UNICEF: Schooling as solution to child labour

UNICEF has launched an initiative to combat child labour with pilot programmes aimed at providing schooling to some of the estimated 250 million children aged five to 14 who are forced to work full time in developing countries. The initiative covers 29 countries, five of which are in West Africa: Benin, Cameroon, Guinea, Mali and Senegal. It includes special educational strategies for working children through flexible schooling hours, equivalent out-of-school educational programmes and economic incentives for parents so their children can attend school rather than work. The initiative, which also stresses the need to attack child labour itself, will be greatly helped by the passage in June of the International Labour Organisation's Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said, urging all nations to ratify the convention. "The Convention specifically mandates that educational options be provided to working children," Bellamy said. "Its ratification will be a central event in the movement to end child labour."