Child Rights Glossary : R

RED CARD CAMPAIGN
Football is the world's most popular sport. It galvanizes people throughout the world. For young people, in particular, it offers excitement and inspiration.

This campaign aims to seize the opportunity offered by the African Cup of Nations 2002 to make the public aware of the harsh reality of child labour and to encourage people to support the global movement against child labour.

This initiative, which started in Africa, progressively extended to Latin America, Asia and Europe. Because of the huge attention paid to major football tournaments. The ILO built partnerships around these events because of the unique opportunity they offer to reach unprecedented numbers of people throughout the world with a simple message: "Red Card to Child Labour."

The ultimate event in this campaign hopefully will be to celebrate the universal ratification of the convention against the worst forms of child labour at the World Cup football tournament in 2006.

In cooperation with hundreds of partner organizations around the world, the ILO, via its International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), is active in 75 countries, removing children from abusive child labour, providing them with rehabilitation and education and providing their families with income-generating alternatives.

At the same time, IPEC is campaigning globally to raise awareness about child labour and to persuade governments to adopt international legal standards that commit countries to immediately ban the "worst forms" of child labour. In less than three years, more than 100 governments have ratified this international convention on the worst forms of child labour, including more than 30 in Africa.

Source: http://www.ilo.org