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Minimum age for employment in Sri Lanka raised from 14 to 16 

14 Jun 2021

By Sumudu Chamara    Sri Lanka’s culture assigns a great value to familial bonds and the well being of family members takes a special place among other priorities of a family. Ensuring the safety and well being of children, on the other hand, has become an inherent duty of family units, especially of parents.  The safety of children, who are often dubbed the future generation, was discussed at the national level on several occasions in the recent past. However, unfortunately, all these discussions were based on abuses experienced by children, and that does not seem to be a very promising situation. The 15-year-old girl who was trafficked for sex via social media platforms for months, and the nine-year-old girl who died after being beaten with a cane during an exorcism, both raised eyebrows, especially concerning the role and responsibility of parents in protecting their children.  It is in such a situation that Sri Lanka celebrated this year’s World Day Against Child Labour, which fell on 12 June.    New minimum age for employment  In light of this year’s World Day Against Child Labour, the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) announced that the minimum age for employment has been increased from 14 to 16 years.  In a statement, NCPA Chairman Prof. Muditha Vidanapathirana added: “As far as child labour is concerned, this year can be considered rather special, as on 18 January 2021, it was possible to pass a special Act (the Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children Act, No. 2 of 2021) with regard to child labour. The Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children Act, No. 47 of 1956 as amended had prohibited children up to 14 years of age from working. This new Act, however, changed it, and increased the minimum age to 16 years.”  The NCPA further said that this decision was based on an earlier decision to extend the age of compulsory education to 16 years, which was made under the Education Ordinance’s regulations pertaining to compulsory education.  Prof. Vidanapathirana, further explaining the nature of employment opportunities that should be made available for children (below 18 years), said: “Children between the ages of 16 and 18 years can only be recruited for jobs that do not pose a threat to their life, health, education and moral development, and it is strictly not allowed to recruit them for unsafe jobs or jobs that require them to work at night. Steps will be taken against parents and intermediaries that use children for begging under Section 288 of the Penal Code and they can be punished with a prison term of up to five years.”  He further noted that recruiting children for street vending activities, the drug and liquor trade, circuses and entertainment activities for monetary benefits and prostitution as well as using children for commercial activities via the cyber space are offences under the criminal law.  These offences, according to Prof. Vidanapathirana, attract legal action, and the NCPA’s duties include forwarding the relevant complaints to the Labour Department for investigations, regulatory measures and to take legal action against those recruiting children for such jobs.    Decline in complaints regarding child labour  Meanwhile, the NCPA’s Planning and Information Director, Shanika Malalgoda, explained to The Morning the activities pertaining to accepting complaints regarding child labour cases. She added that in accordance with the NCPA Act, complaints regarding child labour cases are being accepted by the NCPA, and that no other institution in Sri Lanka has not been vested with the power to accept such complaints.  She explained: “It is only the NCPA that accepts complaints regarding any form of cases with regard to violence against children, be it abuse or neglect. In addition, awareness raising activities are also taking place targeting children, parents, teachers and institutions with the ultimate aim of stifling child labour.”  Adding that the accepting of complaints is done in two main methods, she noted: “The accepting of complaints regarding child labour incidents is being done via two main methods, which are the 1929 hotline and the 1929 child protection app. The app is a novel initiative that commenced this year, with the aim of making services more efficient via the digitalisation of the service providing aspects. The second method is handled by the NCPA’s regional offices and officials. The NCPA’s network of officials is also working efficiently to achieve the said objectives, with two types of officials at the District level. They are the District Child Protection Officer and the District Psychosocial Officers. In addition, the officers who are working at the District Secretariat levels, who are called Divisional Child Protection Officers, are also involved in this endeavour as they have a much closer relationship with the communities in their respective areas. They sometimes accept complaints directly, which are then referred for necessary action.”  According to NCPA published statistics on complaints, which include those related to child labour cases, in the past six years, a decline in child labour related complaints could be observed. Last year, a total of 228 child labour related complaints had been received. In the preceding five years, from 2015 to 2019, the NCPA had received 313 (2015), 283 (2016), 269 (2017), 262 (2018) and 265 (2019) such complaints, respectively.  Even though The Morning attempted to contact the officials of the Labour Department to inquire about what steps are being taken to monitor the working conditions of and mistreatments faced by child labourers (those under 18 years) and what new decisions would be taken in accordance with the NCPA’s decision to extent the new minimum age for employment, they were not available for comment.    Sri Lanka’s situation  According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the definition of working children is children that engage in economic activities that are paid, or contributing in the production of goods and services that have an economic value, at least for one hour, during a reference period.  The ILO considers child labour as “all children engaged in economic activities excluding, five to 11 years — less than five hours per week, as a contributing family worker in non-agricultural and non-hazardous work and less than 15 hours per week as a contributing family worker in the agriculture sector or non hazardous activities; 12-14 years — less than 15 hours per week in non-agricultural and non-hazardous work and less than 25 hours per week as a contributing family worker in agriculture and non-hazardous work; and 15-17 years —less than 44 hours per week in non hazardous work.”  