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News & Updates

ILO and Save the Children UK Launch Major Initiative to Counter Child Trafficking in SE Asia

August 2004

The International Labour Organization (ILO) and Save the Children UK announced the launch of a major joint advocacy initiative designed to empower children as full partners in the fight against human trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS).

Across the GMS, children of all ages are trafficked for sexual, labour and other forms of exploitation, within and between countries.

This project, through the facilitation of a series of Children's Forums to be held in five countries in the GMS – Cambodia, China (Yunnan), Lao PDR, Thailand and Vietnam – will seek to let children themselves discuss the best ways to fight child trafficking.

The young delegates – either previous victims of trafficking or living in areas where the risk of trafficking is a day-to-day reality – will discuss their experiences of trafficking and child labor, the present circumstances of children like them, and how governments have helped or hindered their struggle for a better life.

Each forum will conclude with delegates adopting a Children's Agenda for Action to counter trafficking, exploitation, and ill-prepared migration of young people. The delegates from each Forum will also choose four of their peers to attend the sub-regional Mekong Children's Forum from October 10 - October 16, 2004 in Bangkok, where they will draft a Sub-regional Mekong Children's Agenda for Action on Trafficking and present it to senior government Ministers and Senior Officials from the five countries.

The five Governments are taking part in the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking (COMMIT) organized by the UN Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (UNIAP). Through the COMMIT process, the Governments are expected to develop and endorse a Sub-regional Plan of Action to Combat Human Trafficking.

For more information, please contact:

Mr. Allan Dow
Communications Officer
Mekong Children's Forum
Tel: (66) (0) 2288-2057
Mobile: (66) (0) 9891-5003
Fax: (66) (0) 2288-3063
Email: dow@ilo.org

Ms. Wannachan Chaimontree
Communications Officer
Mekong Children's Forum
Tel: (66) (0) 2684-1286
Fax: (66) (0) 2684-1289
Email: wannachan@seapro.org.th