Matthew Chin

Re­porter

matthew.chin@guardian.co.tt

In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­gan­i­sa­tion (ILO) pro­gramme of­fi­cer Re­sel Melville says child labour in this coun­try is “re­al”. In fact, a UNICEF re­port con­duct­ed in 2022 re­vealed there are al­most 6,000 chil­dren be­tween the ages of 5 to 17 who are work­ing. The le­gal age for em­ploy­ment in T&T is 18.

On Wednes­day, Min­is­ter of Labour Stephen Mc Clashie called on the na­tion’s stake­hold­ers to col­lab­o­rate to put an end to child labour in all its forms.

De­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, Port-of-Spain, dur­ing a stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tion ti­tled De­vel­op­ment of Haz­ardous Child Labour List and Light Work List, the min­is­ter called for greater use of ex­per­tise to pre­vent chil­dren from work­ing.

“Our ob­jec­tive is clear: to de­vel­op com­pre­hen­sive and ef­fec­tive lists, cat­e­goris­ing work types as ei­ther light, haz­ardous, or pro­hib­it­ed for chil­dren un­der the age of 18. These lists will serve as a cor­ner­stone of our ef­forts to pre­vent and elim­i­nate child labour, pro­mote ed­u­ca­tion, and cre­ate safer and more eq­ui­table work­places for all. In un­der­tak­ing this en­deav­our we must col­lab­o­rate us­ing the ex­per­tise and ded­i­ca­tion of all our stake­hold­ers,” Mc Clashie said.

Ac­cord­ing to UNICEF, there are over 160 mil­lion child labour­ers across the world, with a sharp in­crease not­ed in 2021.

The con­sul­ta­tion was held to get as­sis­tance in meet­ing the UN’s Tar­get 8.7 of the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals, which aims to end child labour by 2025, glob­al­ly. Mc Clashie said the Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts in tack­ling child labour in­clud­ed the es­tab­lish­ment of four sub-com­mit­tees over­see­ing the mon­i­tor­ing and draft­ing of poli­cies, to name a few.

Melville said the Caribbean re­gion, in­clud­ing T&T, is not ex­empt from the grow­ing trend.

“Child labour ex­ists in T&T, it’s re­al. It ex­ists in dif­fer­ent forms than we might ini­tial­ly think. The last glob­al es­ti­mates that were pub­lished in 2021, point to 1.1 mil­lion chil­dren in the Caribbean sub-re­gion be­ing in a sit­u­a­tion of child labour.

“What that trans­lates to is a 12 per cent preva­lence in our very small so­ci­eties, so of course it is con­cern­ing and alarm­ing,” Melville said.

Da­ta from a sur­vey ti­tled UNICEF MICS 2022 re­ports on Trinidad and To­ba­go and re­vealed that 5,083 chil­dren be­tween the ages of five to 17 are en­gaged in child labour in this coun­try.

The re­port in­di­cat­ed that this fig­ure means that 4.3 per cent of all chil­dren be­tween the ages of five to 17 in T&T are work­ing, which is il­le­gal.

Melville hopes that with the as­sis­tance of stake­hold­ers, and the ILO Re­gion­al Ini­tia­tive, more aware­ness of and the pre­ven­tion of child labour will oc­cur.