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Government to send 3,000 children back to school
The government is in the process of withdrawing around 3,000 children from workplaces across Indonesia, and sending them back to schools, a Cabinet minister said Monday
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he government is in the process of withdrawing around 3,000 children from workplaces across Indonesia, and sending them back to schools, a Cabinet minister said Monday.
"To sustain the national program to eradicate the worst forms of child labor, the government has targeted to remove around 3,000 child workers from workplaces in 50 regencies and municipalities this fiscal year.
JP/Irma
"The children will be accommodated in shelters to get elementary education, and sent back to school," Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said at the opening of a workshop held in observance of International Day against Child Labor.
Since 2008, the government has sent a total of 4,853 child workers in seven provinces back to school.
Working in cooperation with the International Labor Organization (ILO), the government has set up an action committee to end child labor, at province and regency and municapal levels.
Having ratified ILO Convention No. 138 on the minimum employment age, and No. 182 which bans the worst forms of child labor, Indonesia has also made Law No. 13/2003 prohibiting child labor and Presidential Decree No. 59/2002 identifying 13 of the worst forms of child labor, including child prostitution and child laborers in construction, offshore fishing and plantations. Children are also prohibited from working as trash-pickers or house maids.
This year the number of working children is estimated to have reached 4 million nationwide, because of an increasing number of school dropouts following the global economic downturn over the past three years.
This estimate is based on various surveys conducted by the ILO and the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) in the worst-affected provinces, including East Java, East Nusa Tenggara and Papua.
The national labor survey (Sakernas) shows that in 2009 the number of children aged between 10 and 17 in Indonesia was about 35.7 million. Among them, 10 percent (3.7 million) were working children. About 615,000 were not employed but were seeking work and therefore should be counted as within the labor force.
The size of the labor force among children of this age group was then about 4.3 million.
"These conditions have forced the government to make the anti-child-labor program its main priority for the next 10 years, so that all of the worst forms of child labor can be phased out by 2020," Muhaimin said.
He reiterated that the government had made a strong commitment to phasing out child labor and would consistently enforce relevant laws, including those on domestic violence, to prevent corporations and parents from employing children.
"Up to the age of 15, children must stay in school, and have the right to *free* education," he said.
