On 12 June the world commemorated the first International Child Labour Day, a day for drawing attention to abusive child labour around the world.

More than eight million children are in slavery around the world, a recent International Labour Organization report says. They are trafficked, forced into prostitution and pornography, forced to work as bonded labour and other forms of forced labour and forcibly recruited into armed service.

In West Africa, girls as young as six years old are lured from their homes and tricked into working as domestics, children are forced into bonded labour in South Asia, young boys are trafficked to Gulf States to work as camel jockeys.

"Governments must protect children and ensure laws prohibiting slavery are implemented. Their rights to education, safety, rest and recreation must be protected and considered a priority," Mary Cunneen Director of
Anti-Slavery says.

In one recently reported case, a 10-year-old boy, Ali Islam, was returned to his parents in Bangladesh after four years in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where he was forced to work as a camel jockey.

In 1998 when he was six, Ali was abducted while playing with his friends. He was sold to a man who took him to Nepal via India and was then trafficked to the UAE where he was sold again.

Despite its being illegal in the UAE to employ a child under 15 and to expose a child to dangerous work, using children as camel jockeys continues despite years of pressure for it to stop.

For more about child labour