Solis, Harkin on Child Labor Roundtable This Week
Their conversation will call attention to June 12's 2009 World Day Against Child Labor, an international event to focus attention on the continuing problem of the exploitation of girls in child labor.
U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis will be part of a roundtable panel on Wednesday to mark 2009 World Day Against Child Labor, an international event on June 12 celebrating progress made in the past decade against child labor. It also focuses attention on the continuing problem of the exploitation of girls in child labor. The roundtable will begin at 10 a.m. EDT; panelists will be Solis; U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who is the third-ranking Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee; Tina Tchen, executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls; and Sandra Polaski, Department of Labor deputy under secretary for International Affairs.
This World Day is the 10th anniversary of the adoption of ILO Convention No. 182, which called for action against the worst forms of child labor. The World Health Organization estimates 100 million girls worldwide are working. The International Labour Organization’s standards require that countries establish a minimum age of employment (usually 15, although developing countries can set the age at 14) and that children up to age 17 not do work designated as a worst form of child labor.
Large numbers of young girls work in agriculture and manufacturing, frequently in dangerous conditions, and young girls frequently perform domestic work in third-party households, according to WHO.