All people must protect our children

 BEWARE, all you mindless persons and organisations that employ under-aged children in the formal and informal employment sectors in this country.

Papua New Guinea is a step closer to enacting tougher laws to prevent the use and abuse of child labour.

A National Action Plan on Child Labour will be launched on Thursday, Nov 20, by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Department of Labour and Industrial Relations (DLIR), which will establish the framework for policies and actions.

Child labour in PNG in­cludes children selling be­tel nuts and cigarettes on the streets, children being employed full-time in commercial trading and manufacturing facilities and outlets, pre-teens and teenage children engaged in the commercial sex trade and children employed in the agriculture sector.

It is heartening to note that the National Action Plan is one of the outcomes of programmes on child labour, delivered by the ILO and DLIR.

Last April, the two organisations conducted nationwide road-shows to create awareness on child labour and generate interests. 

That was followed by a forum in Port Moresby, which included stakeholders from the government, non-government organisations, churches and trade unions to formulate strategies for the plan.

As ILO national coordinator Richard Samuel says: “The NAP proposes a number of actions to this end. These include prioritising child labour and the worst forms of child labour in national development pro­grammes, conducting systematic quantitative and qualitative research.”

The NAP is guided by four strategic objectives:

• Mainstreaming child labour and worst forms of child labour in social and economic policies legislation and programmes;
• improving the knowledge base; 
• implementing effective prevention, protecting rehabilitation and re-integration measures, and, 
• Strengthening the technical, institutional and human resource capacity of stakeholders

It is encouraging to note the plan strongly recommends the establishment of a Child Labour Unit to provide coordination and management of child labour. 

This is a step in the right direction and will enable the community to embrace this issue and help to clamp down on child labour practices. 

Child labour, violence ag­ainst females and child prostitution are glaring examples of social evils that are turning our paradise into a devil’s backyard.

We boast about being a modern Christian nation and yet allow our women and children to be susceptible to violence, sexual abuse and immoral practices.

Let’s face it, more and more PNG children are being forced to work for a living, including under-aged waitresses and courtesy girls in nightclubs and guest houses that have been mushrooming in Port Moresby and major centres. 

The city streets are crawling with under-aged vendors selling all sorts of goods as well as the beloved betel nuts. Many of these children should be in school with the advent of free education.

It has always been part of PNG tradition for children to learn manual labour skills at an early age to equip them for lifelong sustenance. 

In the village situation, children help their parents with gardening, fishing and cooking, while city children are required to do some household chores if they are not watching TV or playing with their mobile phones.

Such work is not defined as child labour as it is neither full-time nor paid employment and in the village situation, it is an education process.

The intricacies of modern life have prompted the use, or rather abuse of child labour, hence, the need by the ILO and DLIR to closely scrutinise this issue.

Something good and positive has resulted from the road-shows and forum. It is envisaged that new policies and finally tough new laws will be enacted to effectively rid the country of this illegal practice.

Our country is besieged with all kinds of social ills, not the least of which is the illegal employment of children for profit. 

It is our duty as right-thinking, law-abiding citizens to protect and preserve the basic rights of our children, including the prevention of child labour.