By Damion Mitchell, Staff ReporterTHE INTERNATIONAL Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) in Jamaica is now analysing findings of a national survey, dubbed the "Youth Activity Survey," which identifies the causes, consequences and magnitude of child labour in Jamaica.
These findings and feedback will be used as the basis for compiling policy recommendations to be adopted by the Government to address the problem of child labour.
The 2002 report on the National Survey of Street and Working Children, released by the Ministry of Health's Child Support Unit, states that there were at least 2,818 street and working children in Kingston, Montego Bay and Spanish Town. The total number of child labourers, however, may be as high as 6,448, the report said.
Daniel Gordon manages the International Labour Organis-ation's (ILO's) IPEC in Jamaica. He said a youth activity survey, which was conducted among Spanish Town's informal sector, identified some 1,200 child labourers, while the Rocky Point, Old Harbour Bay areas accounted for 2,000 child labourers and Montego Bay and Negril -- 800.
CHILD LABOUR PROGRAMME
Under the national child labour programme started in 2002, 464 children are currently receiving benefits; 228 of them are attending remedial and skills training, at agencies such as the Western Society for the Upliftment of Children, Sam Sharpe Teachers' College and Children First, while the remaining 236 children have been reinstated in schools and are now re-united with their families.
"A lot of these children were abandoned," said Mr. Gordon, while pointing out that the recent child labour baseline survey, in Montego Bay, discovered that an area behind a market has been the only home for seven children in the western capital for several years now.
He said that the programme has been "reaching out" to these children, as representatives of the implementing agencies visit them for remedial classes as early as 4:00 am.
"They are among many children who are not willing to attend the institutions for training so then the people from the implementing agencies have to go to them," he said.
In December 1998, the Ministry of Labour reported that 23,000 children were engaged in child labour; a 1994 report by UNICEF stated that 4.6 per cent of children below the age of 16 worked to help support their households and another study, Jamaica Coalition on the Rights of the Child, 1995, on working children showed an estimated figure of 2,500 for the population of working children.
WORST FORMS
Other figures released in last year's ILO/Ministry of Labour "Preliminary assessment of the worst forms of child labour in Jamaica", showed children being used in prostitution, trafficking, forced recruitment in armed conflict, pornography and illicit activities. This included 100 children in the Montego Bay area working as go-go dancers and 30 boys and girls surveyed were said to be involved in sexual activity for financial gain. A Ministry of Health study in Hanover also revealed that some go-go dancers are as young as 10 years old.
The two-year pilot programme for the elimination of child labour in Jamaica is funded by the Government of Jamaica and international agencies at a total a cost of US$800,000.
Mr. Gordon said it was his wish that upon presenting the recommendations of the most recent survey and the feedback from the seminar to the government, a speedy response would be adopted to arrest the problems of child labour.
