How can agricultural policies and strategies help to end child labour in agriculture?
Dear Colleagues,
Today, approximately 71% of child labour, or 108 million children worldwide, is found in the agriculture sector. More than two thirds of all child labour is unpaid family work where children do not attend or fully benefit from compulsory schooling and many of the tasks they undertake in agriculture are hazardous.
Children living in rural areas often become involved, early on, in agricultural tasks which allows them to develop important skills, capacities, contribute to the family household as well as gain a sense of belonging to the community. Unfortunately, for numerous children, tasks that children perform are not limited to educational tasks but correspond to what is defined as child labour.
While child labour in agriculture takes place in a wide range of different circumstances and work situations, a large portion of child labour in agriculture can also be found in family farming, especially when household poverty persists, few livelihood alternative are available, family income remains low or is susceptible to shocks and there is poor access to education. Child labour perpetuates a cycle of poverty for the children involved, their families and communities, where they are likely to be the rural poor of tomorrow.
In July 2019, the United Nations General Assembly has declared 2021 the ‘International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour’. This online consultation represents one of many activities that FAO will organize to observe the International Year and to contribute to the progress in achieving target 8.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2025.
The online consultation will take place for a period of three weeks, from April 27 to May 25. Your comments and inputs will be instrumental to identify and document good and promising practices for which evidence-based research and replication could be explored. The results of the consultation will be widely promoted throughout the International Year and beyond.
A comprehensive multi-sectoral approach[1] is often needed to address child labour in agriculture. Below are some of the many areas that can help address the issue in the rural sector. The following questions are applicable to all agricultural sub-sectors (Crop production, Fisheries, Aquaculture, Livestock and Forestry). The mention of agricultural stakeholders includes, but is not limited to, agriculture-related ministries, agricultural extension agents and officers, agricultural producers’ organizations and cooperatives, workers’ organizations as well as farmers at community level.
Guidance on input:
- Please share case studies, experiences and information on the effectiveness of policies and strategies related to each question, how they are implemented and what challenges may remain.
- Feel free to choose a question(s) where you can share the most relevant experience, input and expertise. There is no need to address all questions.
- When you answer, please refer in the title of your contribution to the number of the question and related thematic areas you are contributing towards (e.g. “Question 1: food security and nutrition policies”, “example of a policy improving lives of fisherman and reducing child labour” etc.).
- Please try to adopt as much as possible a gender lens when writing your contributions: (i) did the policy or strategy have (also) a focus on the role of women, (ii) did the policy or programme take into account the differences in tasks, hazards, ages of girls and boys in child labour?
Questions:
1) Hunger and Malnutrition
In some circumstances, children work to meet their food needs. How has child labour in agriculture been addressed through food security and nutrition policy and programming (such as school meals, school feeding programs, home grown gardens, etc.) and what has been the role of agriculture stakeholders in this process?
2) Climate change and environmental degradation
Climate change and environmental degradation can make agricultural work more intensive and income less predictable. This may lead to the engagement of children to meet labour demand and support vulnerabilities of their families. Where have agriculture stakeholders been involved in climate-related policy (deforestation, soil degradation, water scarcity, reduction of biodiversity)[2] or programmes and where this has been effective in addressing child labour?
3) Family farming
Child labour in family farming is particularly difficult to tackle when family farmers are the most impacted by poverty and vulnerability, and face high levels of economic, financial, social and environmental risks. Which agricultural policies and strategies related to family farming have led to a reduction of child labour in agriculture?
4) Innovation
Agricultural work can be labour intensive, harsh and require additional workforce that is not always available or affordable. Which policies or programmes related to labour saving practices, mechanization, innovation and digitalization have led to the reduction of child labour in agriculture? What has been the role of agricultural stakeholders in this process?
5) Public and private investment
Where and how has public or private investment in the agriculture sector been sensitive to addressing child labour? What is the role of agriculture stakeholders in this process?
6) Attention to domestic supply chains
Eliminating child labour in global agricultural supply chains receives significantly more attention and funding than eliminating child labour in domestic and local supply chains, yet there is a wide consensus that more child labour is found in latter. Which kind of agricultural policies and strategies could help to address child labour in domestic and local agricultural supply chains? Are there any cases where gender inequalities in local and /or domestic supply chains have been assessed in linking its impacts on child labour?
