By Victor Ahiuma-Young

ABUJA — THE Federal Government has formally launched the National Policy and National Action Plan on Child Labour to facilitate the elimination of child labour in Nigeria aimed at ensuring that Nigerian children are provided with the bright future to be proud of.

Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka Wogu, who performed the launching and presentation of the national documents to the public, in Abuja, yesterday, said the launch followed the approval by the Federal Executive Council, FEC, in September last year.
He noted that the success of the launch attested to the commitment of President Goodluck Jonathan’s Transformation Agenda and the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme, SURE-P, to the elimination of the challenge of child labour constituting a critical impediment to the nation’s development efforts.

Wogu explained that the National Policy and National Action Plan on Child Labour were the products of a consultative process of stakeholders’ participation, noting that the approval of the national documents by the FEC had set the stage for effective collaboration and implementation of child labour interventions across the country.
According to him, “the policy will help every stakeholder to operate in its area of comparative advantage. It will also facilitate the building of synergy, effective coordination and elimination of duplication of interventions by the various MDAs.

“The policy also provides monitoring, evaluation and a review process with which to assess periodically the achievements recorded in our collective efforts at combating the scourge of child labour.”
Acknowledging the support of the International Labour Organisation, ILO, and the United States Department of Labour, USDOL, in funding and technical expertise for the development of the documents, he called for their continued collaboration in the implementation of the policy.