AMMSWD moves towards the establishment of mechanisms to cease child labour in the long run

Ministers met under the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting for Social Welfare and Development (AMMSWD) to delve into the child labour issue 

Ministers from Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gathered to discuss the issue of child labour. 

The issue itself is caused by traditions and poverty, as observed in the various countries with such issues. 

The Minister of Cambodia backed this point through emphasising countries that have child labour issues tend to have many families stuck in poverty, and it has made sending their children to work commonplace. 

The lack of awareness of how education can bring about returns is not known to most parents in these nations, and the short term gain of income is preferred by these families. However, the entire removal of such careers for the children would only result in the severe income decrease for households.

With such impacts at stake, the ministers had to tread a fine line to ensure that solutions found would not result in any worse outcomes. 

For Singapore, their minister pushed for a vocational education framework, for the upskilling of children that are currently labouring for their families. 

Inspired by the Progressive Wage Model currently implemented in Singapore, this framework would provide flexible education pathways to child labourers. 

This initiative would provide classes on the weekends, have mobile classrooms, and have a work-study integration program to allow children to get an education.

The minister stated that this would allow children who work during traditional regular school hours to still get an education. 

At the same time, the Singaporean minister stated that they would work with other ASEAN nations with similar ideas, such as Laos and Vietnam. 

The Laotian minister pushed for the Towards Support for Alternative Household Uplift and Resilience (TUNG SAHUR). 

This framework educates different skills to different age groups of students, and ends off with a formal job placement or further training. 

For ages 15-16, light, practical exposure will be taught. 

For ages 16-18, apprenticeship-style programs with certified adults will be provided. 

For ages past 18, they would either get formal job placements, or micro-entrepreneurship training. 

The Minister of Laos also pushed for further developed frameworks, such as the Legislative Initiative for Monitoring, Inspection and Transparency System (LIMITS). 

This initiative targets the children working beyond the legal limit of 40 hours. 

This would be detected through school-attendance cross-checking, digital reporting for local teachers and health workers to report labour-induced fatigue, injuries and burnout and time-log inspections at common workplaces. 

Another framework pushed was the Categorisation Of Operations for Kids (COOK). 

This framework helped governments and communities understand, identify and respond to different types of child labour. 

COOK is also used to work with TUNG SAHUR, with 3 different levels of categorisation. The categories are labour with risk, economic exploitation and invisible labour. 

Japan has also advocated for joint ASEAN collaborations for door-to-door protection frameworks, where schools would send protection officers to houses of students who are regularly late. 

This intervention is meant to sniff out potential victims, and take action against their relevant culprits. This framework aims to use one’s normal lifestyle to detect child labour victims, and crackdown on the the various culprits through investigations. 

The well-being and health of child labour victims are also issues that had to be addressed. According to an article by the European Commission, trauma through physical and sexual abuse are common in these children. 

Children in jobs involving chemicals and dangerous machinery also do face health and injury risks, leading to further mental trauma and health concerns. 

The children also face further issues and concerns, such as psychological trauma and mental illnesses.

The Minister of the Gulf Cooperation Council urged the council to focus on counselling these victims, and making sure that they will be alright in the long run. 

The Minister of Australia also pushed for this, but also emphasised the issue of how there would be insufficient funding for counselling all the victims of child labour. 

By Oh Enzo