The President and first lady arrive in France with their daughter, Chelsea

June 16, 1999
Web posted at: 9:33 a.m. EDT (1333 GMT)

In this story: 'Archaic practices out of a Charles Dickens novel' Next stop, Paris RELATED STORIES, SITES

GENEVA, Switzerland (CNN) -- President Clinton on Wednesday urged the U.S. Senate and governments worldwide to accept a new treaty banning what he called "vicious forms of abusive child labor."

"There are children chained to often-risky machines, children handling dangerous chemicals, children forced to work when they should be in school, preparing themselves and their countries for a better tomorrow," he told the International Labor Organization.

Clinton, the first U.S. president to address the ILO, spoke to the labor group in Geneva at the start of a one-week trip to Europe.

He arrived in Switzerland about 9 a.m. (0700 GMT), accompanied by his wife, daughter and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on a flight from Washington.

Clinton's agenda in Europe is dominated by peacekeeping in Kosovo and by economic agreements among the industrial powers -- chiefly an overhaul of Europe's financial systems and a package of debt relief for the world's poorest nations.

After the overnight flight, the president met privately with Swiss President Ruth Dreifuss to discuss humanitarian aid to the ethnic Albanian refugees who fled Kosovo and reconstruction of the Serbian province.

In his speech, Clinton promised he would promptly send to the Senate for ratification the ILO's long-negotiated treaty intended to eradicate child labor abuses.

The organization, an arm of the United Nations, estimates that at least 250 million children, ages 5 to 14, work in developing countries -- nearly half of them full-time and tens of millions under exploitative and harmful conditions.

A broad treaty on reducing child labor was negotiated by the ILO in 1972 but never mustered full support of its 174 member nations.

The new treaty targets only the most egregious forms of child servitude, including forced prostitution, pornography, bondage and military service.

"Regardless of country, regardless of circumstances, these are not some archaic practices out of a Charles Dickens novel," Clinton said. "These are things that happen in too many places today."

With his wife and daughter watching from the gallery of Assembly Hall in the Palace of Nations overlooking Lake Geneva, the president added: "We must wipe from the Earth the most vicious forms of abusive child labor.

"We must put a human face on the global economy, giving working people everywhere a stake in its success, equipping them all to reap its rewards, providing for their families the basic conditions of a just society."

Clinton promised the United States would "contribute our share to an expanded trust fund for debt relief."

From Geneva, Clinton flew to Paris, where he was scheduled to dine with French President Jacques Chirac.

French President Jacques Chirac is scheduled to meet with Clinton on Thursday

On Thursday, Clinton is to meet with leaders in France and then depart for Germany to attend the 25th annual economic summit of the world's seven richest nations -- the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada -- joined by Russia.

The Group of Eight summit begins on Friday in Cologne, Germany.

The leaders are to discuss who will pay to rebuild Kosovo and help neighboring Balkan countries following NATO's 78-day bombing campaign of Yugoslavia.

"We welcome the European Union's intention to assume the lion's share of the financial burden and, given the U.S. role in the military campaign, this is an appropriate division of labor," Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Monday.

Other topics to be broached include human rights, the environment, trade, terrorism, drug trafficking and crime.

On Monday, Clinton is to attend a U.S.-European Union summit in Bonn, Germany, before traveling to Slovenia, a country slightly smaller than New Jersey that declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 and seeks to join NATO.

Clinton previewed his address to the ILO last week, when he signed an executive order directing U.S. government agencies to make sure they do not buy products made by forced or indentured child workers.

In 1997, the U.S. government bought $57 million in products made by industries known to rely on child labor, according to Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the leading Senate proponent of child-labor reform. Harkin is accompanying Clinton on the trip.

The Clinton administration has identified several problem industries, including carpets and bricks from India and Pakistan, fishing platforms from Indonesia and fireworks from Guatemala.

Correspondent Wolf Blitzer and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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