JAKARTA, 19 October 2021 – The ASEAN Senior Labour Officials and other eight ASEAN Bodies gathered in a workshop to solidify their commitment to conduct regional coordinated efforts in eliminating the worst forms of child labour. The Workshop on Implementation and Monitoring of the ASEAN Roadmap on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour by 2025 took place virtually on 18-19 October.
In his opening remarks, Deputy Secretary General of ASEAN for the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Ekkapbhab Phantavong encouraged ASEAN Sectoral Bodies to address cross-sectoral collaboration in implementing the ASEAN Roadmap. He further expressed his optimism, saying “Joint efforts of ASEAN Bodies add values to the national targets and programmes of ASEAN Member States to eliminating the worst forms of child labour.”
The workshop deliberated on ways forward in mainstreaming aspects of child labour prevention and prohibition in regional activities of the attending sectoral bodies. ASEAN Member States also reiterated their commitment to realise the objective of the ASEAN Roadmap and called for strengthened cross-sectoral collaboration.
The Workshop received commitment from strategic partners namely, International Labour Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization, International Organization for Migration, UN Women, USAID-PROSPECT, The Asia Foundation and ASEAN-Australia Counter-Trafficking, in supporting ASEAN’s regional efforts in eliminating the worst forms of child labour.
Currently, ASEAN is in the midst of collecting baseline data on the monitoring framework of the ASEAN Roadmap to picture current child labour situation in the region. It will also serve as the foundation in developing the first ever database of ASEAN that can show key efforts and progress towards zero-child labour in the region.
Subsequent monitoring will be done periodically against this baseline for each ASEAN Member State to measure progress and to support evidence-based initiatives towards zero-child labour in the region. The monitoring framework aims to support Member States in producing evidence-based policies, programmes and actions to address child labour.
The workshop was conducted in less than a year from the adoption of the ASEAN Roadmap on Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour by 2025 (ASEAN Roadmap) by the 26th ASEAN Labour Ministers Meeting in October 2021, further highlighting ASEAN’s commitment on the matter.
The ASEAN Roadmap on Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour by 2025 and its annexes are available here.
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