Dear Mr. Bernd Seiffert
As per the official reports Child labour situation in Sri Lanka are as follows;
"Some 40,000 children are working as child labourers, which is about 1% of the school-going child population. In other words, one out of a hundred children in Sri Lanka are in child labour, mostly hazardous forms.
Child labour and non-attendance in regular schooling is relatively high in Sri Lanka’s rapidly urbanising city centres than in rural areas. There is an established pattern of child labour –predominantly in the teenage category, engaged in the informal services sector. Their numbers are highest in the districts of Kurunegala, Gampaha, Colombo, Monaragala, and Batticaloa, with many other urbanised localities not far behind.
A large proportion of soon to be young adults are engaged in child labour within the broader ecosystem of the informal services sector: such as in tourism, transport, petty trading, and caregiving. A majority of these children are boys. A large number also work in boutiques, tea kiosks, eateries, and other informal trades, in low-wage and precarious employment"
However, in my opinion, to eliminate child labour in agriculture a country should have a holistic approach; Some of the sectors to be considered are as follows;
1. Poverty reduction should be given first priority
2. In some agricultural families parents do not prefer children's to have higher education as eventually they will move away from farms and no one to look after farmlands; In that case flexible school educations for agricultural families, agricultural colleges and universities would be a better option, until countries will develop to adopt equalize systems and until eradicating the poverty.
3. Farmers insurance & crop insurance should be popularized as interruptions to child education and children moving to farmland instead of having an education at school are some impacts of hazardous situations such as droughts, floods
3. Current education system should be more equipped with agricultural knowledge. However, it should be rather giving specific agricultural knowledge, such as techniques, language to all children, while giving them overall knowledge there should be a system to give specific agricultural knowledge to those who are from agricultural areas, those who are interested to learn. This should not be considered as marginalizing or discriminating as it is to give priority to agriculture as a subject and give equlize importance to specialize such knowledge.
4. There should be parallel awareness campaigns to educate people that any career is not higher or lower than another. Not only doctors, lawyers but farmers are highly important to the development of the country. At least the education system should be catered to make such changes in the idiology, while governments taking actions to improve the standard of living of farmers.
Sajeevani Weerasekara, Sri Lanka
Thanks very much, FAO for this initiative, and public consultation. While considering that FAO's "Core food and agricultural indicators for measuring the private sector’s contribution to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals" is a comprehensive report I would like to suggest the followings;
1. It's good that you have considered water use efficiency and energy and transport efficiency widely. I propose to consider the efficiency of food production as well. Because increasing efficiency and productivity is highly essential to achieve sustainability. Using less or the same input to produce more output, reducing waste, and reducing negative externalities can be captured through efficiency measures.
2. more emphasis on the individuals, smallholder farmers and village-based merchants which is the largest proportion of the farming community in most Asian countries is important rather than considering multinational corporations. Otherwise, this measurement will lose part of the important segment of developing countries. Though measuring will be difficult it will give more meaning to the measurement.
3. Further, causes for supply chain disruptions during pandemic, food waste during the pandemic due to sudden lockdowns, quality, and sustainability of emerging methods of food delivering, and the contribution of the private sector to mitigate such problems are some of the other areas should be considered.
Sajeevani Weerasekara, Sri Lanka
Dr. Sajeevani Weerasekara
Thank you for the invitation to contribute to "UN Decade of Action on Nutrition 2016-2025: priority actions on nutrition for the next five years".
My comments are as follows; I proposed to add the following key priority areas under mentioned Action areas;
Action Area 1: Sustainable, resilient food systems for healthy diets
To ensure resilient it should not only capture the deceases but also climate change and disaster impact on food. Hence priority on increase climate resilient food production is timely and vital.
Further,at the same time add a priority to reduced production on highly processed and geneticaly modified foods.
Action Area 2 and 3: Aligned health systems providing universal coverage of essential nutrition actions and social protection and education
Presenting nutritional fact of each and every food produced and genetically modified is important. Increasing awareness on negative impact of highly processed, modified and junkfood among young generation. also important.
impose taxes on artificial and GMO's while subsidies for organic foods.
Action Area 4: Trade and investment for improved nutrition
Improve social corporate responsibility of food producers, importers and investers should be prioritized.
Action Area 6: Strengthened governance and accountability for nutrition
Improving institutional frameworks and consumer protection laws and regulatory areas of developing countries also an important area to improve.