7) Cross-sectoral policies and strategies
- In many contexts, agricultural workers do not benefit from the same labour rights as other more formalized sectors. Where and how have agricultural stakeholders complemented labour law compliance in order to successfully improve working conditions for agricultural workers and through this helped reduce the vulnerability of households that engage in child labour?
- In which circumstance have agricultural and education stakeholders come together to formulate and implement policies or programmes on addressing child labour in agriculture ensuring that children have access to affordable and quality education in rural areas? Has this process been successful and what are the main challenges?
- Social protection in rural areas can be a mechanism to provide support to vulnerable households and address child labour in agriculture. Are there any examples of social protection schemes that address the vulnerabilities experienced by migrant agriculture labour, since children can be at particular risk (including multiple forms of exploitation) in these scenarios?
For more information on child labour in agriculture, please visit: www.fao.org/childlabouragriculture/en
We thank you for your valuable contribution,
Antonio Correa Do Prado
Director a.i., Social Polities and Rural Institutions
[1] See Statement of the African Regional Workshop of rural workers’ trade unions and small producers’ organizations to exchange experiences of “Organizing against child labour” 2017: www.ilo.org/ipec/Informationresources/WCMS_IPEC_PUB_29755/lang--en/index.htm
[2] For example, a typical task that young children undertake is in relation to water collection and irrigation which may include heavy lifting and impede their access to school.
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Policy/practice recommendations to end child labour.
By Ayebare Prudence , Uganda National Farmers Federation
In most countries policy and practice on child labour do not speak the same language, policy indicates a particular issues to be handled while practice is not speaking/doing what policy indicates. I recommend us to take responsibility to search/study and follow up on our national policies to ensure that there are steps in ensuring end of child labour.
There is a need for policy dissemination since majority to the rural communities and lower local governments in particular to ensure increased awareness about the national policies and strategies aiming at prohibiting child labour. This is sometimes affected by most of these policies being in English and other official languages which the rural poor may not easily understand or even some potential enforcers not being literate about such policies.
There is need for governments to take audits and general follow up on the enforcements for the implementation of the policies by the lower local governments where most of the farming and other worst forms of child labour take place. That is to say that most governments emphasizes making policies on Child labour and they do not follow up on their implementation.
Launching comprehensive campaigns and general sensitization of the communities both children and parents would help address the information gap about the dangers of child labour. This would make the communities accountable together with local leaders and or also enable families involved in this child labour to weigh the options of getting involved.
Provision of alternative sources of income other than manual agriculture and alternative sources of wood fuel, would create a better link to addressing the available excuses of child labour in the lower rural communities. These mainly if well handled and alternatives extended would limit opportunities of them causing child labour.
Criminalizing the child labour related practices to make it expensive in getting involved in it would work for governments to sort most of the persisting practices of child labour. This will encourage the dependants on child labour to get alternatives other than depending on child labour itself.
Incentivizing agricultural producers that are considered child labour free zones to enable them get better prices and opportunities beyond the other producers that use child labour. Such will produce more to encourage other dependants on child labour to desist from it.
Multi stakeholder platforms established against child labour would put efforts inplace like education for all campaigns, food for all campaigns, health for all and other SDG related clubs for a better living and thus elimination of child labour.
According to our experience with the Stop Child Labour Coalition and the Work No Child's Business programme essential to eliminate child labour is a living wage or living income as well as norm and attitude change. Next to that is of great importance access to quality education. We have good experiences with the Child Labour Free Zone approach whereby all stakeholders in an area/village/district are aware that each child should be in school. This approach includes teachers, business operators, plantation owners, parents, health workers etc. All have a responsibilty to ensure their area becomes child labour free. It is a labour intensive approach whereby school registars are checked on a daily basis, home visits and community meetings to discuss the issues held regularly. For more information: https://stopchildlabour.org/child-labour-free-zones/ and https://wncb.org/
English translation below
Bonjour chers partenaires
La lutte contre le travail des enfants est assumé par l'une des directions technique du ministère du travail et de la fonction publique.
