TNAG-0873-FCO40-1083-Employment-of-children-in-Hong-Kong-1979 — Page 55

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Press Release HR/1846 27 August 1979

of them were living in a situation of acute indebtedness because of their extreme poverty. Landless peasants were also often in a situation of virtual slavery.

A member of the Group pointed out the great difficulties facing bonded labourers in particular and the rural poor in general in organizing themselves to obtain their rights. He suggested that local and/or international conferences should be called to study the issues in depth and make concrete recommendations.

Another member concurred with the view that starvation is the worst form of slavery. Political freedoms were meaningless without cconomic freedoms. A thoroughgoing reform in land owndership was therefore necessary to change the situation.

Slavery and the slave trade: The Working Group heard a statement by a representative of the Minority Rights Group concerning the situation of Aborigines on remote pastoral stations in Australia, in particular in Western Australia and Queensland. The representative stated that slavery-like practices against Aborigines still existed in those regions. Although new legislation affecting Aborigines had been introduced in 1967, they were still forced to work for little or no wages in these remote arcas, and women were for ccd to prostitute themselves to the European landowners. The Aborigines' cfforts to organize themselves had been repressed by the local governments and the rights of voting and assembly denied to them.

A report on migrant workers in the Dominican Republic, submitted by the Anti-Slavery Society for the Protection of Human Rights stated that in 1978 a responsible observer had visited the Dominican Republic and had reported that the condition of Haitian migrant workers could be compared only with slavery. It indicated that a traffic in persons was taking place from Haiti to the Dominican Republic wherchy 12,000 cane-cutters were sold cach year to government-owmed and private sugar estates, including one owned by a United States-based multinational company. The report stated that the cane-cutters lived and worked in conditions of great deprivation, were paid minimal wages, and were cheated out of their duc and forced to incur debts to the sugar cstates in order to survive. The cane-cutter camps lacked hygienic facilitics, were grossly overcrowded and children were often under-nourished. According to the report, union rights were violated and workers' attempts to organize had been repressed.

Exploitation of child labour: Among the main monographs on child labour submitted by the Anti-Slavery Society for the Protection of Human Rights were:

Child labour in Hong Kong: The study stated that there was

警要

'considerable incidence" of child labour although the exact figures were hard

to determine. Recent reports had put the total at over 36,000 children aged 10-14. This labour occurred in violation of existing legislation.

The study on child labour in Colombia indicated that the number of economically active children had been steadily rising and was presently

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