LABOUR: Clinton Wants Ban on Child Labour

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Jun 19 1999 (IPS) - U.S. president Bill Clinton called on governments worldwide Wednesday to stamp out “vicious forms of abusive child labour.”

Opening a weeklong European tour in Geneva, Clinton told the International Labor Oraganisation (ILO) that there were children ” chained to often-risky machines, children handling dangerous chemicals , children forced to work then they should be in school, preparing themselves and their counties for a better tomorrow.”

Clinton., the first US president to address the ILO, said “we must wipe from the Earth, the most vicious forms of abusive child labour. Every single day, tens of millions of children work in conditions that shock the conscience.”

He threw his support behind a treaty, scheduled for approval Thursday, that would require the ILO’s 174 member states to take immediate action to eliminate the worst forms of child labour. The treaty would ban the use of children aged under 18 from slavery, prostitution, pornography and other work that harmed their safety, health and morals.

Clinton, his wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea later to flew to Paris for a dinner date with French President Jaques Chirac. He will hold official talks with Chirac Thursday and then travel to Cologne for the annual summit of the Group of Seven major industrial powers plus Russia.

He also will visit the former Yugoslav republic of Slovenia.

Clinton also told the ILO that he wants to subject multilateral trade relations to compliance with labour regulations, a proposal known as “the social clause.”

The World Trade Organisation (WTO), which oversees trade liberalisation, should take on labour and the environmental issues, according to the US president.

Since 1986, when the Uruguay Round of the WTO negations began, U.S. leaders have tried unsuccessfully to introduce the recognition of labour agreements as a condition to all trade accords.

In successive WTO ministers conferences, from 1993 in Marrakesh to 1996 in Singapore, the U.S. proposal – backed by other industrialised nations – has been blocked by developing nations who only recognises the ILO’s jurisdiction over social issues.

U.S. negotiators have said they will insist on the social clause in the next WTO ministers conference to be held in the U.S. city of Seattle, Washington, at the end of November.

The Seattle conference is expected to make a decision on proposals calling for new round of multilateral negotiations to broaden the liberalisation of several trade issues, which may include social and environmental questions.

“Open trade is not contrary to the interests of working people,” Clinton told governmental, business and union delegates from the 174 ILO member states.

Renewed protectionism in any country could lead to retaliation that would hurt the standard of living for working people everywhere, he said. But he recognised that workers around the world did not share this opinion.

“Even in the United States, with the lowest unemployment rate in a generation, working people strongly resist new market- opening measures,” he said.

As far as the situation of poor countries, Clinton indicated that benefits of the modern economy too often go to those who already rich and powerful.

The president stated that he would insist on the social issue’s ties to the economy and finances this weekend in Cologne, during the summit that will bring together the seven largest industrial powers and Russia.

Clinton said he will pressure the so-called “G-8” nations for “improved co-operation between the ILO and international financial institutions in promoting social protections and core labour standards.”

In his speech welcoming Clinton, the general director of the ILO, Juan Somavia, echoed the president’s social concerns in the face of globalisation.

Somavia declared that a global economic system that does not extend its benefits to the weakest does not pass the test of basic human decency.