Background

ILO’s Global Action Plan (GAP) set out in 2006 with the aim to eliminate child labour proposed to the members States to commit themselves to the elimination of all worst forms of child labour by 2016.

This Plan that has been implemented all over the world through ILO’s local offices rests particularly on the three following pillars:

• Supporting national responses to child labour, in particular through more effective mainstreaming of child labour concerns in national development and policy frameworks;
• Deepening and strengthening of the worldwide movement as a catalyst; and
• Promoting further integration of child labour concerns within overall ILO priorities, such as Decent Works Country Programmes.

In order to consolidate ILO’s action through the implementation of the GAP 11, ILO has been supporting one of its most largest technical cooperation programme to achieve not only the progressive elimination of child labour through strengthening the capacities of the countries to deal with the problem and promoting a worldwide movement to combat it, but to prioritize an urgent elimination of worst forms of child labour by 2016.

This technical programme, with the name of International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), has been pursuing its goal through policy advice, information dissemination, research and statistics, capacity building, advocacy and demonstrating viable modalities and strategies through numerous projects in more than 86 countries.

Timor-Leste as an ILO State member and one of the Southeast Asian countries where the GAP has been implemented, particularly through the Decent Works Country Programmes, has also benefited from the technical programme for the elimination of child labour and the implementation of the Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour (SAP-FL).

Specifically, since 2012, ILO has been operating in Timor-Leste to implement both programmes by providing financial and technical assistance to the Timorese Government to build the capacity of the Secretariat of State for Vocational Training and Employment Policy (SEPFOPE) and other Government members and social partners, such as the Employers Organizations and Trade Unions, and to develop strategic policies to address the child and forced labour issues.

Thus, in 2014, Timor-Leste, through the Government Resolution 1/2014, of 15 January, established the National Commission against Child Labour (NCCL) with the aim to implement and monitor the enforcement of ILO Convention 182, ratified by Timor-Leste in 2009 . According to this resolution, NCCL has as one of its attributions the competence to inform, raise-awareness and mobilize the public opinion for the urgent need to eliminate the worst forms of child labour.

Purpose

Since 2012, with the implementation of IPEC and SAP-FL as well as the other ILO country programs, it has been useful activities that involve raise-awareness campaigns, such as the ones that NCCL, Labour Inspectorate and SEPFOPE have carried out in each annual World Day against Child Labour.

With an independence of not more than 12 years, the child and forced labour issues are completely new for the communities and for the country itself. This does not mean that child and forced labour does not exist in Timor-Leste. But, it is a concept unknown for the majority of the Timorese people, particularly for the families who have been supporting their children to engage in domestic work and non-formal activities.

It is a priority of the Development Strategic Plan of the Government to elevate its human resources through education and training for all. This means that the Timorese Government is truly committed to implement all the necessary conditions for the children to access to basic education and training.

This priority may be not fulfill at full when we talk about child workers that absent from school and do not have the opportunity to learn as the others, and even worst, do not have a complete access to basic education.

Thereby, it is urgent to raise people consciousness for this problem, including schools, local communities and families to combat child labour and protect children from works or activities considered as hazardous for their health, education and morals.