Regional conference of education trade unions on the elimination of child labor

 

Tirana, 20 – 21 October 2006

 

 

Conference Report

 

I.      Objective
II.      Participants
III.   Proceedings
1.     Albanian Education Unions against child labor
2.     FSASH / SPASH Unions and Child Labor
3.     Romania
4.     Bulgaria
5.     Serbia
6.     Bathore session
7.     Moldova
8.     Macedonia
9.     Kosovo
10.   Montenegro
11.   IPEC and Trade Unions in Central and Eastern Europe
12.   Discussion Session
13.   Group work
(i)         Education Unions versus Child Labor
(ii)        Child Labor Legislation
(iii)       Child Labor Monitoring System
14.   Concluding remarks

 

 

I.          Objective

 

The regional conference was organized by FSASH and SPASH, in collaboration with ILO-IPEC, in Tirana on 20-21 October with the objective to contribute to the progressive elimination of child labor, including child trafficking by enabling and encouraging the trade unions to decide on specific steps on the elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor. Trade unions representatives from Albania and the region gathered to share information about their activities on the elimination of child labor which would eventually lead to strengthened capacities to implement new approaches of child labor educational programs. The conference aimed to foster coordinated actions at the regional level in order to contribute to greater awareness and visibility of child labor issues.

II.         Participants

 

More than 60 representatives from the Albanian trade unions, employers’ organizations, and governmental institutions as well as 16 education trade union leaders from Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Moldova  attended the conference. 4 representatives from FNV/AOb, 2 from ILO-IPEC Geneva and Bucharest, 1 from Education International and a freelance journalist on behalf of FNV took also part actively in the Conference. 

The main beneficiaries of the workshop included teachers and other trade union leaders, representatives from NGOs, employers’ organizations, government officials and other IPEC counterparts who will also participate in the workshops and other activities organized as follow-up activities to the Conference during the next two years. The experience and information sharing by unionist teachers will eventually benefit the working children and all the children at risk in the region.

III.   Proceedings

 

1st DAY – 20 October 2006

1. Albanian Education Unions against child labor

In his speech Mr. Xhafer Dobrushi, the Chairman of the Trade Union Federation of Education and Science of Albania, focused on the work that FSASH and the Independent Trade Union of Albanian Education, SPASH, two Albanian education trade unions, have carried out over several years. Reference was made to the Project “Empowering Education Trade-Unions in Albania” for the period January 2005 - December 2006 which was the product of a close and qualitative cooperation between the two Albanian education trade-unions and the Confederation of Dutch Trade-unions, FNV, and the Dutch Education Trade-Union, AOb, which provided financial and technical support for capacity building and other activities in the framework of the whole Project.

The involvement of the education trade-unions in activities designed to prevent the worse and illegal forms of child labour and the consequences of this phenomenon, is a mission deriving from their being social partners.

For over a decade since early 1990s, it has been impossible for the education trade-unions to cope simultaneously with both the social and economic protection of the teachers and workers of the sectors of education and science, and with the social, scientific and teaching issues of our school, and the process of its reform and modernisation. The very difficult conditions of the transition period, the requests of teachers and workers of the education sector concerning pay rises, improvement in the remuneration system, the working hours and conditions, the breaks, employment, and trade-unionist freedoms allowed no room for other activities. Trade unions were lacking in the experience and force to negotiate for, to provide arguments in favour of, and resolve these requests, as well as to draft and enforce effective collective contracts built on a sound legal basis. Therefore, they focused their efforts, their energies and their movements almost entirely on the presentation and protection of the social and economic requests and interests of the members they represented, and of the workers in the education sector, overall.

Between 1998 and 2000, as both the education trade unions engaged themselves in the process of the reform and modernisation of education, the first trade union activities in protection of children were recorded. The programme addressing the harmful and illegal forms of child labour started to get planned in a better way. In the framework of the programmes undertaken by the International Confederation of the Free Trade-Unions, ICFTU, and the Education International, EI, too, efforts were initially focussed on a programme designed to raise awareness among the trade-union leaders, teachers and trade-unionists. Several surveys have found that, even though the phenomenon surrounding drop-out and child labour was widespread and of concern nationwide, the teachers and trade-unionists had minimal knowledge of the contemporary standards of how to tackle this phenomenon, with their interest to prevent this phenomenon being low.

