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Children get onstage with some of Cambodia’s best-known celebrities to talk about child labour.
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Hundreds of people from various provinces assembled at Wat Phnom, the center of the capital city Phnom Penh, last Thursday to watch a concert about the issues of child labour.
The concert, organized by World Vision Cambodia in partnership with human rights group LICADHO (Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights), was also celebrating the launch of a campaign to combat child-labour exploitation in Cambodia.
It was held the evening before Phnom Penh's famous Water Festival, when people from all over the country pour into the city to watch the boat races along the Mekong River.
Though the concert promoted serious social messages, there was plenty of time for fun, keeping the audience entertained through five solid hours of music, speeches, dancing and comedy from some of Cambodia's best known celebrities.
Soeun Ly, a villager from Kampong Cham Province who watched the concert from the beginning until the end, said he appreciated the education campaign and had learned much about the consequences of child-labour exploitation. "This has reminded parents to send their children to school rather than to other working industries. I will not send my children to work in karaoke parlors or brick kiln because they are so vulnerable working there," said Soeun Ly.
Ray Sano, World Vision Cambodia's Children in Crisis Program Manager, said that with so many people in Phnom Penh, this was the perfect time and circumstance for a concert of this type. "This is not a simple issue. We need to raise awareness about the issue to the people."
"Here, I am sure our messages more or less will get heard. Remarkably, reporters from Voice of America and Radio of Free Asia, famous radio channels broadcast nationwide, also reported the campaign," said Ray Sano.
"Let's Work Together to Combat Worst Forms of Child Labour" was the theme of the campaign, which aimed to educate the public, including parents and employers, about the various forms of exploitative child labour, particularly in the entertainment industry, and the consequences they have on children.
Many children work in or are forced into exploitative labour conditions in restaurants, beer gardens, nightclubs, massage parlors, and karaoke parlors.
Kek Galabru, president of Cambodian NGO LICADHO, urged people, especially authorities, to eliminate the worst forms of child labour.
"Do you want your children to be well-educated? If so, we have to work together because our organizations, LICADHO and World Vision, have the same goal - to help your children to get higher education. We want the children to get away from the worst forms of child labour," said Kek Galabru, at the opening speech during the campaign.
Yuok Dina, a 13-year-old girl selling water to the audience, agreed with this speech. She usually spends around 4 or 5 hours a day helping her mother to sell drinking water, but she said sending children to work in the entertainment industry was too risky. "Children need protection," she said. As well as asking her to work, her parents send her to school, where she is in the seventh grade.
ILO (International Labour Organization) Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour was adopted in 1999 and came into force in 2000, and Cambodia ratified the ILO Convention 182 in 2005. This convention commits each state that ratifies it to "take immediate and effective measures to secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour as a matter of urgency".
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