Le travail des enfants consiste en l'implication des enfants dans des activités économiques à un âge où ils ne sont pas légalement autorisés à le faire.Bien que le Bénin ait ratifié les conventions internationales pertinentes, (la CDE, la convention numéro 138 de l'OIT sur l'âge minimum d'accès au travail et la convention numéro 182 sur les Pires Formes de travail des enfants) ,et intégré dans sa législation nationale des dispositions interdisant le travail des enfants, ces derniers continuent d'être victimes de toutes formes d'exploitation dans des proportions assez inquiétantes telles que le confirme l'Enquête Démographique de la Santé (EDS) de 2017-2018 qui a révélé que sont victimes d'exploitation économique 33% des enfants béninois dont 24% travaillent dans des conditions dangereuses. Au delà des statistiques nationales, il y a des secteurs où la proportion des enfants exploités est plus importante voire alarmante telle que par exemple dans le secteur agricole. En effet , l'ENTE 2008 réalisée a révélé que 64%des enfants sont économiquement occupés dans le secteur agricole qui représente le deuxième secteur où la proportion d'enfants astreints à des travaux dangereux est plus élevée(72%)au Bénin
De façon générale, ils y travaillent auprès de leurs parents ou sont utilisés comme ouvriers agricoles à des âges où il devraient se consacrer exclusivement aux activités scolaires et souvent aux détriment des heures de classe.On les retrouve à toutes les étapes, et segments de la chaîne de production agricole et a chacune de ces étapes, les enfants sont exposés à des risques spécifiques. Le ministère du travail n'est pas resté en marge de cette situation. Un certain nombre d'actions ont été engagé dans le but d'éliminer le travail selon les les objectifs de la CEDEAO. Il s'agit de
- l élaboré de la deuxième génération du plan d'actions nationale de lutte contre les pires Formes de travail des enfants au Bénin 2020-2023;
- la relecture et l'actualisation de la liste des travaux dangereux interdits aux enfants en République du Bénin,
- l'étude de conformité des conventions 129 sur l'inspection du travail dans l'agriculture et 139 sur les travailleurs domestiques.
Voilà en partie ce que fait le ministère du travail et de la fonction publique à travers sa direction générale du travail sur le travail des enfants au Bénin.
Tant qu'il reste à faire rien n'est encore fait.
Cordialement
Belinda ISSAKOU ADAMOU HOUSSOU
Chef du service de la promotion de la lutte contre le travail des enfants au ministère du travail et de la fonction publique
Hello dear partners
The fight against child labour is carried out by one of the technical departments of the Ministry of Labour and the Civil Service.
Child labour consists of the involvement of children in economic activities at an age when they are not legally authorized to do so. Although Benin has ratified the relevant international conventions, (the CRC, convention number 138 of the ILO on the minimum age for access to work and Convention No 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour), and incorporated into its national legislation provisions prohibiting child labour, children continue to be victims of all forms of exploitation in fairly worrying proportions. This is confirmed by the 2017-2018 Demographic Health Survey (DHS) which revealed that 33% of Beninese children are victims of economic exploitation, 24% of whom work in dangerous conditions. Beyond national statistics, there are sectors where the proportion of exploited children is greater, even alarming, such as in the agricultural sector for example.
Indeed, the 2008 national survey revealed that 64% of children are employed in the agricultural sector, which is the sector with the second highest percentage of children obliged to carry out hazardous work (72%).
In general, they work there with their parents or are used as agricultural workers, often at the expense of school hours, at an age when they should devote themselves exclusively to school activities. They are found at all stages and segments of the agricultural production chain and at each of these stages, children are exposed to specific risks. The Ministry of Labour did not remain on the sidelines of this situation.
A certain number of actions have been undertaken with the aim of eliminating work in accordance with the objectives of ECOWAS:
- Development of the second generation of the national action plan to combat the worst forms of child labour in Benin 2020-2023;
- proofreading and updating the list of hazardous work prohibited for children in the Republic of Benin,
- study the conformity of Conventions 129 on labour inspection in agriculture and 139 on domestic workers.
This is in part what the Ministry of Labor and the Civil Service does through its general directorate of labour on child labour in Benin.
As long as nothing remains to be done, nothing is done yet.
