SAC Vice Chairman Deputy Prime Minister Vice-Senior General Soe Win addresses fifth work coordination meeting of Myanmar National Committee to Eliminate Child Labour
NAY PYI TAW October 13
Myanmar National Committee to Eliminate Child Labour held fifth work coordination meeting at the Labour Ministry here at 2 pm addressed by Chairman of the committee Vice Chairman of State Administration Council Deputy Prime Minister Vice-Senior General Soe Win.
Present were committee member Union ministers, the Nay Pyi Taw Council chairman, the permanent secretary and officials. Chief ministers who are Region/State work committee chairmen, members of secretariat, employer association, employee association, and social organizations attended the meeting through video conferencing.
The Vice-Senior General said the meeting was held to review the accomplishments of eight work committees and region/state work committees in connection with the national level child labour elimination project, and to establish links among the National Committee, eight work committees and region/state work committees. SAC reformed the National Committee with notification 358/2021 on 11 November 2021 with 37 members including the SAC Vice Chairman.
The fourth meeting adopted nine resolutions, and the secretariat, and the relevant bodies including eight national level work committees, recording work committee, awareness and ability promotion work committee were set up under respective notifications. The committee has launched knowledge propagation program in connection with child labour, drawn and amended laws in accord with the international norms, enhances qualification of Union level, region/state level and government organizations to settle child labour problems, designated responsibilities, implemented child labour elimination long-term plans through progress assessment.
The launching of the national level work project in January 2019 was approved in principle under six goals – to implement the national level project on child labour elimination through long-term and short-term programs, to designate three five-year short-term programs as one 15-year long-term program, and to implement the first five-year program with the goal of collecting precise basic facts, conducing awareness and ability promotion campaigns, generating educational and vocational opportunities, improving legal matters including amendment of laws and implementations, eliminating the worst forms of child labour and carrying out rehabilitation, and generating better employment vocational opportunities for families.
As per the national-level first five-year action plan for elimination of child labour, tasks for reduction and elimination of child labour are being taken in the first short-term five years from 2019 to 2023 in the prioritized fields of industrial manufacturing sector and commerce sectors in Kayin and Mon states and Bago, Yangon and Ayeyawady regions of the 15 regions and states.
Stability in macro economy and finance, especially in major sectors such as commodity production, economic reform looking forwards to development,reduction of poverty and development of human resources, development of good governance and public sector reform, and promotion of environmental sustainability are major challenges.
As child labour is part of the challenges on poverty reduction and development of human resources, priority must be given to implementation of major policies on investment in education, promotion of skill and employment, job opportunities for the youths and safe migration as a national duty.
It is learnt that COVID-19 pandemic has affected most of all the countries in the world causing less families’ income and leading to higher poverty rate. In the situation of having no support, there is an increase in number of child labour for survival of households. Poverty, school closure and less social services force many children to work. They have faced exploitation and forced labour in dangerous work. Particularly, venerable young girls have experienced exploitation in agricultural and household maid jobs. It is essential to provide most child workers with social protection and policies on education, social protection, justice, and labour market are the matters to be given special consideration.
Surveys in the world show that a country could have at least 8.7 percent of child labour as long as there is one percent increase of poverty level in that country. One in 10 children is a child worker. In 2016, there were 152 million child workers in the world and 160 million in 2020, which means number of child labour increased by eight million in four years’ time. Of them, 6.5 million are working in dangerous workplaces. Child labour has been a solution to all the families due to the pandemic and in 2022, it is seen that there are 8.9 million child workers across the world.
To be able to respond to the signs of having a surge in number of child workers, it is to cooperate in the sectors of ensuring perfect social protection, creating job opportunities for low-income families, promoting job opportunities for adults, making plans for enabling all children to go to school, providing free education and scrutinizing labour affairs, and ensuring rule of law. If there is an increase in social protection services on child labour based on the policy responding to the COVID-19, projection could be provided to achieve reduction of child labour.
The State Administration Council is giving priority to ensuring improvement of socio-economic life of all the people. Encouragement has been given to aiding businesses battered by COVID-19, reopening basic education high schools, promoting commodity production industries based on agri-culture and livestock farming and implementing short-term businesses.
Furthermore, the national-level action plan for elimination of child labour was laid down for five years from 2019 to 2023.
As per the action plan, special consideration must be given on carrying out tasks through linking with national-level committee and working committees on elimination of child labour, sub-committees and other relevant committees and civil society organizations.
Only if there is mental and physical development in children, will the future of the Statebe created well. As this is directly concerned with economic development, improvement of socio-economic life, and education development, it is a long-term plan to be implemented to achieve the goals of the nationa-level action plan for elimination of child labour. Beyond the year of 2023 when the five-year action plan will be over, ministries are to work together to enable members of the National Level Committee to quickly respond to reviewing advantages and disadvantages in implementing the plan.
Afterwards, Union Ministers Lt-Gen Soe Htut and Dr Pwint Hsan, vice chairmen of the National Committee, reported on implementation of the national-level action plan for elimination of child labour.
Next, Secretary of the National Committee Deputy Minister for Labour U Win Shein briefed on tasks being taken as per the minutes of the 4th Meeting of the National Committee and tasks being carried out by the eight working committees.
Then, Members of the National Committee Union Ministers Lt-Gen Tun Tun Naung, U Win Shein, Dr Kan Zaw, Dr Thida Oo, U Tin Htut Oo, U Hla Moe, Dr Thet Thet Khine, U Saw Tun Aung Myint, the chairman of Nay Pyi Taw Council, deputy ministers, and chief ministers of region and state governments reported on sector-wise tasks of the national-level action plan for elimination of child labour.
Later, Joint Secretary of the National Committee Director-General of Factories and General Labour Law Inspection Department U Tin Ko Ko presented the minutes made at the 5th Meeting and got confirmation on it.
Afterwards, the Vice-Senior General gave necessary instructions on the reports and gave concluding remarks.