The real solution is to improve the incomes of the poor and provide their children with decent education.

For example, UNICEF works with governments to change legislation such as in India where a law was passed raising the age of compulsory school completion to keep children in school and away from the workplace for longer.

It's estimated that there may be two hundred and fifty million children in the world engaged in some form of exploitative child labour.

A century that began with children having virtually no rights is ending with children having the most powerful legal instrument that not only recognizes but protects their human rights.

Here once again education is crucial, it enables children to be become more aware of their rights and to exercise them in a respectful manner which helps them shape their own future.

Children have in the past and continue to influence policy makers.

We must ensure that while eliminating child labor in the export industry, we are also eliminating their labour from the informal sector, which is more invisible to public scrutiny - and thus leaves the children more open to abuse and exploitation.