Prishtina, 12 June 2019 – Around the world, 152 million girls and boys are engaged in labour. On 12 June, the World Day against Child Labour is marked worldwide. The day aims to shed light on child hard labour and encourage the institutional and social actions in order to defeat this phenomenon. Child labour is defined as work that harms the child’s wellbeing and hampers his/her education, development and future life. Child labour is a work that, by its nature or by the way it is carried out, it damages, abuses and exploits the child and denies his/her right to education.

One of the forms of labour in which children engage is the one of children in street situations. The Ombudsperson, in his Ex-officio report, published on 22 May 2019, pointed out that the current situation of children in street situation, in Kosovo, constitutes a serious violation of children’s rights, respectively violations of the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo, international standards and relevant legislation in force. Children in street situations survive by washing vehicle windshields, selling small articles, begging for alms or searching through containers. They live in poor physical, social, psychological conditions, face lack of food, of clothing, as well as of proper hygiene and health care. It is impossible for them to attend school and, by the fact that they are on the street, they are vulnerable and in permanent danger as regards abuse and exploitation.

We, therefore, appeal to state institutions at undertaking concrete measures to prevent and eliminate the dangerous forms of child labour in Kosovo, aiming at the protection of their health and well-being for a normal and decent life.