Child labour situation in South Asia

Based on officially available statistics, it is estimated that there are 21.6 million children, aged between 5 and 14 years, working in south Asia out of a total of 300 million children in this age group (see table on next page for details).

The scope of this overview has been limited to Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. 2001 figure, Human Development Report 2003. 3 Children engaged in economic activity, including both paid and unpaid, casual and illegal work, as well as work in the informal sector, but excluding unpaid domestic services within own household. 4 Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS): Report on national child labour survey 2002/03 (Dhaka, 2003), survey undertaken with the support of the ILO. 5 Registrar General, Government of India: Census of India, 1991, Working children in India: An analysis of the 1991 census data. 6 Central Department of Population Studies, Tribhuwan University: Child labour situation in Nepal Report from migration and employment survey, 1995/96 (Kathmandu, 1997), survey undertaken with the support of the ILO. 7 Federal Bureau of Statistics: National child labour survey in Pakistan (Islamabad, 1996), survey undertaken with the support of the ILO. This figure does not include children engaged in economic activity occasionally or on a part-time basis. 8 Department of Census & Statistics, Ministry of Finance & Planning: Child activity survey (Sri Lanka, 1999), survey undertaken with the support of the ILO.
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International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour

Country Bangladesh India Nepal Pakistan Sri Lanka

Working children (5-14 years)3 5.05 million4 11.2 million5 1.660 million6 3.3 million7 0.475 million8

Total number of children (5-14 years) 35.06 million 210 million 6.225 million 40 million 3.18 million

The factors that generate child labour in south Asia include parental poverty and illiteracy; social and economic circumstances; lack of awareness; lack of access to basic and meaningful quality education and skills, and high rates of adult unemployment and under-employment. Attitudes towards child labour also play an important role. In south Asia, children are perceived as 'adults' at an early stage. Children are expected to perform physical work equivalent to an adult as early as 10 years old in some countries. There is a great deal of commonality in the forms of child labour in south Asia, most notably in the areas of:
G G G G G

Child domestic labour; Children working in hazardous industries; Children working in export industries; Child trafficking (both internally and across borders); Child bonded labour in agriculture and certain parts of the industrial and informal sectors.

These are elaborated below:

Child domestic labour

In south Asia, child domestic labour (CDL) is culturally accepted and commonly practised. CDL refers to situations where children are engaged to perform domestic tasks in the home of a third party or employer. Where child domestic labour is exploitative and includes trafficking, slavery, or practices similar to slavery, or work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is hazardous and likely to harm the health, safety, or morals of the child, it constitutes a worst form of child labour as defined in the International Labour Organization (ILO) Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (No. 182), 1999. As can be seen from the table below, CDL is prevalent in every country of South Asia: Country Bangladesh (Dhaka)10 India11 Nepal (Kathmandu)12 Pakistan13 Sri Lanka14 Known CDL population9 300,000 20% of all children under 14 years working outside the family home are in domestic service 62,000 children under 14 years 264,000 children working in 'personal and social services' 100,000

Given the hidden nature of child domestic work, these figures must be viewed as indicative only. UNICEF International Child Development Centre: Child domestic workers (Florence, 1999). 11 UNICEF: Child domestic workers in south Asia (Kathmandu, 2001). 12 UNICEF International Child Development Centre: Child domestic workers (Florence, 1999). 13 UNICEF: Child domestic workers in south Asia (Kathmandu, 2001). 14 UNICEF International Child Development Centre: Child domestic workers (Florence, 1999).
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International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour

Children working in hazardous industries

The ILO Convention No. 182 (Article 3d) defines hazardous child labour as 'work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety, or morals of children'. According to the Government of India, there are 2 million children working in hazardous industries.15 Examples of hazardous occupations include brick manufacturing, stone quarrying, fireworks manufacturing, lock making and glassware production. An ILO study on hazardous child labour in Bangladesh found that more than 40 types of economic activities carried out by children were hazardous to them.16 The survey also revealed that except for light work, child labour usually had harmful consequences on the mental and physical development of children. In Pakistan, it was found that of the total population of child labourers, 7 per cent suffered from illness/ injuries frequently and 28 per cent occasionally.17 The majority of children suffering from illness/injuries were found in agricultural activities. The situation in Sri Lanka seems to be less problematic since, according to a child activity survey,18 nearly 90 per cent of the working children in the age group of 5-17 years have never experienced a health or safety hazard due to the activity in which they were engaged. In Nepal, identified hazardous sectors include construction, transportation and production, and especially the bidi and carpet industries.

