The ILO and NBS Collaborate to Train Stakeholders on Child Labour and Social Protection Statistics

The Director of the Abuja country office for Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Liaison Office for ECOWAS, Dr Vanessa Phala, expressed the need for accelerated actions toward supporting the subnational governments in understanding child labour indicators and social protection statistics. She made the statement during a three-day training held in Akure, Ondo State, adding that the focus of the project was to ensure the elimination of child labour in response to Africa’s social protection strategy.

Speaking through Emmanuel Danjuma - National Project Coordinator, GALAB, Phala said that child labour remained a persistent problem in the world today as revealed by the latest global statistics, which indicated that 160 million children (sixty-three million girls and ninety-seven million boys) were in child labour as at the beginning of 2020. This, according to her accounted for almost 1 in 10 of all children worldwide. She regretted that Seventy-nine (79) million children, half of all those in child labour, were in hazardous work that directly endangers their health, safety, and moral development.

Statistics also indicated that there were now more children in child labour in sub-Saharan Africa than in the rest of the world combined, of which Nigeria faced a greater burden as the most populated country in the region. She stated that ILO and UNICEF provided evidence-based policy implications that promote social protection like access to healthcare and income security, as well as policies that promote decent work and gender equality in the reduction of child labour.

On social protection coverage, she regretted that only 11 percent of the population of Nigeria has social protection coverage with only 5 percent affiliated to health insurance, the lowest in the sub-Saharan Africa. To ensure the extension of coverage to forty percent by 2025 and to ensure the elimination of child labour in response to the Africa social protection strategy, there was a need for accelerated action toward supporting the subnational government in understanding child labour indicators and data sources through household surveys.

Against this background that the GALAB project was facilitating innovative actions at the subnational level towards meeting the 2030 sustainable development goals, target 8.7, to take immediate and effective measures to eliminate child labour and forced labour.

In Nigeria, the project  intensified actions on policies that would promote social protection programme especially access to healthcare by individuals and households at risk of child labour. The project would achieve this goal by strengthening the capacity of the stakeholders identified as critical in the elimination of child labour.

Twenty-five (25) officials from the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, State Bureau of Statistics, State Operations Coordinating Unit, State Contributory Health Commission, Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC), and civil society organizations in Ondo state participated in the training.

In her remarks, Olanike Mogboruko, the Ondo State Controller, Federal Ministry of Labour, and Employment, called on stakeholders to increase efforts towards child-specific protection measures by reducing family poverty risks and vulnerability, supporting livelihoods and social enrolment, amongst, other things.

Olufemi Olorundipe, the Ondo state Statistician General, who also spoke at the training workshop, said that the training was a laudable activity adding that the State Bureau of Statistics was one of the stakeholders in the project. He pledged the commitment of the State Government to do the best to ensure the capturing of accurate data that would project the status of child labour in Ondo state. He wanted governments to ensure compulsory education through the instrumentality of the law.

In his remarks, the Ondo state Chairperson of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Victor Amoko, called on all stakeholders to unite in the battle against child labour in the state if child labour must end.