Chilima leaves for high-level conference

Vice-President Saulos Chilima has left for Durban, South Africa today to represent President Lazarus Chakwera at the Fifth Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour.

Office of the Vice-President’s director of communications and public relations Pilirani Phiri on Thursday said the conference is scheduled for Sunday to Friday, but Chilima will return home on Tuesday, May 17 2022.

He said the Veep will deliver a statement on behalf of the President during the opening of the conference on Sunday.

Reads part of the statement: “The conference has been organised against the backdrop of concerns raised by a 2021 global report on child labour, which shows that the number of children involved in child labour has risen to 160 million worldwide, representing an increase of 8.4 million children since 2017.”

Phiri said the conference will, therefore, seek to identify good practices and viable solutions to reinforce commitment of all stakeholder groups to accelerate the fight against the vice in line with Sustainable Development Goals.

During Chilima’s recent trip to New York in the United States where he held various engagements at the United Nations Headquarters, he said Malawi, just like other Least Developed Countries (LDCs) continues to make strides towards social protection and structural transformation and decent work.

Speaking on the sidelines of the launch of an International Labour Organisation (ILO) report titled a ‘Human-Centred Recovery and the Future of Work in LDCs’, the Vice-President said to accelerate such progress, there is need for capacitation of labour market institutions, which is the backbone of a socially inclusive and green future of work in LDCs

While stressing that developed countries must always prioritise LDCs in their planning, Chilima pointed out that the report will serve as an important background document for employment related discussions at the Fifth United Nations Conference on LDCs in Qatar in 2023.

According to South Africa’s Government Communications Information Systems (Gcis), the conference is expected to help construct the path towards a world free from child labour.

Information published on Gcis’ website shows that the conference is expected to be attended by heads of State, 120 ministers, tripartite constituents of 187 member countries of ILO, United Nations agencies, academic institutions, civil society organisations, non-governmental organisations, the media and civil society.