GREEN MEP Jean Lambert has said the EU should step up efforts to eradicate child labour around the world put putting the issue on the agenda of all future trade meetings.

Ms Lambert, speaking on World Day Against Child Labour, said there were about 168 million children working around the world – about half of them in hazardous conditions – mostly to meet the basic needs of their families and deal with poverty and financial insecurity.

“Much of this work – which is preventing children from receiving a proper education and is trapping whole communities in cycles of poverty – can be eliminated if governments extend a basic social safety net to all,” said Ms Lambert.

“Put simply, decent social protection – sick pay, health care, pensions, unemployment protection and parental benefits – is a useful step to eliminating child labour, as the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has observed.

“By itself, it isn’t enough: we need whole community solutions and, above all, people to believe that all child labour is unacceptable.

“Engagement with the EU is often a catalyst for improved social measures, but about five billion people, that’s almost three-quarters of the world’s population, are not having their basic welfare needs met.”

The Green Euro-MP, who chairs the European Parliament’s Delegation to South Asia, which includes Bangladesh and Pakistan, said it was also crucial that all EU countries got their own houses in order – and didn’t dilute social protection in the name of financial austerity.

She said the UK, in particular, must take care to ensure the bedroom tax and spiraling housing costs coupled with wages that are declining in real terms, other benefit changes and increased training costs aren’t driving any teenagers to leave education early to seek work.

She made her comments as the ILO began its campaign to ‘Red Card to Child Labour’ campaign, ahead of the FIFA World Cup, which began yesterday in Brazil.

In January Ms Lambert, a member of the European Parliament’s Employment and Social Affair Committee, raised the issue of child labour in Bangladesh with the European Commission.

In particular, she raised concerns that some ‘micro-finance’ schemes, in which poor entrepreneurs are lent small sums of cash either to establish themselves in self-employment or to start businesses could actually be encouraging child labour as families seek regular incomes to pay back the small loans.

She asked whether such schemes, where they were funded by the EU, were assessed for their impact on child labour.

EU Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said the EU was committed to ensuring that children’s rights were upheld throughout the world – and, in particular, was committed to the eradication of child labour in all the countries with which it does business.

Ms Lambert added: “I am delighted to hear that the EU is determined to play its part in the fight against child labour around the world.

“Requiring real commitment on extending social protection from trading partners is one way it could really make a difference, and I hope, as the world marks World Day Against Child Labour today, that the ILO succeeds in its efforts to show the ‘Red Card to Child Labour’.”

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The credibility of the World Cup – and the entire football sector – is at stake over the mistreatment of thousands of migrant workers in Qatar, Members of the European Parliament have warned.

Qatar will host the World Cup in 2022 – but many of the venues are being constructed by migrant workers in ‘slave-like’ conditions.

Nearly 90% of the Gulf state’s workforce are foreign migrants – mostly from India and Nepal – and many are lured to take jobs in the country’s construction boom with lies about the work they will be doing, and are underpaid, forced to live in squalid and overcrowded camps and denied free drinking water in conditions described as ‘modern day slavery’ by human rights organisations.

Now a group of MEPs – including London’s Green MEP Jean Lambert – have called on the nation to sign up to international human rights and workers’ rights treaties designed to improve their conditions.

Their recommendations were adopted by the European Parliament yesterday.

Ms Lambert, speaking ahead of the vote, said:

“The credibility of the whole football sector is at stake.

“It’s vital that the conditions of World Cup workers – and many other migrant workers in the country – are improved immediately, and that the EU, and FIFA, send a strong and clear message to Qatar that the rest of the world won’t tolerate a World Cup realized with the assistance of modern slavery.

“With the highest proportion of migrant workers in the world, and 500,000 more World Cup workers on their way (in a country whose population is only about two million), it’s urgent – for the sake of the workers themselves and the reputation of the World Cup and Qatar itself– that Qatar enforces the law already in place and signs up to UN and International Labour Organisation treaties designed to improve the rights of all migrant workers.

“In short, we’re seeing the ugly side of the beautiful game here, and Qatar really must clean up its act.”

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London’s Green MEP has called on David Cameron to ratify the ILO (International Labour Organisation) Convention on Domestic Workers, which came into force this week.

The Convention, which guarantees that anyone employed as a domestic worker receives the same minimum wage, health and safety protection, and workers’ rights as any employee in a more ‘formal’ workplace, will only apply in those nations that have fully signed up to the treaty: eight so far, including Italy – with Germany soon to follow.

But the UK claims it would be impossible to expect wealthy householders to extend basic rights to their nannies, cooks and cleaners.

There are more than 63 million domestic workers worldwide – 10.5 million of them children – many of them poorly paid and effectively imprisoned in their workplace.

Ms Lambert said: “If countries such as Italy and Germany think guaranteeing the rights of workers employed in others’ homes is both desirable and possible, why on earth does our Government think it’s not feasible?

“In fact it’s made the situation worse for enslaved domestic workers, by making it impossible for them to seek better employment conditions in the UK without facing deportation.

“The UK has tried to water this treaty down at every turn – and it must now stop moaning about having to treat domestic workers properly and ratify the Treaty.”

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Ms Lambert, chair of the EU Delegation to South Asia, said the Bangladeshi government must speed up efforts to meet its stated commitments to implement international health and safety agreements throughout the country.

She said: “This latest factory collapse is a tragedy – and my thoughts are with the families and friends of all those who were killed or injured – but it is, alas, just the latest of many.

“Enough is enough. The Bangladeshi government has undertaken to improve health and safety rules designed to protect workers – and the public – from unscrupulous building owners, and this incident underlines the urgency of its work to do this.”

In January the European Parliament called on Bangladesh to speed up efforts to improve health and safety, to ensure a stronger role for trade unions, to enact all relevant International Labour Organisation (ILO) agreements, and to put an end to restrictions on trade union activities and collective bargaining.

MEPs also called for clothes retailers to let their customers know if their goods had been produced in ‘union-friendly’ workplaces, and for EU trade officials to be given training in human rights and corporate social responsibility issues.

Ms Lambert, who raised the issue at a Geneva meeting with ILO officials last year, added:

“All stakeholders have signed up to the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement, and now we must see them all step up efforts to implement it in full.

“Customers don’t want blood on their hands, and it is essential that international labour and health and safety standards are met.”

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