Children working in export industries

Export industries in South Asia employ a large number of child labourers. The main export industries include carpet and footwear in Pakistan and India, surgical instruments in Pakistan, and garments in Bangladesh. In 1995, before the BGMEA/ILO/UNICEF project in Bangladesh started, nearly 43 per cent of the garment factories employed children.19 By 2003, this figure had been reduced to around 1 per cent. Child labour in BGMEA (Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association) factories is now virtually zero, though it has not completely disappeared.20 In Pakistan's carpet industry, which is 95 per cent export oriented, the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) estimates that about 206,194 children are employed as full-time labourers.21

Child trafficking
In south Asia, there is trafficking in children both internally and across national borders (from Bangladesh and Nepal to Pakistan and India, and from south Asia to south-east Asia and the Middle East). Victims end up in various forms of sexual and labour exploitation, i.e. doing domestic work, working in factories, on the streets, and as jockeys in camel races. In the past few years, overwhelming attention has been paid to cross-border trafficking and trafficking
Figure provided by the Ministry of Labour, Government of India. W. Rahman: Hazardous child labour in Bangladesh, Department of Labour in collaboration with the ILO (Dhaka, 1996). 17 Federal Bureau of Statistics: National child labour survey in Pakistan (Islamabad, 1996). 18 Department of Census & Statistics, Ministry of Finance & Planning: Child activity survey Sri Lanka (Colombo, 1999). 19 IPEC monitoring reports. 20 IPEC: Addressing child labour in the Bangladesh garment industry 1995/01, A synthesis of UNICEF and ILO evaluation studies of the Bangladesh garment sector projects (Dhaka, 2004). 21 This figure is based on a sponsored project survey conducted in the carpet industry in the province of the Punjab in 2001. The Punjab had 107,065 children below the age of 15 years and 57,890 children between the ages of 15 and 17 years working full time in the carpet industry. The Punjab accounts for about 80 per cent of Pakistan's total carpet production. Since carpet weaving is a hazardous activity, the desired age for workers is more than 17 years. Therefore, the extrapolated figure for Pakistan would come to 206,194.
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International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour

for sexual exploitation, but internal child trafficking is more prevalent in south Asia than cross-border child trafficking, and trafficking for labour exploitation is more prevalent than that for sexual exploitation. A common feature of child trafficking is that young girls and boys are trafficked from rural communities to urban areas and even to another country or region. Indicators in the hardest-hit sending areas show that the practice is internalised as a strategy to cope with poverty. Other factors contributing to child trafficking are an increasing rate of unsafe migration, weak law enforcement, insufficient household income, illtreatment and physical abuse, alcoholism, lack of food, and forced marriages. Nepal's and Sri Lanka's experiences show that armed conflicts have increased children's and women's vulnerability to trafficking. Likewise, gender inequality manifested through domestic violence, forced marriages, and the stigma against women without partners can increase women's and children's vulnerability to child trafficking. The table below provides an overview of the degree of child trafficking in south Asia: Country Bangladesh India Internal trafficking Data not available Data not available Cross-border trafficking 13,220 children smuggled out of the country between 1990 and 199522 12,000-50,000 women and children trafficked every year into the country from neighbouring states for the sex trade23 12,000 girls trafficked every year from Nepal and across borders24 200,000 women and children trafficked from Bangladesh to Pakistan between 1990 and 200026 More than 19,000 boys aged 2-11 years have been trafficked as camel jockeys from Pakistan to the Middle East27 Sri Lanka 5,00028 Sporadic incidence

