The United States Department of Labour (USDOL) has commended Nigeria for making significant progress in stemming the scourge of child labour and human trafficking in the country.
The commendation is contained in its 2015 Child Labour Report, which the Representative of the Department of Labour, Marlin Hardinger presented to the Minster of Labour and Employment, Mr. Chris Ngige, in Abuja on Tuesday.
He said the reports reviewed child labour developments in 142 countries and found moderate advancement in Nigeria’s efforts to tackle scourge.
“Significant update on the report covering 142 countries listed Nigeria as combating child labour and most of the efforts have to do with the good work Nigeria has made on legislations that work against child labour. This report has been applauded by policy makers all over the world,” he said.
In his remarks, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige commended the favorable findings on Nigeria, and expressed concern over the accuracy of some of the conclusions in the report.
The Minister rejected the aspect of the report that blacklisted Nigeria as engaging in “child soldiering,” attributing the incident to the desperate activities of the Boko Haram insurgents who are terrorists and which cannot in any way be linked to the government of Nigeria.
On sectors such as agriculture, gold mining and construction as well as social malaise of begging and scavenging where the reports gave a thumb-down to Nigeria, the minister said involvement of children in these sectors is majorly the consequence of poverty and poor education which African countries are grappling with.
He said other aspects of the report where Nigeria is genuinely lagging behind would be swiftly be tackled by President Muhammadu Buhari since the causes of such child labour practices were not inseparable from corruption which the administration is determined to stamp out.
He assured that Nigeria would issue a technical report to appropriately respond to all the issues raised by the report and put them in the right perspective.
