‘You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see there is a problem’ Written by Hans Hulst Published inInterviews Read 125 times Photo: Lwin Maung Maung ILO liaison officer Steve Marshall You can see them in almost every teashop and on street corners selling garlands of flowers: children who should be in school but are helping their parents to make ends meet. They are more fortunate than the legions of other children toiling at strenuous jobs. It is little wonder Myanmar is listed among the top three countries with the worst child labour records on the Maplecroft Child Labour Index 2014. What can be done to eradicate the problem without condeming to even deeper poverty the families who rely on income from their children? This is one of issues Mizzima Business Weeklys Hans Hulst explored in an interview with International Labour Organisation liaison officer Steve Marshall, who has been with the UN agency in Myanmar since 2007. How big is the child labour problem? Are there reliable statistics? None whatsoever. We are undertaking a labour force survey at the moment. This nationwide household survey will give us a very much clearer picture of the issue. It will also give us an understanding of unemployment and underdeployment as well as what we call the school-to-work transition. When are kids coming out of school? The results won’t be available until probably April or May next year. The statistics will be very useful. It will give us some specific guidance as to priority areas and issues of concern. Even without statistics the ILO must have an idea of the scope of the problem. Myanmar is essentially an agricultural society. In this sector you have a high prevalence of subsistance farming. Globally the vast predominance of child labour is in the agricultural sector. I assume it is no different in Myanmar. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that there is a problem. A very simple excercise that everyone can do is: visit your suppliers and have a look. We have done that and we have found that a number of our suppliers employ children. We are now working with those suppliers to solve this problem in ways appropriate to the needs of all parties. Lets be honest: we’re definitely not on our own. We don’t know the statistics, but it’s big. How is child labour perceived in Myanmar? Looking at it from the global economic and human rights point of view child labour is unacceptable. You can also look at it from the domestic point of view. Looking at it from that angle you see kids who have nothing in terms of access to education. Their families are in poverty. Domestically child labour is almost seen as a social service. So youve got this sort of contradiction. People who see it from the outside will say to those who employ kids: you’re an evil person. While the employer will be saying: actually, their parents asked me to do this because they’re in poverty. I’m providing a social service to the community. What is the response from government officials to the problem? At the senior level they completely understand international standards and they are committed to changing. But they do see it as a whole. In their eyes this is not just a child labour problem. It’s an economic problem, a poverty problem. The child labour problem will be solved if the larger issues are addressed. At the lower level? I do get quite a lot of people saying: what is all the fuss about? These kids can’t go to school, they need to support their families. In practical terms that is right, in principle it is not. What is the legal situation? There are different elements of legislation. The minimum age for work technically is 13. If people who employ children break the law there is basis for punishment. As is unfortunately often the case with laws in Myanmar application is a different thing. It is also very confusing, because there are various different ages depending on different sectors. The Child Law adds to the confusion by featuring a different age. The government is very conscious that the laws lack clarity. There is an excercise going on that will lead to amendments to the Child Law, to bring it more in line with international standards. UNICEF [the UN childrens agency] and ILO are working together with the government on that issue. Do you expect Myanmar to quickly adopt legislation to bring it in line with the rest of the world? We have to be practical. Exemption provisions can be applied during a transitional period. We are currently working with the government on laws that govern the recruitment of children of legal age, but who are still too young to do heavy work. A hazardous list is in the making for youths between the ages of 13 and 17. They will work no more than X numbers of hours a day. They will only work during daylight, not at night. They will not be involved in activities that could stunt their mental or psysical growth. The list is yet to take effect and foreign companies are entering Myanmar and operating in an environment in which child labour is regarded as normal. Yes, and their shareholders and Western consumers are looking at them saying: you can’t do this kind of stuff. They are very scared of their international reputation. So they are looking for guidance, which the current laws don’t provide. It’s really a matter of talking to companies and finding a compromise position which recognises the needs of the country and that also provides them with some protection. How are foreign companies responding to the child labour challenge? It depends on the nature of the company. The larger multinational companies have dealt with this problem in other countries. They are very conscious of it. Other companies are very risk averse, which is not that helpful. What advice do you offer companies confronted by this controversial issue? It is important that investors don’t become little islands of good, with all the wonderful standards they apply, while in fact the rest of the community has not been given the added value of that investment. They should recognise the local environment and work with others in their sector to resolve the issue. For instance, vocational training