Nepal Pakistan

Data not available 100,000 women and children25

Child bonded labour

Despite legislation in place to abolish bonded labour in all south Asian countries, except Bangladesh, bonded labour still affects millions of the poorest and most vulnerable workers in the subregion. Very often, children are involved in bonded labour to repay loans taken by parents. Bonded labour is a critical concern because it perpetuates poverty and hampers economic growth by undermining labour productivity and human capital development and because it is a gross violation of fundamental human rights Experience shows that extremely poor families, vulnerable to bondage, are caught in a web of social and economic obligations that prevent them from benefiting from development projects. Forced labour, primarily in the form of debt bondage, is found amongst low castes, minorities, and migrants, who suffer additionally from discrimination and social exclusion. Although most prevalent in
22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Joint study conducted by the Ministries of Home, Social Welfare and Women and Children Affairs. US Department of State: Country reports on human rights practice 2000 (February 2001). Rapid assessment by IPEC (2001). Estimation by an NGO, Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aids (LHRLA) (2002). LHRLA. Idem. IPEC Project for Combating Child Trafficking for Labour and Sexual Exploitation, estimation based on a number of reports.

International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour

traditional agricultural production systems based on sharecropping and casual wage labour, bonded labour in south Asia also occurs in other sectors, including mining, brick kilns, rice mills, carpet weaving, commercial sexual exploitation, match factories, stone cutting, and quarries.

Governments' initiatives against child labour

Commitments to international standards
Many international treaties are relevant to child labour, such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the ILO Minimum Age Convention (No. 138), and the ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (No. 182). The latter explicitly commits governments to develop with urgency national plans of action to eradicate the worst forms of child labour, including debt bondage and trafficking. Despite the fact that none of the countries of the subregion has ratified the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, supplementing the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (2000), many of them refer to the given definition of trafficking in their National Plans of Action (NPAs). International legal instruments against child labour, trafficking and forced labour include the following:
G G G G G G

ILO Minimum Age Convention (No. 138), 1973; ILO Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour (No. 182), 1999; ILO Forced Labour Convention (No. 29), 1930; ILO Abolition of Forced Labour Convention (No. 105), 1957; UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), 1989; Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, supplementing the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2000.

Ratification Status ILO Convention No. 138 ILO Convention No. 182  ILO Convention No. 29             ILO Convention No. 105  

Country Bangladesh India Nepal Pakistan Sri Lanka

UNCRC     

The subregional response29

Concerted efforts have been undertaken at the subregional level to promote child welfare and combat the trafficking of children in south Asia. During the 11th SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) Summit, which was held in January 2002 in Kathmandu, the seven SAARC member States (Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and the Maldives) signed the following two

29

For individual country responses, see the country specific overview notes.

International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour

Conventions related to the protection of children:

G

The SAARC Convention on Preventing and Combating the Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution: The scope of this Convention is 'to promote cooperation amongst member States to effectively deal with various aspects of prevention, interdiction and suppression of trafficking in women and children; repatriation and rehabilitation of victims of trafficking, and preventing the use of women and children in international prostitution networks, particularly where the SAARC member countries are the countries of origin, transit and destination'; The SAARC Convention on Regional Arrangements for the Promotion of Child Welfare in South Asia: The purposes and objectives of the Convention are to 'unite the SAARC member countries in their determination of redeeming the promises made by them to the south Asian child at the World Summit for Children and various other national, regional and international conferences and successive SAARC summits; to facilitate and help in the development and protection of the full potential of the south Asian child, promote understanding and awareness of the rights, duties and responsibilities of the children and others, and to set up appropriate regional arrangements to assist the member States in fulfilling the rights of the child, taking into account the changing needs of the child'.

