AMSTERDAM - Sweeping political and economic changes around the world are bringing real hope of an end to the worst forms of child exploitation, delegates told an international conference on child labour yesterday.
"There has been a radical change in attitudes towards the problem," Mr Michel Hansenne, director general of the International Labour Office (ILO), told the two day meeting in Amsterdam. "We are convinced we can now make a decisive breakthrough in the struggle against child labour."
The ILO estimates there are as many as 250 million child labourers in the developing world, many working under intolerable conditions, as slaves, forced labourers, prostitutes, or in surroundings which damage their health.
