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| Thursday, 22 November 2001 |
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by Manjula Fernando The forceful recruitment of child soldiers by the LTTE terrorists is still a distressing issue in combatting child labour in Sri Lanka. However, the state sector and a fair percentage of the private sector had been fully co-operative in the implementation of ILO convention 182 which deals with the worst forms of child labour, the advisor to the Labour Ministry R.P. Wimalasena said. He was speaking at a press conference organised by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on the first anniversary of ILO convention 182 which fell on November 19. Sri Lanka is one of the 110 signatory countries to the convention. The convention includes commercial sexual exploitation, hazardous work, trafficking, domestic servants and child combatants, etc. Commissioner of Child Care Pearl Weerasinghe said the Labour Department in collaboration with the Police, Attorney General's, Probation and Child Care Departments and several Ministries have taken measures to ensure effective enforcement of the convention 182. The National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) established exclusively to handle child domestic servant issues has received 140 complaints since January this year and prosecutions into 40 such cases have already been completed, she added. The Ministry of Education has set a compulsory education span for all children aged between 5 to 14 years and with the help of district level monitoring groups is taking efforts to ensure that children under 14 years remain in schools instead of workplaces. Meanwhile, the ILO has embarked upon three rapid surveys on commercial sexual exploitation, child soldiers and child domestic servants to identifying the most relevant issues to the country. The reports on sexual exploitation and child domestic servants will be released soon. |
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