Reuters-FOCUS-Clinton calls for cla

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Subject: Reuters-FOCUS-Clinton calls for clampdown on child labour 

FOCUS-Clinton calls for clampdown on child labour
11:05 a.m. Jun 16, 1999 Eastern
By Steve Holland

PARIS, June 16 (Reuters) - U.S. President Bill Clinton opened a week-long
European tour with a high-profile appeal to the international community on
Wednesday to stamp out child prostitution and slavery.

On the first day of a trip expected to be dominated by the aftermath of the
Kosovo war, Clinton told the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in
Geneva in a speech:

``We must wipe from the Earth the most vicious forms of abusive child
labour. Every single day, tens of millions of children work in conditions
that shock the conscience.''

Afterwards he flew to Paris with his wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea for a
24-hour visit including dinner at a restaurant with President Jacques
Chirac.

He is also due to visit Germany and the former Yugoslav republic of
Slovenia. U.S. officials were exploring the possibility of Clinton making a
stop at an ethnic Albanian refugee camp in Macedonia.

Clinton became the first U.S. president to address the Geneva-based ILO, the
U.N. organisation responsible for establishing world labour standards.

He threw U.S. support behind a treaty that, if approved as expected on
Thursday, would require the ILO's 174 member states to take immediate action
to prohibit and eliminate the worst forms of child labour and remove the
children from them.

The treaty will ban the use of children under 18 in all forms of slavery,
prostitution, pornography and other work that harms their health, safety or
morals.

Clinton said some children were working chained to dangerous machines.
``These are not some archaic practices out of a Charles Dickens novel. These
are things that happen in too many places today.''

He singled out Myanmar, formerly Burma, saying its government was violating
human rights by forcing people into labour, and called on the ILO's
governing body to take action.

``Until people have the right to change their destiny, we must stand by them
and keep up the pressure for change,'' he said.

Clinton said the goal was to keep free trade flowing around the world while
also protecting the interests of working people.


He said the ILO should not stop at closing factories where children were
forced to work long hours. Abuses would continue unless children were
assured access to schools and their parents had jobs, he said.

Clinton said he would submit the treaty to the U.S. Senate for ratification
soon after it was approved in Geneva. He said he had already directed the
U.S. government to ensure it did not purchase any products made with child
labour.

Gene Sperling, director of the White House National Economic Council, said
the president wanted Senate action on the treaty this year.

In Geneva, Clinton also met Swiss President Ruth Dreifuss. White House
spokesman Joe Lockhart said they had discussed the situation in Kosovo and
the challenge of returning hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians to
their homes.

After formal talks on Thursday with Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin,
Clinton was to travel to Cologne, Germany, for the annual summit of leaders
of the Group of Seven major industrial democracies plus Russia.

Buoying the leaders as they work on the global financial system and debt
relief for poor nations is the NATO alliance's victory in its 11-week air
war against Yugoslavia.

But an embarrassing dispute with Russia is hanging over the summit. Moscow
is refusing to let its peacekeeping troops fall under NATO command in
Kosovo, and sent paratroopers rushing into the province ahead of allied
soldiers on Saturday.

U.S. officials had been expressing confidence that agreement could be
reached before Clinton meets Russian President Boris Yeltsin in Germany on
Sunday, but Lockhart was non-committal:

``I expect we'll reach an agreement. I'm not going to venture a guess on a
timetable to get it resolved.''

U.S. Secretary of Defence William Cohen was meeting Russian Defence Minister
Igor Sergeyev in Helsinki on Wednesday for talks on the issue.