World Day Against Child Labour, celebrated on 12 June, this year highlights the continuing challenges to eliminating the worst forms of child labour, with a focus on exploitation of girls. Here is a related story.

KIPUSHI, Democratic Republic of Congo, 12 June 2009 Covered in powder, Sylvian, 2, sits alongside his mother, pounding rocks with a mallet in an ore heap in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Rocks, dust and sun: This is the only life Sylvian has known.

According to Article 32 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, children have the right to be protected from economic exploitation. Through the efforts of Group One, a UNICEF-supported Belgian non-governmental organization, this is starting to happen in DR Congo.

Group One and UNICEF are working to remove children from the hazardous working conditions in the quarry and get them back to school.

"One of the things we need to do is try to take these children out of this economy," says Pierrette Vu Thi. "It means working on building social protection systems and helping these children's families by giving them the means to send the children to school."

To read the full story, visit [ Ссылка ]

свернуть