ILO study points to long-term impact of child labour
Around 20 to 30 per cent of children in low income countries complete their schooling and enter the labour market by the age of 15, says a new Inter-national Labour Organization (ILO) report prepared for World Day against Child Labour. Most of these children were in child labour before.
The World Report on Child Labour 2015: Paving the way to decent work for young people shows that young persons who were burdened by work as children are consistently more likely to have to settle for unpaid family jobs and are more likely to be in low paying jobs, says a press release.
Our new report shows the need for a coherent policy approach that tackles child labour and the lack of decent jobs for youth together. Keeping children in school and receiving a good education until at least the minimum age of employment will determine the whole life of a child. It is the only way for a child to acquire the basic knowledge and skills needed for further learning, and for her or his future working life, ILO Director-General Guy Ryder said.
To take up this challenge, 2014 Nobel Peace Prize co-Laureate Kailash Satyarthi calls for a change of mindsets: When we consider our biological children, we think that they are born to become doctors, engineers, and professors the whole world is for them. But when we talk about other children, we think, ok, they are poor children, let them work, we will slowly help them. Let us consider all children our children.
The report addresses the twin challenges of eliminating child labour and ensuring decent work for young people. Based on a 12 country survey, it examines the future careers of former child labourers and early school leavers.
The ILOs most recent estimate is that 168 million children are in child labour, with 120 million of them aged 5-14. The report underscores the critical importance of intervening early in the life cycle against child labour.
World Day against Child Labour will be observed here tomorrow as elsewhere in the world.
BSS adds: To mark the day, different government and non-government organisations have taken various programmes at different places in the country including the capital.
The day is being observed every year since 2003.
The day will be observed this year with the theme -No To Child Labour-Yes To Quality Education.
At the eve of the day, the Labour and Employment Ministry, Manusher Jonno Foundation and Save the Children have jointly organized a national seminar at the BIAM foundation today.
To eliminate the child labour, the Labour and Employment Ministry has imparted training with informal education to 80,000 children who were engaged in hazardous works, said the seminar, adding that all the children who are being engaged with hazardous jobs would be brought under education within the current year.