The signing of these two Conventions is seen as a milestone on the path to coordinated interventions against trafficking at the subregional level. The countries have committed themselves to develop a Regional Plan of Action and to establish a Regional Task Force against Trafficking. For a decade, since the Summit in Colombo in 1992, the SAARC countries have moved towards this milestone through a number of resolutions. The Colombo Resolution30 states in Paragraph 5 under the heading, 'Challenges', that child trafficking is one of the most urgent challenges in the region and that 'child trafficking particularly urgently calls for both bilateral as well as regional cooperation'. Four years later, in 1996 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, the Rawalpindi Resolution31 was adopted. It calls for commitment from member States in the issues affecting children in the region. Similarly, the Declaration of the Ninth SAARC Summit32 in Male, Maldives, in 1997, expresses grave concern at the trafficking of women and children and pledges action on the part of the member countries (Article 27). However, the Conventions will only come into force when all seven SAARC member States have ratified them. Currently, only Bangladesh, Bhutan and the Maldives have ratified them. In addition, as a consequence of intense lobbying by NGOs in the subregion, the text of the Convention on preventing and combating the trafficking in women and children for prostitution should be reviewed by the SAARC members in order to broaden its scope. The definition of trafficking provided in the Convention does not address trafficking from a general perspective, but only focuses on prostitution.

ILO action
The child labour situation in south Asia presents both a challenge and an opportunity to address aspects of the problem on a common or shared basis. That is why in recent years, the ILO's International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) has started to develop some projects at the subregional level. Until now, IPEC has focused its action at the subregional level on the main areas of child trafficking, child domestic labour and child bonded labour.

30 31 32

The Colombo Resolution on Children, 1992. Rawalpindi Resolution on Children of South Asia, 1996. Declaration of the Ninth SAARC Summit, Male, 1997.

International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour

Overview of ongoing projects

Project for combating child trafficking for labour and sexual exploitation (Phase II)
Time-frame Duration: 42 months Dates: Oct. 2002-Mar. 2006 Donor(s) US Department of Labour (USDOL)

The project to combat trafficking in children in south Asia (TICSA) began in 1998 with research, consultation, and analysis leading to a two-year regional project, covering Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka in the first phase. These three countries continue to be core countries for the second phase, which began in October 2002 with a focus on policy development, capacity building, prevention, rescue, rehabilitation, and reintegration. The project experience acquired during the first phase is being applied in non-core countries i.e. Pakistan, Indonesia and Thailand in the second phase to fill the technical intervention gaps in Asia. Main objectives
G G

To review legal frameworks and propose revisions where appropriate to reflect trafficking aspects; To improve the knowledge base on trafficking and effective action to enable stakeholders to plan, implement and monitor programmes against trafficking of children; To strengthen the capacity of relevant governments, employers' organizations, trade unions and NGO institutions; To assist children and families in high-risk sending areas and to reduce children's vulnerability to trafficking; To rehabilitate the victims of child trafficking and develop child friendly guidelines.

Components This project has a number of components, such as:

G G G G G

Research; Policy development; Capacity building; Prevention; Rescue, rehabilitation and reintegration.

The prevention model includes social mobilization, awareness raising, economic empowerment, vocational training, career guidance, youth employment, and non-formal education to reduce the vulnerability of communities, families, and their children to trafficking in high-risk sending areas. The rehabilitation model includes rescue, psychosocial counselling, use of multidisciplinary team and case management, children's participation, non-formal education, vocational training, and economic empowerment (Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka have all of the above components). Direct beneficiaries The intended beneficiaries of the programme are children under the age of 18 years, who are at risk and those who are victims of trafficking, in each country. Demonstration projects for prevention and interception are located at selected trafficking prone districts, both sending as well as transit districts. Many of the affected children are girls because of the demand for young women and girls in the sex trade and in domestic work, as well as the low status of women in the concerned societies. However,

International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour

in certain pockets, boys have been identified through TICSA Phase I research as being specifically targeted by trafficking chains and, consequently, the services will be extended to them.33 Key outputs
G

Proposal for integration of child trafficking for exploitative labour in national and regional legal frameworks; Child friendly guidelines developed and integrated into existing legal frameworks; High-level policy makers, members of the judiciary, and representatives from SAARC countries mobilised; Regional research group and research methodology to study the demand side of trafficking; Regional report on the demand side of trafficking; Rapid assessments in Indonesia and Pakistan; Good practices and lessons learnt report for stakeholders; National database on trafficking in core countries; Government officials and parliamentarians trained on design, monitoring, and coordination; Trade unions and employers' organizations mobilized and the media trained to report on issues of trafficking; Economic options for families in high-risk sending areas and transit areas in place; Awareness against child trafficking raised in communities of high-risk sending areas; Children at risk empowered through non-formal education, remedial classes, youth clubs, and technical and vocational education; Surveillance and interception with high-tech skills in investigation, including training in cyberwatch investigations (Sri Lanka); Children withdrawn, intercepted/rescued are rehabilitated or referred to other agencies; Strategies and pilot models for long-term reintegration of child survivors of trafficking.

