The Roadmap towards a Child-Labour Free Indonesia by 2022 will be expired within a year. In conjunction with the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour2021, the ILO conducted a Policy Dialogue, “Towards a Child-Labou Free Indonesia”, to examine progresses made and challenges ahead towards the realization of the Roadmap.

The Policy Dialogue, held on 18 August, presented representatives of key labour ministries related to the elimination of child labour: Ministry of National Development Planning (Bappenas), Ministry for Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection and Ministry of Manpower. They shared lessons learnt on child labour programmes and coordinated efforts to set up a new goal that is in line with the commitments towards ending child labour in all its forms by 2025.

Valerie Juliand, UN Resident Coordinator for Indonesia, reminded all relevant stakeholders to focus on low-income workers and their families during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has intensified the pressures against children these families to enter the world of work and children who already work tend to work longer hours.

“We must act now. We need to set up a new goal for the Roadmap that will continue to decrease the incidents of child labour. The UN, ILO and relevant partners should scale up the actions to reach the target of Sustainable Development Goals target 8.7,” she said in her opening remarks.

The 2020 ILO’s global study shows that there are around 160 million child labourers (63 million girls and 97 million boys), accounting for almost 1 in 10 of all children worldwide. In addition, the possible increase of poverty due to the COVID-19 may reverse years of progress in the fight against child labour. It is estimated that additional 9 million children are at risk of being child labour by 2022.

Citing the latest data for Indonesia, Irham Saifuddin, ILO’s programme officer, said that the ILO’s latest findings based on the data exploration of National Workforce Survey (Sakernas) 2011-2020 reveal that a decreasing trend for child labour and working children in the country. There was no significant increase of child labour due to the pandemic.

The prevalence of child labour aged 15-17 years old has decreased from 31 per 1,000 children in 2019 to 26 in 2020. The 2021 Sakernas data also reveals that numbers of jobs for children aged 15-17 years old has decreased 500,000 during the period of February 2020-February 2021.

Irham reminded that the majority of Indonesian child labourers are still found in the rural area, dominated by agriculture sector. Besides agriculture, manufacturing and services sectors are the following two major sectors for child labour in Indonesia. “The prevalence of child labour aged 15-17 years is projected to be 2.2% in 2025 or is equivalent to around 293,000 children. However, the COVID-19 could be a game changer and we need to have further study on the impact of the pandemic to child labour in Indonesia,” he said.

Responding to the Indonesia’s latest data and condition on child labour, Mahatmi P. Saronto, Bappenas’ Director of Employment, Ciput E. Purwanti, Assistant of Special Deputy for Child Protection of the Ministry for Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection and Yuli Adiratna, Director of Labour Inspection Norms of the Ministry of Manpower agreed that the government of Indonesia should focus on rural area for the elimination of child labour to reach the target of 2025. The focus should also include making the development and empowerment of rural area, including its authorities and relevant stakeholders, as a priority.

“We need to enhance our child labour data so that we can conduct direct interventions at the rural level. Based on the data, we will coordinate with the Ministry of Manpower to identify locations and names at the village level for targeted, direct interventions in order to reach the child-labour free target by 2025,” said Mahatmi.

Similarlay, Ciput Purwanti said that the rural area has been part of her Ministry’s priority area. However, she admitted that there is an urgent need to strengthen child labour advocacies to rural authorities and leaders. “We need to continue advocating rural authorities and leaders so that they will be more aware and involved in the elimination of child labour. We also plan to expand child-labour free zone to village level,” she stated.

Meanwhile, from the perspective of employment, Yuli Adirata emphasize the coordinated effort by linking child labour and labour migration issues. The Ministry of Manpower has empowered villages to establish productive migration villages. “We can mainstream child labour issues into the programmes to empower potential migrant workers and we can also make the best of vocational training programmes at the community level to provide skills needed for school-aged children,” he concluded.

Bharati Pflug, Senior Specialist on Child Labour, ILO Regional Office Asia and the Pacific, concluded the Policy Dialogue with a recommendation to integrate and enhance successful programmes from relevant stakeholders to accelerate the elimination of  child labour. She also concluded with the commitment of the ILO to support efforts taken by Indonesia in renewing its Roadmap and in enhancing its efforts to be free from child-labour.

The live streaming of the policy dialogue can be viewed on ILO TV Indonesia