A crucial step toward combating child labor is to educate and empower those who are in a position to identify incidences and take action. With this goal in mind, Verité, in partnership with Winrock International and with the support of the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL), has collaborated with the Ministry of Labor in Nepal to develop a training program to help labor inspectors fight child labor in their country.
The curriculum holds four key objectives:
- Labor inspectors should appreciate the importance of addressing child labor in their work.
- Labor inspectors should recognize their role in protecting children from exploitation.
- Labor inspectors should understand the definitions, legal frameworks and best practices for addressing child labor.
- Labor inspectors should transform the knowledge gained in the training into concrete actions that reduce the incidence of child labor and promote decent work for youth.
This past May, the curriculum launched in Nepal with five modules containing lessons and interactive exercises designed to help labor inspectors apply their learnings to real life situations. Examples of exercises include developing a strategic plan to reduce child labor, child interview techniques, planning the rescue of child laborers from the workplace, and much more. The curriculum is being introduced in print, as well as digitally installed on laptops that will be provided to field offices for a more dynamic presentation.
This training program is part of a larger USDOL-funded project called Country Level Engagement and Assistance To Reduce Child Labor II (CLEAR II). As part of the CLEAR II project, Verité and Winrock are creating additional curriculums to fight child labor for Belize, Burkina Faso, Liberia and Panama. Each curriculum is tailored to the specific sectors, laws and abuses found within the country. Upon finalization, links to each country’s curriculum will be made available.
Additional information about the Clear II project is available in a downloadable PDF.
Funding provided by the United States Department of Labor under Cooperative Agreement number IL-26260-14K. The CLEAR II project is led by Winrock International.