Samuel Sasu Adonteng’s voice was one of many young voices heard during the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour. He believes the inclusion of the youth means there are better chances that the campaign to end the scourge will succeed. Credit: Fawzia Moodley/IPS

By Fawzia Moodley
Durban, May 26 2022 (IPS)

Samuel Sasu Adonteng, programme officer for the All-Africa Students Union (AASU), believes that the recent 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour has taken us closer to ending child labour for the first time because the voices of those affected were heard.

The week-long conference had a strong contingent of child labourers and former children in bondage who spoke out about their horrific experiences and made input on the actions that must be taken to end the practice.

The six-day conference held in Durban, South Africa, concluded with the Durban Call To Action On The Elimination of Child Labour, a blueprint for accelerating the fight at a time when, despite efforts by the ILO and its partners, the number of children in bondage has ballooned to 164 million.

Adonteng played a crucial role in galvanising the child labourers and survivors of child labour from Africa to attend the conference to raise their voices on the international platform.

The 26-year-old Ghanian says that he could easily have become a child labourer.

“I come from a small community in the Greater Accra region where quite a lot of children work and hawk on the streets. At some point in my life, I also had to sell water on the streets. I also had to sell car spare parts. I’d carry them about a kilometre to suppliers or people who wanted to buy them.”

Luckily for Adonteng, he came from a family that’s very invested in education.

“They believed in the power of education and how it can help children achieve the kind of future they want.

His mother passed away when Adonteng was very young, so he was brought up by his aunt, who, he says, “was so much bent on my education, even if it meant that at some point she had to beg from other people to pay for my school fees.

“So, I was able to go to senior high school and university to get my first degree. Currently, I am pursuing my Master’s degree in Total Quality Management. Hopefully, I’ll get a second Master’s degree in International Relations and Development.

He says many parents in Ghana understand the value of education and “are even willing to sell their belongings to ensure that their children go to school.”

“Parents and other family members play a critical role in ensuring that children have access to education. Some parents send their children out to fishing villages and even farms to work rather than send them to school.”

During the Children’s Forum at the conference, there was a strong call for an awareness campaign for parents to understand the importance of educating their children.

He echoed the call by the survivors of child labour on countries to provide “free, high-quality education and social security networks such as school feeding programmes.”

Adonteng attributes his detour into social activism to “seeing how education can be a powerful tool to turn around the lives of anybody, and how if we don’t take certain actions, we will lose an entire generation to child labour.

He says AASU, which works with the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations in Ghana, supports a dual approach of child support and institutional support to end child labour. This, he says, resonates with the call by the survivors of child labour at the conference.

“The AASU first partnered with the 100 million Campaign to end child labour in 2018. Our first initiative was an enrolment programme, and through that, our understanding was that we would ensure that every child of school-going age who is not in school is put back into school.”

In the lead up to the Durban child labour conference, the AASU organised the Africa regional virtual march to send a message to grassroots communities that child labour was not the road to success.

“Keeping children in school gives them a higher chance of becoming better people and contributes to national, continental and global development,” says Adonteng.

Governments alone cannot end child labour, he says, “it needs collective effort; if everybody has that one mindset that children should not be working, then we will succeed.”

Adonteng attributes his participation in the conference as a facilitator and speaker to his involvement in the 100 million Campaign and the Global March Against Child Labour through the AASU.

He says the inclusion of children at the conference, several of whom were rescued by the Kailash Satyarthi Foundation, is a significant breakthrough and will help accelerate the fight’s pace, which has failed to bring down the number of children in child labour.

Adonteng says that the conference organisers have taken on board the issues raised by the youth participants in formulating the Durban declaration.

“I think the thoughts of the children have been valued. So, what’s left is for those key stakeholders who have the power, the political will and funding to do what needs to be done. So, if they do care about children, now is the time to make the right funding and policies available.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

This is one of a series of stories that IPS published about the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban, South Africa.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Lucky Agbavor survived child labour in Ghana and put himself through school by selling ice cream. The Pentecostal Church pays for his tuition during his nursing studies, but he still sells juice to put food on the table. Credit: Cecilia Russell/IPS

By Fawzia Moodley
Durban, May 24 2022 (IPS)

Lucky Agbavor sleeps on a mattress in a church in Accra, Ghana sells juice to earn an income, and has been a child labourer since he was four. Now he has made an impact on the international stage when he participated in the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child labour.

Agbavor’s life’s trajectory lays bare the horrors of child labour and how poverty and lack of education rob people of their childhood and the prospect of a decent future.

The link between the lack of education primarily driven by poverty as a root cause of child labour underpinned virtually every discussion at the Conference which was held in Durban, South Africa in May 2022.

Now a second-year nursing student at the Pentecost University, Agbavor never enjoyed a childhood. At four, his mother sent him off to her uncle in a remote village because she could not provide for her son. He had to help his ‘grandpa’ in his fishing enterprise.

