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Latest news
Here you can find statements from ECLT, reports from the field and news of recent publications like our Annual Report. To find out what happened in previous years look at the news archive.
ECLT Foundation Awards $3.1 Million to Combat Child Labour in Tobacco Growing in Mozambique, Uganda, and Kyrgyzstan
6 November 2012
The Eliminating Child Labour in Tobacco Growing (ECLT) Foundation has awarded $3.1 million over four years for projects in Mozambique, Uganda, and Kyrgyzstan to address the root causes of child labour and improve the lives of children and families in tobacco-growing communities.
“These projects show that more and more communities are committed to working collaboratively to keep children away from labour and help them succeed in school and in life,” said ECLT Foundation Executive Director Sonia Velazquez. “Our projects also offer replicable child labour prevention and withdrawal models that can be used in agricultural communities worldwide.”
The three funded projects enable vulnerable families to strengthen their livelihoods, improve access to quality education, raise awareness about the problems associated with child labour, and strengthen the capacity of local and national governments to address child labour. The projects will directly help 15,800 working, out-of-school, or otherwise vulnerable children and orphans and 20,000 families. They will help an additional 150,000 children by strengthening the communities in which they live. Each project is anchored in a national plan to eliminate child labour.
Click here to read the full funded-projects description.
The Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) announces competitive solicitations
11 October 2012
The Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) is pleased to announce three competitive solicitations for cooperative agreement applications (SGA) to combat child labor globally:
- SGA 12-10: ILAB will award up to $3.5 million for a cooperative agreement to strengthen policies and enforcement capacity to combat child labor among vulnerable populations in Ecuador and Panama.
- SGA 12-11: ILAB will award up to $6.5 million for a cooperative agreement to provide education services to children and livelihood services to their households as part of a strategy to combat child labor among vulnerable populations in Ecuador and Panama.
- SGA 12-12: ILAB will award up to $5 million for a cooperative agreement to reduce child domestic labor by building the capacity of domestic workers organizations in one or more countries in South Asia and/or Southeast Asia where a significant prevalence of child domestic work exists.
These solicitations were published on Tuesday, October 9, 2012 and are open through November 15, 2012. We encourage all interested parties to submit their applications with sufficient time to meet the deadline. The full solicitations are available online at http://www.dol.gov/ILAB/grants/main.htm. Please note that we may be experiencing some delays in posting the SGAs to our website, however, they are also available on http://www.grants.gov. Please distribute this announcement to anyone who may be interested.
ECLT Foundation Sponsors Malawi National Conference on Child Labour in Agriculture
6 September 2012
The ECLT Foundation sponsored the Malawi National Conference on Child Labour in Agriculture September 4–6, 2012, supporting the Government of Malawi and the ILO in bringing together more than 350 participants around the theme “End Child Labour: Our Children, Our Future.”
The President of the Republic of Malawi, Her Excellency Joyce Banda, opened the conference, which was attended by government officials, the private sector, community leaders, children, and speakers and observers. The event represented the commitment, experience, and knowledge of all sectors invested in the elimination of child labour in agriculture in Malawi.
To view conference materials and output, visit our Malawi conference page.
World Day Against Child Labour 2012
12th June 2012
ECLT is urging everyone to support and raise awareness for the celebrations for the World Day Against Child Labour (WDACL) on 12th June. Coalescing around the theme of “Human rights and social justice…let’s end child labour,” celebrations will be led by ILO-IPEC, an official adviser to the ECLT.
To read the ECLT statement on WDACL please click here and to read the press release on partner events, click here. To read about activities in specific countries, please click on the following pages: Kyrgyzstan, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda.
To access more details of the ILO’s campaign for World Day Against Child Labour 2012, please click here.
You can also join a discussion forum created by the UK’s Guardian newspaper on the root causes of child labour. This live discussion will take place between 2-4pm (UK time) on Tuesday 12th June.