G G

G G G G G G G

G G G

G G

Sustainable Elimination of Bonded Labour in Nepal (SEBL) IPEC/Declaration Project

Time-frame Duration: 69 months Starting date: December 1999 Completion date: August 2005 Donor(s) US Department of Labour (USDOL)

The ILO has launched major initiatives against bonded labour in the subregion. The main project addressing this issue is the ILO's Declaration and Social Finance Department Project on Prevention and Elimination of Bonded Labour in South Asia (PEBLISA), which focuses on the prevention of bonded labour and the rehabilitation of former bonded labourers in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, through various strategies, including micro finance. In Nepal, the ILO's International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) has been undertaking, together with the ILO's In Focus Programme on the Declaration, a programme for the sustainable rehabilitation of former Kamaiya bonded labourers. Since June 2004, this project has been working in close collaboration with the PEBLISA project in Nepal.

33

IPEC Research Report: Nepal cross-border trafficking of boys (2002).

International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour

Objective The joint IPEC/Declaration Project aims to rehabilitate bonded adult and child labourers and to prevent them re-entering exploitative forms of labour. Components The strategy of intervention consists of:
G

Direct action targeted at ex-Kamaiyas, their families, and children in order to secure their effective release from bondage and to sustainably reduce their poverty through training and education, livelihood improvements, and service provisions; Capacity and alliance building among key actors the Government, workers' and employers' organizations, and civil society for policy development and programme formulation at the national and district levels; Awareness raising campaigns among ex-Kamaiyas, their landlords, and society at large. Another important component of the project is to ensure sustainability through data collection, research, and implementation of a tracking system.

Direct beneficiaries The direct beneficiaries of the project are ex-Kamaiyas and their children under the Kamaiya system and those still de facto in debt bondage or at risk of falling into bondage, in five districts of western and far-western Nepal (Banke, Bardia, Dang, Kailali, and Kanchanpur). Since women and girls are at high risk of bondage due to the prevailing gender discrimination in these communities, the priority target groups are Kamaiya women and girls. Key outputs The project has been successful in:
G

Providing the Out of School Programme (OSP) to 2,812 children (1,537 girls and 1,278 boys) and formal schooling to 6,116 children (2,934 girls and 3,182 boys); Preventing 9,984 children (2,060 girls and 5,015 boys) and withdrawing 153 girl children from exploitative work; Convincing almost all former Kamaiyas to send their children to school; Providing basic literacy to 3,512 adults (2,849 women and 663 men), vocational/skills training to 641 adults (185 women and 456 men), and income generating activities to 17 adults (11 women and six men); Establishing various vigilance committees of freed Kamaiyas in many villages by DECONT (Democratic Confederation of Nepalese Trade Unions), GEFONT (General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions), and NTUC (Nepalese Trade Union Congress) under the action programmes to monitor the implementation of labour standards and incidence of bondage and child labour. These committees have been strengthened through training to discharge their roles and responsibilities in the communities effectively; Raising awareness on the Kamaiya Prohibition Labour Act as well as raising awareness on issues such as minimum wages, gender, education, and micro enterprises; Initiating joint action with other agencies working in the field for the construction of a water supplycum-irrigation project at Lalmatiya in Dang district, as well as for the rehabilitation of former Kamaiyas in five Kamaiya prone districts.

G G

Another IPEC project focusing on bonded labour (Community Action for the Elimination of Child Bonded Labour from Exploitative and Hazardous Work Phase III) has been mainstreamed into the Nepal TimeBound Programme (TBP). Approaches undertaken by this project are now also being taken over on a larger scale through the IPEC/Declaration Project on sustainable elimination of bonded labour. In order

International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour

to avoid duplication, the community action project in its third phase (July 2003-June 2006) has developed new interventions for addressing the issues of some other forms of debt bonded labour relations, like Hali, Harwa, and Charwa, which are not covered by the Kamaiya Labour (Prohibition) Act, 2001, while also targeting children working under exploitative and hazardous conditions in stone quarries, brick kilns, and hotels and teashops.