His mother took him back home four months later, fearful for Agbavor’s life after he fell off her uncle’s canoe and almost drowned.

Two years later, he was sent to another relative, a cash crop farmer. So here was this six-year-old who had to wake up at 3 am every day to start work: “I had to collect the fresh ‘wine’ drained from the palm trees to be sent to be distilled for alcoholic extraction. I was doing this alongside household chores every morning.”

By the time Agbavor got to school, he was already exhausted. “Sometimes I was very stressed and dozed off, and often I didn’t grasp anything taught in class”.

After school, he tried to make money to pay for his fees by fetching cocoa from the farm and packing it for processing.

“Sometimes, we went to the forest to cut and load wood. We used chain saws and then carried the beams to a vehicle for transportation.”

The chopping of the trees was illegal.

“Forest guards would intercept us because it was illegal. So, they would arrest the operator, and you would not get paid even the paltry money we worked so hard for,” he says.

Agbavor often went to school in torn uniform and used one book for all his subjects.

This continued for ten years, but at least he managed to get a rudimentary education.

“Glory to God I passed my basic education in 2012 where I could continue high school, but unfortunately my ‘grandfather’ said he had no money even though I had worked for him for the past ten years,” he says.

Agbavor returned to live with his mother, whose financial situation was still dire, and he had to fend for himself.

“I started selling ice cream, coconuts, bread. I even ventured into photography with my uncle, who had a studio where he promised to give me a job and take me to high school, but after working for him for a year, he failed to keep his promise.”

Agbavor says he then went into full time ‘business’ selling ice cream on the streets to raise funds for high school. He worked long hours and had to sell lots of ice cream to earn enough money.

Lucky Agbavor addresses the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child labour. Credit: Cecilia Russell/IPS

Unfortunately, Agbavor, who wanted to be a doctor, did not achieve the results needed to go to medical school, so he decided to do a nursing degree as a way to eventually study medicine.

The Pentecostal Church agreed to pay his fees, but he still had to find the money for food and other necessities. He now sells juice to earn an income and says he is grateful to some local benefactors who help him from time to time. But life is still far from rosy. He has no home and sleeps on a mattress in the church.

Agbavor’s presence at the conference is thanks to the National Union of Ghana Students, who felt Agbavor’s story would be an eye-opener. He was one of several child labour survivors including several saved by the Kailash Satyarthi Foundation who shared their stories..

It’s Agbavor’s first trip outside his country. Yet, his self-confidence and charisma have allowed him to hold his own at a conference attended by politicians, business people, trade unionists, and NGOs worldwide.

He attributes his ability to stand his ground to his tough upbringing.

“I have seen the worst of life. It made me strong. I am like a seed. I sprouted out of the soil. It is the same potential millions of other children (in bondage) have.”

Agbavor’s message to the conference is that while access to free education is key to liberating children in bondage, the quality of that education is equally important.

“I want to tell people that the schools that educate the children of ministers, politicians, doctors, those same schools can absorb and educate child labourers,” he says.

IPS UN Bureau Report

This is one of a series of stories that IPS published around the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban, South Africa.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Our voices must be heard and listened to – now and in the future, say child labour survivors and activists at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban Badaku Marandi (India, survivor), Rajesh Jatav (India, survivor), Selimatha Dziedzorm Salifu (Ghana, survivor), Divin Ishimwe (Burundi activist), Esther Gomani (Malawi, activist), Rebekka Nghilalulwa (Namibia, activist, representative of the 100 million March). Credit: Cecilia Russell/IPS

By Lyse Comins
DURBAN, May 20 2022 (IPS)

Governments of the world must focus on providing quality free education and prosecuting corrupt officials and people who siphon state and donor funds as crucial steps towards taking decisive action to fight child labour across the globe.

These were among the diverse opinions of child labour survivors and young activists in reaction to the Durban Call to Action to eradicate the practice at the 5^th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban. Hundreds of delegates, including world leaders in business, trade unions and civil society organisations, attended the conference, which ran in the city from May 15 to 20, 2022. Sessions and panel discussions highlighted topics from agriculture, climate change and global supply chains and how these sectors and issues contribute to child labour.

Speaking during the closing ceremony on Friday, International Organisation of Employers vice president for Africa, Jacqueline Mugo,  highlighted the salient points of the 11-page Durban Call to Action.

“The Durban Call to Action is a comprehensive action plan. Employers fully support this plan,” Mugo said.

The Durban Call to Action aims to:

• Ensure decent work for adults and youth above the minimum age for work
• End child labour in agriculture
• Prevent and eliminate child and forced labour through data-driven policy and programmatic responses
• Realise children’s right to education
• Achieve universal access to social protection
• Increase financing and international cooperation.

“It is in our hearts to make this crucial turning point happen. We must not fail the children of the world. This implementation of the Durban call will largely be the work of an African who will take up leadership ILO later this year, so we have no reason to fail. We are deeply committed to work for its full implementation,” Mugo said.

