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[26 August 2013] - The United Nations labour agency today launched a new tool to help countries eliminate children’s involvement in slavery, child prostitution, drug trafficking and other types of the worst forms of child labour by 2016. The UN International Labour Organization (ILO) created the training guide – “Implementing the Roadmap for achieving the elimination of the worst forms of child labour: a training guide for policy makers” – for Government, workers’ and employers’ organizations and international and non-governmental organizations. “The guide is both a training tool and a stepping-stone towards the drafting or revision of a National Action Plan (NAP) against the worst forms of child labour,” Constance Thomas, Director of the ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), said in a statement. An estimated 115 million are involved in the worst forms of child labour, according to ILO figures. “It will bring new momentum to national efforts to reach this challenging goal,” Ms. Thomas added in reference to the 2016 deadline to eliminate the worst forms of child labour. The guide includes a series of training exercises, illustrative text boxes, and addresses monitoring and evaluation as an essential feature of successful action plans, according to the statement. The guide is released ahead of the Global Child Labour Conference, which will take place in 8-10 October in Brazil. The 2010 conference in The Hague adopted the “Roadmap for achieving the Elimination of the worst forms of child labour by 2016.” The roadmap, which breaks down data by age, gender and region, showed that Asia-Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean continue to reduce child labour, while sub-Saharan Africa has witnessed an increase. Africa also has the highest incidence of children working, with one in four children engaged in child labour.