To Review The Present Situation Toward Abolishing Child Labor In The Future

In the endeavor to enhance abolition of child labor, the ILO office in Jakarta in collaboration with JARAK, a network of national volunteer group plan to conduct a National Seminar on Child’s Labor where by to evaluate the progress made in Indonesia in the effort to abolish child labor and to identify further steps needed.

This national seminar will be carried out in coordination with the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration and the National Board of Development Planning (BAPPENAS). This seminar under the theme of “Reviewing the Present Condition Toward Abolishing Child Labor in the Future” will be held on Monday and Tuesday, 5-6 July 2010 at Hotel Borobudur Jakarta.

The important issues to step up efforts to abolish child’s labor in Indonesia, and fostering coordination will be discussed in this seminar. This Seminar is held in line with the World’s Abolition Day of Child Labor on June 12.

In tandem with the World Cup football event, the theme of this year campaign is “Go for the Goal End Child Labor” The World’s Campaign on Abolition of Child Labor is focused on national and international endeavors to accelerate abolition of child labor.

The World’s Day to go against child labor practices is also being commemorated in some Indonesian provinces. ILO, in collaboration with Indonesian local partners conducted seminar events in Manokwari, West Papua, and in Jayapura, Papua on 20\9-30 June; the event will continue on 7-8 June to be closed with various events like rally, seminar, and innauguarion of children’s activities in Ambon in 13 and 15 July 210.

As known, since the year 2000 there has been important development in the effort to abolish child’s Labor in Indonesia. Problems of child labor, and the need to anticipate the worst in child labor is now being ingrained in the main policies as well as in policies and programs at regional level.

There has been notable progress as well in the effort to meet Government’s target to conduct Nine Year Mandatory Elementary Education for all children which will contribute significantly to abolishing Child’s labor. Other breakthroughs being made is that the Government has made minimizing of child labor as the main objective of Conditional Direct Cash Aid program or better known in Indonesian language as The Program of Hopeful Families (P-1 H).

In spite of the many progress attained, the problem of child labor is still prevalent in Indonesia. A national survey on child labor carried out by the Indonesian Central Statistics, in collaboration with ILO on August 2009 unveiled that there are around 4 million children of 5 to 17 years of age who are economically active, and 1.7 million of them are categorized as child labor.