The
African Movement of Working Children and Youth, AMWCY,
has been set up since 1994. Today (2008) it consists
of 126 association members (town or rural level).
They are present in so many cities of 21 African countries,
about 1020 grass-roots groups (neighbourhood or village
level), it membership is made out of 148 194 members
and close supporters who are for most housemaids,
apprentices, small vendors, self-employed working
children and youth in streets and markets (figures
of March 2007)...
Among
the members of AWWCY, 62% are children, 38% are youth,
53% of WCY are girls and 47% are boys.
Members of AMWCY have demonstrated their ability to
mobilize from 40000 to 60000 WCY during the events
they have been organizing for 10 years to promote
their rights.
In 1994, its founders identified twelve prior rights
to fight against the exploitation and the bad conditions
of child labour and made a programme for the promotion
of these rights. Starting from 1996, the AMWCY believed
that the promotion of rights should be done "by
materializing them”. So two years later, in
1998 at their 4th African Meeting, the participants
assessed their progress and found that it was effective
for 8 of them thanks to the work of associations and
the support of the supporting organizations.
In 2000 in Bamako, AMWCY noticed the continuation
of this progress. It announced the President of the
Republic of Mali and Current Chairman of ECOWAS its
commitment to combat the "worst forms" of
child labour, besides that of improving the living
and working conditions of all WCY of Africa.
