Policies, Partnerships, Learning & Local Empowerment (PPLL): A Regional Child Labour Project for South Asia

Background

There are 62 million children in child labour in the Asia-Pacific Region, accounting for 7 per cent of the population of children, according to the 2017 Global Estimates on Child Labour. Twenty-eight million are in hazardous work, mostly in agriculture (57.5 per cent) and mining, brick-making, and domestic work. The involvement of children in the other worst forms of child labour (WFCL), such as forced labour and trafficking, Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC), and armed conflict, also exists. The Policies, Partnerships, Learning and Local Empowerment (PPLL) project covers India and Nepal and regional initiatives for implementing targeted interventions.

In India, as per the 2011 Census, there were around 10 million working children, which comprised almost 4 per cent of the total children population. The data from the Census also shows the incidence of child labour decreased in India by 2.6 million between 2001 and 2011 and that the decline is more significant in rural than in urban areas. Further analysis suggests an increase in the number of child workers in urban areas, indicating a growing demand pushed by rural-to-urban migration. The states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh constitute nearly 55 per cent of total working children. The PPLL project in India will focus on the states of Jharkhand and Rajasthan.

The overall objective of the PPLL Project is to contribute to accelerating actions against child labour in South Asia, particularly in India and Nepal. ILO’s work will build upon its long history of combatting child labour in the Region, particularly in South Asia, by mainstreaming this agenda into broader socio-economic policies and involving tripartite constituents at the national, provincial,  and local levels. It will be guided by ILO’s Integrated Strategy on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (FPRW), which calls for a four-pronged theory of change: Public Policies and Governance, Knowledge and Data, Empowerment and Protection, and Partnerships and Advocacy.

The Programme will pilot the interventions using a combination of integrated area-based and sector-based approaches towards creating child labour-free zones and child labour-free sectorial supply chains, including contributing to strengthening law enforcement and enhancing public awareness. It will work with governments to ensure that policies on child labour are aligned with relevant ILO conventions, in particular, the C182 on worst forms of child labour and the C138 on the minimum age for employment, and build their capacities to strengthen the implementation of national and local Plans of Action for prevention and elimination of child labour.

Additionally, the Programme will facilitate the setting up of child labour monitoring systems combined with the convergent delivery of social protection services for families vulnerable to child labour in the selected states and supply chains. As informality is widespread in the countries covered by the program, the intervention will focus on informal workplaces and building the capacities of trade unions and employers’ organizations.

Objectives

The PPLL Project will work with ILO’s constituents and other stakeholders in the two countries (Nepal and India) and at the regional level towards the following objectives:

• Innovative solutions generated and tested from learning
• Enforcement of policies and implementation of plans on child labour are more effective 
• Inter-agency collaboration mechanisms on child labour are functional and active
• Communities and local stakeholders are empowered to address child labour 

Implementing partners

• National, state and local governments
• Employers’ organizations
• Workers’ organizations
• Supply chain actors
• Academia and civil society organizations

Target beneficiaries

The PPLL project will build the capacities of governments, trade unions, and employers’ organizations in the two countries to accelerate action against child labour in knowledge generation and sharing, policy enhancement and strengthened implementation, and integrated delivery of services. While reaching out to child labourers and their families at large, it will have a special focus on female-headed households, seasonal migrants, religious and ethnic minorities, indigenous peoples, internally displaced persons, refugees, and returnee migrants.

For further information, please contact:

Mr Giovanni Soledad
Chief Technical Adviser
Email: soledad@ilo.org

Mr Lakshmi Narasimhan Gadiraju
National Project Coordinator - India
Email: gadiraju@ilo.org