The negative impacts of child labour on physical and mental health are well documented – poor growth, malnutrition, serious skin and other infections, chronic lung disease, musculoskeletal. In many countries child labour is mainly an agricultural issue. Worldwide 60 percent of all child labourers in the age group 5-17 years work in agriculture, including farming, fishing, aquaculture, forestry, and livestock. Child labour is a global issue that prevents children from fulfilling their potential. Child labour is a violation of children's rights - the work can harm them mentally or physically, expose them to hazardous situations or stop them from going to school. Not all work done by children is classed as child labour.
Child Labour denies fundamentalhumanrights such as the right to education, right to rest and leisure and free from the country's unfair working conditions, such rights are imperative to the living standard of children are upheld by international conventions.
Resolution to amend the 18th ICLS Resolution concerning statistics of child labour. Adopted by the 20th ICLS (2018), this resolution sets standards for the collection, compilation and analysis of national child labour statistics, to guide countries in updating their existing statistical system in this field, or to establish such a system. A complete and up-to-date overview of recent global trends in child labour can be found in the ILO's report Marking Progress Against Child Labour (2013) 4 produced by the organization's International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC). This report presents global estimates and trends for the period 2000-2012.
The International Convention on Economic Social Cultural Rights (ICESCR) was ratified in 1987 and The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was validated in 1990 with both conventions ensuring that Uganda must adhere to these conventions andpromote, preserve and protect human rights. Humanium strives to make children's rights happen.
ImportantCharacteristicsofChildEmployment
Children are three times more likely to be employed than city children with child employment rate in rural areas at 34% compared to 11% in urban areas.
For instance, in Kampala only 3% of children are employed compared to eastern region 30%, western region 31% and central 45%.
Child Labour is categorized into four sectors:
- Children working in industry sector: making bricks, quarrying stone and mining.
- Children working service sector: vending, street work, working as porters, collecting and selling scrap metal.
- Children working in the agriculture sector: tobacco, coffee, harvesting sugar cane, herding cattle. Nearly 96% of employed children between the age of 6-13 work in the agriculture sector, the remaining fraction 4% are distributed across the other sectors.
- Worstforms: commercial sexual exploitation, human trafficking, forced labour in agriculture, using children for illicit activities such as smuggling and stealing due to human trafficking.
The final category is mainly attributed to the Lord's Resistance Army(LRA) which has been active since 1987. It is known that the LRA kidnap children and force girls to become sex slaves and boys to become soldiers. 80% of members LRA are children; from 1987 to 2009 it has been reported that 38,000 children have been kidnapped. 25% of girls are forced to cook and be sex slaves for Kony soldiers while boys are faced with the choice to kill or be killed.
Effects &ResponsetoChildLabour
- In 2012 Uganda made minimal advancement in efforts to eliminate worst forms of child labor. The government launched National Action Plan (NAP) for the elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor and created a Counter-Trafficking in Persons (CTIP) office and an inter-ministerial Task Force to coordinate anti-trafficking efforts.
- The objective of the NAP is to eliminate the worst forms of child labour and at the same time lay a firm foundation for children's rights to be respected, protected and fulfilled.
- Ugandan legislation prohibits the employment of children under the age 12. National labour law prohibits the involvement of children 12-13 in any employment except for light work carried out under the supervision of an adult aged over 18 that does not affect the child's education.
- It is clear the legal framework has left a gap between the age to which education is the compulsory and minimumage of worklabour inspections are not carried out in rural areas.
- Children continually engage in the worst forms of child labour primarily in hazardousforms of agriculture and domestic service.
Challenges for Youth
More often Ugandan young people face a number of challenges entering the labour market. Highproportion urban youth who have not completed necessary education is therefore at risk of socialmarginalization.
Most if not all youth jobs are in the informalsector, therefore, meaning the youth have limited access to social or job security.
However between 2006 & 2012 school attendance increased by 8%, while the labour force participation decreased by 4%.
KeyPolicyImplications
Child Labor In
Download neat video 3.5 download. Directaction would play a crucial role in Uganda given the large size of the child labour population and country's limited resources.
For instance, in Kampala only 3% of children are employed compared to eastern region 30%, western region 31% and central 45%.
Child Labour is categorized into four sectors:
- Children working in industry sector: making bricks, quarrying stone and mining.
