As Nigeria grapples with socioeconomic challenges posed by child labour, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has urged the country to aspire for total prohibition and elimination of the scourge.
ILO Country Director for Nigeria, Vennesa Phala, who made the charge during commemoration of the 2025 World Day Against Child Labour in Abuja on Tuesday, said Nigeria is currently striving to achieve the SDG Target 8.7 which focusses on ending forced labour, modern slavery, human trafficking, and the worst forms of child labour, including the recruitment and use of child soldiers
She also said that Nigeria is signatory to laws and international Labour standards that promote elimination of child labour yet the menace still persists.
Her words: “While Nigeria strives to achieve the SDG Target 8.7 which focusses on ending forced labour, modern slavery, human trafficking, and the worst forms of child labour, including the recruitment and use of child soldiers still occur.
“As an Alliance 8.7 Country, we should aim to secure the prohibition and elimination of all forms of child labour by 2025.
“We must speed up efforts on enforcement of laws to end child labour”.
Phala said globally the number of children (aged between 6-17 yours) in child labour and hazardous work, reduced by 22 million from 160 million to about 138 million, since the last global estimates in 2020.
She also said there are over 100 million fewer children in child labour today than in 2000, even as the child population increased by 230 million over the same period.
The ILO Country Director used the opportunity to call for immediate action by the National Assembly (both the Senate and House of Representatives), the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment and all stakeholders to facilitate a speedy passage of the reviewed Labour Standards Bill for the Country.
“The Labour standards bill once passed into law will align the country’s labour laws with international standards and promote social Justice in Nigeria.
“It will address the needs of workers in the informal sector, protection of workers’ rights, enforcement and sanctions,” she said.
Phala spoke of progress being made to reduce child labour by Nigeria.
According to her, the country’s enacted Child Rights Act (2003) prohibits children in the 5-11 age group from engaging in economic activity but allows children 12-14 years old to engage in light work, while those aged 15-17 are allowed to be involved in economic activities that are not hazardous.
Speaking on the efforts to address the problem of child labour, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Alhaji Maigari Dingyadi, said the federal government is working to build a country where every child can grow up safe, educated and full of dreams that can translate to reality.
When asked by one of students invited to the event whether there are sanctions backed law against the practice of child labour, the minister said there is none yet but that the ministry is promoting awareness on the issue.
He said that part of measures by government is to try to improve on the living condition of every Nigerian so that each family will be able to carter for the needs of the children including training them in schools
“Imagine a country where no child is working on the streets or in farms under harsh conditions. This is the Nigeria we are working towards. This is the Nigeria and future you deserve,” he said.
Both the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in their presentations demanded the domestication and implementation of the provisions of the Child Right Act.
Onyebuchi Ezigbo
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