Labour ministry partners journalists to eliminate child labour

AKOR SYLVESTER-Abuja

Ministry of Labour and Employment is working with Nigerian Journalists to fight against Child Labour and encourage child education in the country.

Part of the partnership was the One-Day training workshop on Child Labour Reportage organised by the ministry for Labour Correspondents in Abuja

Declaring the workshop open, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige said the scourge of child labour was becoming a worrisome issues to the country and the international community.

He urged the participants at the workshop to develop a workable partnership plan with the media to help eliminate the practice or reduce it to the lowest ebb.

Represented at the event by the permanent secretary of the ministry, Yerima Tarfa, the Minister said child labour and other forms of modern slavery were issues of grave concern in the global arena on account of their dire consequences, and the persistence of those consequences through generation of familes .

He said there was need to create effective awareness on the danger of child labour and also the effort to eliminate what he described as hydra headed monster.

The Minister charged the newsmen to be at the fore front of the fight against the scourge, while urging relevant stakeholders to join the war against Child Labour.

In his presentation, the Deputy Director, Press and Public Relations, Charles Akpan, said efforts towards the development of a National Policy on Child Labour and a National Action Plan that will drive it’s implementation suffered some challenges but have now been finalized through the ratification and adoption of key International Labour Organisation Conventions.

He enumerated the strategies to include the creation of awareness on Child Labour and its effects in Nigeria.

Akpan however said there were inadequate information and enlightenment programmes on Child Labour.

He said the development informed the decision to partner Journalists covering labour to help in the enlightenment and sensitisation of the public on the evil of child labour.