Yesterday was our first day at the International Labour Conference. The conference is held at the United Nations in Geneva – at the Palais des Nations – a suitably enormous, complex and awe-inspiring building. We are basing ourselves in the Serpentine Café next to the committee room where members of the ILO are debating the proposed convention on domestic work.
So, the Children’s Champions were able to observe the ILO in discussion in a sectioned off part of the committee room that is for NGOs. As NGOs are not allowed to speak during the discussions, the Children’s Champions had to grab delegates as they were entering or leaving the committee room and snatch a three minute conversation with them.
At lunch, the Togolese Champions were interviewed by Swiss TV and will be on the lunchtime news today.
In the evening the whole team attended an event organised by Human Rights Watch for the Genevan public. Although it was a very formal event, and all of us speaking were quite nervous the Champions spoke inspiringly about their lives as child domestic workers and answered some quite difficult questions from the audience.
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