 | | EDUCATION
"I don't want to be a servant any more"
Alice from Ivory Coast abandoned her schooling, left her family and chose to live with her aunt because she was promised a better standard of living. Instead she became her aunt's servant, working all day for no pay.
She endured beatings and intensive labour for three months until she finally escaped. The police took her to the Bureau International Catholique de l'Enfance (BICE) in Abidjan, an organisation which aims to defend the dignity and interests of children. Alice now wants to return to school to learn sewing.
Determining the magnitude of child labour in the world has proven to be difficult as many countries lack reliable and comparable statistical information about this issue in particular.
According to the Geneva-based International Labour Organisation, child labour is most prevalent in the developing areas. A report first published in 1996 states:
"In absolute terms, it is Asia... that has the most child workers - probably over half. But in relative terms Africa comes first - an average of one child out of three is engaged in an economic activity. In Latin America, it is estimated that an average of one out of five children is economically active."
A number of international instruments seek to protect children from exploitation in the work place. The Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (C182), adopted in 1999 by the International Labour Organisation, aims to eliminate the worst forms of child labour, defined as, "... all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour..."
Article 32 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child specifically protects children from economic exploitation, especially when it interferes with the child's education. In Alice's case, both of these related rights have been threatened. This is her story: | |  | | 
My parents live in a village. I used to go to school even though they were very poor, but our teacher used to beat us too and I decided to leave.
Then one day my aunty came to the village and my mother told me to go with her if I wanted some clothes and [something] to eat...
I worked at my auntie's place. I would wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning and I would work until noon.
I washed dishes, cleaned the house, and I sold water in the streets. When I finished selling water I would come back home and do more washing.
Sometimes after that I could have a nap, but most of the time she would not let me sleep, saying I hadn't done enough work. She didn't pay me at all.
I always felt bad there. When I was sick she never took care of me, I was very tired, I had no days off, every day I worked while she stayed in her room watching TV.
I'd worked there for three months when, one day, I lost a plate. She asked me to look for it. She had to go to the village and she threatened that if I didn't find the plate she would beat me.
That is when I decided to escape from her house and I went to the police.
The policemen asked me what had happened, what I was doing in the house. I just said that my aunty wanted to hit me. I was very scared because she used to beat me with a piece of electric wire almost every day.
Now I will go back to my village. I want to go to school and learn sewing. I don't want to be a servant any more.  | | | | | |  |  |
 Ivory Coast has a population of roughly 16 million. According to The Bureau International Catholique de l'Enfance (BICE), 30,000 children under 15 work in Abidjan alone.
They are mainly young girls, aged between five and 15. Some have been abused sexually. Like Alice, they are overworked and are seldom paid for their labour.
BICE is a non-governmental organisation which aims to defend the interests of children in that area.
In 1997, BICE implemented an aid and support programme for girl servants. Other projects help children who have been exploited economically or sexually.
Children on the street, in prison or involved in armed conflict as well as children with disabilities are also given support.
|  |  |  |  | |