Togolese diplomat Gilbert Houngbo ILO Director-General (elected) takes up his new position on October 1, 2022, strategically positioning him to lead the fight against child labour globally.

“This conference is breaking new ground. Let us recall that 160 million children are in child labour, half of which are involved in hazardous work that puts their physical and mental health at risk. We must not forget that behind every number there is a girl, there is a boy like any other who wants to learn, who wants to play, who wants to be cared for and to grow up and be able to get a good job as adults. They are denied the most basic rights to protection. It is intolerable and, quite frankly, morally unacceptable,” Houngbo said.

According to the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) and UNICEF’s latest statistics released in 2020, highlighted at the conference, at least 160 million children are now involved in child labour, a surge of 8.4 million in just four years.

Sierra Leone Labour Congress secretary-general Max Conteh blamed the Covid-19 pandemic for eroding the progress made in the fight against child labour.

“Statistics point to past achievements being fast eroded and child labour being exacerbated, no thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic. This has resulted in large numbers of children dropping out of school and falling into the labour market,” Conteh said.

South Africa’s Minister of Employment and Labour, Thulas Nxesi, called on countries to implement action plans to fulfil the Durban Call to Action.

“The message was very clear, governments must pass the necessary legislation, governments and business (must) accept that we need a structural change of the economy, it must not just be about profits, it must also be about people. That message was very clear. It would be a serious oversight not to earlier in the conference, children delivered the Children’s Call to Action, which highlighted the need for free access to education, social protection, the provision of safe spaces during crises such as pandemics and climate change disasters and the importance of evoking the spirit of “nothing about us without us” to democratically include children in policies and decisions that affect their lives.

Selimatha Dziedzorm Salifu (survivor, Ghana), Divin Ishimwe (activist, Burundi), Rebekka Nghilalulwa (activist, Namibia), Rajesh Jatav (survivor, India), Esther Gomani (activist, Malawi) and Badaku Marandi (survivor, India) are optimistic and determined that this time the call to action to #EndChildLabour must succeed. Credit: Cecilia Russell/IPS

Several child labour survivors and activists who commented on the conference and the Durban Call to Action said the focus on fighting child labour should be on education, eliminating corruption and listening to children’s voices.

Esther Gomani, a student from Malawi, was satisfied that the voice of some 60 children, who represented ten countries, were heard during special children’s sessions, for the first time, at the global conference.

“Before now, they did things without including people (children). People come to conferences, and there is no commitment. They come to enjoy the benefits. Now children’s voices have been amplified (so they will be heard) — nothing about us, without us. We need to be involved in the solutions,” Gomani said.

Rajesh Jatav, a child labour survivor from India, who was rescued by the Kailash Satyarthi Foundation, said governments should focus on providing quality education.

“Education is the key. This is the only message. Look after quality basic education. Governments have lots of money for quality education. But there is corruption. They should use this money on stopping illicit flows,” Jatav said.

Badaku Marandi, a survivor from India agreed vehemently.

“We are child survivors and are educated, we challenge the government and private sector to provide quality education,” Marandi said.

Rebekka Nghilalulwa, a child activist, and representative of 100 million March (Namibia) said the plan needed to be put into action to achieve results.

“I want to see each and everyone’s responsibilities and roles described. The Durban declaration should properly outline implementation. That way next time we will be celebrating and not deliberating on issues. It would be disappointing to include voices just for show. As much as we are young, we have the experience (of child labour),” Nghilalulwa said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

This is one of a series of stories that IPS will publish during the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban, South Africa.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Delegates at the Youth Forum at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban, South Africa, demanded that all forums in the future include their participation. Credit: Cecilia Russell/IPS

By Lyse Comins
Durban, May 20 2022 (IPS)

Ashley has vast work experience. She has laboured by the sweat of her brow in the blistering sun on the streets of Guatemala, in the open fields on farmlands and indoors, toiling for long hours to the hum of a sewing machine.

Her work resume might be impressive to some – street trader, farmworker and tailor – but she, like 160 million children around the world, is trapped in child labour, working desperately to support her impoverished family and provide for her education.

“For most working children, it is very hard for us to express ourselves. All working children have different necessities, and most of their parents cannot supply these: clothing, health, and education. The root cause of child labour is poverty because it makes us as working children get out of our houses to risk our lives to be able to help our family,” she said.

“Working children are not done with formal education. They have not finished primary education because their families do not have financial resources. We need to go out and financially sustain ourselves economically. In other cases, third parties abuse them,” Ashely told delegates at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban, South Africa.

“In my country and also the whole of Latin America, you will see every day how children are posted in parks, by the traffic lights, doing any kind of work in bad conditions.”

Ashley took time out from her work to share her story and join a small band of teenage peers and child labour survivors to make history, representing the children of 10 countries from across the globe at the conference, which runs in Durban, South Africa until Friday 20 May.

