are you doing to get the United States to support it?''

''We met some young women at the Manila airport and they were going to Japan to work as entertainers,'' explained one Filipino participant. ''Why does Japan accept them, when they are young girls?''

These were some of the probing questions young people asked Monday of speakers from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), with people like Princess Tamakado of Japan and Queen Silvia of Sweden in the audience.

Some questions, especially those about the U.S. government's non-ratification of the child rights convention, drew smiles from some, who said they found the queries not simple ones to answer at the Second World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children.

In reply, Kati Tapiola, ILO executive director of the standards and fundamental principles and rights at work, explained to some 70 young people in the discussion the distinction between work a child might want to do periodically and the type of heavy work that makes it child labour.

The children did not hold their punches, with one asking Tapiola: ''Why doesn't the ILO call child labour like it is (exploitation)?''

Tapiola agreed that conditions that force children into heavy, risky work ''have to be understood as exploitation, which poverty cannot justify''.

UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy had her share of tough questions about the child rights convention. She explained that Washington is one of two countries - the other being Somalia - that have not yet ratified it because of a traditionally wary attitude toward any chance of compromising the rights of states.

''This is a mistaken view'' because countries have not experienced any weakening of state power because of such internationally binding treaties, she added.

The workshop underscored the high profile that young people have at the Yokohama conference, where greetings of ''distinguished delegates and young people'' have become oft-heard ones.

There are 90 young people out of 3,300 attending the congress. Some, like that from Sweden, are part of their governments' delegations.

The young people, who come from Asia, Africa, North America and Europe, are all full delegates to the conference like the adult attendees, many of them summiteers from other big meetings.

''Children and young people are very necessary in the response to commercial sexual exploitation of children,'' a youngster from South Africa told the opening plenary session.

Cherry Kingsley from Canada, speaking on behalf of the NGO Group for the Convention in the Rights of the Child, added that young people must be engaged in the development of law policy programmes and services to make them responsive to exploited children.

''Crucial to this understanding is the voice of vulnerable and exploited children,'' said Kingsley, a survivor of sexual exploitation who now campaigns for child rights. ''(But) if you see us only as victims you have missed the point. We could be leaders, indeed many of us are.'' ''It is crucial for children to participate in this conference,'' she said at a briefing later. ''The policymakers don't know much about the issue. If our reality is not reflected in the laws, then they are not going to be effective.''

Before the Yokohama congress opened, young people held their own meeting in Kawasaki city and by Thursday will have a parallel declaration to that of the adults. This is unlike the first congress in Stockholm, Sweden in 1996, when they were on the sidelines, confined to separate activities.

But while they have agreed to speak up and experts acknowledge that their voices need to be heard in Yokohama, the young people want to do this with a dose of caution - given unpleasant lessons from the past.

In Stockholm, they were eager to talk to media and even held a press conference - but just minutes later, some young people had ended up in tears. Some journalists had asked questions like ''have you been in a brothel before?'' and the youngsters were not prepared for such queries.

The next day, a newspaper ran a picture of one of teenagers in tears, with a caption that said she had been a prostitute, recalled June Kane, congress communication advisor at Stockholm and at the Yokohama meeting.

This time, young people are dealing with media at a safe distance. Journalists can interview young people only at coordinated briefings or with a chaperone at their side, a process that a number of journalists said they understood even if somewhat bureaucratic.

''We all agree that young people need to be heard, because they know the subject better than we do,'' Kane said, ''but at the time they had no training (to face media).''

''Even for adults it's something else to be prepared to field questions at a press conference,'' she said, so this time the young people and their representatives underwent training beforehand. The chaperone system is aimed at ''protecting the young people if the questions become too intrusive'', she explained.

Also, officials say paedophiles' groups have been known to try to come into conferences on child sexual exploitation and distribute material -- or argue their case.

On Monday, a list of coverage rules were distributed to journalists along with a copy of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) draft guidelines for reporting on issues affecting children. ''Media contacts for youth participants will be restricted to controlled environments -- media members will not be allowed free and unplanned contacts with youth participants,'' the list said. ''The youth resource people must have explicitly agreed to be put into contact with media,'' it added.

The IFJ guidelines say that even if young people who have been victims of sexual exploitation or abuse are willing to speak up - and are effective activists and powerful speakers -- ''some do not realise the risk they may be running in allowing their identity/image to be revealed, the pressure that can arise out of -- even fleeting press interest and profile.'' (END)

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