Pope Francis on Monday, May 16, acknowledged “significant progress” that has been made in the fight against child labor, in a message addressed to participants in the 5th World Conference on the Elimination of Child Labor, which takes place May 15-20 in Durban, South Africa.
The message, read by the apostolic nuncio in the country, Archbishop Peter Bryan Wells, reviews some situations that have aggravated the exploitation of child labor, before inviting to fight this scourge in a “resolute, joint and decisive way “.
The global health crisis, the spread of extreme poverty in many parts of the world, the lack of decent work opportunities for adults and adolescents, migration and humanitarian emergencies are all condemning reasons, according to the sovereign pontiff , “millions of young girls and boys to a life of economic and cultural impoverishment”.
He lamented the fact that “too many little hands” are still “busy plowing the fields, working in the mines, walking great distances to fetch water and doing jobs that prevent them from go to school”.
Millions of children are victims of prostitution, which deprives them “of the joy of their youth and of their God-given dignity,” the pope also pointed out.
Among his recommendations, the pope encourages participants to address the “structural causes of global poverty and the scandalous inequality that continues to exist among members of the human family” and to seek “appropriate and effective means of protect the dignity and rights of children, in particular by promoting social protection systems and access to education for all”.
The Conference is organized under the auspices of the International Labor Organization (ILO), which aims to end the exploitation of young people by 2025.
This is the first time that this event has been hosted in an African country. The president of the host country, Cyril Ramaphosa, for whom “child labor is an enemy of progress”, indicated on Sunday at the opening of the meeting that “no country and no economy can consider itself at the forefront progress if its success and wealth have been built on the backs of children”.
“We are here because we recognize the urgent need to end a situation where millions of children around the world are wasting their formative years under the burden of unjust responsibility,” he said, among other things. , added.
By OMA Newsletter N° 707 of 18/05/2022
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