On Sunday the 24th of June people from all over Belgium and the Netherlands joined the Child Learn Marathon for a child labour free world.
For the past nine years the marathon has been held every year in Schimmert in the Netherlands with the purpose to raise funds for projects to bring children from work into school. The marathon is organized by the Dutch foundation Child Learn that works for the rights to education for all children. Members of BWI affiliated unions also participated in the marathon.
The BWI supports several schools operated by BWI affiliates in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, where children of workers can get education instead of participating in the hard work at brick kilns and stone quarries. The ultimate goal is to make governments take responsibility for the situation of child labourers and make sure that all children can go to school.
Around 218 million children around the world between 5 and 17 years are in employment according to statistics from the UN. Among them, 152 million are victims of child labour; almost half of them, 73 million, work in hazardous child labour.
