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Young journalists to speak out on child labour

Monday, 25 November 1996: Three young journalists from the Children's Express News Service in the US are joining counterparts from Bangladesh to examine the issue of child labour in Dhaka and New York. UNICEF is sponsoring the exchange, the first of its kind, as part of a campaign to tackle the global problem of child labour.

The reporters, aged 13 to 17 years, set off from the Children's Express Bureaus in New York, Washington, DC, and Indianapolis on Friday to Dhaka, where they are meeting up with the three members of the Bangladeshi team. They will spend a week together, visiting the homes of former garment workers, a school for former child labourers and meeting child right activities and child labour experts.

"This is a children's issue, so it's important that children are given the opportunity to tell this story," explains Children's Express team member Alia Taliaferrow. The young Bangladeshi journalists, who write a column for a local paper, will come to New York with the Children's Express team to examine child labour issues in the US.

They will visit the first US carpet factory to use Rugmark (certifying that no child labour was involved in making a product), accompany a trade inspector on a tour of New York factories and meet with anti-sweatshop campaign activists. The exchange coincides with the launch of the UNICEF 1997 State of the World's Children report on Wednesday, 11 December 1996, which focuses on the issue of child labour.

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