By Kenicia Francis
Employers, employees and government officials convened for a second day yesterday at a national workshop aimed at wiping out child labour by next year.
Representatives from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) are on the ground and taking part in the two-day event being held at the Trade Winds Hotel.
They described the opening day as excellent, with lots of information shared aimed at ensuring participants have a thorough understanding of the work ahead.
Attendees listened to a detailed presentation on the findings and recommendations of a rapid assessment of child labour in Antigua and Barbuda.
A key challenge, as the ILO’s Resel Melville told Observer, is addressing one major misconception.
“One of the very first misconceptions that we’ve been working hard to correct in Antigua and across the Caribbean territories is the fact that we think child labour doesn’t exist in our countries and it does. The challenge is that it takes various forms and a lot of the time it looks like long-standing traditional and cultural practices. So we have a challenge when we try to explain to persons that based on the international conventions that our countries have signed on to, that indeed our children could be considered to be in situations of child labour,” she said.
“If, for example, they are engaged in economic activities or work of certain kinds that removes them or prevents them from fully participating in their education, work that could put them at risk of physical harm, work that also could pose a threat to their moral and their spiritual well-being.”
Melville stressed that not all child work is child labour; for example, chores done within a reasonable period and in safe and secure conditions are necessary to a child’s learning experiences, she says.
However, when performed for extremely long hours or where they involve the use of dangerous tools or hazardous chemicals, they are considered harmful forms of child labour.
When asked if the ILO had any specific concerns about Antigua and Barbuda, Melville responded: “The main concern is that we don’t have enough information; we don’t have clear and explicit data that would substantiate the position that we don’t have child labour in Antigua and Barbuda.
“We do have reports from other areas of levels of school abandonment. We may have reports of early dropout from school, we may have reports of young persons being injured on construction work sites and we treat them as other things, as accidents, as abuse and we don’t necessarily recognize that some of those same things are indicators for the existence of child labour.
“So, our primary concern is that there is a lack, a glaring lack of data to understand what’s happening to our boys and what’s happening to our girls as it relates to their premature participation in economic activities,” she explained.
She also told Observer what she hopes will ultimately be achieved.
“One of the things we’re hoping will come from this initial country accelerated action plan is really a commitment by the country to address some of the key obligations that it has signed onto and accepted as a member state of the International Labour Organization which has ratified fundamental conventions on the minimum age and on the worst forms of child labour,” she stated.
“Those conventions establish that each country should take certain specific actions like establishing a child labour policy, developing a national action plan, creating lists of hazardous child labour and acceptable light work that serve as key guides and for compliance with national laws and the truth is some of our countries including Antigua haven’t yet addressed those obligations.”
ILO officials hope the plan will include a commitment by the government to taking action within the next couple of years to help it meet its sustainable development goal of ending child labour in all forms by 2025.
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