The IPEC approach

IPEC’s approach has evolved over the years as the programme acquired more experience and the movement against child labour took on global dimensions. In the early years, IPEC supported its partner organizations to develop and implement innovative and experimental activities. These included determining the nature and extent of the child labour problem; devising national policies and protective legislation; setting up mechanisms to provide in-country ownership and operation of national programmes of action; and creating awareness in communities and workplaces. This “country programme approach” was instrumental in mobilizing broad support against child labour and enhancing capacity in many national institutions. Since 1997 IPEC has gradually enlarged the scope of its operations, bringing experience to scale, often by covering large geographical areas and specific economic sectors. In the meantime, IPEC programmes have also begun to address the issues of workplace monitoring and social protection. These programmes have helped withdraw several hundred thousand children from hazardous work, while endeavouring to keep workplaces child-labour free and ensuring that former child labourers and their families are provided with viable alternative livelihoods.

Another significant development of IPEC’s technical cooperation programme is the implementation of comprehensive projects aimed at combating child labour on a national or regional scale. These initiatives have generally yielded positive results. They often combine a multitude of activities, including: specific projects to withdraw children from work, child labour surveys, and sensitization of political leaders and the general public. Moreover, in order to address the issues of vulnerable groups (children trafficked for labour or sexual exploitation, for example) and hazardous sectors more effectively, IPEC launched several major cross-border regional projects to address trafficking in children, child soldiers, and child labour in domestic work, mining and commercial agriculture.

The development and subsequent adoption of ILO Convention No. 182 on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour (1999) was a significant step for IPEC. The clear commitment to eliminating the worst forms of child labour has helped place the issue on national development agendas. For example, the Time-Bound Programme (TBP), designed to assist member States in implementing Convention No. 182, aims at the eradication of the worst forms of child labour within a determined period of time. TBPs are also expected to demonstrate that the elimination of the worst forms of child labour can have a significant impact on sustainable development.

IPEC’s policy research, data collection and analysis, evaluation methodology, campaigning, communications and legal advisory work are vital for the effectiveness of IPEC’s technical cooperation programmes and the enhancement of national capacities to deal with child labour. These functions were enlarged considerably during 2000-01, reinforcing ILO’s role as a global centre for child labour information and legal expertise. The rapid expansion of the programme has raised IPEC’s public profile worldwide and generated increased public interest in the programme.

IPEC’s early programmes targeted children using underlying baseline data that were often not disaggregated by sex. This resulted in the difficulty to ascertain to what extent girls, who are particularly vulnerable to abusive exploitation, had been provided with effective assistance. As Convention No. 182 requires that special attention be given to girls, IPEC stepped up its efforts to mainstream gender in its approach during 2000-01. In doing this, IPEC recognizes that all steps in the planning, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of programmes requires careful considerations with regard to how boys and girls are differently affected by different kinds of the Worst Forms of Child Labour (WFCL). Although IPEC’s knowledge base clearly shows that girls are vulnerable to some of the most serious violations of their human rights, such as trafficking for sexual exploitation, IPEC also recognizes that in some socio-cultural contexts boys are more at risk. Special measures need to be applied in order to reach this target group. Mainstreaming of gender as an analytical tool translates into programmes that are designed with these considerations in mind. Existing interventions are analyzed for any potential unintended negative impact on the move to promote equal opportunities for boys and girls.

Children’s participation in designing and undertaking projects contra child labour can be the key to successful results. Children and youth can also provide a reality-check in relation to the development of national policies on children. The main guiding principle here is that programme planners carefully assess how and at which level children can and should participate and contribute to different steps of the process. Children’s views can be solicited through focus group discussions where they can voluntarily participate in a safe and comfortable environment. In direct action interventions, the power of peer education under adult support and guidance has been of great value. Children’s participation, especially older children, in the planning of their own future after withdrawal from the WFCL is crucial in order to utilize the personal motivation and interests of the child to build interventions around. The key principle here is that if programme implementers win the children over and give them space for assuming some responsibility, then the probability for sustainable progress is greater.

