Legislation preventing child labour and the exploitation of young people at work needs to be more effectively monitored, the general secretary of the ICTU, Mr Peter Cassells, has said.
Employers who break the law should be publicly identified and penalised for using young people as a source of cheap labour, he added.
Mr Cassells was speaking at a briefing to announce details of the Global March against Child Labour, which arrives in Ireland next month.
The march, which passes through three continents, ends in June in Geneva, where negotiations are due to open on the elimination of dangerous forms of child labour. Some 250 million children between the ages of five and 14 work, almost half of them full-time.
Mr Cassells said that although the problem of child labour was concentrated in the developing world, it also existed in Ireland. Those most affected tended to come from disadvantaged backgrounds and many young people who had to work long hours in order earn money for their families ended up dropping out early from school.
Mr Cian O Tighearnaigh, chief executive of the Irish Council for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, also criticised the lack of monitoring measures against child labour. Problems of the abuse of children's rights, such as forced begging and child prostitution, were visible on Dublin's streets.
Having ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, there was a clear obligation on the Government to act domestically and internationally to eliminate harmful labour and exploitation of children, he said.
The Global March against Child Labour, which started in the Philippines last January, will arrive in Belfast on May 8th, and is expected in Dublin by May 12th.
