UN agency to survey child labour practices in West Africa

The United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO) announced today that it would be working with the United States development agency on a survey of child labour in West Africa.

The ILO's International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) will collaborate with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) on the child labour portions of a survey on labour practices in five West African cocoa-growing countries.

Beginning in September, IPEC will provide technical and training expertise for the project, which involves Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, and Nigeria.

IPEC's aim is to work towards the progressive elimination of child labour by strengthening national capacities to address child labour problems, and by creating a worldwide movement to combat it. The Programme targets bonded child labourers, children in hazardous working conditions and occupations and children who are particularly vulnerable, i.e. very young working children (below 12 years of age), and working girls.