C182’s requirement for consultation with affected children can be taken one step further by empowering working children and former child labourers to help influence public opinion against the worst forms of child labour and be actively involved in the development of national TBPs. At a minimum, hearings can be organized for children affected by the worst forms of child labour. The different types of child participation include consultations of the children affected, organizations of child labourers and child advocates, child advocacy activities (i.e. meetings with local politicians, first ladies or prime ministers), public events (i.e. rallies, marches, concerts), and activities for school children. Former child workers can be motivated to go back to their communities and advocate against the worst forms of child labour.

Although the Programme continues to expand at a very rapid rate, it is clear that IPEC’s available technical cooperation resources can only provide direct relief to a very small portion of the children in need of help. Nonetheless, IPEC’s broad experience gained over more than a decade has put the Programme in an excellent position to significantly widen its impact. This can be done by concentrating greater resources on facilitating the work of its many partner organizations worldwide including: governments, workers and employers’ organizations, civil society groups and other international organizations. IPEC is gradually reducing its role in the direct execution of individual programmes while increasing its focus on larger integrated and highly focused projects at the national and sub-regional levels. In addition, focus is being placed on policy and technical assistance for ILO member States in order to facilitate the formulation of their own policies and programmes related to the implementation ILO Convention Nos. 182 on the worst forms of child labour and 138 on the minimum age for admission to employment. With over three-quarters of ILO member States now having ratified Convention No. 182 and with universal ratification within reach, this type of IPEC assistance will be in constant demand in the coming years.

Moreover, it is now widely accepted that a development-oriented approach that reduces poverty and promotes universal education is the most effective way of attacking the complex root causes of child labour and eliminating it in a sustainable way. The Programme’s overall strategy is thus firmly based on the premise that the reduction of child labour and poverty through reforming policies, enhancing capacity, protecting children’s rights, enhancing community participation and the empowerment of parents and children can make a much larger and durable impact than direct action alone.

To ensure effective implementation and monitoring of ILO child labour Conventions, upstream policy-related work and traditional downstream interventions are being combined in an integrated approach sensitive to the capacity of the participating member States. IPEC support to member States currently comprises:

• Formulation, promotion, enforcement and monitoring of relevant national policies, laws and regulations, including the official list of hazardous work;
• Collection and analysis of data on the worst forms of child labour, as well as the development of credible and comprehensive child labour monitoring and information systems; and
• Development and implementation of comprehensive time-bound policy and programme frameworks to address child labour issues, with a focus on the worst forms of child labour.

Two important initiatives undertaken by IPEC since the 2000-01 biennium reflect the focus on comprehensive, integrated actions. These are the development of Time-Bound Programmes (TBPs) for the elimination of the worst forms of child labour and the Networking Initiative, which covers development policy (DPNet) and hazardous child labour (HCLNet). IPEC’s strategy of building institutional capacity to help ensure that assistance is cost-effective and sustainable also fits into this strategy.

The TBP concept is designed to meet the need for large-scale interventions that exists in many countries. In this framework, national agencies and institutions take the lead in programme development and implementation, including resource mobilization. To encourage this, IPEC is refining the TBP concept to account for the variability of national situations with regard to the extent and nature of the worst forms of child labour and differences in institutional and technical capacity. During 2002, the first three national Time-Bound Programmes for El Salvador, Nepal and the United Republic of Tanzania moved from the preparation phase to implementation. The formulation of national programmes has since been completed in the Dominican Republic and the Philippines and eight more TBPs are under development.

Key Stakeholders

There is no “magic key”, no single group or action that can solve the problem alone. Success depends on the cooperation of partners and on the complementation of measures. All groups in society have important roles to play.

Key stakeholders include:

• Working children, children at risk of becoming child workers and ex-child labourers;
• The parents and employers of the children above;
• Employers’ and workers’ organizations;
• Governmental agencies at the local, state and national levels in fields such as planning, administration and finance, labour legislation and enforcement, education, health, social welfare, statistics and, in general, development planning;
• Community and religious leaders;
• Teachers, health and social workers;
• Non-governmental organizations, associations;
• Committed individuals at all levels of society;
• The media, and
• Universities and research institutes.