Like Ashley, across the globe in India, Amar Lala was born into a poor family and worked as a child labourer before being rescued by Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi, a social reformer who has tirelessly campaigned against child labour and advocated for the universal right to education.

“I used to work in the stone quarry breaking stones every day and putting those stones into pots. We used to get hurt every day but had no chance to get to hospital to get treatment. I had no idea, and even my family had no idea what education was. I was the luckiest boy to get helped when the Nobel Laureate saw me and rescued me. I got the opportunity to study and decided to become a lawyer to stand for other children who are like me. Today, I can proudly say I am a lawyer standing in court, every single day fighting for children who have been exploited and are in child labour and bondage,” Lala said.

Nothing about us, without us, was a clear message at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban, South Africa. These delegates were among those who drew up their own call to action at the conference. Credit: Lyse Comins/IPS

Children affected by child labour, like Ashley, Kabwe from Kenya, Mary Ann from South Africa and survivors like Lala, now 25, shared their stories before a group of children stood in unison to deliver the Children’s Call to Action, at the first global conference, ever, to include a platform for the voices of children impacted by child labour. The conference hosted more than 60 children and young people from different parts of the world, representing Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Organisers withheld the children’s full names to protect their identities and personal safety.

Representatives from the International Labour Organization, including Thomas Wissing of the Technical Advisory Cluster, chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Mikiko Otami, SA Minister of Employment and Labour, Thulas Nxesi and other high profile international government, business and civil society leaders were present during the session, either physically or virtually.

In their call-to-action statement, which captures the expectations of children who attended the conference, they noted that the conference was being held at a “critical moment” when the world is seeing an increase in child labour, especially on the African continent, where 92,2 million children are entrapped, some 80% working in the agricultural sector.

In summary, the children said they were asking for:

• Social protection and the provision of safe spaces for children during emergencies. Governments should make budgetary allocations to support and enrich children’s development, especially in poor, marginalised communities. Initiatives should be formulated, inclusive of children’s voices, to ensure that children’s rights and well-being are not violated or relegated to the background in emergencies. All states should adhere to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Sustainable Development Goal 8.7 and nationally adopted policies and laws on protecting the child.
• Apportionment/ allocation of budget. Richer countries should provide development assistance to poorer countries, especially in emergencies. For example, the provision of safe spaces for shelters that can be used to empower children and their parents/caregivers on matters of child labour. Governments should commit to initiatives that enhance the appropriation of finances to maximise their use towards support for access to social protection, free quality public education, health care for all children and free sanitary towels to ensure full school attendance. Stakeholders must be empowered to demand accountability and transparency from governments at all times. Corruption and the misappropriation of funds will disallow the opportunities for free access to quality public education for all and diminish children’s abilities to pursue their dreams of becoming meaningful members of society.
• Ensure the democratic representation of children and young people in the making and implementation of key decisions that affect them the most at all times. Organisations such as student unions, child-based groups and civil society organisations must engage with children to find solutions.

“We children and young people of the world…are saying ‘no to child labour’. We are asking governments and all other actors to respect and consider our voices to eradicate child labour by 2025. We hope that this conference does not become one of just words, but of actions,” the children said.

Commenting on the children’s involvement in the conference, Otami said they had helped provide a clear understanding of what the world was fighting for and the need for the holistic implementation of children’s rights.

“Hearing the voice of the children is very important. We talk about evidence-based research – what the children are experiencing and thinking is part of the evidence,” she said.

Wissing said children’s participation had been discussed at previous conferences, but the South African government had decided that it was ready to give children a platform to speak to the world’s policymakers.

“Children’s rights are not something you can negotiate according to local conditions or problems. These are aspirations that need to be put into action. You look at these conventions (on the rights of the child and the eradication of child labour), but if you don’t implement them, we will be discussing the same thing in 50 years. We want to eliminate child labour,” Wissing said.

He said the ILO was working with trade unions to lobby businesses for decent wages and working conditions for parents so that their children could go to school

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Amar Lai, a former child labourer, is now a human rights lawyer and a trustee of the 100 Million Campaign. He was saved from child labour by Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi who identified him while running an education campaign in the area where he worked alongside his parents in a quarry. Credit: Lucky Agbovar/IPS

By Fawzia Moodley
Durban, May 19 2022 (IPS)

Amar Lai’s first memories are working alongside his parents and siblings in a quarry, breaking rocks. He was aged four.

Now chatting to Lai, a confident 25-year-old human rights lawyer, it is hard to believe he was once a child labourer.

But when you hear his story, it is easy to understand why this man saved by the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation, which rescues bonded children, has dedicated his life to the same cause.

Lai was interviewed on the sidelines of the 5^th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban until May 20, 2022. The conference has seen five days of intense discussion on how to end child labour, including exposés of hazardous working conditions the children find themselves in.

