ILO launches university research programme on child labour

International Labour Organization (ILO) launched a University Research Programme on “Worst Forms of Child Labour” in collaboration with seven universities across the country.
The programme was jointly initiated with European Union under ILO project `Combating Abusive Child Labour II’ (CACL II) in which university students has been involved to conduct case studies on various aspects of Child Labour. In this connection, ILO is organizing an event to launch these media products on July 1, at 17:00 hours at Pak-China Friendship Centre, Islamabad. The event will include interesting stage and song performances by school children, documentaries produced by students of seven universities across the country. The Ambassador of European Union Delegation to Pakistan, Mr Lars-Gunnar Wigemark, would be the Chief Guest at the event, the Federal Secretary of Human Resource Development, provincial Secretaries of the Labor Departments, the President Employer Federation of Pakistan, and the General Secretary Pakistan Workers federation will be guests of honor. Participants will also include heads of various UN organizations working in Pakistan, diplomats, representatives of employers’ and worker’s organization, members of civil society, media personnel and university students. Talking to APP, Program Officer ILO, EC-CACL Project II, Zaheer Arif said the studies were conducted on worst form of child providing opportunities for the mass communication and media students of selected universities to do research studies and produce video documentary, short films, etc, to dig out its root causes and bring a behaviour change in the society. Our focus was to highlight various aspects of child labour including its causes, consequences, and impacts on development issues such as poverty, education, law enforcement, socio-economic development, cultural barriers and social norms trough these production, he further informed. Zaheer said the programme was initiated in December 2002 to raise interest and attract the future generation of media personnel at universities to be part of the movement against child labour and to mould them as activists from the students who will then take proactive actions to change.