Stakeholders urged to partner FG to tackle child labour

The Federal Government has urged all stakeholders to partner with it to mitigate the persistent phenomenon of child labour.

The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, William Alo, stated this in Abuja at a symposium

in commemoration of the 2019 World Day Against Child Labour.

The theme for this year's event is ‘Children Shouldn’t Work in Fields but on Dreams’.

Alo stressed the need for all stakeholders to take more practical steps to prevent and respond to child labour by addressing its root cause of poverty, lack of basic education, among others.

He emphasised that governments at all levels need to prioritize the provision of free and qualitative basic education to all rural communities and urban areas where child labour is endemic.

Alo stressed that parents, especially mothers, should be trained on skills that would provide alternative means of livelihood to address the problem of poverty.

The permanent secretary also acknowledged that Nigeria has taken necessary steps in fighting the scourge through such measures as the adoption of the National Policy on Child Labour, its National Action Plan for the Elimination of Child Labour in Nigeria, and the adoption of the List of Hazardous Child Labour in Nigeria, which children must not be involved in.

Alo added that Nigeria also developed and validated the National Reporting Template on the Elimination of Child Labour, which has been deployed for use in the state labour offices nationwide.