The ECLT Foundation works directly with communities in 6 countries.
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In October 2018, the first meeting of the ‘Partnership in Action Against Child Labour in Agriculture’ (PAACLA), was held, bringing together relevant national and local stakeholders against child labour. The meeting was hosted by the Indonesian State Ministry of National Development Planning (BAPPENAS) and supported by ECLT and partners.
The new USDOL report outlines effective, collaborative approaches which have contributed to the removal of 94 million children from labour in the last two decades. Global estimates and data enable us to understand the full scope of child labour, the ‘vulnerabilites’ for prevention and to evaluate which solutions provide the most impact.
In Malawi, the ECLT Foundation has carried out a number of projects including building classrooms, renovating and constructing bridges, setting up Village Savings and Loan Associations, providing school feeding programmes and vocational training. These projects have had significant impact and have contributed to the removal of over 19,000 children from child labour since 2014 alone.
In a sector associated with toil, sweat, uncertainty, unsafe work and low returns, much of the younger generation (aged 15-17) would rather be unemployed than work in agriculture. To attract more young people, agriculture needs to clean up this image. The ECLT Foundation’s Model Farm Schools in Tanzania are an example of how this trend can be reversed and provide decent work opportunities for young people.
SDG 17 calls for partnerships between governments, the private sector and civil society. In practice, however, many partnerships fail. Here are four lessons that we have learnt about developing partnerships for scale and impact.
According to the ILO 152 million children, aged 5 to 17, are still in child labour.Agriculture is the most signiciant contributing sector, making up 71% of all global child labour, much of which is considered to be hazardous for their health,safety and development.
There are growing calls for farmers to diversify from tobacco to flowers, legumes or other crops. However, this oversimplifies the issue and detracts attention from the real challenge: to develop viable, high-value crops that offer smallholder farmers a realistic choice of how to allocate resources and reduce poverty. ECLT Foundation research has shown that tobacco growing is often an integral part of the farmer’s diversification efforts.
Recent heightened public attention on the unacceptable situations faced by children and families working in tobacco growing shines a light on violations of human rights otherwise largely and historically kept in darkness. The Guardian puts children at risk with articles lacking context and promoting a supply chain approach to fight child labour in tobacco growing.
The ECLT Foundation and the Government of Mozambique joined forces to strengthen the fight against the worst forms of child labour, particularly in the areas where tobacco is grown. The 2018 Memorandum of Understanding will focus on community education and training, awareness and communication, institutional capacity building and revising the legal framework on child labour.