Child Domestic Workers Project (Phase II)

Time-frame Duration: 24 months Starting date: March 2004 Donor(s) Dutch Government

While each and every country would benefit from a project to address the problem of child domestic labour, the child domestic workers project focuses only on Pakistan and Sri Lanka in its second phase. The reasons for this are that, firstly, the other countries are already addressing the concern, at least to some extent, through other interventions such as the Time-Bound Programme (TBP) in Nepal and the upcoming Phase II of the Andhra Pradesh state based project in India. In addition, in light of the already large and high number of projects under implementation in countries like India and Bangladesh, it was felt best to benefit from the experience of these projects before launching new ones. The project for preventing and eliminating exploitative child domestic work through education and training in south Asia builds on experience gained during Phase I (2002/03), which covered Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Uganda, and Zambia. One of the main lessons learned in Sri Lanka during Phase I was the lack of equal participation of stakeholders due to an over-focus on the trade unions and under-focus on the participation of the plantation management in the previous programmes. Under this new phase, participation has been much more inclusive. Main Objectives
G G

To prevent children at risk from entering domestic work; To withdraw and rehabilitate those working under exploitative conditions by providing them relevant alternatives such as formal and non-formal education and pre-vocational training; To support the development of relevant policy related to CDL and strengthen the capacity of partner organizations to sustain action to combat CDL, through training, sharing of lessons learned, and networking among themselves.

Components The strategy for Phase II employs a framework with three interlinked strategic components:
G

Creating an enabling environment: to promote the integration of child domestic labourers as part of a broader child labour issue in national development policy and programmes; Direct Interventions: to focus on direct action with child domestic labourers, their employers, families, and communities as a continuation and reinforcement of the initiatives of the first phase; Knowledge Management: to focus on providing opportunities for information sharing and documenting of lessons learnt and good practices emanating from the work of this project and other relevant CDL projects in south Asia.

Direct beneficiaries The direct beneficiaries of awareness raising, capacity building, and knowledge development activities are representatives of the Governments, NGOs and employers' and workers' organizations in south Asia (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka). Their knowledge and capacity to address the issue of CDL has been enhanced through a subregional network, information sharing, and capacity building

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International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour

activities. In Pakistan and Sri Lanka, direct beneficiaries include child domestic labourers (up to 18 years of age), children at risk (8-14 years), and their families. Key outputs of phase I
G

Training of approximately 85 social mobilizers from among members of the plantation communities situated in the central and southern parts of Sri Lanka. Their work included gathering socioeconomic data on the target groups, raising awareness about child labour and children's rights, facilitating the peer-counselling programme and coordinating the non-formal education (NFE) and vocational training interventions on the estates they supervised; Establishment of 'Community Hearts' or community centres, which form the hub for many of the interventions, including support to the children's clubs and other activities such as recreation, and peer-counselling facilities; Production of a code of conduct for employers of child domestic labourers, advocacy material, and a draft policy for child domestic labourers, which can be incorporated into the existing Child Labour Policy. Additional products funded by the TICSA Project and other projects are the non-formal education training of trainers (TOT) manual and a life skills education TOT manual, which will be available soon.

IPEC has also facilitated the finalization of the list of hazardous occupations in Sri Lanka. Some aspects of child domestic labour are included in the list, which is now awaiting endorsement by the National Labour Advisory Committee.

Other initiatives against child labour

Apart from governmental and IPEC interventions, there are many other initiatives against child labour in south Asia, which have been undertaken by key international organizations such as UNICEF, UNDP, UNESCO, and the World Bank, as well as local and international NGOs, including Save the Children, Global March Against Child Labour, and other civil society organizations. However, to our knowledge, none of these organizations have implemented subregional programmes. They usually intervene either at the country or local level. For examples of such initiatives, see the country specific overview notes.

Documented in November 2004

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