The Ministry of Labour and Partners have launched a community Leadership Mapping and Awareness Exercise in the 17 Electoral District of Montserrado County.
The project is intended to identify community leaders and profile their basic information, conduct training and outreach on the issues of child labor, force labor and human trafficking.
The pilot project is been undertaken in the 17 Electoral Districts within Montserrado County and is expected to run for fifteen days beginning February 23, 2023.
It is also been implemented through a concerted force of the Ministry of Labour and partners, local NGOs and the Liberia Scout Association in every community in Liberia starting with Montserrado County.
Speaking during the official launch of the project on Wednesday, February 22, 2023, at the Ministry of Labour, the Chairman of the National Commission on Child Labor, Labour Minister Charles H. Gibson said the exercise is intended to enlighten community leaders as well as every parent and guardian on how they should and should not treat children.
He said to ensure a successful implementation of the exercise, several institutions have been brought on board including the Liberia Scout Association noting that Boy Scout Association can be useful in many ways of nation building.
He added that the members of the Liberia Scout Association will be deployed in communities across the 17 district in Montserrado County to engage community leaders on child labor issues and encouraged them to take the exercise seriously.
According to Minister Gibson, the Decent Work Act of 2015 provides that within twelve months after its enactment, the commission should come up with a list of work that children should do and must not do in protecting children from harmful things.
According to Minister Gibson, past governments were unable to meet this international obligation, but the CDC led government working with partners have developed the “hazardous and light-work-list) or list of work that children should and must not do.
He said the list of works children should do and must not do have been ratified and put it into regulation in fulfilment of the Government’s obligation to the International Labor Organization (ILO).
The Liberia’s Labour minister further told the gathering that Liberia has for the first time drafted a child labour law that has the propensity to rescue or stop children from engaging into child labour practices such as, selling between cars in the streets.
He said unless before when a child is rescued, they were turn over to the same parent or foster parent, but this time Safe-homes had established to keep the children for few days before turning them over to their parents.
He said the child labor law which is before the National legislature when enacted, will allow the police to give warning to parents for the first time when the child right is been violated before finding them or sanctioning the parents.
Speaking on behalf of the Liberia Scout Association, the Chief Commissioner of the Association, Aaron D. Kollie, hailed the Minister Gibson for the recognition of the Liberia Scout Association.
“We see this recognition and our involvement into this as a great opportunity which we will prioritize most and will do everything in our will possible to do the task we have been called to do,” Amb. Kollie asserted
Mr. Kollie said they pleased that the Scout Association had start to be recognized at this high level and they are looking forward that such an opportunity will continue.
He said the Liberia Scout Association has been to work since its founding January 26, 1923 to current but has been lacking the opportunity.
He assured the Ministry of Labour that once they continue to have opportunity to themselves available whether being supported financially or not, they will always be available to do their duties to God and their country to help other people at all times and to keep themselves physically strong.
The Program Officer of WInrock International, Beyan L. Porbowu, thanked the National Commission on Labor (NACOMA), especially the Child Labor Division of the Ministry of Labour for the initiatives in the fight against child Labor across Liberia.
He said his institution in partnership with the NACOMA and the Ministry of Labour have developed series of documents relevant to child labor elimination in Liberia.
He said most of the documents were plotted in three counties in Liberia namely; Grand Bassa, Nimba and Grand Cape Mount respectively.
“We have come today as ambassadors of change and that is the first step to be engaging the communities and carry on awareness, have them engage in what we have developed and inform about the documents have on hand”
He also informed the participants that the Government of Liberia has signed the hazardous and light-work-list that speak of the kind of work child do or not to do, it what age and hours they should work for.
He said Winrock is an International NGO that is implementing a project in Liberia called ALTAS.
ALTAS is attaining lasting change for better enforcement of labor criminal laws to address child labor, force labor and human trafficking in Liberia.
He added that Winrock got a funding from the United States Department of Labor in 2001 and part of the process they been working with the Ministry of Labour and other relevant agencies in the fight child labor.
