Vice-President Saulos Chilima says there is need for mindset change and commitment from everyone to overcome child labour.
He made the call on Sunday during the opening of the Fifth Global Conference on Elimination of Child Labour at Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Conference Centre in Durban, South Africa.
In his speech made available to The Nation, Chilima said immediate action is needed to end the vice, which locally is affecting 2.1 million children aged between five and 15.
“We cannot, therefore, afford to watch and contemplate to postpone ending child labour at a later date. Immediate action is required to reverse these trends,” he said.
Chilima said Malawi has since moved to end the vice by, among others, ratifying relevant International Labour Conventions (ILO), including all fundamentals such as Conventions 138 on the minimum age of entry into employment.
According to the Vice-President, Malawi recently also ratified the ILO Protocol of 2014 on Forced Labour Convention, Occupational Safety and Health Conventions, namely Conventions 154, 155 and 187.
He said Malawi has further ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and that the country is a state party to the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of a Child.
The Ministry of Labour announced abolishment of the Tenancy Labour system in 2016 as it was widely conceived to be exploitative.
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.
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