ILO’s tripartite constituents: Governments, Employers and Workers

The full commitment of the government, and in particular its Ministry of Labour, has always been a prerequisite of IPEC for undertaking large-scale work in any country. Traditionally, this commitment is expressed through a Memorandum of Understanding between the ILO and the government. With the development of Time-Bound Programmes, the principle of national ownership has been given even greater prominence. As Time-Bound Programmes aim at integrating child labour into national development efforts, other government agencies (i.e. ministries of planning, social welfare, education, rural development, etc.) are taking on larger responsibilities in the programme.

Employers’ organizations also have an important part in the struggle against child labour, and IPEC maintains close contacts with the International Organization of Employers (IOE) and such international organizations as the World Federation of Sporting Goods Industries (WFSGI). Many national employers’ organizations do pioneering work by combining policy development, awareness-raising among their membership and other practical interventions. In 2002 for example, the Chocolate Manufacturers Association (CMA) and the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) have joined with IPEC to end child labour in the cocoa production of West Africa.

Workers’ organizations also play a key role in the programme, not only by mainstreaming child labour issues into their national agendas, but also by implementing concrete interventions on behalf of IPEC. Many programmes are implemented jointly by more than one organization. This is a trend in the trade union world: child labour is an issue that inspires unity among trade unions. IPEC works with the international workers’ organizations, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and the World Confederation of Labour (WCL). These contacts generally focus on issues of campaigning, mobilization and policy development rather than implementation of technical cooperation activities. IPEC has close contacts with Education International (EI) and the World Confederation of Teachers (WCT). During 2000-01 there was a significant increase in the number of Action Programmes implemented by teachers’ organizations.

Civil society

Community groups are a rich source of motivation and action in the fight against child labour. Children and their parents must be part of the process, and community-based organizations are well placed to involve them. Community-based monitoring and strengthening of community ties are effective ways of preventing children from entering into the worst forms of child labour. Community-based organizations and NGOs are already focusing on the same problems and the same target groups that IPEC wants to focus on, so partnership comes easily.

United Nations agencies and other international organizations

Comprehensive programmes designed to cover large geographical areas must be based on a careful mapping of on-going, planned, and potential interventions by other actors. As IPEC alone will not be able to mobilize the immense resources required for comprehensive technical support to member States, it is clear that collaboration with other UN agencies is vital for solving the vast and complex problem of child labour. To this end, IPEC has made - and will continue to make, a strong effort to ensure that the elimination of the worst forms of child labour is included in the children’s rights agendas and poverty reduction and universal education programmes of other international organizations.

Multilateral and regional development banks

The Poverty Reduction Strategies of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) are increasingly recognized as the framework for providing development aid in the developing world. Notwithstanding their importance and overriding concern with poverty, these strategies, as spelled out in Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), thus far have generally neglected the elimination of child labour as an explicit target for attaining the development objective. PRSPs are crucial in shaping the policy environment in which IPEC programmes are planned and implemented. Their strategies and policies with regard to poverty alleviation, employment creation, investment and primary education are of great importance for child labour. Some headway in this direction has already been made. In both Nepal and Tanzania, the master monitoring plans of the PRSPs contain references to combating the worst forms of child labour, and it has been possible to use the PRSP as part of the strategic framework for the development of the Time-Bound Programmes. Concerning direct cooperation, the World Bank, UNICEF and IPEC have joined forces through the Understanding Children’s Work (UCW) Project to improve the knowledge base on child labour. IPEC is also working with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on child labour issues with a view to strengthening child labour considerations and the observance of all core labour standards in the Bank’s project development and lending activities.

