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86th Session
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Address by Mrs. Mary Robinson,
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It is a particular honour and pleasure to address this 86th Session of the ILO during this very special year for the ILO itself and also for human rights.
I am particularly aware that the ILO is marking the 50th anniversary of the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention (No. 87), and I was very interested and very pleased to learn of the ratification of that Convention this very morning by Indonesia. I think it affirms the importance of anniversary years as a focus for some of the fundamental issues which underlie international organizations.
I have been aware through my colleagues in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that there has been a close working relationship between the ILO, with its considerable resources, and my Office and colleagues.
I would like to begin by saying that I welcome this cooperation and collaboration on a number of different issues, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, indigenous peoples, and various other issues in the past.
I think my essential message today is that I would wish, as High Commissioner, to greatly reinforce those links, to build on the cooperation that already exists, but also to strengthen and build upon and enhance that cooperation, and the reason I say that so strongly from the beginning is that I welcome the opportunity to explain how I see my mandate, which was given to me by the General Assembly in 1993 following the World Conference on Human Rights.
It is a very broad mandate and I accept it in that broad sense, by which I mean that it is necessary to have a balance between civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights.
I believe that there has been a tendency in the past for some countries to interpret human rights in terms of civil liberties in other countries. This is not an adequate and balanced approach to human rights, and it can lead to a lot of what is regarded as politicization, finger pointing and judgement making.
It is important to protect and promote civil and political rights, and as High Commissioner it is a very important priority for me. But it is also important to understand the interdependence of rights and therefore to emphasize economic, social and cultural rights and the right to development. This rounded approach encompasses the right to opportunities in life and to an adequate standard of living.
During the recent session of the Commission on Human Rights my Office organized a round table on benchmarks in economic, social and cultural rights. The ILO representative made a very significant contribution to that debate, which illustrates why I want to build on the cooperative relationship that already exists. Looking forward now, I can say that my Office and this great international Organization can do much together which will further both our objectives.
There is no room anywhere for complacency with regard to human rights. All countries have human rights problems, including problems affecting basic labour rights.
This is clear from the submission of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, made on behalf of their 127 million members in 137 countries to the 54th Session of the Commission on Human Rights. The submission identified gross violations of trade union rights in countries as diverse as Australia, Zimbabwe, China and Croatia.
I have been very heartened to read Report VII of this 86th Session of the International Labour Conference, Consideration of a possible Declaration of principles of the International Labour Organization concerning fundamental rights and its appropriate follow-up mechanism.
In particular I was pleased to read the draft Declaration concerning fundamental human rights at work which I understand is receiving wide support from you. Article 1.4 of that Declaration states: "the guarantee of fundamental human rights at work -- freedom of association, the prohibition of forced labour and discrimination, the abolition of child labour -- is of particular significance in that it enables the persons concerned to claim freely and on the basis of equality of opportunity their fair share of the wealth which they have helped to generate, and to achieve fully their human potential".
I subscribe fully to that article and I am pleased to see it so clearly worded. I am aware that there are serious issues to be addressed by you all in relation to the report and that in particular there will be a debate on the follow-up mechanism. But I must say that I firmly believe that the four fundamental human rights referred to in the article should be subscribed to by all.
Let me focus for a moment on one of those fundamental human rights, the abolition of child labour. I know that the Convention on Child Labour is at its first discussion and Recommendation stage at this Conference and that it should reach second discussion and, all being well, be adopted at next year's meeting. I really wish you well in that extremely important work.
Child labour, as we know, has many forms in many countries, all of them totally unacceptable in my view. It is one of the major challenges facing us all, and again, not just in certain countries. If a child in my own country, Ireland, is forced to beg on the streets or to wash car windows in stalled traffic to supplement a family income which is below the poverty level, is that any more acceptable than a child sewing footballs under sweatshop conditions in some other country? I think not.
I would like to congratulate whoever is responsible for the mannequins and models leading to the meeting rooms around the Palais des Nations in recent days. To congratulate them for an initiative which is a stark reminder to us all of our responsibilities to our children, our future.
I would like to tell you briefly of two recent incidents which will stay in mind for a long time. One of them is a very sad and rather negative one and the other is much more positive.
