VI
Progressive elimination of child labour
22.
Reaffirms:
(a)
The right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any
work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education, or to be harmful to the child's health
or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development, in accordance with obligations under the Convention
on the Rights of the Child;
(b)
The aim of effective abolition of child labour contrary to accepted international standards,
giving priority to immediate and concrete action for the elimination of the worst forms of child labour and to the
rehabilitation and social reintegration of the children concerned, as well as to the search for alternatives to child
labour and for a better socio-economic environment to prevent child labour;
23.
Welcomes the legislative, administrative, social and educational measures taken by
Governments aimed at the effective abolition of child labour, taking into account the relevant provisions of the
Convention on the Rights of the Child and of the international instruments of the International Labour
Organization, as well as the measures outlined in the Programme of Action for the Elimination of the
Exploitation of Child Labour of 1993 and the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development and the
Programme of Action adopted by the World Summit for Social Development in 1995, and, in the same context,
calls upon relevant United Nations agencies and bodies, in particular the International Labour Organization and
the United Nations Children's Fund, to continue to support those national efforts, and takes note with
appreciation of the adoption by the International Labour Conference at its eighty-sixth session, on 18 June 1998,
of the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and its Follow-up;
24.
Calls upon all States:
(a)
That have not yet done so to consider ratifying the conventions of the International Labour
Organization relating to child labour, in particular the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (Convention No. 29) and
the Minimum Age for Admission to Employment Convention, 1973 (Convention No. 138);
(b)
To translate into concrete action their commitment to the progressive and effective elimination
of child labour contrary to accepted international standards, and urges them, as a matter of priority, to eliminate
the worst forms of child labour, such as forced labour, bonded labour and other forms of slavery;
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