IPEC FACT SHEETS
January 1997

Progress and challenge in East and South-East Asia

International Labour Organization

The impressive economic growth of several East and South-East Asian countries intimates that the prospects for a rapid abolition of child labour are better than ever before.

Progress has indeed been made, chiefly by attacking factors that encourage the supply of child labour - notably population growth, poverty and lack of access to education. But experience shows that development does not automatically reduce child labour exploitation. Absolute numbers have gone down, but there are signs that those still in the labour force may be at more risk than ever before. Development brings growing job opportunities, urbanization and income inequalities which enhance the risk of children entering hazardous and exploitative work.

The general problem therefore remains one of considerable gravity, demanding new initiatives as IPEC and its associates seek to build on the foundations so far laid.

Progress to date is highly encouraging. In a short space of time and sometimes under difficult conditions, IPEC has had considerable success in legitimizing, strengthening and extending work on child labour in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Mongolia, the Philippines and Thailand, where the programme is currently active. Several hundred action programmes have been completed. Plans of action have been developed highlighting extreme forms of exploitation, and this concern has been reflected in official government development plans and budgets.

A start is now being made in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand to incorporate the most valuable elements of successful interventions into larger national programmes of education and poverty alleviation. Legal reform and enforcement are making progress. Several countries are examining the possibility of ratifying the ILO Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138).

As national programmes take root, IPEC is increasingly setting its sights on issues requiring action or require attention at subregional and regional levels.

One of these is the use of child labour in labour-intensive industries such as garment, footwear and cane furniture manufacturing in several countries which are enticed by the comparative trade advantage the practice yields. A first step has been to conduct a methodical investigation and to identify concrete problems. On the basis of these facts it is planned to begin a major operation in the near future.

A second urgent problem is the trafficking of children across national borders for commercial exploitation in sweatshops and brothels. IPEC has launched local initiatives in this field and more activities are planned in the framework of a larger programme which will address the problem across the entire region.

Capacity-building in such vital fields as statistics, labour inspection and programme design and management is also being developed regionally, along with the exchange of experience and the replication of programmes.

Thus far, therefore, IPEC has made a highly promising start in coming to grips with child labour abuse in an area in which the practice has received intensive international media scrutiny. For the future, three continuing additional issues are identified for IPEC's attention:

• awareness-raising campaigns must penetrate beyond policy-makers and the urban middle-class into the ranks of the rural poor and small-scale employers who are at the core of the problem. Community-based interventions in which local societies are the driving force rather than the target will be the key to success;
• a systematic approach must be found to identifying and intervening on behalf of the "invisible" child labour victims in illegal or criminal work situations, and to replicating examples of successful interventions which prevent children from entering such situations;
• specific attention must be given to countries in transition to a market economy, where changes in the economic and social infrastructure are provoking a high incidence of child labour.