Adding that Sri Lanka has made substantial improvements when it comes to child labour, the ILO said that relative to 1999, Sri Lanka has observed a drastic decline in the population of working children, which in 2016 stood at 103,704.  According to the ILO, even though some challenges persist, a sizeable decline has also occurred in hazardous forms of child labour. In 2016, there was a total of 4,571,442 children in Sri Lanka, out of which 103,704 (2.3%) were working children. Moreover, there were 43,714 children (1%) in child labour as of 2016, of which 39,007 were engaged in hazardous forms of child labour.  With regard to geographical dispersion, it has been found that as many as 85% of Sri Lanka’s working children reside in rural areas, the top three regions in terms of the number of working children, being the Gampaha, Kurunegala and Monaragala Districts, the ILO said, adding that many of these children (59%) work as contributing family members.  When it comes to the nature of employment, the ILO’s study had found that by 2016, the majority of working children, child labourers and those that engage in hazardous forms of work were boys. The ILO added that when girls engage in economic activities (working children, child labour), there are greater deviations in the number of hours worked which tend to be more widely dispersed than for boys.   Figures showed that 19% of the girls received a monthly income of less than Rs. 5,000, while 20% of the boys were in the same category. In other monthly income categories, namely Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 10,000, Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 15,000 and Rs. 15,000 to Rs. 20,000, girls constituted a higher number of workers than boys. When it comes to the highest monthly salary category, i.e. Rs. 20,000 and above, however, boys constituted 9%, while girls only made up 6%.  As far as the average monthly income was compared against the average number of working hours, under the child labour category, boys received an average monthly income of Rs. 11,180 (for an average number of 35 hours a week), while girls received Rs. 10,823 (for an average number of 48 hours a week). Under the hazardous forms of child labour category, boys received an average monthly income of Rs. 11,665 (for an average number of 37 hours per week), while girls under the same occupation category received Rs. 11,294 a month (for an average number of 54 working hours a week).  According to the United States’ Labour Department’s reports on child labour and forced labour, by sector and activity, in Sri Lanka, child labour was prevalent in sectors such as agriculture (farming, including raising livestock, fishing and selling fish), industry (manufacturing, including textiles and garments, and food processing, mining and construction) and services (domestic work, vending, transportation, begging and working in hotels, restaurants and offices).  In addition, child labour exists in categories identified as the ‘worst forms of child labour’, which include commercial sexual exploitation (sometimes as a result of human trafficking), forced labour in domestic work (sometimes again as a result of human trafficking) and using children in illicit activities, including drug trafficking.    World situation  According to the ILO, surveys from the South Asian region have estimated 30 million children in employment, almost 17 million in child labour and 50 million children out of school. Adding that these findings however have limitations, the ILO said that the key ones were that not all children in employment can be considered as being in child labour, and that not all forms of child labour are being captured by these statistical surveys, and also that there are considerable variations in the survey methodologies and scope across the countries.  It added: “There are 16.7 million (five-17-year-old) children in child labour in South Asia, according to conservative estimates, and of these, 10.3 million are in the five-14-year-old age range. The young, five-11-year-old children, make up about one fifth of all child labourers in South Asia. Substantial variation in child labour estimates exists across South Asian countries, and in absolute terms, child labour for the five-17-years age range is the highest in India (5.8 million), followed by Bangladesh (5 million), Pakistan (3.4 million) and Nepal (2.0 million).  Comparing the situation in the South Asian region, the ILO statistics claimed that a substantial share of employment of 15-17-year-old children is hazardous in nature – 75% in Bangladesh, 72% in Sri Lanka, 41% in Pakistan, 30% in Nepal, 20% in India and 6% in Bhutan, and that family labour accounts for a significant percentage of employment, declining as children get older. A majority of working seven to 14-year-old children in Bhutan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka and 10 to 14-year-old children in Pakistan are engaged in family work.  With regard to the minimum age for employment, South Asian countries showed different age requirements. The basic minimum age in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives and Nepal was 15, 14, 13, 16 and 14 years, respectively, while India and Pakistan had no minimum age requirement. Concerning hazardous work, the ILO said that Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka had 18, 18, 18, 18, 16, 14 and 18 years as the minimum age. However, India had no minimum age for this category of employment as well.  As far as minimum age requirements are concerned, Sri Lanka’s situation is better than most South Asian countries. The fact that Sri Lanka extended the minimum age for employment from 14 to 16 years is also an admirable move, especially due to the fact that employment for children does not always ensure safe or adequately compensated working environments.  However, addressing other issues pertaining to child labour, especially standards and proper mechanisms to ensure a proper employment process, also needs to be paid attention.    Note: The public can contact the NCPA via the hotline 1929 or the 1929 child protection app to inform of the recruitment of children under 16 years, and the recruitment of children between 16 and 18 years for dangerous or unsafe jobs, and it is the public’s responsibility to do so.    Bullet points:  Sri Lanka increases minimum age for employment to 16  Complaints regarding child labour on the decline  Sri Lanka age requirements better than most South Asian countries


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