is actually a tool to overcome child labour. Kids can come out of school and enrol in vocational training to gain a basket of skills that they can apply when to come of legal age. It is in the mid to long term interest of companies to have skilled labourers. By providing vocational training they not only support the community but also their own interest. What can the ILO do to eradicate child labour? We’re supporting the government on the legislative framework. The government has established with our support a child labour working group, chaired by the Minister of Labour, which has got representation of all the government departements, the private sector, the trade union movement and civil society. The working group adopted its terms of reference in early September and is tasked with writing a national plan of action. ILO has been asked to come up with a draft workplan for the working group itself. We have also been asked to produce an initial draft for operation guidelines, that that will inform the committee in undertaking its work and a first cut of a hazardous work list. We have also been asked to write the headings for the national plan of action. All of this should be ready by early November. How serious is the government about tackling child labour? The fact that they want the next meeting to be in November shows me that they really want it done. The government has by its own actions set itself its timetable. It ratified the ILO Convention 182 on the worst forms of child labour in December 2013. Technically they have a twelve month period to get the groundwork done. As of the end of December there is the expectation that a national plan of action will be nearing completion, consultation frameworks in place, and that the legislative process is underway. When will the national plan of action be implemented? Children selling knick-knacks on the street. Photo: Hong Sar Children selling knick-knacks on the street. Photo: Hong Sar Child labour: how does Coca-Cola cope? By Hans Hulst Multinational soft drink giant Coca-Cola returned to Myanmar in 2013 with ambitious plans to invest US$200 million in five years, mainly in bottling plants, and to create an estimated 22,000 jobs in production, marketing and distribution. It was one of the first companies to be granted an investment permit under the new Foreign Investment Law. Around the world and in Myanmar the Coca-Cola Company does not support or endorse any form of child labour in its bottling system or supplier network, it said in a statement. So how does the producer of one of the worlds most famous soft drinks respond to the uncomfortable fact, confirmed by a survey it conducted, that most employees of the teashops it supplies are under age? “We discussed child labour in Myanmar a couple of months ago during a stakeholder meeting,” said Coca-Cola spokesperson Belinda Ford. “It is too early to say anything definitive about the project we will undertake with our partners to contribute towards resolving child labour in tea shops, Ms Ford said. What is sure is that it will not only be about educating children; we also also need to address the root causes, she said. That is why the Coca-Cola Foundation provided $3 million to NGO Pact to implement Swan Yi, a three-year programme that is economically empowering 24,500 Myanmar women, teaching them fundamental business and financial literacy skills and enabling them to increase their incomes.” Ms Ford added that Coca-Cola will collaborate on the development and implementation of the Initiative to Promote Fundamental Labor Rights and Practices in Myanmar, a joint effort by the United States and the Union of the Republic of Myanmar. “This labour rights initiative marks a significant milestone in the journey of labour market reform and economic progress,” said Ms Ford. Essentially, from January 1st next year the process starts to be formally monitored by the ILO. There will be an eighteen month period in which there is more formal monitoring. At the end of the eighteen months the government has to submit a report to the ILO Standards Supervisory Body delineating what they have done to put the international standard into practice. They will be held accountable for that. It’s not only ticking boxes, everyone wants to see a real impact. Assessing the impact will be challenging because you said earlier that base figures will not be available until after the national survey is completed in April or May next year. Correct. The reality is that the first eighteen months report will largely be about foundational work. Which is important. If you don’t do proper foundation work the building will fall over. This problem is not going to be fixed in eighteen months. Myanmar is third on the Maplecroft Labour Index 2014, which means it has one of the worlds worst child labour records. The ILO has extensive experience dealing with child labour in other countries. What is a realistic timeframe for eradicating child labour in Myanmar? We’re coming out of fifty years of dictatorship. The last thing the various regimes needed was an educated public. So the education system was allowed to fail completely. Indeed, Myanmar starts from a pretty low base. In a way that has some advantages. We know clearly where we stand. It is quite possible that Myanmar actually takes off from that low base and skips some of the steps, if they do it properly. My feeling is that Myanmar can fairly quickly progress to the centre of the index. But there’s no quick fix. I may be too optimistic but I would like to think that within three to five years we will start to see the effects of the reform trickle down to the extent that the families currently in poverty are in a better position to sustain themselves and get their kids an education. This Article first appeared in the September 18, 2014 edition of Mizzima Business Weekly. Mizzima Business Weekly is available in print in Yangon through Innwa Bookstore and through online subscription at mzineplus Last modified on Saturday, 20 September 2014 19:00
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 18:28:33 +0000
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