- Children working service sector: vending, street work, working as porters, collecting and selling scrap metal.
- Children working in the agriculture sector: tobacco, coffee, harvesting sugar cane, herding cattle. Nearly 96% of employed children between the age of 6-13 work in the agriculture sector, the remaining fraction 4% are distributed across the other sectors.
- Worstforms: commercial sexual exploitation, human trafficking, forced labour in agriculture, using children for illicit activities such as smuggling and stealing due to human trafficking.
The final category is mainly attributed to the Lord's Resistance Army(LRA) which has been active since 1987. It is known that the LRA kidnap children and force girls to become sex slaves and boys to become soldiers. 80% of members LRA are children; from 1987 to 2009 it has been reported that 38,000 children have been kidnapped. 25% of girls are forced to cook and be sex slaves for Kony soldiers while boys are faced with the choice to kill or be killed.
Effects &ResponsetoChildLabour
- In 2012 Uganda made minimal advancement in efforts to eliminate worst forms of child labor. The government launched National Action Plan (NAP) for the elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor and created a Counter-Trafficking in Persons (CTIP) office and an inter-ministerial Task Force to coordinate anti-trafficking efforts.
- The objective of the NAP is to eliminate the worst forms of child labour and at the same time lay a firm foundation for children's rights to be respected, protected and fulfilled.
- Ugandan legislation prohibits the employment of children under the age 12. National labour law prohibits the involvement of children 12-13 in any employment except for light work carried out under the supervision of an adult aged over 18 that does not affect the child's education.
- It is clear the legal framework has left a gap between the age to which education is the compulsory and minimumage of worklabour inspections are not carried out in rural areas.
- Children continually engage in the worst forms of child labour primarily in hazardousforms of agriculture and domestic service.
Challenges for Youth
More often Ugandan young people face a number of challenges entering the labour market. Highproportion urban youth who have not completed necessary education is therefore at risk of socialmarginalization.
Most if not all youth jobs are in the informalsector, therefore, meaning the youth have limited access to social or job security.
However between 2006 & 2012 school attendance increased by 8%, while the labour force participation decreased by 4%.
KeyPolicyImplications
Child Labor In
Download neat video 3.5 download. Directaction would play a crucial role in Uganda given the large size of the child labour population and country's limited resources.
Direct action is desperately needed to ensure the removal, recovery and reintegration Download artrage 5 free clever via pc. of working children whose rights are most compromised.
Follow-up actions ensuring that rescued children are provided with a full range of needed social services are also crucial.
Child Labor Tn
Essentially a set child-centredpolicies which will promote schooling as an alternative to child labour. This will provide children with basic and life skills needed to further learning and practical living.
- Education& SecondChanceLearning: early childhood education programs can promote learning readiness, increaseschoolenrollment and school survival and help children away from underage employment. Support for second chance policies is critical to avoid large numbers of children entering adulthood in a disadvantaged position permanently harmed by early work experience. They should be offered a bridge to successfully integrate or reintegrate into formal school class.
- ExpandSocialProtection: social protection instruments will serve to prevent vulnerable households from having to resort to child labour as a buffer against poverty. The government has prioritized social protection expansion and started a social protection program known as the Social Assistance Grants for Empowerment (SAGE) 2011.
- PromoteGreaterPublicAwareness: child labour is a clear example which both socialnorms and economicconsiderations are important and strategic communication efforts need to be designed with this in mind. A mix of conventional e.g. radio, TV and print media and non–conventional e.g. religious leaders, school teachers, healthcare workers. Providing information on national child labour legislation in terms that are understandable.
- PromoteSocialMobilisationAgainstChildLabour: social actors including NGOs, faith-based organizations, teachers, teacher's organizations, the mass media have important roles to play in the broadersocietaleffort against child labour.
- StrengtheningChildLaborInspections& Monitoring: Employment Act No.6 2006 requires districts to appoint labourofficers to provide technical advice to employers. The government's actual capacity to monitor formal workplaces is limited;30/90 districts have recruited labour officers to enforce labour legislation.
- An advocateofPoliticalCommitment: atalllevels is also needed to ensure that child labour reduction actually happens. The government released NAP & CTIP reflecting their commitment to eliminating child labour.
Read more about child labour on Humanium's website: www.humanium.org/en
References
Child Labor Cons
Written by: Igi Nderi
Proofread by: Saurabh Kumar