Main Areas of Intervention and modalities of implementation

Areas of intervention

Child labour that needs to be eradicated refers to work carried out by children under conditions that stifle proper physical, emotional and intellectual development. It is unrealistic to believe that all child labour issues can be eliminated overnight, but efforts need to be made to stop the most intolerable forms as quickly as possible.. Experience has shown that this is is indeed feasible given the many actors willing to take joint action against child labour. Child labour issues are complex, and solving them requires the adoption of a multi-faceted approach aimed at:

• Preventing child labour. Investment in the prevention of child labour is the most economical method in the long run. This approach is also easier than carrying out measures to remove children and rehabilitate them. One important measure for doing this is Child Labour Monitoring (CLM).
• Withdrawing children from exploitative and hazardous work, and providing them and their families with viable alternatives.Measures to remove children from work should always be combined with a range of support services; otherwise they might find themselves worse off than before thus provoking them to return to work. The more exploited and vulnerable working children are - the more comprehensive the strategies must be.
• Improving working conditions as a first and transitional step toward the elimination of child labour. The protection of children at work is often an effective entry-point for changing attitudes from the present acceptance of child labour as a solution for the poor to a commitment to taking action against it. However, immediate measures to protect working children, such as removing all hazards from the work environment, reducing hours, and the provision of welfare services should always be linked when taking concrete steps to prevent child labour and to remove working children from exploitative work.
• Finding out about a child labour problem. Investment in addressing child labour problems should start with a situational or problem analysis. This means identifying the situation and needs of the child workers and their families, as well as an assessment of the capacity, strengths and weaknesses of the (potential) partner organizations, including the existing infrastructure.

Awareness raising and social mobilization

Child labour is often considered a natural part of the life of the poor, and therefore can be invisible. Children have a right to healthy development regardless of their socio-economic or ethnic origin. Often children and the people around them are not aware of the negative effects of premature work on a child and their future as a productive adult contributing to their country's development. Awareness-raising and advocacy at all levels of society are crucial as abusive forms of child labour can only be eradicated if there is a broad social consensus that child labour is socially unacceptable. Even a small project can have tremendous impact if the findings are widely disseminated. Therefore, all programmes or projects should have an awareness-raising component.

Social mobilization to combat child labour ensures the involvement of as many groups and individuals as possible, creates a social and political context in which governments, employers, and trade unions are encouraged to take action, changes social norms or values against the worst forms of child labour, mobilizes the considerable existing resources of civil society for the cause, and helps marshal public opinion against the worst forms of child labour.

Promoting protective legislation and enforcement

Protective legislation is a first step. The most important and comprehensive international labour standards on child labour are both the Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, 1998 (No. 182) and the Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) that have been ratified by 132 and 120 ILO countries respectively.2 Another international labour Convention which is crucial in protecting children against some of the worst forms of exploitation is the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29). Ratified by 161 countries, this convention aims at suppressing the use of forced or compulsory labour defined as “work or service which is extracted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.”3 Other important references are the Safety and Health Conventions as well as those pertaining to labour inspection.

Heightened legal awareness and legal aid are often important given that the general public, including children, parents and employers, may not know the law. Promotion of legislation is necessary, but not sufficient in the fight against child labour. Protective child labour laws should also be extended to sectors where the majority of child workers are found, such as the informal sector, agriculture and domestic work, all of which are seldom or inadequately covered by legislation. Often the enforcement of existing laws and the prosecution of offenders leave much to be desired. Legislation can also unintentionally make the situation worse by driving child labour underground into the mushrooming unregulated sector where detection and protection are more difficult. It is, therefore, important to ensure that labour legislation is complemented by other reinforcing and complementary measures.

Capacity building and organization

Often the partners need initial awareness-raising and training on child labour issues and ways of addressing these problems successfully. It is necessary to involve, from the beginning, all relevant partners in the planning and implementation of activities, and to hold people and organizations accountable for the action carried out under their responsibility. This also means regular reviews of the strong and the weak points of a programme or project, during implementation and after its completion. Children and their families are the first line of defence against child labour. There is a need to identify and implement more concrete measures for their empowerment through the three essential steps of: awareness, participation and organization.

