Two local teen-agers who participated in the Global March Against Child Labor returned home Wednesday, completing a trip that began in January and took them through 13 nations.
“My friends and I learned a lot of lessons on how children are pushed into factory jobs,” said 16-year-old Peng Sokhun Thea upon arriving at Pochentong Airport.
After starting in January in the Philippines and Vietnam, the marchers left Cambodia in early February and traveled through Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan and Turkey. The protesters separated into five groups in Europe, then converged with South American and African legs of the march in Geneva, Switzerland last week where a new International Labor Organization convention on child labor was drafted.
“All children of the world, especially Cambodian children, must work together to make people respect our rights,” said Peng Sokhun Thea. She thought the working conditions for children in India were the worst.
