World Day Against Child Labour Commemoration on June 12, 2021

Theme: Act Now: End Child Labour!

Time has come to pay Gratitude to individuals and organizations who have been fighting child labour for many years, but at the same time start challenging each other on why the vices such as child labour still exist. These individuals and groups range from Governments, ILO, UNICEF, International Organizations and Civil Society Groups, especially in those countries that are still developing and have made efforts to fight child labour. Some groups have also included children’s voices to say NO to child labour, which also includes ANPPCAN that was started in 1986 after a conference on child labour in Enugu, Nigeria in 1986.

Many studies have been done by universities and individuals leading to conferences and workshops, with many recommendations made. Both National and International organizations, have condemned child labour and pushed Governments, where child labour exists, to take Action.

Governments have responded, being assisted by all the groups mentioned above and came up with impressive National policies, laws and National Action Programmes to deal with these vices, which also include trafficking of children into sexual exploitation, agriculture and domestic labour. Everyone, including; Governments, after many years of their staff or employees being trained and capacity built by these great groups as described above, still face challenges of resources as a result of which, many impressive documents end up in Government Archives unimplemented.

But as God was observing this, Covid-19 pandemic arrived from Wuhan, China as a joke and before, all those groups realized, the pandemic spread to the rest of the Globe, wreaking havoc. The Corona virus pandemic, truly exposed the world naked, meaning that everyone was not actually operating well. For example, all of a sudden, hospitals have to be built, people have to work from home, they have to be isolated to be alive, etc.

Hence, Comrades in the fight against child labour, why can’t we all use this and subsequent years to review our strategies, as the pandemic has shown that crowds may not solve problems! Countries must be allowed to be the drivers of the issues affecting their populations.  A lot of money and resources have been used, addressing issues globally, which never end, while for example, countries like Kenya, where ANPPCAN operates, ought to be told to wake up and ensure that all children, being produced and raised in Kenya, go through school and obtain education that prevents them from ever entering into child labour or being trafficked.

The Pandemic has confirmed that Poverty has no boundaries.  Countries should look at their populations and address the issues affecting them.  The groups that truly enjoy telling Governments what to do, while some of their staff and implementers enjoy the current approaches, should surrender and revisit the approaches being used.  Resources are being misused in institutions that have not brought an end to poverty and please, let us not comfort ourselves that poverty is relative.  There are countries, which removed child labour from their midst very fast.  All they did was to reduce poverty and removed exaggerated high-end lifestyles.  The Pandemic is telling the World to deal with Poverty effectively.

So, Comrades in child labour, those who want to remove poverty from communities, where poverty is the order of the day, please, join ANPPCAN to deliberate on strategies to go for this year and beyond to remove child labour and other vices affecting children in our midst.