Improving education and training systems

These are key instruments in the effort to combat child labour. Parents and children are willing to invest in education and training - even if they are poor - if they believe that education and training will help the children in adulthood. All efforts should be made to make the educational and training systems more responsive to (ex-) working children's needs as well as ensure access to quality education. Oftentimes, relatively small interventions such as training of teachers on the problem of child labour or adapting curricula can make a difference. In other cases the improvement of the school system requires major interventions. Non-formal education or additional guidance can be important mechanisms in preparing children for normal school life and deter school attrition. If schools are enabled to provide an environment conducive to learning, they can also become a crucial vehicle for preventing child labour. Another major area for improvement is that of apprenticeship, which is often misused to employ children at no or minimal compensation and without any training. This is a missed opportunity given that effective vocational training provides older children with employable skills.

Poverty alleviation and other development efforts

For working children and their families, who would not survive unless they resort to the use of child labour, income-generation as well as credit and savings schemes are necessary support measures to prevent and eliminate child labour. This is frequently the case when working children live without their families or belong to mono-parental (often female-headed) households. However, poverty alleviation must also include an explicit child labour component. Otherwise, such measures may lead to an increase in child labour. If employers are poor themselves, it is more difficult to convince them of the need to withdraw children from work, as their already tenuous profit margins may be substantially affected. To motivate such employers to seek alternatives to child labour, their “customers” will have to be involved in the process of finding solutions.

Rehabilitation

Rehabilitation of children who have been exposed to abuse, violence, psychological torture or emotionally devastating work, (including child prostitution and children withdrawn from armed conflict) need special attention. According to the definition laid down in ILO Convention 182, all children, who are being withdrawn or rescued from the unconditional worst forms of child labour fall under this category. The approach for rehabilitation contains elements that set out a path from the point of rescue or withdrawal, through rehabilitation activities, and finally to the full reintegration into a decent life. During this process, the services that are provided to the child will be individualized given that trauma manifests itself differently in each case. Emergency medical assistance and acute legal aid is provided immediately upon intake into the process, if required. Emphasis on confidence building measures initially pave the way for restoring trust in human relationships, particularly toward adults. This is crucial as mistrust of adults is a common symptom among traumatized children.

Upon restoration of the child's ability to learn, the child follows a process of rehabilitation where the main focus is on educational activities. This can include bridging schooling, or depending on motivation, possibilities and age, the development of the economic potential of the young person leading to economic independence. Oftentimes alternative accommodation facilities will have to be established for adolescents or, in the case of younger children, foster families will need to be identified. Family assessment and family counselling, whether it is the biological family or the foster family, is a crucial and integral part of the process. Capacity building of institutions dealing with rehabilitation and reintegration services is often required as some of the services demand highly professionalized input.

Protection of Children

In all situations other than the unconditional forms of child labour (trafficking, military, sexual exploitation, crime), the first task on encountering working children is to determine whether they are engaged in hazardous work or are working under conditions that put them at risk. Sometimes the hazards are obvious, such as when children are working at heights (on ladders) or at depths (diving or in mines). But sometimes the hazards are not so clear, such as situations that endanger a child’s development or constitute a psychological hazard. Thus, it is important to not take adult labour rules as guides, but rather, to consult those familiar with occupational risks specific to children. Childrens’ attention spans are shorter, their endurance is less, their vulnerability to certain toxins and gases are greater, and they are more affected by violence, isolation, or strain than adults Occupational damage during childhood can reduce the employability of the person for a lifetime. This assessment is extremely important because if a child’s health or life is at immediate risk due to the presence of dangerous chemicals (e.g. pesticides) or explosives (e.g. fireworks production), the child workers must be immediately removed from the situation. If, however, the hazard itself can be removed, the children can remain until appropriate alternatives are in place. A key factor in the protection of child workers is educating involved adults on what is hazardous to children, the effect the hazards can have, and the steps that can be taken to remove the hazard.

Almost any type of work can be hazardous if it is undertaken for long hours, at night, or under duress. Thus, when making a hazard assessment it is crucial to look at such factors as compensation, general work environment, work hours, exposure to the elements, etc. Protecting the young worker requires that these situations be remedied as well. Finally, it is important to remember that C.182 and C.138 both call for protection of young people from hazardous work, not only to the legal working age, but up to the age of 18.

