The Progress of Nations 2000

1) It C It E S S N A T I () N S

The lost children
Byjuan Somavia

Barely heard and hardly seen, hundreds of
millions of children endure grave and multiple
violations of their rights. Among these children are
the millions who labour on farms and in factories,
who are trapped in commercial sexual exploitation,
child soldiers, the millions not registered at birth,
those lacking access to clean water and education,
those not immunized and the millions living on
the streets. The plight of all these children demands
far more than the muted response it has so far
evoked from the global community.

reathtaking numblers
of children are lost
every d(lay around the
globe. Far too many -
30,500 each d(lay,
11 million each year- d(ie from
largely lpreventable causes.
But as heartbreaking and senseless as those deaths are, it is not
abouJt them that 1 write. I am
speaking of the millions upon
mlillionls of children who are lost
among the living. Ma(le virtually
invisilble by the deepest poverty,
not registered at birth - andi thus
(lenied l official acknowle(lgement
of their name and nationality
and the protection of their rights
they end(lure in profoun(l odbscurity.
The lost children are the most
exploited, the poorest of the poor:
chlild soldiers, girls in rothels,
young bonded workers in the
factories, sweatshops, fields and

homes of our seemingly prosperous globe. They are robbed of their
health, their growth, their etlucation - and often even their lives.
Of the estimated 250 million
children between the ages of 5
and 14 who are economically
active, some 50 million to 60 million between the ages of 5 and 11
are engaged in such intolerable
forms of labour.
To grasp the scale of the numhers, imagine a country as lpopulous as the United States, in
which the entire pop)ulation is
made i of child labourers. Then
imagine further, within that populatioln, an underclass of children more numerous than the
citizens of France or the United
Kingdom, working in conditions
that cripple their bodies and
mindts, stunt their growth and
shorten their lives.

No one would tolerate such an
abomination if it were visible
and concentrated in one place.
Yet we continue to tolerate it in a
hidden and dispersed form, to
our collective peril and shame.
Recldess endangerment
The lives of these lost children
are endangered from birth, by
malnutrition, frequent disease
and unhygienic environments.
All are children of the poor; they
number some 600 million and
subsist on less than $1 a day.
They can be found in many
of the overlapping populations
known through numbing statistics: the more than 200 million
children whose growth has been
stunted, the nearly 170 million
who are underweight. They are
counted among the 40 per cent
to 50 per cent of iron deficient
children under five in developing
countries. They are there amidst
the 31 million refugees and internally displaced in camps around
the world, and amidst the nearly 1
billion people who entered this new
century unable to read and write.
The lost children may well
be those from ethnic minorities
who lack fluency in a national
language and whose traditions
are not part of a country's dominant culture. Excluded in this
way, they may also be denied
their rights to citizenship and
education, and thus are more
vulnerable to exploitation.
They are often children who
are isolated geographically, liv
ing in areas with few schools and
other basic services.
Their lives are circumscribed
by work. Children as young as
five can be found in rural areas
toiling on their parents' farmns or
alongside adults in the fieldis of
commercial agriculture in both
industrialized and developing
countries. In some cases, children under 10 years of age account for one fifth of the child
labour force in rural areas.
Gruelling agricultural work.
with its extremes of heat and cold,
long hours, repetitive motions
and lifting, strains young bodies.
Exposure to chemicals and pesticides is common: In rural areas.
more child workers in agriculture, for example, are estimated
to (die from pesticide poisoning
than from all of the most common
childhood diseases put together.
The work is so onerous that
those lucky enough to atten(d
school after a dlay in the field are
often too exhausted to learn.
Many of the lost children are
girls. Gender discrimination cornbines with poverty to crush girls'
sense of autonomy and self. as
well as their potential. In many
poor families, for instance, when
choices are made about whether
to send a daughter or a son to
school, it is gender that tips the
scale against the girl.
As a result, millions are shunte(d
away from education onto the
well-worn path of domestic work.
labouring at home for their own
families or outside their home

Juan Somavia is the Director-General of the International Labour Organization