Illustrative Photo dnrtv.org.vn

HÀ NỘI — Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc has given the greenlight to a programme on preventing and minimising child labour during the 2016-2020 period.

The programme aims to effectively detect and assist child labourers and vulnerable children in accessing opportunities for development.

The goals are to be achieved through raising the awareness and responsibility of governments at all levels, sectors, organisations, employers, parents and children themselves about preventing and minimising illegal child labour and highlighting the risks for vulnerable children.

Communication campaigns will be designed for each target group of the programme using various forms, with special attention paid to traditional craft villages, production and business establishments, and the informal sector.

The capability of officials and employees involved in protecting, caring for and educating children at all levels will be strengthened as well.

The programme will pilot a support and intervention model to minimise child labour via equipping child labourers and vulnerable children with life and integration skills.

It also assists child labourers and vulnerable children with supporting policies on education, vocational training and seeking suitable jobs, while helping their families seek stable livelihood to boost income, which is hoped to eventually prevent children from working.

At the same time, the programme assists employers at traditional craft villages, production and business establishments and in the informal sector to improve working conditions for children in line with the law.

Some 1.75 million children, or nearly 10 per cent of children age 5 to 17 in Việt Nam, are child labourers.

The country records about 600,000 children who often have to work upwards of 42 hours per week, rendering them unable to go to school, according to head of the Ministry of  Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs’ Department of Child Care and Protection Đặng Hoa Nam.

Việt Nam ratified two of the International Labour Organisation’s basic conventions, including the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention in 2000 and the Minimum Age for Admission to Employment in 2003.— VNS