Cordially
Belinda ISSAKOU ADAMOU HOUSSOU
Head of the service to promote the fight against child labour at the Ministry of Labour and the Public Service
To end child labor in agriculture, the Ministry in charge of agriculture and the Ministry of education and Local government should work together to track those children with schooling age who are not in school but wherever in other activities especially in agriculture and make sure they are made back to school.
Every farmer should be mobilized to not engage children in agricultural activities and punishment for those who engage them in the activities to be set.
Policies should set the age for children to be allowed to do agricultural activities.
Children and parents also have to be trained about the advantage of going to school and leave agricultural activities at certain ages and/or not rely on the activities to survive when they are still young..
To train farmers on socio-economic advantages of not using children in agricultural activities
Every country to make sure the local government is responsible for children occupation from the grassroots level
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UMUHOZA Ernestine
Eng. Soil and Water management
Land husbandry Specialist SPIU RSSP3/RCSP WB/RAB/MINAGRI
As globally the exploratory rapid review finds that child labour in agriculture is a global issue, with the agricultural sector accounting for the majority of child labourers. Across regions and countries agriculture is usually the main sector for children’s economic activity. According to (ILO,2010) developing countries there many children in agricultural related work as child labor is mainly argicultural issue in many developing countries. However, there is considerable variation in the prevalence of child labour between and within countries. Agricultural child labour is mainly unpaid work on smallholder family farms, but is also found on commercial farms and plantations as well as through forced and trafficked child labour. Child labour is involved in crop production, livestock (including herding) and forestry as well as fishing and aquaculture. In conclusion, eliminating the worst forms of child labor around the world by ILO goal of 2016 will only be possible if greater efforts are made to reduce child labor in agriculture.
Thank you for this online consultation.
I would like to share some points and examples of cross-sectoral policies and strategies:
Tackling child labour in agriculture requires an integrated approach including coherence between policies and strategies, collaboration among Ministries and partners, and joint and coordinated interventions on the ground. For example, collaboration between labour and agricultural stakeholders is key.
- A few years ago, I co-facilitated a joint ILO and FAO capacity development workshop in Lao PDR for agriculture and labour officials of 3 provinces. I do not have information on the impact of this activity but it was the fisrt time that agriculture and labour officials were brought together to discuss solutions to tackle child labour in agriculture e.g. coordination mechanisms, building OHS capacity in rice plantation, disseminate info on risks and hazards through schools, extension workers, women's groups, etc., including child labour concerns in action plans.
- In Mali, the Government is implementing a project that aims to reduce rural poverty through youth employment and is also updating the National Roadmap to Eliminate Child Labour in Agriculture that was developed in close collaboration between the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Labour. Special tools were developed for extension officers and included in FFS curricula to raise awareness of farmers on risks and hazards for children.
Other examples include the Clear Cotton Project ‘’Eliminating child labour and forced labour in the cotton, textile and garment value chains: an integrated approach’’ implemented by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Effectively addressing child labour requires the support of ministries beyond agriculture and labour (e.g. social protection, education, health) as well as mainstreaming child labour concerns into development strategies at the national and local level, especially those directed at poverty reduction.
Multi-stakeholders' platforms can play an important role to raise awareness on this issue and foster collective action e.g. FSN Forum, Rotterdam Convention, national/regional multi-stakeholders workshops (2015 multi-stakeholder workshop organized in Senegal by FAO and ITC-ILO).
Agricultural Science human cultural science, individual self-care sciences are all one and the same. If we are our brother's, keepers, we give them land, name on the title we teach them permaculture. That simple. Slowly but surely we rise in the most amazing ecology man ever dreamed of.
Land Globally 123 billion acres, useable flat lands - 37 billion
Global Population: 7 billion
7 billion acres per enslaved young person (everyone pretty much)
It is that simple.
It is that simple.
Details are: community size should not be more than 200 for health reasons. Spread out. You can call for help in second fragments today if you are a scared person.
Young people today are rich and can be their own self-righteous agricultural forces through simple empowerment of space no never owned, to begin with. They just need to know this.
The bureaucracy of major agriculture the major agriculture fields themselves (major everything), the size of major cities, major companies, large everything needs to be diversified now and take up primary ecological focus.
Thank the Great Spirit and do what is right before its too late for you.
Young slaves today can be their own self-righteous agricultural forces through simple empowerment of space no never owned, to begin with.
