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Summary: From the 4 to the 8 of September 2005 the Second Children's World Congress on Child Labour and Education was held in New Delhi.
From the 4 to the 8 of September 2005 the Second Children's World Congress on Child Labour and Education was held in New Delhi. It was organised by the Global March against Child Labour and hosted by its core partner in India, Bachpan Bachao Andolan. Children from 30 different countries including Ethiopia, Pakistan, Philippines, Cameroon, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Iran, Mexico, Malawi, Costa Rica, Japan, and Nepal with children from India attended the Congress. A fifteen-member delegation including nine children represented Pakistan in this Congress. The objective of this ongress was to provide justice to the children, who were denied the visa and could not participate in the First Children's World Congress. This would have given them a platform to share their opinions, experiences and ideas and learn from one another, not to forget empowering them in the process to emerge as the leaders in the struggle against child labour. Other objectives were to formulate a Children's Plan of Action to implement the Declaration made by the children in the First Children's World Congress. As well as to strengthen the Children's Reference Group, elected in the First Children's World Congress by the child participants with the new child leaders to be elected in the Second Children's World Congress. The new Children's Reference Group will take lead to facilitate the communication, co-ordination and implementation of the decisions made in the World Congresses (Declaration/Plan of Action) and to represent the voices of children in global, regional, or national discussions or actions on child labour. Equally, this Congress was meant to strengthen, broaden and consolidate a world-wide child and youth movement against child labour through the establishment of a strong network, and to remind governments to fulfil their promises to ratify and implement ILO Conventions 182 and 138. The struggle against child labour and for education for all involving the civil society members must be made stronger, and include trade unions, teachers unions, NGOs, and various other stakeholders, which can give significant contribution to the goal. Consolidate a clear demand for synergising efforts on the elimination of child labour, the achievement of education for all, poverty reduction and to restore security and peace as one of the cornerstones for children's rights. Urging international organisations to increase their support to programmes aimed at eradicating child labour, poverty reduction, achieving universal, free, and quality education for all children and to call on international development agencies, development banks and donors to give education the support it needs. Not to forget to urge the debt and debt service reduction in favour of national and international educational programmes. In short, to transform an event into a process in order to empower children and make them realise that they are capable of creating a New World free of child labour. The Second Children’s World Congress provided once again the children an opportunity to emerge as social activists and world leaders at the forefront of the child rights movement. The Congress offered unique opportunity and power to the children in fashioning the future growth and development of the children's movement. The objectives were excellent, but there were some problems in the management. The schedule was very hectic. Working days were too long (8:30am - 7pm). Dinners and evening cultural programmes were held one hour away from the Congress hall. At the end all the delegates especially children were very tired. On the last day, the Delhi March was arranged in extremely poor conditions. It was a very hot day of summer when a large number of children with other delegates covered a distance of about 2km under the scorching sun without having a drop of water to drink. During the final ceremony the organisers and speakers stood in the shadow of tents, holding mineral water bottles in their hands but thousands of thirsty children were standing bare head in the hot sunshine. Although it was a great opportunity for the children from all over the world to fashion the future growth and development of the children's movement, the truth is that it was certainly not a good experience for the Pakistani children.