World Day Against Child labour 2021
The UN marks the International Day Against Child Labour on 12th June every year. This year the focus is on ensuring the COVID19 epidemic doesn’t negatively impact years of progress towards eliminating child labour.
Omladinska organizacija Svitac (Firefly Bosnia) marked this day with its participants. We shared a couple of videos: the first was about child labour in Iran, where children are made to beg for money. The children reflected on this video, stating that some children have to work, that they don’t have any choice and that their education is harmed by not being able to go to school. They observed cases in the local community of young children who sadly also have to beg for money and are not able to go to school.
They watched another video from India, of children who are forced to work in a dangerous mine from a young age. This prompted similar responses, with the participants also noting that they are lucky to not have such pressure or difficulties at a young age. After that, we looked at children’s rights, and our participants drew and wrote about rights, such as the rights to love, play and healthy food. They presented these rights in a short video form.
All of these activities reminded our participants that many children around the world are suffering, but also that they have a right to a happy childhood, education, healthy food and love.
