Child labour and forced labour affect the most vulnerable and least protected people, perpetuating a vicious cycle in which poverty drives a continued lack of social and economic insecurity, which reinforces poverty and social injustice. Such a situation must not continue. Freedom from child labour and all forms of forced labour – as well as freedom from discrimination and freedom to organize and bargain collectively - are fundamental principles and rights at work and the keystones of social justice and peace. The global community has clearly acknowledged that the persistence of child labour and forced labour in the 21st century is unacceptable and renewed its commitment in the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to eliminate all forms of child labour by 2025 and forced labour by 2030.
These ambitious targets can be achieved if the right conditions are established to tackle the root causes of child labour and forced labour, as well as their consequences. Strong political will, better designed and integrated policies and more concerted action have already led to a marked acceleration of progress against child labour, especially from 2008-2012. But the pace of change must be faster still if the global community is to live up to these commitments. Today’s hard question is: How will we do this? The IPEC+ Flagship seeks to ensure ILO leadership in global efforts - in partnership with others to achieve this goal
Not withstanding the above, harnessing the rural economy’s potential to create decent and productive jobs and shared prosperity is imperative to achieving sustainable development and equitable economic growth. However, rural areas in many economies and in all regions are characterized by significant decent work deficits. Unions therefore cannot pretent not to notice what is happening. It is therefore important to note that the employment of children deprives adults of employment and once children cannot be unionised the union membership is reduced. GAWU as a Union is therefore committed to the tenants of decent work and has an objective of creating and operating within child labour free zones.
GAWU has been invited under the Auspices of the ILO, East Africa Trade Union Confederation (EATUC), the ELCT Geneva, the UN Rapporteur on Human Trafficking, Modern Slavery and Forced, the University of Durham DEMAT project, the Global March Against Child Labour to share her experience with the ILO, UN and also provide guidance support for replication by Trade Unions from East and Southern African Countries on its efforts at eliminating child labour. Other Universities from Denmark have also made Kpando Torkor project site an international centre of learning for their students who want to get better understanding of GAWU operations of promoting decent work within the Agricultural Value Chain in Ghana
Meeting the global challenge of eradicating child labour and modern slavery requires tackling the root causes of social injustice - which are almost always related to violations of other fundamental rights at work and are most prevalent in the rural and informal economy. It is against this backdrop GAWU initiated various child labour strategies using an integrated area based approach to eliminate child labour and create child labour free zones, as well as the Torkor model, which seeks to address the key components of SDG target 8.7, on forced labour, modern slavery, human trafficking and migration. The model thus uses Torkor as an entry point to address the endemic nature of child labour on the volta lake by applying its three (3) components; (1) Organization of informal workers, (2) Social mobilization through capacity building and sensitization and (3) Knowledge sharing.
Dr. Paschal Ajongba S Kaba