FAO and ILO partner to tackle child labour in fisheries

With the aim of having a definitive document by the end of 2012, FAO and the International Labour Organization (ILO) recently published the first draft of a guide intended to help policy makers and governments address the difficult issue of child labour in the fishing sector. 

Experts agree that child labour in fishing is a widespread problem. But there has been a lack of specific data, as statistics on child labour have generally included the fishing, forestry, agriculture and livestock sectors. Child labourers in these four sectors are estimated to make up the largest percentage - 60 per cent - of the 215 million children working worldwide. 

In the fishing sector, activities that children engage in range from active fishing, cooking on boats, diving for reef fish or to free snagged nets, driving fish into nets, peeling shrimp or cleaning fish and crabs, repairing nets, or working in sorting, unloading and transporting catches and selling or processing fish. Some of these activities are very dangerous, others are not. 

The FAO/ILO document considers that it is necessary to distinguish between tasks performed by children, which are not necessarily child labour. Child labour compromises the well-being of children and hinders their education and development, while tasks do not do so and may even be beneficial for children of a certain age. Some fishermen maintain that children should learn the work from a young age.

Prevention is the key

Investing in child labour prevention is the most cost-effective approach to ending this scourge in the long term, according to FAO and ILO. This means tackling the root causes of the problem, so that children at risk do not become child labourers. 

Recommendations in the document include:

• Ensure that national labour laws provide full protection for children.
• Promote the implementation of this legislation through incentives and enforcement mechanisms
• Involving local communities in finding solutions
• Support educational and poverty alleviation projects in threatened communities
• Improve coordination among government agencies working on rural development and labour and poverty issues.
• Incorporate the issue of child labour into ‘port state measures’, used to control ships arriving at a port.

Establish appropriate programmes to promote safety at sea in the fishing sector, including child labour issues.It is possible to read the preliminary edition of the FAO/ILO Guidance on Addressing Child Labour in Fisheries and Aquaculture: Policy and Practice (English), comments and contributions to this draft can be sent until April 30, 2011 to FI-inquiries@fao.org