Today's Date:

In all the international fora where this issue is discussed, particularly the International Labour Organization, UNICEF and the United Nations General Assembly, France remains very vigilant on the subject of child labour.

She is particularly involved in the effort to combat child labour led by the International Labour Organization, and for several years has been making significant voluntary contributions to the ILO's International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) focusing on this action.

According to the ILO, and despite the prevalent problems in the battle against child labour which in many countries comes up against solid socio-cultural factors, this programme has produced some real results, particularly in Latin America, where several thousand children have been removed from the world of work and returned to school life thanks to subsidies paid to their mothers.

To help improve measures to combat child labour in the world, in 1999 the ILO drew up a new convention on prohibiting the "worst forms of child labour" which France ratified in 2001.

On the basis of this recent convention, already ratified by 120 countries in the world, the ILO is keen to refocus its action on the priority elimination of these worst forms of exploitation to which nearly 179 million children in the world are subjected, i.e. 1 child in 8 (sale and trafficking of children, forced labour, debt bondage and serfdom, use of children for prostitution or pornography or for illicit activities such as drug trafficking and work which is likely to harm a child's health, safety or morals).

In the framework of the new cooperation programme concluded between France and the ILO for the period 2002/2005, France is scheduled to increase her contributions to the IPEC programme./.