Our efforts to cope with this situation also mark the beginning of cooperation with ILO-IPEC in Tirana. This has been a non-stop cooperation, which continues to this very day. Initially starting with training of trade unions leaders not only from education sector, but also from other branch trade unions involved in this issue and then through a region-based programme in Tirana, Vlora and Pogradec. In the framework of this programme, about seventy teachers and trade-union leaders from these areas were trained, and concrete activities designed to improve the situation, especially in the schools in which the participants in these training courses taught, were undertaken.

Drawing on the experience and achievements gained, during 2005, along with the training that took place in the Districts of Elbasan, Korça and Berat, the book “Trade-unions and Child Labour” was published and promoted. There was also a follow-up of the implementation of the action plans elaborated in the course of the regional workshops held in these districts.

ILO-IPEC in Tirana has always had a direct impact also on the involvement of our trade unions in joint activities of the organisations and associations operating in this area, on the promotion and delivery of the Package SCREAM, as well as on the engagement of the representatives from the trade unions in the system of monitoring of the child labour.

Very important and useful has been the collaboration with AOb/FNV. Parallel with these activities and building on the achievements attained in process,
in 2002, through mediation of the Education International, EI, we started to cooperate with the Dutch Education Trade-union, AOb, with the Foundation NOVIB, and later on, with the Confederation of Dutch Trade-unions, FNV. During the first stage of this cooperation covering the period between 2002 and 2003, trade-union leaders and activists, especially at the first and second level, were trained in the framework of the programme “For enhancing the effectiveness of the education trade-unions in Albania, reinforcing democracy and modernising the school.” This helped improve the quality of negotiations, and the selection of the numerous trade-union requests.

According to the data available to the Ministry of Education and Science during the academic year 2002-2003, when the Project was developed, the number of pupils who had left compulsory education amounted to about 7,700, or about 1.5 per cent, of the total count of pupils at a national level. What was of concern was the fact that this was not a reliable figure. Even though, overall, there is a tendency for this number of drop, the potential risk is a major one, because the number of pupils attending school on an irregular basis, who have a poor performance at school, who work out in the street, or in other forms of work, and who are potential candidates to drop out of school at any time, is very high. On the basis of rough calculations and a few surveys carried out, this number varies between 40,000 and 50,000 children across the country.

Under the said conditions, in consultation and cooperation with our counterparts of the education trade-unions in The Netherlands, AOb, and with support from the Confederation of Dutch Trade-unions, FNV, the programme “Empowering Education Trade-unions in Albania,” with one of the main highlights being the role in and commitment of the education trade-unions to the gradual reduction in and elimination of child labour, started to be carried out in the early 2005. We focused on the four most problematic regions: the Regions of Tirana, Shkodra, Fier and Elbasan, in which the number of pupils who had dropped out of school amounted to about 40 per cent of the total number of pupils who had dropped out at a national level.
In the four districts we have been working during the past two years the number of pupils, who abandon school, has been reduced and many of those, who had abandoned school, have returned to classes.
The consistent and dedicated work of the teachers in Fier district has led to the return of about 90 pupils, 40 of them from Roma community, to their classes.  This was mainly achieved in Levan Commune, where the working group one of Fier has focused its efforts.  Some teachers of “Dino Ismaili” school have distinguished themselves with their good results.
About 110 pupils returned to school in Elbasan district thanks to the practical work done by some teachers of “De Rada” School and the good coordination of work between the unions and Aid for Children Association, which is supported by ILO-IPEC.
The qualification work in Shkoder district has led to some practical actions, particularly in some town schools.  About 90 pupils have returned to school and the efforts of the teachers of “Pashko Vasa” School for this purpose are commendable.
The activities organized in the framework of the project in the area of Kamze and, particularly in Bathore, as well as the coordination of the activities with “Our Home Bathorja” Association, the school administrations, and the local government authorities led to the return of about 220 pupils to school, particularly pupils in Bathore 1 and Bathore 2 schools.

There is a general agreement that the most widespread forms of child labor are agricultural work, employment of children aged under 16 in production of shoes and clothes, construction work, work in streets and small markets, car wash, search of garbage in the streets or garbage cans, washing car windows, begging, and participation in other forms of informal economy. Under these circumstances, the education unions need to involve the unions of other professions and the other two big confederations in the fight against child labor. Some steps have already been taken to discuss this problem with the unions of agriculture, trade, health, construction, textile-handicraft, and others, but much more efforts are needed in the future.      

