A new study shows
that Indonesia remains a country with a high number of child labourers, despite
its record of reducing children’s involvement in the labour market.
The
study, titled “Understanding Children’s Work and Youth Employment in
Indonesia”, found that child labour is commonplace, especially in the eastern
part of the country.
“Almost
7 per cent of children aged between 7 and 14 years old, or 2.3 million children
in absolute terms, were in employment in 2009. Almost 600,000 children aged
less than 10 years were already in employment in that year,” the study reports.
Scott
Lyon, a researcher from Understanding Children’s Work, an inter-agency research
project that authored the report, said that the child labourers were stripped
of their rights to education, physical safety, protection and recreation.
“Most
of those children are officially school students but they spend most of their
time off school compared to children with no involvement in employment,” he
said during the launch of the report.
The
project involved the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the United
Nations’ Children Fund (Unicef) and the World Bank.
Lyon
said that children’s involvement in employment had actually shown a downward
trend. “The overall decline masks a slight rise during 2008-2009, coinciding
with global economic crisis,” he said. Despite such a decrease, the level of
children’s involvement in the labour market remained high.
Child
workers mostly work in the agricultural sector, the report shows. It also
reports that almost all children working with their families are doing so as
unpaid labour.
These
children are also exposed to hazardous working conditions.
“Working
children face about a 25 per cent chance of suffering ill-health related to
work over the course of 12 months. Younger children are at greater risk of
work-related illness and injury. Meanwhile, children working within the family
are at greater risk of work-related illness and injury than children working
outside the family,” the study reports, adding that one out of four
out-of-school children, over 260,000 in absolute terms, had less than four
years of schooling.
Data
from the ILO shows that there are 215 million child workers, half of whom are
exposed to the worst form of child labour, including slavery and involvement in
armed conflicts.
Five
million children are involved in forced labour, including sexual exploitation
and a vicious cycle of debts.
ILO
Indonesia director, Peter van Rooij, said child labour could negatively affect
children both in terms of prosperity and health. “Unfortunately, millions of
children are still involved in employment. They can’t go to school or attend
learning activities in school rooms because they have to go work,” said Rooij.
Elly
Burhaini Faizal
The
Jakarta Post
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