Too many minors in the sex trade, too many forced to work
June 18, 2006
THE labour ministry will meet Monday in Montego Bay with child experts, employers and international agencies to finalise details of a national programme for the elimination of child labour through education, then legal sanction.
An estimated 2.2 per cent of Jamaica's children are engaged in some of the worse forms of child labour, says a two-year-old study, among them commercial sex and hazardous work that sometimes involve the use of heavy equipment.
Approximately 850,000 of Jamaica's estimated 2.7 million population are children aged 0 to 15.
It's not so much the percentage as the nominal figures - amounting to more than 18,000 children by Sunday Observer calculations of current population data - that worry Marva Ximinnies, director of the International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) unit in the labour ministry.
"It is a problem. The fact that one child is engaged in child labour makes it a problem," said Ximinnies.
"Children are supposed to live out their childhood activities. They are being robbed of their childhood."
The ministry is now compiling a list of jobs/occupations that children are not to perform for inclusion in legislation to prosecute commercial exploiters of children, and those who facilitate the exploitation.
"It will become a part of the regulations and it would assist our labour inspectors and the public in general," she said.
The list already incorporates some 20 taboo occupations.
"When we sign off on the list, we would have to engage in public education on what we consider to be hazardous or harmful to the well-being of children," she said.
A local representative of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), who requested anonymity, said Jamaica's child labour figures were considered low when compared to some countries where child labour is almost entrenched.
The representative did not specify, but the UN has documented chronic cases in parts of Asia, and noted its concern about some areas of Latin America....
Author: Petre Williams
Source: Jamaica Observer