At the tender age of four, Lai was forced to work in a quarry in Rajasthan, India.  His family were destitute, so they had to work for a pittance to put food on the table. They lived in a hut.

“We used to work from morning to night, and sometimes the whole night. My family was not allowed to miss a single day of work because it meant they would not be paid, which meant no lunch or dinner.

His father, Lai recalls, was paid a “small amount of money, and that’s how we survived”.

It was back-breaking work, especially for the little ones – and dangerous.

“You had to hold a machine to break the mine, and sometimes the stones would fall down. My brother and sister were often injured because when breaking the stone, you needed to use your hands, you got cut, anything could happen.”

Going to the doctor was out of the question, so they had to make do with home remedies.

Lai said they lived very far from the city, and they knew nothing about schools nor life beyond their little isolated world.

Then something happened that changed Lai’s life: “In 2001, Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi was running an education march, and moving through (the area) where we were, and they identified that my family and I were working there.”

Satyarthi convinced Lai’s parents that their children shouldn’t be working but in school – and although this was greeted initially with scepticism, he and two of his brothers eventually moved to Satyarthi’s rehabilitation centre for children rescued from child labour. The centre provides education and technical skills to the kids.

“I passed my senior high school, and then I started to think about what I should do in the future. I met many children there who were just like me or worse off. I realised that I was so lucky to get an opportunity to study, unlike millions of other child labourers.”

So, Lai decided to become a lawyer to help children like himself.

“I could fight for them in court, stand in the court to change the system, policies and regulations. I could challenge the government.”

In 2018 Lai got his law degree.

“Today, I am fighting for children who are sexually abused or are in child labour, trafficked and exploited. I am leading their cases every single day in court.”

He works for the Kailash Foundation, which provides free legal services to vulnerable children.

Lai is also a trustee of the 100 Million Campaign.

“This is a campaign started by Kailash. The idea is that we 100 million youth leaders who are educated, who understand and are privileged to have an education, need to stand up for those who are still in child labour and being exploited.”

On the foundation’s impact on his life, Lai says: “I cannot believe what the foundation did for me. I just picture myself in a house that was dark, and I couldn’t see anything and then in 2001, I came out of the house, and there were a lot of lights.

“And because of the lights, I can give some light to another child’s life. I feel I am the voice of those millions of children that are not at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour.”

Lai says he lives by Satyarthi’s rule: “You don’t need to do a lot, just do your bit”.

“If every single person can do their bit, then one day there will be no child labour in the world, and every child will get an education.”

Lai, a delegate at the conference in Durban, South Africa, which is trying to find ways to reach the UN’s goal of ending child labour by 2025, believes it’s an important platform.

“It’s very necessary because the leaders, the decision-makers, sometimes forget, sometimes neglect what they promised. They need to be reminded. And also, because the conference has given voice to children’s voices.”

He is convinced that their plea will be heard.

“I think the voice, the power we have, what we have faced we can represent, and I believe that it will make an impact because what happened to us is happening to 164 million children around the world.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

This is one of a series of stories that IPS will publish during the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban, South Africa.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

A picture exhibited at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour is taken from the book ‘Through their eyes – Visions of forced labour’. This picture was created by Gargalo Vasco Portugal who won an award for his depiction of child labour. Credit: ILO and RHSF, 2021.

By Lyse Comins
DURBAN, May 18 2022 (IPS)

Technology used to trace the origin and price of consumer goods to ensure farmers earn fair profits could easily be adapted as a tool to fight child labour Fair Trade living wage and income lead Isa Miralles told delegates at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour.

Miralles told a panel discussion that brought together civil society organisations to highlight their crucial role in reaching SDG 8.7 to eliminate child labour and that the organisation’s technological tool could help to raise transparency and accountability regarding child labour practices. The six-day conference takes place in Durban, South Africa, until Friday, 20 May.

The conference aimed at putting the world back on track to meet the 2025 deadline for ending child labour was opened on Sunday by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Two Nobel laureates appealed for resources to end the scourge.

Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi said he “refused to believe that the world is so poor that we cannot protect the children”. During the week high-level delegations have been looking at research, finance and innovation to ensure that children are protected from the practice.

Willy Buloso, Regional Coordinator for Africa of ECPAT International, who leads the organisation’s advocacy work against the sexual exploitation of children in the tourism and travel sector in Sub-Saharan Africa, also highlighted how his organisation’s successes could be adopted to assist in the fight against child labour.

Miralles explained how Fairtrade’s tech-centric approach to using a software tool to trace products throughout the food supply chain, such as farm sources of cocoa and fresh produce in Africa as well as spices in Indonesia, to retail level in the Northern Hemisphere, could also be used to bring transparency to the source of labour used to produced goods. The organisation co-created the tool to guide businesses to support a living wage for food producers and change the way farm trading occurs.

