Child workers under health threats: ILO

JAKARTA (JP): A local official of the International Labor Organization (ILO) called for greater public attention toward child workers, whose daily activities expose them to grave health and safety threats.

Pandji Putranto, the national program coordinator for the International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor, named two kinds of labor that place children particularly at risk. The two are agriculture works and domestic works.

"Girls who work as domestic servants away from home are frequent victims of physical, mental and sexual abuses," he said yesterday. "Efforts to help children should be more sharply focused on the most abusive and hazardous forms of child labor."

Pandji was announcing the plan to hold the Second National Conference on Child Labor Problems in Indonesia on July 24 to July 26 at Wisma Kenasih, Bogor, West Java. Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Azwar Anas will open the gathering which will hear from Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief.

A June 1996 report of the International Labor Organization revealed another "extremely serious problem" with child labor, namely child slavery. "It exists here, too," Pandji said.

He cited a number of cases where children were forced to work on plantations or at sea in order to pay off their parents' debts in the provinces of North Sumatra and East Java.

Pandji pointed out that child labor contributes significantly to a family's economy. "Girls who help their parents baby sitting actually contribute to the family's income. It's not fair if people think those girls are not working," Pandji said.

The government and many social organizations, however, pay greater attention to street children, he said.

"Many programs and funds are given to help street children. None of the programs directly focus on child labor," Pandji said.

"India provides US$300 million to help solve the problem of child labor. Here, we receive only a small amount, considering the $250,000 allocated by the Ministry of Social Services for street children," Pandji said.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics data in 1994, there were about 1.9 million children between 10 to 14 years old who were considered economically active children. Seventy percent of them were recorded as working in the agricultural sector, but experts believe the figure could be higher. (31)