E/CN.4/Sub.2/434. page 10
36. One member, supported by other participants, urged the Group to recommend to the Sub-Commission that the Secretary-General should be requested to prepare a draft document containing minimum standards for the protection of working children which might then be embodied in a declaration on this subject. He pointed out that, while many instruments had been adopted by both the United Nations and the ILO, there was no comprehensive instrument of this nature. In the view of another participant, the ILO instruments dealing with separate sectors might be used as the basis for such a d draft document.
D. The sale of children
37. In addition to the statements mentioned in the preceding section concerning the sale of children for the purpose of exploiting their labour, the Working Group received a report from the International Union for Child Welfare (IUCW) concerning the sale of children for adoption. The representative of IUCW stated that the problem was particularly grave in certain Southeast Asian countries, and was of growing proportions. According to her information, some unscrupulous agencies were taking children out of refugee camps and selling them for adoption to Western families. These agencies were run purely for profit, as business undertakings, with no concern for the welfare of the child. She pointed out that a responsible adoption agency should always inquire about the existence of parents or relatives of the child and about the suitability of the adoptive family, particularly in the case of inter-racial and inter-cultural adoptions. She mentioned cases in which children had been taken away from their mother, who subsequently had been unable to trace them and have them returned. She urged the Working Group to endorse a set of "Recommendations concerning unaccompanied refugee minors from Southeast Asia" adopted by an NGO meeting in Geneva in July 1979, which provide for an end to placement for adoption under the present circumstances and for foster or group placement of children pending efforts to trace their parents or other family members.
E.
The slavery-like practices of apartheid and colonialism
38. The Working Group considered the interim report on Apartheid as a collective form of slavery prepared by the Secretary-General as requested by the Sub-Commission in resolution 6B (XXXI), para. 16. The report was submitted to the Group in a preliminary form for comments. The Secretariat was praised for the report by members of the Group.
39. It was suggested by some participants that since the "bantustans" were the cornerstone of the South African Government's policy of dispossession of the African people, and of appropriation by the whites of the best resources of the land, the final version of the report should include a separate chapter containing information on the political, economic and social aspects of the "bantustans".
40. It was also suggested that some sections of the report should be updated in order to take into account recent developments in the field of labour legislation contained in the evidence presented to the Group by non-governmental organizations.
41.
Concerning the question of colonialism as a collective form of slavery, it was pointed out that the report submitted by the Secretary-General dealt mainly with apartheid and only to a small extent with colonialism. While apartheid was the historical result of the imposition of colonial rule in southern Africa, and was the most pernicious form of colonialism today, it would be important in the future to study the economic, social and cultural policies of colonial powers, past and present. It was pointed out that the Working Group had not received much evidence on this question and that it should request that available material be submitted to the Secretariat, so that the question might be studied thoroughly.