Mr. Genc Pollo, the Albanian Minister of Education addressed the conference by saying that this was the first time that the minister attended a union’s event. There has already been a good cooperation for more than a year and the today’s meeting is evidence of this.

The conference addresses some of the most vulnerable strata of the society and strongly relates to the educational standards. The child labor is very relevant and we discussed it some days ago with the unions and UNICEF. There is a need that the government and the society at large should undertake concrete and well-planned actions to address the issue of child labor. This is very important and the MOLSA has its own responsible unit working entirely on this. However, there is e lot of scope for the Ministry of Education. We all see children working at the traffic lights to win their daily living and being exploited in such an undignified manner. Schools are the first institutions that we should be working on and we have to undertake concerted efforts.

Preventive work should be part of the curricula in such matters. Child labor, trafficking, migration, children rights and exploitation and the most important to make children able to deal with any of these forms. Other informative matters will be in the focus – sports, music, theater, and extra-curricular activities such as festivals competitions, championships. They offer another kind of support that the teaching process fails to do. All these efforts will address the school drop out phenomenon. However, the engagement of all partners such as unions and others will be necessary, The Ministry of Education will offer all the necessary support as needed.

On behalf of a 4 persons delegation from the Netherlands Mr. Leo Mesman, Policy Adviser of FNV Mondiaal started by saying they hoped that all participants after the conference would return home with new inspiration and concrete ideas on how to contribute to the prevention and elimination of child labor.                      

The FNV is the largest trade union confederation in the Netherlands, representing nearly 1.2 million members, which is about 60 % of all unionized workers. The project cooperation in the Central and Eastern Europe region is a regular part of the
programme of FNV Mondiaal, the special FNV Department for international project
cooperation and other forms of international solidarity. This has not always been the case: originally, when our department was established 30 years ago, it was only focusing on trade unions in developing countries. But after the wave of democratic changes in Eastern Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many needs and possibilities for exchange and cooperation emerged. Therefore, we have started to fund a growing number of projects in the so-called transition countries, both with bilateral and multilateral partners, especially the Global Union Federations like IUF and ICEM and the ICFTU.

FNV Mondiaal has three priority issues in its programming of projects: the recognition of trade union rights; the strengthening and innovation of trade unions and corporate social responsibility.   

In our project support programme for Central and Eastern Europe we consider the region of South Eastern Europe to be an area of priority, for the following reasons. We are aware that the process of transition and modernization in your countries has been seriously delayed and complicated by the violent conflicts that burst out in the beginning of the nineties. They have caused tremendous human suffering, posttraumatic psychological problems and social and economic costs. In our view the building of a sustainable situation of peace and prosperity in this region is of common interest to all nations and peoples in Europe, not the least to the workers. Trade unions in South East Europe need our support in playing their indispensable role in the process of reconciliation and of social en economic innovation.

We believe trade union solidarity, both within the region itself and internationally, can contribute greatly to the chances of attaining a better future for all. AOb, together with its sister organisations, developed and implemented a number of bilateral projects in almost all countries in South East Europe, including the one in Albania, of which this conference is part of. In addition, some other significant projects are supported by the FNV and its affiliates in cooperation with the ICFTU in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo and with IUF and ICEM in the whole SEE region. The main goal of all these projects is to strengthen and innovate trade unions, internally, but also externally. For everywhere we see that unions as social partners are severely challenged by neo- liberal policies of governments and employers.

Even after many years of heavy and continued efforts this job is still not finished. In the view of FNV Mondiaal the strengthening and innovation of trade unions is also closely linked with a number of specific issues, namely improving the position of women, organizing workers in the informal economy, the fight against HIV/AIDS and the fight against all forms of child labor. These challenges are interlinked with each other and all contribute to the process of modernising trade union structures, cultures and strategies.

The fight against all forms of child labor is a major concern of FNV Mondiaal. We are happy to share this concern with a large group of national and international institutions like ILO, governments and NGO's. In our view trade unions have special reasons, responsibilities and possibilities to contribute to the containment and elimination of child labor. The eradication of child labor is part of a core trade union task, namely the promotion and protection of human and labor rights at the work place. The most relevant labor standards, enshrined in ILO Conventions and to be applied and protected universally, are: the freedom to organise and bargaining collectively and the freedom from forced labor, child labor and discrimination at the work place. These rights and freedoms are mutually interdependent and reinforcing.

