Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – With rampant child labor denying many the right to an education, the International Labor Organization (ILO) said Thursday the key to fighting it was education.
In a workshop titled "Education, Alternative Solution for Child Labor", jointly organized by the ILO and National Education Ministry, the ILO's Jakarta deputy director Peter van Rooij said eliminating child labor required close coordination with education programs and policies.
"Without education, children enter the labor force young, often below the legal minimum age of employment," Rooij said.
"Therefore, the link between education and child labor should be reflected by mainstreaming issues related to child labor into educational programs and policies."
The workshop was attended by 60 representatives of government institutions, trade unions, employers' organizations, non-governmental organizations and academia.
It was held as part of commemorations to mark the World Day Against Child Labor on June 12. This year's commemorations focus on the role of education in combating child labor.
In 2004, some 1.4 million Indonesian children aged between 10 and 14 years were forced into labor and denied an education, the ILO said. The global figure was 75 million.
Many child laborers work long hours, often in dangerous conditions, and are either outright denied educational opportunities or forced to balance work with education.
"Their families may be unable to afford school fees or other costs, and may depend on the contribution a working child makes to the household's income. And so they place more importance on that than on education," Rooij said.
He added in the vast majority of such cases, girls often bore the brunt of the compromise.
Suyanto, the education ministry's director general for the management of primary and secondary education, said the government had established 2,576 Open Junior High Schools (known locally as SMP Terbuka) across the country, with higher concentrations in areas with large numbers of child workers, to address the issue.
The schools feature a flexible study time and location, agreed to by tutors, students and parents. Suyanto said they enabled child workers could study while still allowing them to work.
The number of students attending such schools has risen to 306,498, with 16,684 tutors in 10,368 learning centers, while the number of teachers has reached 30,776.