A list of hazardous jobs that children are prohibited from engaging in, which will ultimately be a part of the Child Care and Protection Act, was discussed at a workshop in Kingston on Thursday.

The workshop, held at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, involved the International Labour Organisation/CIDA Regional Child Labour Project in collaboration with the Ministry of Labour and Security, as well as other organisations with responsibility for the nation’s children.

“The main objective that we are seeking from this workshop is to have a list in house because we are required under Section 34 of the Child Care and Protection Act to have this list to periodically review the list of occupations that children are prohibited from engaging in under the law,” said Marva Ximinnies, director of the International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) unit at the Ministry of Labour. “If it is contravened in any way by employers, there are penalties that they will face,” she added.

Section 34 of the Child Care and Protection Act says that no person shall employ a child under the age of 13 years.

The Act also states that no child should be employed to perform any work that is likely to be hazardous or interferes with the child’s education or is harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual or social development. Children are also prohibited from working at nights or in industrial undertakings.

Any person who commits an offence against the Act could be fined up to $250,000 or up to three months in prison.

But Ximinnies said the problem with child labour in Jamaica was primarily within the informal sector, where there are children that are engaging in work that is considered to be hazardous to them.

“. In the fishing industry, research found that some children were diving fish pot without the skills of being able to do so at a very tender age,” Ximinnies said. This list, she said, would therefore guide the ministry regarding the occupations that were to be avoided by children.

In the meantime, Labour Minister Horace Dalley, in a prepared text read by Greshford Smith, the ministry’s director of industrial relations, advised the group that in identifying the occupations in which children may be exposed, consideration would have to be given to work which exposes children to physical, psychological or sexual abuse; work under water, underground or at dangerous heights.

“The denial of children to better education and proper health care, and the psychological damage that can be done to them in terms of certain occupations will most certainly have serious consequences,” he said.

An exploited child, said the minister, would have neither the energy, competence nor mental faculty to be treated as a skilled worker and to demand commensurate pay.

“Coming out of this initial consultation we will be able to broaden the structure to manage the process so that in short order the list can be finalised on the basis of consensus, and then we move on to designing it to make it an enforceable legal instrument,” Dalley said.

Thursday’s workshop was in keeping with the country’s commitment to fulfil the ILO Convention Number 182 which requires each member state to host consultations to identify where hazardous work exists and subject these to constant and periodic review.