ECLT Foundation Appoints New Executive Director
10th April 2012
A leader in child protection
The ECLT Foundation, an international alliance of tobacco growers, unions and companies that seeks to end child labour in tobacco-growing, is delighted to announce the appointment of its new Executive Director. Sonia Velazquez, an international leader in child protection, joined the Foundation in Geneva at the beginning of April as Executive Director. Recently, Ms. Velazquez was Senior Vice president of the Children’s Division of the American Humane Association in Washington, DC, after an outstanding career with diverse child-focused organizations such as PLAN International and Save the Children, which included working in field offices as well as in headquarters.
Honoured and privileged
Commenting on her appointment, Sonia said: “I am honoured and privileged to be asked to lead the ECLT Foundation and its capable staff. Advancing the mission and exemplary program model of ECLT adds a unique dimension to my lifelong career in child protection. I am looking forward to the challenges that fighting child labour in tobacco-growing will bring, and to partnering with the families and communities where ECLT works. We want to ensure that many more children can be protected and that the opportunities they
need to thrive and develop are provided.”
ECLT – Ten years of fighting child labour
The ECLT, which has just celebrated ten years of existence, focuses its work in three distinct areas. Firstly, it supports and funds programmes that protect children from child labour. ECLT projects help families and whole communities, and engage national and local decision makers in tackling the complex root causes of child labour. Secondly, to be effective, ECLT needs to have a reliable picture of the local conditions of children affected by child labour and of the specific reasons for these conditions. The Foundation commissions research that highlights the causes and extent of child labour in each of our areas, and measures the impact of the programmes. Thirdly, ECLT disseminates successful practices drawn from its experience with tobacco-growing communities to facilitate replication.
The President of the ECLT Foundation, Antonio Abrunhosa, added:
“I am delighted that Sonia Velazquez has joined us at the ECLT. Her broad expertise will help our alliance in our tireless quest to eliminate child labour in tobacco-growing. That’s why, as we work together to face the challenges ahead, I am confident that the second decade of the ECLT Foundation will be even more successful than the first.”
World Day Against Child Labour 2011
12th June 2011
The theme for this year’s World Day Against Child Labour is hazardous work. As much agricultural work is considered hazardous, it is of particular significance when addressing child labour in tobacco growing.
Click here to read ECLT’s statement
Global March Action on Domestic Work Sector
9th June 2011
The ECLT Foundation supports the efforts of all those who seek to eliminate child labour in sectors other than agriculture. To that end, we fully back the Global March Against Child Labour in its campaign to reduce child labour in the domestic work sector, particularly its recent campaign in support of the proposed ILO Convention on the domestic work sector.
2010 Annual Report
8th June 2011
The 2010 Annual Report has been released. It contains stories about people who have benefited from our projects, as well as a summary of all ECLT’s achievements over the year.
Download the 2010 ECLT Annual Report
Sign the petition
2 September 2010
Global March has launched a campaign to demand the inclusion of child labour elimination as a global priority. Eliminating child labour is critical to achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
2009 Annual Report
23 June 2010
The 2009 Annual Report has been released. For the first time it includes stories about some of the people who benefit from ECLT’s projects.
ECLT project features on BBC World
5 June 2010
Child labour in Malawi was the subject of a BBC World broadcast on Saturday 5 June 2010. The programme featured child labour in tobacco farming in Malawi and highlighted the work of ECLT.
Watch a clip of BBC World’s “Working Lives: Human Traffic”
Channel 4 documentary highlights child labour in Malawi
15 May 2010
ECLT was saddened to see Channel 4’s Unreported World which aired in the UK on 14 May 2010. The documentary showed very young children forced to work in hazardous conditions and denied their right to go to school.
Global conference steps up action to eliminate worst forms of child labour
11 May 2010
A global conference in the Hague on 10-11 May approved a roadmap to step up action to eliminate the worst forms of child labour by 2016.
World Day Against Child Labour 2010
5 May 2010
The World Day Against Child Labour is on 12 June 2010. It follows a major Global Conference on Child Labour in the Netherlands in May. The World Day will call for a scale up the worldwide movement to tackle child labour.
US bill aims to eliminate child labour
30 April 2010
A US bill aims to eliminate the use of child labour in the production of goods imported to the US. ECLT is concerned that the bill may increase poverty and therefore exacerbate child labour.
New president for ECLT
15 January 2010
Antonio Abrunhosa, was elected President of the ECLT Foundation Board at the end of 2009.
