The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has called for policies that would bridge the economic inequality gap to address the increasing rate of child labour across the world.
Mr. Joe Ajaero, NLC President said this on Wednesday while addressing Journalists at the ongoing 111th Session of the International Labour Conference (ILC) in Geneva, Switzerland.
He was reacting to the address delivered by the Director General of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Mr Gilbert Houngbo as the organisation marked Child Labour day on June 12.
The NLC boss said economic capacity of parents and guardians to adequately take care of their wards has been blamed for the high rate of child labour in developing countries including Nigeria.
The Nigerian Labour Congress NLC, also identified what it called a guinea wage administration policy as a way of addressing the issue.
Although the organised labour community in Nigeria during their presentation of the situation, noted government’s efforts in addressing the situation, they however noted that proper wage distribution is missing.
According to him, it is the degree and the dimension that vary from country to country, from state to state and from time to time.
“We have made our own intervention trying to link it up or situate it with poverty, especially poverty of the parent. We were clear on that,
the more the parents are poor, the more they will turn the children to breadwinners in families.
“I equally try to say that in a country where you have about 133 million people who are multi dimensionally poor, it will be difficult for you to give them pass mark on the issue of child labour”, he said.
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The NLC President listed factors he said are mitigating the issue of child labour in Nigeria to include parents not working and some State governments not paying minimum wage.
In such situation he said, their children will go out to the street, some to hawk, some to work especially in the construction industries where you see child labour very prevalent.
“In such situation, even if you come up with legislation to outlaw child labour and nothing is done to bridge the income inequality or the poverty level in the country, it will not have any effect in a country that is faced with the challenges of militancy and kidnappings”.
Ajaero also decried the use of children as child soldiers as well as being recruited as militants and some as assassins saying “it is a reflection of the society”.
Speaking exclusively to Voice of Nigeria in Geneva, the General Secretary of the NLC, Emma Ugboaja, stressed that, as long as the level of poverty in developing countries like Nigeria remain as it is, child labour cannot be treated the way civilised countries would want to handle it.
“We have massive unemployment, underemployment and very low level of wage remuneration administration.
“So where people are earning less than one dollar a day which is what our 30,000 Naira minimum wage represents, it takes the entire family to be at work for the family to get along to the next month.
“So children then get involved not by wish of their parents, not by their own desire, but by survival instinct.
“We also have the variant that hurts, the mining sector in Nigeria, the illegal mining industry in Nigeria, in Zamfara, Ondo and the Niger States where children are used to go through tunnels because of their size”, Ugboaja said.
He lamented that children are now being used for such illegal things not minding the danger, the chemical, the gas, the danger of possible collapse of the mines on the children.
“We are collaborating with ILO, that is the Nigeria Labour Congress has a working campaign with the ILO in that direction in those three States in particular as pilot areas.
“But most importantly, the issue of child labour can’t be tackled without a genuine wage administration policy that makes it possible for us not to be advertising the working poor, that if parents are working, then they can genuinely take care of their children”.
Asked of the possibility of eradicating child labour someday, Ugboaja expressed the confidence that it will happen.
“It will be feasible if the world agrees to redistribute wealth just like the pressure on Just Transition.
“You have moved ahead, now you don’t want coal and you don’t want fossil fuel, what about those whose livelihood depend on them.
“So as long as people think only for themselves, we will continue to have the challenge. And that’s why in the ILO system, what we’re moving towards is having a balance, people must not leave anybody behind”, the NLC scribe said.
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