Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-06-13-Speech-4-173"

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"en.20020613.6.4-173"2
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"Mr President, the World Cup is a truly international sporting event which arouses the interest of millions of people throughout the world. However, in the shadow of this event, thousands of children use their valuable time every day making the balls used in football matches. These children are deprived of any chance to acquire a better education at school or play with other children their own age. Child labour and the inhumane working conditions which adults making footballs also work under are, unfortunately, still standard practice, despite the agreements concluded by the International Football Federation with companies which make sporting goods. According to the report by the India Committee of the Netherlands tellingly entitled "The Dark Side of Football", Pakistan is the biggest producer of footballs in the world, followed by India. In just one area of India, the Punjab, about 10 000 children aged between 6 and 12 sit stitching footballs, while about 15 000 children work in the area of Sialkot in Pakistan. These balls, which are hand stitched by children for a few cents, are the same designer and FIFA endorsed footballs which are sold in sports shops in the west for tens of dollars. Despite the efforts of both international organisations and the sports companies themselves to introduce programmes and control systems to combat this awful practice, production has shifted to small villages where either there is no policing or the children work at home rather than in factories. Similarly, according to the London Times, numerous children have been found making footballs for famous multinational companies. We call on international organisations, sports companies and governments to use the World Cup, which has been dedicated to children, as an opportunity to work together and adopt a reliable system for checking if labour regulations are being complied with. Because child labour is neither a hobby nor a game, I hope both FIFA and the industry will take the lead and make football a truly fair game for everyone. We need to send out a message today that adults should be given work and children should be sent to school. Adults at work, children in school."@en1

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