ANTI-SLAVERY INTERNATIONAL AND CHILD LABOUR

Anti-Slavery International has worked on child labour since the early 1900s. We have been systematically working on child labour issues since the 1970s, mainly in research and international advocacy.  Relevant ILO and UN standards underpin all Anti-Slavery International's work on child labour. We work collaboratively with other NGOs, inter-governmental bodies and trade unions, and focus on the worst forms of child labour and slavery-like practices.

Anti-Slavery International currently works in partnership with local NGO partners:

• Campaigning to end forced child begging of talibé children in Senegal, West Africa. Talibés are mostly boys as young as five who are sent to daaras (Koranic schools), usually far from home, and who are forced to beg for several hours every day for their keep. They may be verbally or physically abused if they do not meet the targets set by the Koranic masters. Recent estimates put the number of talibé boys on Senegal’s streets at 50,000. We are working with local NGOs to: raise awareness among families in local communities about the risks to their children of sending them away to daaras and empowering them to help end the practice and campaign for alternatives; lobby the Government of Senegal to do more to protect these children and ultimately ensure they are given a more rounded education in properly regulated schools nearer their homes; and raise the issue internationally, at the UN and elsewhere, to put more pressure on the Government to do this.


• Protecting child domestic workers from abuse and exploitation in six countries (Peru, Costa Rica, Philippines, India, Togo and Tanzania) through partnerships with local NGOs.  This involves: conducting research on the psychosocial impact of domestic work; assisting and supporting groups of child domestic workers through a small grants scheme;  and advocacy work at local, national and international levels to raise awareness about the situation of child domestic workers, strengthen actions that support them and influence law making processes


• Monitoring the implementation of legislation in Gulf States prohibiting the trafficking and use of under 18 year-olds as camel jockeys, and the prosecution of those involved.


• Increasing understanding and raising awareness of other issues, including children in the cocoa industry, child marriage and children in the armed forces.