Towards Eliminating Child Labour

MINISTER for Labour and Transport Management Palten Gurung has reiterated His Majesty’s Government’s commitment to eliminate all kinds of child labour within the next 10 years and the worst forms of child labour within the next five years. Addressing the 13th Asia Pacific Regional Meeting of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Bangkok, Thailand recently, he said that an outline to implement programmes for this had already been prepared. In the past decade, Nepal has been showing its seriousness in addressing the issue of child labour in the country. In 1997, Nepal signed the Amsterdam Declaration on Child Labour and the Oslo Declaration on Child Labour. And it has ratified the ILO Convention 138 on the minimum age for employment. And in June 1999, it adopted the Convention 182 on the worst forms of child labour. To put these conventions into practice, Nepal has enacted new laws. The Constitution of Nepal forbids the engagement of minors in a factory, mine or in a dangerous workplace. The Children’s Act prohibits the employment of children below 14 years in manufacturing industries. And in 2000, the Government introduced an Act that requires an employer to provide child workers with education, vocational training and medical treatment. The government is now working with the ILO to eradicate child labour in hazardous work by 2005. Despite all the seriousness shown, yet child labour in the country is widespread. It is not difficult to understand why preventing or controlling child labour is difficult. Poverty forces many children from an early age to work for their survival and contribute to the family income. A Nepal Labour Force Survey conducted two years ago found that more than 40 per cent of all children aged between 5 to 14 years work, that is there are more than 1.9 million children working in the country today. Most of the children are engaged in agricultural labour, although the most visible are the street children. What is particularly disturbing is that nearly half of all children who are not in school are working. Nepal has a tough task ahead, but this issue is something that needs to be taken by the horns if children are to have a better future. Coordinating activities among the government, international organisations such as the ILO and Unicef, non-governmental organisations and the community can make quite a difference in this endeavour in a relatively short period of time.

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