The Minister for Labour, Industrial Relations & Employment Mr Jone Usamate today opened the training on Child Labour in the Sugar Industry for Lautoka stakeholders.
The Minister highlighted that the purpose of this training is to combat child labour in the sugar industry and also to form a strong partnership in ensuring that stakeholders act vigilantly in preventing child labour which hinders children development and prevents them from going to school.
“My Ministry has conducted a Child Labour School Based Survey in 2012 and have discovered that there are many children being involved in various form of child labour in the agricultural industry and also in other sectors. “
“As the result of this survey, the Child Labour Unit of my Ministry has been working around the clock in ensuring that the stakeholders and our people are trained and made aware of the impact of child labour on our children.” said Mr Usamate.
“In combating child labour, my Ministry has trained a total of 347 teachers from the 197 rural agriculture based schools on child labour issues and also provided awareness on various assistance that can be provided to children in ensuing that they remain in schools”, said the Minister.
He adds that some of the ways that government has been assisting in this area is through the subsidies of school bus fare from Ministry of Education and through the care and protection allowance provided by the Social Welfare Department.
He said that there are also many existing non-governmental organizations also do provide assistance in terms of payment of school fees, providing of school books and uniforms.
The Minister said that this is indeed a collective effort by our government and its people in ensuring that our children are given the best possible assistance to complete their education.
He thanked the Ministry of Sugar, the Sugar Cane Growers Council, the Fiji Sugar Corporation and the Cane Producer Organization in working towards creating awareness to the industry stakeholders.
He concluded that about 215 million children worldwide are involved in child labour. Out of that, 115 million are engaged in hazardous work including that of cane farming and other agricultural activities.
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