Child labour in TT

While the problem may not appear to be widespread, there are instances of children engaged in child labour worth highlighting.

It is estimated that approximately 3.3 per cent of our school population are working children. They may be involved in domestic work, agriculture (production and sale), garbage scavenging, commercial sexual exploitation and illicit activities including drug and armed trafficking.

As educators we are quite familiar with children who are forced to work and attend school.

Thankfully, through the ratification of key international conventions on child labour such as ILO Conventions 138 (Minimum Age) in 2004 and 182 (Worst Forms of Child Labour) in 2003, our Government has indicated it is prepared to use the resources of the State to protect the rights of children in keeping with the provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

These conventions combined with provisions in several pieces of other legislation, such as the Trafficking in Persons Act, Sexual Offences Act, Children’s Act and the Miscellaneous Provisions (Minimum Age for Admission for Employment) Act, all aim to offer some measure of protection for the nation’s children.

Unfortunately, as the statistics would indicate, despite these efforts we cannot boast that as a country we are free of the scourge of child labour. The process of enforcing these critical pieces of legislation remains problematic. While the Children’s Authority is charged with the overall responsibility of protecting children’s rights through the Children’s Authority Act of 2000 and the Children’s Authority (Amendment) Act of 2008, recent reports would indicate that the authority is understaffed and under-resourced.

This severely hampers the work of the authority and defeats its very purpose. Here again is another example of legislative will not being translated into action.

The Miscellaneous Provisions (Minimum Age for Admission to Employment) Act stipulates the minimum age for employment is 16. However, current legislation does not establish a clear minimum age for hazardous work. The Government is yet to develop legislation on the prohibition of hazardous occupations and activities for children. This list has reportedly been in the making since 2004.

In addition, the compulsory age for education as defined in the Education Act remains six-12, despite repeated promises to have it varied to three-16.

The Child Protection Task Force ended its work in 2014 in accordance with its amended terms of reference. It is unknown whether this or a new task force will be convened in the future.

The Declaration of the Regional Initiative, Latin America and the Caribbean Free of Child Labour (2014-2020), was signed by Trinidad and Tobago at the ILO’s 18th Regional Meeting of the Americas in Lima, Peru, in 2014.

This aims to increase the regional cooperation on eradicating child labour by 2020 through signatories’ efforts to strengthen monitoring and coordination mechanisms, government programmes and South-South exchanges.

It also seeks to reaffirm commitments made in the Brasilia Declaration from the 3rd Global Conference on Child Labour in 2013, and signed by Trinidad and Tobago at the said ILO’s 18th Regional Meeting of the Americas.

It is hoped that Trinidad and Tobago will be represented at the upcoming UN Global Conference to Eradicate Child Labour in Argentina in November, where our Government will be able to reassure the world of its commitment to eradicate this social evil.

Our collective vigilance in concert with the Labour Inspectorate Unit of the Ministry of Labour and other relevant governmental agencies is a sacred duty as educators