Fiji
In July 2008, the European Union, International Labour Organization, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labour signed a Partnership Protocol Agreement to start the implementation of the TACKLE project in Fiji. Concrete actions quickly followed ‘steered’ by a Child Labour Project Advisory Committee involving the Ministries of Labour and Education, Bureau of Statistics, Social Welfare Department, Fiji Commerce and Employers Federation and the Fiji Trades Union Congress and affiliate the Fiji Teachers Union. At the first Fiji National Child Labour Forum in 2008, social partners and other stakeholders were introduced to child labour concepts and they drafted a framework for actions to tackle child labour.
Output 1: Improved country level child labour and education legal framework
- The report Legislative Compliance Review on Child Labour Laws in Fiji was completed and endorsed. The Report recommendations lead to: elaborating a list of hazardous work for children in Fiji; and recommendations considered in current revision of the Education Act, Juveniles Act and Adoption of Infants Act.
Output 2: Strengthened institutional capacity to formulate and implement child labour strategies
Human resource and institutional capacity to tackle child labour strengthened through:
- National and international training programmes: (a) Child labour training programmes conducted on international and national legal frameworks, child labour research design and data analysis, child labour concepts and strategies, and technical design guidelines for interventions; (b) Training courses held at the ITC-ILO in Turin.
- Mainstreaming programmes: (a) Start Your Own Business (SYOB) programme is an initiative led by the Ministry of Education to provide children in vocational courses at secondary schools with business and entrepreneurial skills; (b) A Child Labour Module included in the Fiji Labour Force Survey 2010-2011 led by the Fiji Island Bureau of Statistics (see "Incorporating child labour datasets into national survey"); (c) Child Labour Unit established within the Ministry of Labour to develop systems and processes to mainstream child labour monitoring and enforcement of legislation in to the core functions of the ministry (see TACKLE Fiji: Case Study: Mainstreaming monitoring and enforcement).
Output 3: Targeted actions to combat child labour
- A demonstration model to tackle child labour designed based on the research findings of five child labour research studies on commercial sexual exploitation of children, street children, rural and agricultural communities, informal settlements and squatter communities, and school-based (see Child Labour in Fiji - A survey of working children in commercial sexual exploitation, on the streets, in rural agricultural communities, in informal and squatter settlements and in schools).
- Two pilot demonstration models began in 2011 and are currently in implementation phase: (a) the Building the capacity of communities to tackle child labour and poverty in squatter settlements (see Community based approach for the eradication of child labour), implemented by People’s Community Work (PCN) aims to build the capacity of squatter (informal) communities to address child labour issues and remove 200 children from hazardous child labour; (b) Eliminating the worst forms of child labour: preventing and removing children from commercial sexual exploitation in Fiji, implemented by Save the Children.
Output 4: Enhanced knowledge base and networks on child labour and education
Mechanisms for knowledge sharing and advocacy created through:
- Child labour information sessions, symposiums, stakeholder dialogues and forums (Pacific Sub-Regional Workshop for Workers' Organization on "Social Dialogue and Child Labor").
- National and international media coverage of child labour activities (null, Radio Australia article and interview: Family finance difficulties forcing children into the sex industry, Fiji One News TV - Launch of the Fiji survey on child labour).
- Endorsement of the Child Labour Committee as a sub-committee of the Fiji National Coordinating Committee for Children.
- The Child Labour and Development Course for Post-Graduate University Students launched with the University of the South Pacific and provided as a development studies special topic course in the second semester of 2011.