Malawi Anti-Child Labour Programmes on Track, say UNICEF Officials

Despite having ratified all of the eight ILO conventions on core labour standards, and the ILO Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, the situation in the country for the hundreds of thousands of child labourers remains unabated. Current trends, however, show a considerable improvement of attitude among employers, media interest in the issue and an increased general awareness among various sectors of the society.

The UN Children’s fund (UNICEF) officials have expressed great optimism that in spite of the current increased rates of child labour in Malawi, especially domestic child labour, the situation is expected to be considerably put under control if current coordinated efforts among Civil Society Organisations, relevant government institutions and line ministries, the general public and the media are sustained.

Head of Social Policy, Advocacy and Communication, Gopal Sharma, says as a result of the advocacy and other interventions from a number of stakeholders, largely led by UNICEF, there was now a clear indication that the attitude of many Malawians towards child labour is improving.

"We are quite hopeful that we are making positive progress through the various intervention programmes we have been running. We can really see the attitude of people on the issue is changing so drastically. All that is required now is to simply strengthen the process (of changing their attitude)," he said in a recent interview.

Sharma also cited the coming in of more donors, especially the Royal Norwegian Embassy (Norad), to support anti-child labour initiatives and the stabilisation of HIV/AIDS infection rate as the major boost to UNICEF’s interventions against child labour.

Malawi Commemorates World Day Against Child Labour

Malawians are commemorating the World Day Against Child Labour today, July 9, which was officially commemorated on 12 June worldwide, with the theme, "Behind Closed Doors: Domestic Child Labour."

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) under its special programme dubbed International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), established the World Day in 2002 to highlight global efforts against child labour as a means of raising the visibility of the problem, particularly its worst forms.

ILO/IPEC Country Director, Michael Mwasiskakata, said in interview the main activities will take place in Mchinji, one of the impact areas in which the UN organisation has been implementing its “Malawi Commercial Agriculture Programme” for the past two years.

Mwasikakata defined child domestic labourers are all children in domestic service who are under the legal minimum working age, as well as those above the legal minimum age but under the age of 18 who are in an exploitative situation. Most of these working children are girls.

Although the ILO/IPEC has so far only concentrated on child labour in the commercial agriculture, Mwasikakata stressed there was need to give more attention to domestic child labour since it was becoming increasingly rampant in the country.

"When we talk of domestic child labour, we do not have evidence in terms of statistics since it is difficult to inspect or monitor the nature of work done in households. However, an anecdotal experience shows that domestic labour comes second from agriculture in terms of paid employment," he said.

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