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[12 June 2007] - After five years of campaigning against child trafficking by Terre des Hommes we are seeing results. Child trafficking is no longer an unnoticed phenomenon, it is now firmly on the international agenda and some national legislation has improved. However these outcomes remain largely insufficient, as they have not yet reached hundreds of thousands of children. Therefore Terre des Hommes continues to provide direct aid to child victims of trafficking and those at risk through field projects, and is active at a global level to increase standards of child protection. “The world economy is growing at a pace last seen in the 1970s and yet contemporary forms of slavery such as child trafficking remain usual”, said Raffaele Salinari, President of the International Federation Terre des Hommes. “This illustrates our dysfunctional world where children are treated as mere commodities instead of being seen as human beings with a vital socio-economic role”. Terre des Hommes works to protect children from trafficking through 73 field projects in 38 countries. Its strategies are aimed at developing protective mechanisms within the communities of children at risk, and ensuring the long-term reintegration of trafficked children. It researches the causes and mechanisms of child trafficking in order to provide adequate responses that really improve the life of affected children. Terre des Hommes also works with countries of origin and destination of trafficked children to foster bi-lateral and regional cooperation. One of the causes of child labour is the fact that the children’s survival and that of their families depends on it. It is estimated that 126 million children are still trapped in hazardous forms of work, to which the international community has committed to put a stop. These children are deprived of care and protection, and lose their formative years. An ILO study has shown that the economic benefits of eliminating child labour are nearly seven times greater than the costs. Trafficking is a mechanism that forces children into the worst forms of child labour. It is a complex combination of moving children out of their usual environment, which increases their vulnerability, and making money out of them through exploitative labour or demand for sexual services. Children can be trafficked into jobs that are particularly hazardous, sometimes because employers specifically want malleable youngsters to do such work, and sometimes because, once trafficked into a country where they have no legal status, the children can only work in jobs where they have no legal protection. Since the mechanisms of child trafficking have become better known, Terre des Hommes demands that the international community take energetic measures to put an end to this practice and to ban policies which further penalise trafficked children, such as their deportation following summary procedures.