Labour Ministry to strengthen fight against child labour

The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, Bolaji Adebiyi, has assured of the readiness of the ministry to continue to champion the renewed fight against child labour, modern slavery, human trafficking and forced labour; in line with emerging global trends in labour administration.

Speaking while addressing the strategy meeting of the National Steering Committee on Child Labour, the Permanent Secretary stated that the ministry would put all modalities in place to do this.

He said: “Let me acknowledge that one of the emerging global trends in labour administration is the renewed fight against child labour, modern slavery, human trafficking and forced labour as encapsulated in the Alliance 8.7.

“Nigeria as a signatory to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations should not be found behind but rather, be at the forefront of the pursuit of these objectives.”

Adebiyi, emphasised that the fight against the scourge of child labour will require the innovation and collaboration of stakeholders as the Federal Government cannot do it alone.

“Eradication of child labour can only be accelerated through leveraging expertise across diverse fields. Hence, Target 8.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals and Alliance 8.7 emphatically requests stakeholders in the fight against the scourge of child labour to work together in new innovative and collaborative ways.” He said.

Setting agenda for the meeting, the Permanent Secretary said that the meeting should among others, ensure awareness creation and sensitisation on the Reporting Template for the Elimination of ChildLabour in Nigeria.

Consequently, he said a national registry of High-Level Desk Officers on ChildLabour in all MDAs will be established and there will be immediate commencement of the usage of the validated Reporting Template on the Elimination of ChildLabour in Nigeria.

In his remarks, the Director Inspectorate in the Ministry, Mr. Solomon Ajibola, commended the Permanent Secretary’s resolve to support efforts geared towards eradicating ChildLabour in Nigeria.

He advocated the need to engage preventive measures towards eradicating the scourge of ChildLabour in the country, saying “We just have to look inwards, our primary focus is the reporting aspect of the programme and we want to come up with a National all-embracing ChildLabour Report during the first quarter of the year.