Ethan Harfenist, Arientha Primanita & AFP – The United States Labor Department praised 10 countries, including Indonesia, for their "significant advancement" in fighting the worst forms of child labor, in a report published on Monday.
"We're moving in the right direction, but we have a lot more work to be done," said newly appointed Labor Secretary Thomas Perez in presenting the report, the 12th in an annual series.
"These reports remind us that children and adults continue to be exploited for their labor in countries around the world. Until this is no longer true, our work is not done."
According to the 826-page report, 10 countries – including three Southeast Asian nations (Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand) and five Latin American countries (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru) – made "significant advancement," while the governments of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea and Uzbekistan were accused of colluding in forced child labor.
"We need to call upon governments, international and regional organizations, social partners and civil society to work together to end these human rights abuses," Perez said.
In a video screened during the presentation, University of Hawaii professor Maya Soetoro-Ng spoke of her own brush with underage labor when her mother placed her in a factory in Indonesia for a day.
"At first it was kind of fun to feel all grown up... but by the third hour, I felt heavy with the injustice of it," said Soetoro-Ng, whose step-brother is President Barack Obama.
The report comes ahead of a major International Labor Organization conference in Brazil on October 8-10 that will take stock of international efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labor by 2016, as set out in a global convention in The Hague in 2010.
It also followed an ILO report in mid-September that similarly praised an overall decline in child labor despite the global economic crisis – and noted that the largest number of child workers were to be found in middle-income countries, rather than poor nations.
By the ILO's definition, the "worst forms of child labor" includes all forms of slavery, prostitution, drug trafficking and work that is likely to harm a child's health or safety.
According to the US Labor Department's report, 816,363, or 3.7 percent, of Indonesian children from the ages of 10 to 14 are currently working. Meanwhile, 92.4 percent of Indonesian children in the same age bracket are attending school.
Suhartono, a spokesman for Indonesia's Manpower and Transmigration Ministry, said on Tuesday that he appreciated the report and hoped that it would motivate the government to realize its goal of eliminating child labor in the country by 2020.
"This [report] will provide a good boost of motivation for all related ministries, regional administrations and society as a whole to help eradicate child labor in the country," he told the Jakarta Globe.
He added that his ministry had managed to remove around 10,300 children from the labor force across the country in 2012, and it planned to withdraw 11,000 children this year.
Children who are removed from the labor force are either brought to shelters to be educated or sent to school with the assistance of the government.
"There is a strong culture of children helping their parents in Indonesia, and it's hard to break," he said. "That's one thing we need to work on: we need to convince parents... that children are supposed to study and not work."
Santi Kusumaningrum, the co-director of the Center for Child Protection at the University of Indonesia, said that while Indonesia has certainly made strides in child labor-related policies, it was important to recognize the need for better data.
"In terms of instituting the right regulations, we are on track. But what is the baseline for success? I think the government is doing a lot, but what is lacking is the proper starting point for comparisons," she said.
"While the National Labor Force Survey [Sakernas], conducted by the Central Statistics Agency, for instance, collects data on the issue [of child labor], it doesn't deal with the informal sector such as child domestic workers or trafficked children. It also includes all children under 18 years old.
"The National Socio-Economic Survey [Susenas] also provides info on children working in households, but still publishes different figures. Compared still to the International Labor Organization's reports, it's also different," Santi said.
Seto Mulyadi, a child psychologist who is also an adviser for the National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas PA), agreed that although the government has made strides on certain child labor issues, it must work harder to protect Indonesian children. "The rights of a child are to study, play and enjoy their childhood," he said.
The report suggests that in order to eliminate the worst forms of child labor in Indonesia,the government must "ensure self-employed children and children who do not have clear wage relationships, including children who work in agricultural, domestic service, and work on the street, are protected by laws."
Furthermore, it says that Indonesia must track its number of child-labor inspections, enhance coordination between local and national governments and bolster funding for child labor inspections so officials can properly enforce child labor laws.