The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has urged traditional rulers to join and add their voices towards the acceleration of the worldwide movement against child labour.
Director, ILO Country Office for Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Liaison Office for ECOWAS, Ms Vanessa Phala, made the call at the opening of a four-day training for 80 traditional rulers in Ondo State, opinion moulders and academics to accelerate the elimination of all forms of child labour and human trafficking.
Represented by Dr Kolawole Agatha, National Project Coordinator for ACCEL Africa, Phala urged all actors and organisations to join in efforts to end child labour in Nigeria by 2025.
She reaffirmed ILO’s commitment to achieving Sustainable Development Goals(SDG) target 8.7.
Phala explained that participants would be equipped with the requisite knowledge and be fully involved in developing the operational framework for the monitoring committee to be inaugurated on the final day of the training.
The director expressed optimism that the training would accelerate action at the community level toward the promotion of decent work and total elimination of child labour, especially in the cocoa supply chains in Nigeria by 2025.
Also speaking, the Permanent Secretary, Ondo state Ministry of Agriculture, Sunday Akintomide, represented by Mr Adeniyan Babashola, Programme Manager, Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) in the state acknowledged the existence of child labour in the state.
Akintomide explained that the state does not condone child labour and on any misuse of children either in farming or other economic ventures.
He applauded the ILO partnership with the Dutch Government and charged parents to take the education of their children as a priority.
In his remarks, the Head of the state office of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, Mr Olusola Afolayan identified traditional rulers, community leaders and child monitors as ‘evangelists’ for the propagation of the message on eliminating all forms of child labour.
Afolayan noted that there was need for cultural reassessment, adding the people should realise that whatever deprives children of quality education, health and advancement, whatever is mortgaging their future, must be reduced to level zero.
The training is being facilitated by the ILO ACCEL Africa project, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, Ondo State Ministry of Agriculture and the Child Rights Agency, with funding from the government of the Netherlands.
Communities participating in the training include Bamikemo, Wasimi/Oduwo, Fagbo I and Fagbo II, Ipoba II, Ago Akure/Aponmu, and Oke Agunla.
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