Child labour

Technical Support for Enhancing the National Capacity to Prevent and Reduce Child Labour in Viet Nam (ENHANCE)

This project contributes to the prevention and progressive elimination of child labour in Viet Nam through supporting the National Plan of Action on the Prevention and Reduction of Child Labour.

Project managing agency: Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs

Partner agencies: Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs; employers’ organizations; workers’ organizations; International organizations; local and national NGOs; and research agencies

Geographical focus: Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and An Giang

Project context

Learn more about our project in brief
Viet Nam is the first country in Asia and the second one in the world ratified the United Nations’s Convention on the Rights of the Child in1990. As a ratifying country to ILO’s Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182) and Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138), Viet Nam has committed to undertaking measures to tackle child labour through laws, policies and institutional support for their implementation. In recent years Viet Nam has made significant achievements in the fight against child labour, establishing a strong legal framework to a great extent aligned with international labour standards, and implementing a number of programmes and projects to counter child labour nationally and locally.

However, child labour in Viet Nam persists despite these efforts, especially in the informal sector of the economy. The National Child Labour Survey of 2012 reported 1.7 million children engaged in child labour, among which 34 per cent work more than 42 hours a week. This has harmful effects on children’s health and psychological development, limits their school attendance and inhibits their transition to decent productive work.

In this context, ENHANCE will direct technical support to enhance government efforts to counter child labour, building the achievements to date and making particular effort to address the informal sector and identified priority industry sectors. In partnership with MOLISA as the key Government of Viet Nam partner, and its Bureau of Child Protection and Care as implementing focal point, the project will engage with a wide range of government, social partners and civil society in its implementation.

Project objective

ENHANCE’s overall development objective is to build a comprehensive and efficient multi-stakeholder response for the prevention and reduction of child labour in Viet Nam.

Project outcomes

  • Capacity building component: By the end of the project, the capacity of national institutions and stakeholders to identify, monitor and respond to child labour, as part of the promotion of international labour standards, will have been strengthened.
  • Awareness raising component: By the end of the project, awareness on child labour, the associated hazards and prohibition against it will have been raised among all levels of society.
  • Direct interventions component: By the end of the project, intervention models for preventing and withdrawing child labour in selected geographical areas and sectors will have been implemented and documented for replication.

Video highlights

The 2018 World Day Against Child Labour (WDACL) shines a spotlight on the global need to improve the safety and health of young workers and end child labour.

This campaign aims to accelerate actions to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 8.7 of ending all forms of child labour by 2025. Achieving these goals for the benefit of the next generation of the global workforce requires a concerted and integrated approach to eliminating child labour and promoting a culture of prevention on occupational safety health (OSH).

This 90 seconds video clip aims at raising awareness on child labour including hazardous works. It stresses the critical importance of removing children below the minimum age for work from all forms of child labour, including hazardous work, and ensuring they have access to quality education.


More videos

For further information please contact:

Nguyen Mai Oanh
National Project Manager
ILO, Floor 14th, Handiresco Building, 521 Kim Ma, Ba Đinh, Hanoi, Viet Nam
Tel: (84-4) 3237360 Ext. 104
Email: oanh@ilo.org