Message from Save the Children’s Country Director on the Commemoration of the 2014 World Day Against Child Labour on Thursday, 12 June 2014

Dear readers,

On the commemoration of this year’s World Day Against Child Labour, we thought of giving you a snapshot of what we, in the NGO community are doing to address this malaise. Since Malawi ratified the ILO conventions 138 on minimum age and 182 on worst forms of child labour, NGOs have continued to play a complementary role to government efforts in the elimination of child labour.   

Since 2010 Save the Children, Creative Centre for Community Mobilisation (CRECCOM), Youth net and Counseling (YONECO) and Total Land Care (TLC) have been working together to implement a child labour mitigation programme in three tobacco growing districts of Rumphi, Ntchisi and Mchinji. The programme, Child Labour Elimination Actions for Real Change (CLEAR) has registered many achievements to date including establishing functional and systematic protocols for the identification and prevention of children who are at risk of entering child labour. Children under 14 years old who are already in child labour are being withdrawn and referred to various alternative services including education, health and psychosocial support. Over 10,000 children now access education services courtesy of the interventions mounted by the CLEAR project.

NGOs continue to build and strengthen support structures at community, district and national levels to enable them fight child labour. The NGOs in the CLEAR consortium have contributed to the improvement of livelihoods of vulnerable households through social protection initiatives such as the provision of agricultural inputs, the development of small scale agri-businesses and Village Savings and Loans in order to cushion vulnerable households against economic shocks and food insecurity.

Whistle much remains to be done, in Malawi there is progressive positive change in attitudes and practices towards child labour due to increased awareness on acceptable labour standards. Most recently, Save the Children and the CLEAR consortium have embarked on an initiative to promote decent work for legally employed children. This initiative is in line with the Malawi Employment Act of 2000 which allows young persons aged between 14 and 18 years to work in environments that are not harmful to health, safety, education, and their personal development. This initiative looks to engage employers in identifying risks and hazards to which young persons are exposed to in the course of their employment and take appropriate steps to mitigate the risks and remove the hazards.  In this regard, young persons are not withdrawn from workplaces but are protected from hazardous work conditions.  In a country where youth unemployment is high, NGOs are thus working hard to promote decent youth employment.

Whilst noting the progress made to date, we also recognise that there remain a number of significant challenges which need to be overcome as we address issues of child labour. In the absence of a Child Labour Policy, our national efforts remain less coherent, coordinated and directed. The draft policy was finalised and is awaiting cabinet approval. It is our hope that an approval will be granted quickly so that a policy framework is set in place to regulate our work.

Alongside this, in the absence of a functional national Child Labour Monitoring System, it remains difficult to determine whether Malawi is winning the fight against child labour. We continue to appeal to government to establish a functional and robust national child labour monitoring system as required by ILO Convention 182.  

The World Day Against Child Labour is this year being commemorated under the theme: Extend Social Protection: Combat Child Labour.  This theme is reminding us as a nation to scale up social protection programs so that children at the risk are prevented from entering child labour. We appeal to the new government to seriously look into social protection programs so that many people including children at risk of child labour benefit.

As NGOs we will remain committed to supporting government in child labour elimination efforts. We believe Working Together, We Can Achieve Meaningful Results. 

Sincerely

Matthew Pickard,

Save the Children Country Director for Malawi