Full Coverage: Labour

28.03.2008 Young students in Afghanistan unable to afford rentals and other expenses are forced to work on illicit poppy fields to earn some money. Not only do their studies suffer due to grueling work, but they also get exposed to the dangerous addiction of drugs.

25.03.2008 Thousands of bonded labourers released from granite and marble quarries of north India have settled in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. They are now trying to rebuild their lives, free from the exploitative shackles of contractors.

24.03.2008 Tata Consultancy Services has designed a special software to prevent the misuse of funds meant for rural poor under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). Over Rs 10 million have been recovered from local politicians and government officials in a village in southern India through the online system.

18.03.2008 With hardly any gainful employment and practically no government welfare schemes, the people of a village in eastern India are forced to cut a mountain to evade hunger. They come every morning equipped with hammers and take away a part of the hard rock to chisel into neat cubes and sell.

17.03.2008 Despite India's rapid strides on the economic front, the Arjun Sengupta Committee report reveals 85% of the country's unorganised workforce lives on Rs. 20 a day. Adverse working conditions and lack of basic services further add to their woes.

14.03.2008 Lack of employment opportunities and the fear of starvation in rural areas in the wake of last yearÂ’s cyclone are forcing Bangladeshis to throng cities in search of livelihood. Most do menial jobs as loaders, and rickshaw pullers, earning barely enough to save their families from hunger back home.

14.03.2008 Dalit women in Andhra Pradesh in southern India are gearing up to fight for their land rights. To turn a recent government order into reality, the campaign backed by ActionAid India and Dalit Samakhya has filed over 25,000 applications to put unused land into productive use.

10.03.2008 WINDHOEK, Mar 10 (IPS) - The Namibian government plans to stay the course with an economic incentive program for corporations -- known as export processing zones (EPZ) -- despite one of the largest of the foreign investors deciding last week to close down its operations -- a move that will destroy 3,000 jobs.

08.03.2008 A new study by International Labour Organisation says that the number of employed women has grown by almost 200 million over the last decade reaching the figure of 1.2 billion. Decent and productive employment is crucial in the process of creating greater equality between men and women, says the report.

05.03.2008 BOGOTA, Mar 5 (OneWorld) - People who earn their living by sorting through and reselling municipal waste have reasserted their role as garbage recyclers and productive members of the global economy at an unprecedented event here this week.