Social Protection and Welfare

Health services are a valuable and often a much needed starting point in many programmes and projects. Supplementary nutrition is sometimes absolutely necessary and increases parents' willingness to send their children to school. Incentives, such as the payment of initial school fees, books, school uniforms or clean clothes can sometimes make the difference between attending school and working. Stipends are sometimes needed. However, careful targeting is necessary to ensure that only those in need are covered. If a considerable number of children are to be provided with incentives for a long period of time, the required amounts of monetary investment can be quite high, even if the investment per child is very modest. Therefore, when incentives are needed for large groups of specifically vulnerable children and families, governmental agencies, private institutions, or welfare agencies capable of making long-term financial commitments should generally provide them.

Child Labour Monitoring

A primary means both of identifying child labour and for ensuring that it receives attention long after projects have finished is through the establishment of a child labour monitoring system. In its simplest form, Child Labour Monitoring (CLM) is a preventive measure that involves inspection of workplaces to see if children are present, to assess any potential hazards, and to take any follow-up action needed. This may involve educating the employer (or parents in case of family-based work) on how to remove the hazards, or referring any child workers present to appropriate alternatives (e.g. school, counselling, and vocational training). In its expanded form, CLM also involves monitoring schools or other educational facilities in order to make sure that the referred children have actually entered and are pursuing their education and are otherwise better as a result of action taken.

Because so much child labour occurs in agriculture or the informal sector outside the capacity and traditional scope of labour inspectors, other partners that have adequate access to these sectors are needed to augment the inspection process. Thus, there are two important elements in a child labour monitoring system. They are the forming of alliances (or teams) to carry out the inspections on a regular basis, and an information-sharing and archiving system so that data on the child workers identified and referred can be kept, tabulated, and used to inform policy-makers. Useful partners in such alliances are the communities themselves. Often, ministries of local government, education, or social welfare or their counterparts at the local level already have basic information-gathering structures which can be used for CLM.

Integrating Child Labour into key national programmes and policies

Child labour is only one of the symptoms of inadequate or unbalanced development and therefore cannot be effectively addressed in isolation from the larger context of efforts to promote socio-economic progress and strategies to alleviate poverty. Projects and programmes targeted at limited categories of child labourers, however necessary and beneficial, are too few and far between to bring about the effective abolition of child labour - a declared objective of the international community. Both the size and nature of the problem call for more comprehensive and holistic approaches founded on the explicit integration of child labour concerns into mainstream policy processes and development efforts, nationally and internationally. For this reason, IPEC places great importance on ensuring that child labour concerns are mainstreamed into national development agendas.

“Mainstreaming” child labour action refers to concerted efforts to influence processes, policies and programmes that have a significant bearing on the problem.

This comprises several aspects, including:

• Promoting the reduction of child labour as an explicit development objective;
• Supporting and disseminating research on child labour and developing analytical tools, such as child labour impact assessments, child labour budgets and child labour indicators;
• Including child labour indicators when developing, monitoring and evaluation systems for national development programmes;
• Strengthening the technical capacity of institutions concerned with child labour;
• Strengthening child labour constituencies and pressure groups;
• Strengthening dialogue with international financial institutions; and
• Linking IPEC Time-Bound Programmes (TBPs) for the elimination of child labour, particularly its worst forms, to national poverty reduction strategies.

Over the last year, IPEC has been developing a more systematic approach to mainstreaming child labour in the PRSPs and other national development programmes. This has been done by supporting the networking of policy research institutions, government agencies and other IPEC partners as a child labour constituency. As part of the process of preparing TBPs, efforts have also been made in promoting the integration of child labour concerns into PRSPs and similar development frameworks.

Action undertaken includes: consultations with government and donor agencies involved in the formulation of the strategy papers; work with statistical agencies to improve the availability of child labour data; contributions to the analysis of the poverty problem from a child labour perspective; and discussions aimed at securing the inclusion of child labour funding possibilities for child labour concerns in the strategies, indicators and target groups. Discussions have also covered funding possibilities for child labour interventions, e.g., within the framework of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative.