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The International Labour Organization (ILO) International Programme to Eliminate Child Labour TACKLE Project in Sierra Leone has trained Stakeholders at the Hill Valley Hotel in Freetown to tackle child Labour in communities, and industries.
According to the ILO IPEC Tackle Project Coordinator Sia Lajaku –Williams the objective of the training is to create greater awareness of the nature, extent and consequences of early child work to meet international adherence to the cause of human rights, including child rights.
She said Stakeholders have mapped out strategies to tackle child Labour in the country by formulating and executing laws and punishments for defaulters by ensuring the immediate ratification of the ILO Convention on Child Labour.
Government officials also vowed to facilitate the speedy ratification and domestication of the convention to make them part of Sierra Leone and to also monitor children by establishing child labour department and agency to capacitate them.
The Sierra Leone Labour Congress has also agreed to organize workers to advocate for children’s rights and also affiliate trade unions that seek the welfare of workers who are parents of children by ensuring that employers do not employ children below 15years.
The Labour Congress will also assist in lobbying government to ratify and domesticate the convention relating to child labour and also help to implement policies and sensitize workers and the general public to prevent child labour.
Parents and guardians having the morale obligation of taking care of their children are often perpetrators of child abuse, some of the parents promised to ensure that children are protected and that they should not be a source of income through early marriage, begging or engaging in work such as farming, mining and other hazardous work.
The family support unit of the Sierra Leone Police also promised to include child rights laws in police training manuals to be strategic in handling child rights cases and where there is need to ensure that the matter is amicably settled impartially and to strictly ensure enforce and prosecute violators of children’s rights.
International donors and partners to also support government and child protection agencies with finance and technical support to enable them implement programmes relating to child rights.
The media and the children’s forum network also promised to carry out massive awareness campaign against child labour.
By Saidu Bah