Break the scourge of child labour

There are more working children between the age of five and 14 in sub-Saharan Africa than anywhere else in the world.

Faced with this information, the first Southern African conference on child labour, organised under the theme Education, not Exploitation in Boksburg last week, has urged governments to combat the worst forms of child labour to ensure that children grow up in protected environments.

Delegates from each of the five SADC countries at the conference vowed to get national child labour action plans in place in their respective countries.

They also agreed to the regular, rigorous and publicly accountable monitoring of child labour practices.

Child labour is regarded as a serious problem in many countries, with the International Labour Organisation estimating that about 218-million children between the ages of 5 and 17 around the world are engaged in child labour.

Of these, about 122-million are caught in the worst forms of child labour, which includes child trafficking, commercial sexual exploitation, bonded labour, the use of children for illegal activities and children working under hazardous conditions.

The three-day conference, organised by the programme on Reducing Exploitative Child Labour in Southern Africa, was attended by delegates from South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland.

Conference chairperson Mary Metcalfe said governments and civil society needed to work hard to eradicate all forms of child labour that deprive children access to education and distort their personal development.

We must commit ourselves to a relentless struggle that will not cease until the scourge of child labour has finally been banished from our countries, said Metcalfe.

South Africa has had a Child Labour Programme in place since 2003 and has begun to implement aspects of it. Delegates from South Africa met as a group and developed a set of resolutions designed to take the plan forward. Among other things, they called for the specific provisions on the worst forms of child labour to be included in the Childrens Act.

They also called for the extension of the Child Support Grant to children under the age of 15 with more extensions to follow, bringing the upper age limit to 18.

The SA working group called for an education policy and practice that fully addresses issues of child labour.

The group said steps had to be taken to review the curriculum to include vocational training to develop entrepreneurial and other life skills in children.

A call was also made for free quality education for all, at all levels. Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland, on the other hand, met and produced a detailed outline of the steps required to produce their national action programmes.

According to the conferences final declaration, children may participate in work activities that are developmentally appropriate and that take place in a nurturing environment, but they have a right to be protected from work that is exploitative, hazardous, and detrimental to their schooling or physical and mental development. The declaration also pointed out that child labour perpetuated poverty.

Children who are deprived of access to education and whose personal development is distorted by poverty and inappropriate labour are at risk of being trapped in an ongoing cycle of poverty. The issues surrounding child labour are embedded in greater social-economic issues which need to be addressed by a broad range of players, read the declaration document.

The conference also resolved that countries within the Southern African Development Community could learn from each other and implement cross-national, cross-sectoral strategies to eliminate child labour, commercial sexual exploitation of children and child-trafficking.

Delegates called for more political will and careful monitoring to ensure accurate research which will enable better allocation of limited resources. They said the resources had to be used with care and efficiency to most effectively reduce exploitative child labour and to protect vulnerable children who are most at risk.

The Deputy Director-General in the Department of Labour, Les Kettledas, told the gathering that it was a serious indictment that Sub-Saharan Africa had made the least progress of any region in the world in reducing child labour.

The elimination of child labour is a gigantic agenda that is complex and difficult, he said, adding that beyond the technical expertise required, the main instrument in making things happen was to believe in your cause.