Child labour in Africa is a major challenge as most of the world’s 160 million children entrapped in child labour live on the continent. About 80% of the 92,2 million children trapped in child labour in Africa work in the agricultural sector, usually with their families. The practice is rife in the cocoa sector in the Ivory Coast and Ghana.

Fairtrade’s traceability tool could help to create transparency and accountability around this pressing problem, Miralles said.

“We are using the technology to unlock the value of the supply chain for the people at the start of it. We provide the software to trace every action in the supply chain, log in every buyer, trace products from producer to consumer, monitor quality, and whether goods are made by women and whether they are carbon neutral. We are creating a digital passport of our products,”  Miralles said.

“I can request proof a farmer was paid a certain price, and then the buyer can load up the information of the farmer and the price paid. This mechanism is relevant because it can also work to show whether a product is child labour free. We can pass this on through the whole supply chain and create intelligence,” she said.

She said consumers could log into a website, scan a product’s bar code, and find out more about its sourcing, and the tool’s intelligence could also be shared with courts in Europe, where necessary.

“We are bringing this to the consumer, and obviously, it is quite novel,” Miralles said.

She said consumers did not necessarily have to pay a higher price for Fairtrade products. There was leverage in the supply chain to ensure farmers obtained fair prices and that most profits were not made by wealthy Northern Hemisphere retailers.

Buloso, who is working to stamp out the child sex trade that accompanies tourism and travel on the continent, said it was “a great idea” for civil society organisations, not focused on fighting child labour to share insights.

He said the problem of child sexual exploitation did not involve mainly wealthy tourists from the North travelling to Cape Town and Zanzibar, as many assumed, but rather local people engaging in exploitation.

“The state of exploitation of children in prostitution is mostly by perpetrators who are based here in Africa in our countries. Perpetrators are among us,” he said.

Buloso added that 30% of child sex exploitation victims were boys.

“Something we can transfer from our work in (advocating against) sex exploitation of children, to the fight against child labour, is the code of conduct we developed to provide tourism businesses with tools to work together to fight sex exploitation,” Buloso said.

Buloso said the code of conduct, which included six criteria, could be used by organisations fighting against child labour.

The code of conduct criteria included:

• Establish an internal tourism and travel business policy against the sexual exploitation of children.
• Businesses must educate and train their employees on preventing and reporting cases of sexual exploitation of children.
• Businesses must include a zero-tolerance clause in contracts with stakeholders and clients.
• Businesses must provide tourists with information about the sexual exploitation of children.
• All tourism and travel industry stakeholders must be supported and provided with key information about the problem.
• Businesses must report annually on how they uphold the code of conduct.

Augustina Perez, Child Rights Senior Associate at the Bank Information Centre, which partners with civil society to spotlight risks and improve the transparency, accountability, and sustainability of development finance, said the World Bank had been proactive in addressing child labour.

“We have a project in the cocoa sector in Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). We know most child labour is in agriculture, and we know that together with Ghana, the country produces 60% of the cocoa in the world,” she said.

“The government (Ivory Coast) is a little resistant to putting child labour on the agenda, but the World Bank has been very proactive and has invited BIC to join a working group. We are trying to raise all the red flags and everything crucial to the Ivory Coast like taking (checking) IDs and addressing the root causes of child labour,” she said.

She said her organisation had presented the problem to the US government.

Ghana deputy minister of employment and labour relations, Bright Wireko-Brobby, speaking during an interview with IPS on the sidelines of the conference, said his government was committed to eradicating child labour. Ghana was the first country to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990 and then adopted it into its national laws.

“In Ghana, mostly the child labour issue can be found in the cocoa-growing areas and also pockets in the fishing and mining industry and the area of trade and commerce,” Wireko-Brobby said.

However, he said his government disputed a report by NORC at the University of Chicago which claimed that there were almost 1,6 million children involved in child labour in the cocoa industry in Ghana and the Ivory Coast.

NORC conducted surveys with children aged between 15 and 17 between 2008 and 2019 and revealed that cocoa production had increased by 62% in both countries. The report acknowledged that the governments of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana had implemented education reforms such as free education and compulsory attendance to fight child labour and that school attendance of children from agricultural households rose from 58 to 80 percent in Côte d’Ivoire and 89 to 96 percent in Ghana.

Wireko-Brobby said his country had made gains in the fight against child labour.

“In recent times, we have ensured that every child should be in school. We have provided meals, lunch and breakfast for every child in Ghana. We challenged that commissioned study because we did not believe that despite our interventions, child labour would go higher. We are now domesticating some of the indicators,” he said.

He said his government would welcome an intervention like Fairtrade’s tool to ensure cocoa production is child labour free.

“There is a focus on private sector interventions in the cocoa industry where they are trying to make sure that there is not a point in the supply chain where they can trace child labour. The collaboration between the private sector and the government is strong, and we try to bring it into the mainstream. Every child must be able to enjoy their childhood,” Wireko-Brobby said.

