Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, January 30

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) today released a report on HIV/AIDS and working children in Nepal and called for urgent action to protect citizens from the dreaded disease. The report includes specific recommendations, including enabling peer educators reach out-of-school children and youth with credible and practical information about how HIV/AIDS is transmitted and how they can protect themselves.

Dr Ram Prasad Shrestha, director of National Centre for AIDS and STD Control highlighted that everybody had to work together to contain and prevent further transmission of the infection among adults and working children. Furthermore, the report has addressed difficult and sensitive issues such as sexual abuse of working children.

"These are not easy things to talk about, but in the midst of this crisis, we have no time for obscure language. Working children are vulnerable to sexual abuse and it is our responsibility to protect them," said Leyla Tegmo-Reddy, director of ILO in Nepal.

According to ILO/International Programme on Elimination of Child Labour, the same factors that make children vulnerable to exploitative child labour — poverty, discrimination and conflict — make them vulnerable to HIV/AIDS infection.