Financial Times

The International Labour Organisation (ILO), says to protect children from labour exploitation, Sri Lanka needs to update data and improve education.

At the recent unveiling of the ILO’s global report on child labour – “The End of Child Labour Within Reach” – the good news was that the practice of getting work out of children was declining world over, but the situation toward Sri Lankan children being unclear due to a lack of data.

“It is often complacently said that there is no problem of child labour in Sri Lanka. But what do we actually know ?” said the ILO director for Sri Lanka, Tine Staermose, speaking at the event.

What is actually known by the authorities at the moment stems mainly from the last survey on child labour, in 1999. The 1999 survey was an eye opener that found 19,000 children between the ages of 5 to 17 years working as domestic servants, out of which 70 percent were girls. The survey also estimated that approximately 70,000 children in the age group of 5 to 14 years were at high risk of becoming child labourers. This is excluding another 42,000 children, employed as unpaid family workers.

Six years after the 1999 survey, whether the quality of life has improved for Sri Lankan children is uncertain.

“There is a need to do another national survey, firstly to be able to take stock of where the country is, with its national movement against child labour, by comparing new estimates with the ones from 1999 and secondly to ensure that all forms (of child labour) are covered and that all relevant data are being brought into the analysis,” explained Ms Staermose.

As it is, many of the worst forms of child labour – recruiting children as soldiers, commercial sex and child pornography -are prevalent in Sri Lanka and 47 types of hazardous work that use children, have also been noted.

By law the minimum working age is 14-years but the law has not stopped the practice of using younger children – mainly in the informal sector, as paid or unpaid labourers.

Children work in shops, garages and while some are put to work in agriculture, being exposed to hazardous substances like pesticides, as well as in the construction sector and children still being used as domestic servants.

Though the legal minimum working age is 14 years, the national labour force surveys include persons from the age of 10 upwards to calculate employment and unemployment in Sri Lanka. The ILO suggests making some changes to eliminate this contradiction. “Any data related to the age group between 10 and 14 years, which is the minimum age for working in the country, is not a reflection of employment nor of unemployment but of child labour,” points out the ILO country director.

Drop out problem

The ILO recommends an island wide survey to gauge the extent of child labour but says more needs to be done to improve the lot of Sri Lankan children. A good place to start would be the education system.

The ILO pointed out that although Sri Lanka has impressive school enrolment statistics these may not reflect reality. The fact that many children are found in full time employment in the informal sector, is one indication that although enrolled in school, they may not always remain in school for as long as they should. Children could also be dropping in and out of school, working when necessary and returning to class when they can.

To deal with this problem, the ILO says the education system needs to be flexible enough to reintegrate children that drop out of school.

“We also need to understand at what point children drop out of school and into the labour market. It is crucial to catch them. Interventions to provide them with skills and vocations as well as confidence and transitional education is very important,” said Staermose.

Adding that the educational system also needs to be realigned to provide marketable skills that would ensure better quality employment for young people.

The Department of Labour was in agreement that new data was needed to control child labour.

“Child labour is visible in shops, in houses, in construction and even as three wheeler drivers,” said the Commissioner General of Labour, D. S. Edirisinghe. “It is important to quantify child labour. That will help us eliminate the problem,” he said.

However, the Department of Labour says public awareness about child labour had increased over the years. More people are now blowing the whistle on people using children for work. In 2004 the Department of Labour recorded 147 complaints of child labour and 105 in 2005. So far this year, the Department got 60 complaints. Two thirds of the reports being about children employed as domestic servants.