The percentage of people living on US$1 a day in South Asia, which includes India and Bangladesh, dropped to 28.4 percent in 2003 from 40.9 percent in 1990, the report said. In East Asia, which includes China, it fell to 14.9 percent from 31.2 percent.

The report, which addresses an array of issues ranging from labor migration to labor market governance, noted improvement in the area of child workers, but stressed much remains to be accomplished.

Also, it said that the number of working children, defined as being between the ages of 5 to 14, in Asia fell to 122.3 million in 2004 from 127.3 million in 2000, citing improved access to education. Still, Asia has about two-thirds of the world's children who work.

In the worst cases, the report said that children in the region are subjected to "slavery, trafficking into exploitative situations, debt bondage and other forms of forced labor, forced recruitment into armed conflict, prostitution, pornography and other illicit activities."

Representatives from some 40 countries in the Asia-Pacific as well as workers' and employers' organizations are scheduled to attend the ILO gathering through Friday on how globalization affects labor market and employment.

The meeting, normally held every four years, was originally scheduled for 2005 in Busan, but tension between South Korean labor organizations and the government forced organizers to postpone the meeting.

1

2