Employees’ federation moves to address soaring cases of child labour
The Federation of Kenya Employees (FKE) has now moved to address child labour in the country.
In collaboration with International Labour Organisation (ILO), the group targets to tackle child labour which sore during Covid 19 period.
While addressing the media, ILO projects manager Grace Banya said that the number of children subjected to hard labour has increased in Africa, with Kenya becoming among the leading countries while it has declined in other parts of the world.
Since 2016, she revealed that Africa has seen an increase in both the number and percentage of children in child labour.
"The percentage has increased from 19.6% to 21.6% over the four-year period while the percentage of children in hazardous work has also increased from 8.6% to 9.7%," she said.
With the shocking number of increases, she said that Kenya is among the worst affected countries and the matter should be addressed with the seriousness it deserves to curb the vice.
The absolute number of children in child labour she added that has increased by over 20 million over the four-year period (72 to 92 million) while the number of children in hazardous work also increased (31 to 41 million).
Banya said the increasing numbers were triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic which saw schools closed, with a number of children dropping out when learning resumed. She said that a majority of children are engaged in child labour to help provide for their families to make ends meet after their parent lost their jobs.
The worst affected age groups, she revealed, are between 5-7 with majority of them being boys who engage in agriculture.
Normally, the leading numbers, she said, were always girls but unfortunately, this time around boys took the lead.
"Child labour is even more challenging in the context of small and medium-sized Enterprises. For this reason, we will be sharing some insights from the development of a toolkit for SMEs on addressing Child Labour, "Said Banya.
With respect to human trafficking and forced labour, Banya said that Kenya is a source, transit, and destination country for trafficking in persons. The National Council on Children’s Services (NCCS) estimates that around 17,500 Kenyans are trafficked annually for domestic work, forced labour, and commercial sexual exploitation, of which about 50% are likely to be minors.
She appealed for the provision of funding and technical support with the objective of strengthening the capacity of FKE to address Child Labour, Forced Labour, Human Trafficking and Violations of Acceptable Conditions of Work.
Banya also said that there is need to develop and strengthen advocacy campaigns targeted at employers on the promotion of decent work and International Labour Standards that include the importance of issuing written contracts, provision of quality services for child labor and forced labor victims in the coffee, fish, miraa, rice, sand, sisal, sugarcane and tea and promotion of decent work that encompass International Labour Standards.
