THE International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) has approved funding for two action programmes aimed at implementing activities to combat child labour.

Proposals for these action programmes were submitted to IPEC by Children First in Spanish Town and a coalition group, comprising the community outreach arm of the Sam Sharpe Teachers’ College, Western Society for the Upliftment of Children and the Montego Bay Boys’ Club. The two programmes are to receive funds amounting to $3.5 million each.

Daniel Gordon, IPEC’s national programmes manager at the Ministry of Labour and Social Security in Kingston said that in Jamaica, more boys than girls have been engaged in child labour but more girls were involved in the worst forms, in particular prostitution and pornography.

The activities to be undertaken by Children First are geared toward children working in the Spanish Town and Old Harbour Bay areas, while the coalition group would focus on those in Montego Bay and Negril.

Gordon noted that a baseline study conducted last year indicated that a number of children in these areas were involved in street vending, selling in the markets and pushing hand carts, exotic dancing, taking care of their siblings when they should be at school.

A number of others, Gordon said, were also involved in the worst forms of child labour such as prostitution and the hazardous activity of deep-sea spear fishing.

Five hundred children are being targeted for attention under the two programmes

The action programmes, which would run for at least 15 months, are aimed at withdrawing children from child labour and placing them in literacy or remedial programmes and vocational training centres.

Additionally, effort would be made to prevent other children from engaging in child labour, in particular siblings of those already involved in the practice. The programme also involves counselling for both the victims of child labour and their parents.

Funds would also be provided for these parents to receive training and financing for the establishment of income-generating ventures that would allow them to take care of their families.

Gordon said that the implementing groups were already providing services to needy children and that the approved programmes would see an extension of their efforts. He added that other activities would be incorporated as the needs of the children were assessed.

He pointed out that another action programme was being drafted for submission to IPEC for the Rocky Point area in Clarendon.

IPEC currently operates in 75 countries worldwide and began operating in Jamaica in 2000 when a memorandum of understanding was signed with the Government of Jamaica. Since then, a number of activities have taken place to sensitise the public on the issue and to engage various social organisations in the fight against child labour.

Child labour is work being carried out by a child under the age of 18 years and which jeopardises his or her development, compromises the child’s education and is hazardous to the child’s health and moral well-being, said Gordon.

Additionally, he said the worst forms of child labour include slavery; debt bondage and other forms of forced labour; forced pornography; recruitment for use in armed conflicts, prostitution and other illicit activities. However, he said work that is consistent with a child’s development and does not interfere with his or her schooling is not child labour.