All ILO Newsroom content
June 2005
-
Video
MAKING A LIVING UNDER THE SUN IN KENYA
29 June 2005
More than 90 per cent of all jobs created in Africa are in the informal sector, many of them in small open-air workshops. In Kenya, this kind of business is known as jua kali, or “fierce sun” and now well-established employers are working together with the ILO to link up with the informal sector to raise quality and working conditions.
-
Video
Children Exploited in Mongolian Gold Rush
27 June 2005
Many of those working in makeshift Mongolian gold mines are children whose families seek a way out of poverty. The ILO is trying to remove these children from one of the most hazardous jobs in the world.
-
Video
BACK TO WORK IN BANDA ACEH
24 June 2005
As well as countless lives, hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost in the Asian tsunami. Through an employment network and business start-up courses, the International Labour Organization is helping survivors get back to work.
-
Video
PERU: CHILD LABOUR IN GOLD MINES
23 June 2005
In Peru, up to 50 000 children work as gold miners in small-scale mines, braving dangerous conditions and constantly at risk from accidents. In Santa Filomena, the International Labour Organization is working together with a local group to put an end to child labour.
-
Video
UKRAINE: TRAFFICKING SURVIVORS
22 June 2005
Human trafficking is big business, with profits of trafficking worldwide estimated at $32 billion by the International Labour Organization. Men and women are smuggled across borders and often fo rced to work against their will but as ILO TV reports from Ukraine, trafficking is rooted in unemployment and poverty.
-
Article
93rd International Labour Conference Working hours around the world: balancing flexibility and protection
13 June 2005
In today's fast-moving world of virtual offices, home work and globalized commerce, are international labour standards on working time still needed? Yes, according to a study prepared by an ILO Commission of experts and delegates at the Organization's annual Conference. The Commission, an independent body monitoring the application of ILO standards, has concluded that international labour standards limiting working time are still necessary to contribute to fair competition between countries in a globalized world. Still, it is also clear that ILO Conventions Nos. 1 and 30 don't fully reflect modern realities in the regulation of working time and are viewed by an increasing number of countries as prescribing overly rigid standards. A panel of delegates to the Conference recently discussed the world of diversification, decentralization and individualization of working hours around the world.
May 2005
-
Video
US TOMATO PICKERS REACH HISTORIC AGREEMENT
25 May 2005
A group of tomato pickers from Florida were put under the spotlight when they reached an historic agreement with Yum Brands, parent company of Taco Bell and the largest restaurant company in the world. A n International Labour Organization report explains how workers like these can sometimes become victims of forced labour exploitation.
-
Video
FORCED LABOUR IN PERUVIAN AMAZON
18 May 2005
Illegal logging in the Peruvian rainforest generates millions of profits. But an ILO report found that more than 30 thousand workers, many of them indigenous people, are victims of forced labour, living in appalling conditions and often tricked into debt with their employers.
-
Article
Fighting forced labour in Latin America
18 May 2005
The ILO estimate of the number of victims of forced labour in Latin America and the Caribbean is 1.3 million. Brazil has taken the lead in addressing the problem through its 2003 National Action Plan for the Eradication of Slavery, including the liberation of workers and measures to fight impunity. In 2004, countries like Bolivia, Peru and Paraguay also made important commitments against forced labour.
-
Article
Global Report on Forced Labour In Asia: debt bondage, trafficking and state-imposed forced labour
18 May 2005
With an estimated 9.5 million, the Asia and Pacific region claims the highest number of people among the estimated 12.3 million victims of forced labour in the world today. The region is struggling against both traditional and newer forms of forced labour. An 8.1 million people are trapped in forced labour by means other than trafficking, primarily through debt bondage. But the region is also home to state-imposed forced labour in Myanmar. ILO online reviews the tragic reality of forced labour in Asia.