Comment: 'APA' News Agency reports about child labour in Azerbaijan and quotes both government and NGO representatives. While no one can provide exact numbers, according to calculations of international organisations there are 4'000 street children in the country, most of them working illegally, without contracts. According to a recent ILO research, the age for the boys was between 12-14, for the girls 12-16. The girls at this age were involved in prostitution mostly, while the boys were working as auto washers or bus conductors. 64.7 per cent of these children are living with the single mothers and brothers and sisters.

APA News Agency full text

Extract: In this edition, the Panel Secretariat encourages all juvenile justice actors to follow-up on the Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child. At its 49th Session, which ended in early October, the Committee made recommendations on juvenile justice to Bhutan, Djibouti, and the United Kingdom, covering both children in conflict with the law and child victims and witnesses of crimes. The Concluding Observations included, amongst others, recommendations on the need to reduce the use of detention (and to increase the use of alternative measures), as well as on the need to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility (currently set at 10 years in Bhutan and 8/10 years in the United Kingdom).

IPJJ Newsletter full text

Comment: The 'Times of Malta' reported that a Romanian man wanted in his country for human trafficking and paedophilia was arrested on Tuesday night in Malta. He is suspected of having helped women to travel to the Netherlands where they thought they would work as dancers, but were actually forced into prostitution. Some of them were minors.

Times of Malta full text

Comment: The Romanian newspaper 'Nine o'Clock' reported that 540 Romanians were identified by the police as having been exploited in Spain and Italy during the period of January to September. Most of them were exploited through work in agriculture, hotel service and construction, but also for sexual and begging purposes. The article is based on a statistic coming from the Romanian National Agency Against Trafficking in Persons (ANITP). In Spain, 366 Romanians have been exploited, including 23 underage. While in Italy, 174 Romanians, including 25 underage, have endured the same treatment.

Nine o'Clock full text

Comment: According to the 'Toronto Star', there were 31 documented cases of international human trafficking involving Canadians between May 2006 and May 2008, but not even a single conviction in a Canadian court. The victims, among which four children, came especially from following South Eastern European countries Romania and Moldova, as well as Philippines and China. They are typically women brought to Canada to work in the sex trade or forced labour.

Toronto Star full text