Thank the Great Spirit and do what is right before its too late for you. Read this.
Yes, you will need to get tougher as a person.
See more here: https://nutritionaldiversity.com/
Video explains some starting aspects of nutritional Basics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNRs7RlD858
Get the Entire working and tested out Abstract from today's modern terrible diet that everyone is one (regardless of title) to business models of the best nutrition in the world here: Nutritional Diversity Abstract of All Natural Human Optimization here.
The idea is more complete in the abstract everything we keep breaking up - is all one thing we just need to use it as one thing!
1-improving food security, so no of kids to go for work
2-improving yield per unit area, if yield increases food security improve, so no need of kids to go for work
3-development of high yielding and stress resistant varieties, will increase yield and improve food security, so kids will go to schools not work
4-more employment apportunities in agriculture sector for elders so they send kids to schools
5-policies in poor countries are poor too, they dont care about kids school
6-the richers are interested in their own kids, they don't like that the kids of poor tanents/farmers go to school
7-because poor farmers don't have their own land for cultivation, they cultivate for lords, and self living hand to mouth, and all familiy including kids may work in the field
8-education in poor countriers are very costly for poors, they are not able to buy the costly books, pencils, sharpners, erasors etc. needed every day. But from where the poor will bought it.
10-the school fees in these days are even diffult for 20 grade officers including me, how poor will pay.
11-different schools for differnt peoples so different teachers in different systems schools, even teachers discourage kids to come to school
12-unfortuantely, the international organizations like FAO and IFPRI etc. dealing with food security and agriculture policies are located in advanced countries. They do not very well about the education, food security and kids problems in poor countries.
13-They have small international offices in poor countries but the officers enjoy everything. These high grades dont know the real problems indeed, because thre is no merit in most of the poor countries.
Being agronomist, my suggestion is to improve yield first in poor countries. Advance countries yield 10 t/ha and poor coutries yield 2 t/ha. This decrease in yield is the major cause of food security, and food security problem is responsible for child work in field and other places, thanks.
Dr. AMM Zowadul Karim Khan
I have experience of working in both FAO and ILO covering the agriculture sector and child labor respectively. Hence from that I like to address the cross-sectoral policies and strategies issue, issue #7. Like any other country, Bangladesh is also very much concerned with child labor. The government drafted a new law in 2018 that raised the minimum age from 12 to 14, i.e. now children aged 14-18 can be involved in light work (Bangladeshi gov't approves draft law banning child labor).
There are around 5 million working children (age group 5-14) in Bangladesh, 28% of whom are girls, as found in an ILO survey on child labor in Bangladesh. So it is obvious that at least girls are somehow comparatively spare in child labour. Out of the total child workforce, around 56% work in the agriculture. But comparative more girls work in the agriculture sector (55% of the working boys and 59% of the working girls work in the agriculture). So there is a policy issue. Though comparatively less number of girls than boys work as child labors, they (girls) bear the burden of agriculture works more than the boys do. It can also be concluded that in the rural areas (as related to agriculture), girls are being engaged more in child labor. Bangladesh cannot yet eradicate child marriage particularly for the girls (approved age of marriage for girls is 18). So often the girls after marriage remain as a child labor, bearing a huge burden.
In Bangladesh agriculture labor is not scarce. However, children are used in agriculture as free or very cheap labor, also often as family labors. Bangladesh until now has compulsory primary education (up to grade 5) only (i.e., age 12). There is a discussion to raise that up to junior level (grade 8, ie, age 15/16). When that it would be done, the child labor would be reduced to come extent.
There is a study that investigated the effects of family wealth - using the agricultural land size as a proxy - on the probability that a child works in rural areas of Brazil. The results indicated that, after controlling for individual and family characteristics (age, gender, education and race), and demographic and regional effects, child labor was affected by family wealth. It was possible to observe that the child's probability to work as a function of the land size followed a parabolic curve, showing that as the land size increased, increased the probability that a child worked up to a maximum of 76 hectares, after which child labor decreased.
Trabalho infantil no meio rural brasileiro: Evidências sobre o "paradoxo da riqueza". Economia Aplicada. 2010. Ana Lucia Kassouf and Marcelo Justus
You can access the article here.
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