This is one of a series of stories that IPS will publish during the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban, South Africa.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Dr Joni Musabayana, Director of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) says it will take strong commitments and political will to end child labour in Africa. Credit: Fawzia Moodley/IPS

By Fawzia Moodley
Durban, May 18 2022 (IPS)

With a strong commitment from governments, businesses, labour and consumers, the scourge of child labour can be eliminated, says Dr Joni Musabayana, Director of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Pretoria, South Africa.

Speaking to IPS in an exclusive interview at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban, Musabayana was upbeat despite an increase in child labour worldwide. International efforts to end the scourge are under pressure to reach the United Nations goal of ending child labour by 2025.

Musabayana also spoke of the Durban Call To Action – expected to be ratified at the end of the conference.

“It  is not so much about legally binding but to give impetus to accelerate the efforts to address a problem using good practice.”

Musabayana says the sizeable high-level contingent of African delegates is a good sign for the continent, which carries the biggest burden of child labour.

“It is agreed that of the 160 million children in labour, 92 million are on the African continent. The turnout of 60% to 70 % African delegates, just by coming, shows their commitment to redouble their efforts to address this scourge.”

The key drivers of child labour in Africa are agriculture, bonded labour on the farms, mining, fishing, sexual exploitation of young children and informal and domestic work.

“You need multiple stakeholders and an integrated approach. It is not only about the government, but it has to show leadership because the fundamental pillars of solving child labour are largely access to free education, food schemes for children, and child support grants.

“These are policy instruments that South Africa is showing leadership in. Other African countries are following, and they are pointing us in the direction of what needs to be done.”

Political will and partnerships are vital to ending child labour.

Musabayana says: “What we need is extra political will, which we hope this conference will generate, to ensure that these programmes are well resourced, implemented, well monitored.

“Partnerships must be established with civil society, the employers employing child labour, and the unions working with these children.”

He encourages the media to expose instances of child labour, “if I could say to ‘name and shame’ those who continue to perpetuate this abhorrent practice.”

On the issue of global supply chains, he says: “We are happy that the CEOs of Nestle and Cocoa Cola have been with us and other big businesses. (It’s) important to see that they do not find it acceptable to source products and services made and facilitated through child labour.

Talking is not enough, though.

“It is not enough to make this point but crucial to cut off access to goods and services associated in their value chain with child labour.”

Musabayana adds: “Most critical is the end consumer, whether in China or the US or indeed the African continent or in Europe. I think everybody abhors products and services got through child labour, and we need to highlight which products are on the market and why end consumers should disassociate themselves with them.”

It’s emerged that many child labourers are employed by their own families. Musabayana blames this on poverty, saying no parent “willingly says I will send my child to work in a farm using hazardous chemicals.”

Therefore, the ILO seeks social protection for vulnerable families “to ensure that no one falls below a certain level of human survival.”

It also supports social support grants and basic income grants.

“These are policy instruments to ensure that families are not in such want and hunger, and in such need that they feel it necessary to use children to augment the family income.”

But where will the money come from?

“Clearly, the affordability of social security packages is a necessary debate, but we will always start by saying if you think it’s expensive to have a social protection plan, try the alternative.

“What kind of a society would we have?  We already have a fairly unequal society, and then what happens if we don’t take clear measures to ensure that those at the bottom of the pyramid lead a decent life,” Musabayana asks.

Earlier this week Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi told the conference the estimated cost of a social protection package for all children was 53 billion US dollars per annum.

As for a decent living wage, Musabayana says: “The ILO has supported the concept of a national minimum wage and the principle of collective bargaining so that working people must negotiate with their employers an agreement on what is a fair remuneration.”

The ILO also supports a national living wage. But Musabayana says it must be done responsibly: “We must have a gradual approach so that it is affordable and businesses that are supposed to carry this cost are still able to make a profit because we must not kill the goose that lays the golden egg.”

“I don’t think we should give up now and throw out hands in the air. We must ensure that come 2025, we can say – we did accelerate, we did remove many children, but more importantly, we should make sure no more children are entering the child labour.”

African Union Commission Department of Trade and Industry, head of industry Houssein Guedi highlighted how 92,2 million of the world's children entrapped in child labour live in Africa, at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban. Credit: Lyse Comins/IPS

By Lyse Comins
Durban, May 17 2022 (IPS)

Global goals to eradicate child labour will not be achieved without a breakthrough in Africa, where most of the world’s 160 million children entrapped in child labour work in rural regions, mostly in agriculture with their families.

This is why the “Durban Call to Action” to eradicate child labour, spearheaded by the African Union (AU), the International Labour Organization (ILO), civil society organisations and other world leaders, is crucial and must be implemented by the countries on the continent.

Assistant Director-General and Regional Director for Africa of ILO Cynthia Samuel-Olonjuwon told delegates that the draft “Durban Call to Action”, expected to be finalised and formally adopted in the city on Friday, recognised the need to drive change in the world. She was speaking during a high-level panel discussion at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban.

