The Ministry for Employment has been able to withdraw 193 children from the child labour environment and have returned them to schools with some being put into technical training programs.
This has been revealed by the Acting Minister for Employment Mereseini Vuniwaqa during the opening of the World Day Against Child Labour Awareness programme at Novotel in Lami today.
The Ministry for Employment says they have prosecuted two employers who were involved in these 193 cases of child labour.
Vuniwaqa says child labour takes away the rights of our children and punishes them with work which is supposed to be done by adults as a child’s rightful place is in school.
She says we need to ensure as parents and guardians, that we ourselves do not harm our children’s future by putting them in employment instead of education.
The Minister says the Child Labour Unit within the Ministry was set up in June 2011 under the EU and ILO TACKLE Project to eradicate child labour and establish a labour Inspection process to tackle child labour and encourage children back into schools.
Vuniwaqa says the unit has trained over 250 school teachers and over 200 community leaders and farmers in the area of child labour since 2011 to date.
