On May 17th 2006 the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant published an article about the recent successes of global campaigns against child labour (read here). The article includes a number of statements that IREWOC found to be somewhat one sided, and therefore decided to write a reaction (read here).

In 1999, the ILO adopted C182. The convention was a real breakthrough. It was decided that, first things should come first, and that the focus would have to be on eradicating the worst forms of child labour (WFCL). It now seems that efforts to abolish child labour are faltering and that the momentum has been lost. Read the full article Child Labour:What Happened to the Worst Forms? by Kristoffel Lieten

A couple of months after the Tsunami a public meeting with experts was organised in Amsterdam. Het verslag van de bijeenkomst: "Kinderen in het Puin: Leven na de Tsunami", 2005 (Dutch report)

The publication 'Child Labour in India: disentangling essence and solutions' in  Economic and Political Weekly deals with the polarized debate on the extent of child labour in India and argues that classifying all non-school going children as child labourers is theoretically wrong, politically dangerous and socially ineffective.

In November 2003, Kristoffel Lieten delivered his professorial lecture as the Professor of Child Labour Studies, particularly its sociological and historical aspects: Kinderarbeid. Prangende Vragen en Contouren voor Onderzoek. The Dutch version can be downloaded. An English translation has been made available as Child Labour: Burning Questions.

Much research has gone into the causes of child labour. Although some sources blame culture and the attitude of parents as the main reason, the general consensus is that poverty is the root cause. Kristoffel Lieten in a seminal article The Causes for Child Labour in India: the Poverty Analysis agrees with the poverty argument but sheds new light on the causation. He attaches much importance to the demand for labour in a high-labour demand environment.

What is the effect of globalisation of child labour? For a number of thought provoking questions rather than easy answers, see Globalisation and Child Labour: Possible Consequences, 2003 (English version); Globalización y Trabajo Infantil: Posibles Consecuencias, 2003 (Spanish version).

It is possibly not important whether there are 50 million child labourers or 300 million. It would only indicate the size of the problem. But what if child labour is a fruit bowl with apples, oranges, pears and bananas and that they are all treated as the same phenomenon with the same causes and the same solutions? Then indeed the importance of a good and clear definitional demarcation comes in. Child Labour and Work: Numbers, From the General to the Specific is one text which poses the question. Unfortunately most of the statistical work that the (World Bank) economists have been working with are a conglomerate of diverse forms of child labour. Wrongly collected data are likely to produce misleading statistics. Sometimes statistics are ideological statements: Australian Children's Rights News, 2001

IREWOC, together with Plan, Save the Children and Context International organises a yearly week-long workshop on child participation and children in difficult circumstances. The report on the 2005 workshop "Child Centred Community Development" is available.

The ASN Bank plays a prominent role in monitoring the social ethics of companies (Corporate Social Responsibility). At the November 2004 Dag van het Ethisch Beleggen (The Day of Ethical Shareholding), Frans Röselaers, then the IPEC Director and member of the IREWOC advisory Board, and Kristoffel Lieten, the IREWOC director, gave the keynote addresses (document in Dutch).