Samuel-Olonjuwon concentrated on continental-specific challenges, policy priorities and strategic partnerships to end child labour in Africa.

Samuel-Olonjuwon said the ILO had already supported the adoption and implementation of the African Union Ten Year Action Plan on Eradication of Child Labour, Forced Labour, Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery in Africa (2020-2030), which was the first plan of its kind in the world.

She said stakeholders engaged in the drive to eliminate child labour had developed the foundation of the draft “Durban Call to Action” when they met in Johannesburg to prepare for the conference in November 2021.

“The ILO will support the implementation of the Durban Call to Action in line with ILO conventions and the AU action plan on child labour,” Samuel-Olonjuwon said.

She said efforts needed to be coordinated across regions to be effective.

“Africa has shown that it is ready to drive the change to accelerate action to end child labour. We recognise there is still a long way to go, but we also know the commitment, understanding and the resolve to take action now, is widely shared. The need to act with urgency, especially for making progress on an annual basis, is also widely shared. We must coordinate our efforts, especially with those of us who are development partners, in close collaboration with the private sector, civil society and we as social partners and agencies,” she said.

African Union Commission Department of Trade and Industry, head of industry Houssein Guedi, highlighted the current status quo of child labour on the continent and the foundational points of the draft Durban Call to Action plan.

He said 92,2 million of the world’s 160 million children entrapped in child labour live in Africa. This equates to  21,6% of the continent’s 400 million child population. Most of the children in child labour live in Eastern Africa (29,8%), Western Africa (22,8%), Central Africa (19,3%), Southern Africa (16,7%) and Northern Africa (6,1%).

“Most child labourers are very young – almost 60% are less than 12 years of age. Child labour is more prevalent among boys than girls. Child labour is predominantly a rural and agricultural phenomenon (81% of children in child labour),” Guedi said.

Some 45% of children in child labour are engaged in hazardous work. About 72% of children were combining school with work, although 32,2 million children of primary school-going age are not in school, despite a substantial improvement in access to education between 1990 and 2019.

Guedi said child labour often occurred in correlation with broader development challenges, such as in countries with high levels of informal employment, where populations received at least one social benefit, and a large percentage of the population is living below the poverty line.

He said there was now “unprecedented awareness, commitment and political will”, shown by a high level of ratifications on the continent and the implementation of policies and legislation to end child labour in recent years.

“We’ve seen some good practices emerging which could inspire Africa and the rest of the world,” Guedi said.

However, he added that there were still gaps in legislation, a lack of data for planning and weak enforcement, particularly in the agricultural sector and informal economy where child labour prevails.

“In Johannesburg, we discussed the importance of taking into account the salient features of child labour on the continent – young, rural, agriculture, family work, hazardous work, out of school/combining school and work – and key development challenges underlying child labour,” Guedi said.

He said stakeholders had agreed to actions which would form the basis of the Durban Call to Action.

These included the need to:

• Focus on prevention and the root causes
• Achieve impact at scale through adequately financing public policies and programmes
• Focus on the most immediate major challenges and most actionable in terms of time frames for achieving results
• Accelerate action to ensure quality universal education for all boys and girls
• Expand social protection for workers in the informal economy and the agricultural sector
• Secure decent work for adults
• Focus on the school to work transition
• Fill gaps in legislation for effective action against child labour, especially the worst forms
• Take large scale action in agriculture and rural development
• Develop measures to deal with child labour in conflict and crises
• Increase financing for child labour activities
• Mobilise political and social support to build momentum for accelerated action
• Improve the availability of quality child labour data and research

Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) assistant director-general and Africa representative Abebe Haile Gabriel said the continent needed to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security, which had affected the most vulnerable families. He said the continent needed to promote mechanised agriculture to reduce reliance on children, expand social security to improve farmers’ resilience and provide free access to relevant education.

Ugandan Minister for Gender, Labour, and Social Development, Amongi Betty Ongom, said the pandemic had led to parents losing their jobs when economic sectors went into lockdown, many children had lost two years of schooling, and some had not returned due to a lack of affordability when schools eventually reopened.

African Union Commissioner for Economic Development, Trade, Industry and Mining, Albert Mudenda Muchangam, said child labour “destroyed the future of our children”.

“You find child labour in mining and in households – some are paid, but lowly paid, and others are completely unpaid, which is modern-day slavery. We have a test, each one of us, to ensure we end the scourge of child labour,”  Muchangam said.

“We have an obligation to eradicate child labour and to bring them up and give them the opportunity to learn and to play with their friends so they should grow up as decent human beings. The persistence of child labour undermines that, and it also contributes to destroying their lives. Let us join forces together to fight the scourge of child labour wherever we see it,” Muchangam said.

This is one of a series of stories that IPS will publish during the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban, South Africa.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau