Clare Daly (GUE/NGL). – Madam President, I wouldn’t say anybody here has ever met a person who supports child labour, but yet it continues. For God’s sake, yesterday we agreed an agreement with a country where child labour exists. Where is the questioning about why this happens? Do you think the parents of the children in Madagascar don’t love them? That they don’t want them to go to school? Of course they do, but they have no alternative, because their children are the victims of capitalism, of industrial agriculture, of climate change and drought. And we have multi—nationals from European countries doing business there.
Now I’m sorry, but I have to say these motions are pathetic. Appealing to their better nature is like asking a wolf not to eat a goat. It lets us down badly. Where’s the penalties? Where’s the criminal charges? Where’s the binding legislation? Will you cop yourselves on? They don’t need crocodile tears, they need action.