Clinton Calls for Global OK of Pact to Curb Child Labor

With diplomats working here to complete a long-sought pact to restrict child labor, President Clinton challenged the nations of the world Wednesday to endorse the agreement and end Dickensian conditions that enslave and endanger tens of millions of young people.

Praising the draft accord as “a true breakthrough for the children of the world,” Clinton also called on the 174 nations of the International Labor Organization, or ILO, to tackle the poverty that leads to abusive child labor.

Clinton’s speech to diplomats seeking to complete this week what will be perhaps the most extensive international agreement on protecting children in the workplace reflected a new White House emphasis on the problems at the intersection of global trade and poverty.

By protecting labor in general, relieving the developing world’s crushing debt burden and “ending the worst forms of child labor, we will be giving our children the 21st century they deserve,” Clinton said.

“Every single day, tens of millions of children work in conditions that shock the conscience,” Clinton said. “There are children chained to often-risky machines, children handling dangerous chemicals, children forced to work when they should be in school.”

The dangers facing children at work are the stuff of the 19th century still thriving 100 years later: respiratory diseases from laboring in mines; skeletal deformities caused by the weight of loads carried in brick-making factories; eye damage from working tiny knots on carpet looms; and the risk of death from explosions in factories that produce matches or fireworks.

Geneva was the first stop of a presidential trip that comes after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ended its 11-week air campaign against Yugoslavia. The European tour is built around this weekend’s 25th annual meeting of the G-7, the seven leading industrial democracies, now joined by Russia, in Cologne, Germany.

The annual economic meetings have become full-fledged summits devoted to global problems.

In Paris today, Clinton will meet with French President Jacques Chirac. On Sunday, he’ll meet with Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin.

The trip is scheduled to end Tuesday in Slovenia, where Clinton will salute that country, which gained democracy and independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Aides say Clinton may also stop in Macedonia.

Clinton was the first U.S. president to address the International Labor Organization, speaking in the Palais des Nations, the U.N.’s European headquarters.

The ILO is considered the leading global body dedicated to workers’ rights and improved labor conditions. It is unique among agencies that fall under the United Nations umbrella because governments, unions and employers are equally represented in its councils.

Nearly three decades ago, it tried to negotiate a broad agreement to protect working children, but the pact failed.

The renewed effort is seen as more limited in scope. It would seek to protect those younger than 18 from the most abusive conditions and work, including prostitution, pornography, slavery and labor in extremely hazardous conditions. It includes no enforcement provisions.

The U.N. agency reported in 1996 that about 250 million children ages 5 to 14, or a quarter of the world’s children, labor in developing countries, among them 153 million in Asia and 80 million in Africa. Nearly half work full time.

Tackling the problem, said Gene Sperling, the head of Clinton’s National Economic Council, is not just a case of shutting down a factory. “Chances are too great that you will drive a 10-year-old boy from the factories to running drugs, or a 10-year-old girl from the factories to prostitution,” Sperling said.

The ILO has focused on providing alternative avenues to earn money and on education.

Sperling said the administration expects to submit the completed agreement to the Senate later this year for ratification.