The first concerns a child, a young girl of 15 whom I met in Cambodia. I have referred to this meeting before because it is so much on my mind. It was at the end of January when I was visiting our field operation there and I went with a small Cambodian NGO to the shelter which they had for women and girls who had been saved from the sex trade, or had somehow escaped from it, and through an interpreter I listened to a number of them. It is this particular 15- year old who stays in my mind.
We were in a small room. There was a fan to give us some air because it was very hot, and as the interpreter spoke she looked at me and I looked at her, looked into her eyes. She told me that she had been brought by friends of her family from a rural part of Cambodia into Phnom Phen to work, so she had assumed, in a clothing factory, but she was pushed through the door of a brothel and beaten until she complied. There she worked for 17 or 18 hours a day for three months until she managed to escape and came to this shelter. She felt ashamed and humiliated and was trying to re-find herself, and as I looked at her I had a sense that sadly she was not alone, there are millions of girls and boys, children who are being trafficked for money, a filthy trade in our modern world. That is the aspect that was brought out in the other incident that I wanted to recall today which in a sense was a much happier one. That was the Child Labour March which I was happy to greet, along with the Director-General and a number of others, when it arrived in Geneva on the Saturday before this Conference started. It was a rowdy, noisy, excited, engaged meeting between young Swiss people and the marchers. I had heard about the march in Cambodia, where they were joining those who were starting from Manila. I had heard about the march in South Africa which began in Capetown and I was also aware of the march coming from Sao Paulo and I met many of the young marchers and their supporters and others who had made it possible on that long route. I think it was a very important way of drawing attention to different aspects of child labour, trafficking in children and the issues that are so fundamental to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
If next year's Conference adopts the Convention on child labour it will warrant the status of one of the fundamental standards of the International Labour Organization and be a critically important instrument for all our futures. Is there a better way for the ILO to enter the new millennium than by adopting this Convention? Clearly not.
Is it too much to suggest that it be adopted by acclamation? I hope not. I look forward, as I said, to close cooperation between the ILO and my Office on the issue of ensuring that children have their human rights, including the right to life chances, to be educated, to receive medical care, to laugh, to play. Indeed to be a child without being forced into labour of any kind. And I include here the particularly awful spectre of child soldiers. The ICFTU estimates that there are some 250 million children working worldwide between the ages of 5 and 14, so that is the extent of the challenges facing us both.
Let me turn to the fundamental document which my Office has been concentrating on this year, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As you know, this year marks the 50th anniversary of its adoption. You will note I do not use the word "celebrate". The points I have just made about childrens' rights tell you why. We have a long, long way to go before we can celebrate the full implementation of the Universal Declaration.
However, there has been significant progress, and we must remember that the Universal Declaration is a living document, it is written in the present tense. All articles are relevant to you but I know some of you will have a particular interest in article 20 which, as you will recall, defines fundamental human rights, that everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association and everyone has the right to belong to an association. That right is as pregnant and as relevant now as it was in 1948 and will continue to be. I hope one of my successors in the future will be in a position to celebrate -- perhaps even I shall be able to celebrate -- the centenary of the Universal Declaration in the year 2048.
This year, 1998, we are also marking the 50th anniversary of the adoption by the ILO of the Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise. It was adopted just a few months before the Universal Declaration. As you know, the Convention has 11 Articles and I will not quote them all here, but it fully reflects the spirit of article 20 and defines in detail the most basic trade union rights. They are fundamental human rights. I was conscious of your history and of your marking of the 50th anniversary because just a week ago in New York I had been invited to give the 1998 David A. Morse Lecture to the Council on Foreign Relations. I mentioned that I would be addressing this Conference and linking the two 50th anniversaries, and they are indeed interlinked, as the work of my Office is interlinked with so many other things, and that is carried on by the ILO. Again, I believe that you do not have reason to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the adoption of Convention No. 87, but it is important to mark it, and perhaps note that today Indonesia joins in with you; and it is important for all partners in labour, both state and non-state actors, to renew their commitment to fully respect and implement the Convention, and I hope, this very important session will give that impetus and vision which the world needs in relation to the Convention on Child Labour.
I wish you well. I will follow your work closely, and it has been a great honour to address you. Thank you very much.