A second crucial principle in the trade union approach of child labor is the interrelation between the abolition of all forms of child labor and the universal and undeniable right of all children to basic education. But it is clear that education trade unions have their own special interests, responsibilities and possibilities to contribute to the fight against child labor. More than 10 years FNV Mondiaal has been supporting projects against child labor with trade union partners in developing countries, especially Asia. The education trade unions in Albania FSASH and SPASH are our first partners in Central and Eastern Europe that have shown the courage and the conviction to take up the new challenge of the prevention and elimination of child labor and to make it a responsibility and task of teachers and their unions and to seek cooperation with other relevant stakeholders.

Mr. Geir Myrstad, the Deputy Director of ILO/IPEC focused on the implementation of programs against child labor and the role that teachers’ unions can play in fighting child labor as an extension of the work they do.

It is very appropriate to meet in Albania for its outstanding commitment against the child labor. Yet what we have achieved is only the beginning. There are good opportunities laying ahead for Albania. Albania is to become an initiative for the Education for All initiative with the main goal of elimination of child labor in Albania.

ILO 2006 report on child labor proposes for member states to commit themselves. We see result in Albania and the elimination is possible if the government makes the right policy choice and there exist a broad alliance. This is a good example and together we can do it.

Ms. Donatella Montaldo, the representative of Education International, started by saying that child labor today affects 218 millions children worldwide. Agriculture fields, mines and factories are places where child labor is most visible but there are also more hidden forms, such as domestic work, sexual exploitation, slavery and trafficking. At the same time, over 100 million children in the world are not attending school. These two realities are inextricably linked and we cannot afford to neglect them. The elimination of child labor is a main goal of Education International (El) in the context of its pursuit of human and trade union rights. Advocacy activities in this area are conducted through joint efforts within the trade union movement. At present Education International represents over 29 millions of teachers worldwide operating in 162 countries and territories, and involving more than 338 member organizations. This provides a remarkable network of key actors in the fight against child labor.

El can contribute to the fight against child labor in two major ways: Through the trade union movement and through the Education for All Campaign. El is part of the trade union movement and as such it has enormous capacity to unite its members worldwide as a unique force on a specific issue, such as child labor. Action such as this also has the capacity to positively impact country policies. El is an organization focused on achieving the right to quality education for all through publicly funded and publicly regulated systems of education, a critical tool in the battle against child labor.

Education International tackles child labor in the context of the Education For All (EFA) initiative. EFA is a global commitment to provide quality basic education for all children, youth and adults. Governments, UN bodies, development agencies, civil society, non-government organizations and the media are partners of this initiative. Following the meeting of the High Level Group on EFA in Beijing in November 2005 Education International was invited to join the newly established Global Task Force on Child Labor and Education For All. The Global Task Force (GTF) includes the ILO, UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Bank and the Global March against Child Labor. Education International gladly accepted the invitation to participate as it considers this initiative a very positive step in moving forward the agenda to eliminate child labor. El is now a member of the GTF.

For Education International prevention is one of the main tools to work against child labor. Going to school is the best way to keep children away from work. This does not only mean fulfilling their right to education. Keeping them in the educational system will, in the long term, also generate adults, equipping their country of residence with better human resources and thus enhancing the countries' social and economic development. Strengthening national policies on education and child labor through the promotion of compulsory education, universal access, free and quality Education For All has always and still is the cornerstone of teacher unions worldwide. Reducing the number of children that drop out of schools and go to work, attracting and retaining current and former working children and those at risk are areas where teachers and teacher unions are best equipped to intervene.

Teachers' involvement in child labor monitoring can also make a difference. Teachers and their organizations are in a key position to monitor child labor, as they interact daily with child workers, ex-workers and children at risk. They normally have a wide access to children and their parents in the communities. This allows them to more easily identify working children who are not attending school, regularly or at all, which is the first step of a child labor monitoring programme. Recognizing the sectors or forms of child labor in the communities, creating child labor committees in schools and informing parents, local and national authorities on the issues are the next steps in a monitoring system to which teachers can significantly contribute.

The President of The Independent Trade Unions of Albania, Mr. Gezim Kalaja, in his address indicated that the presence of both Albanian education unions here is a good sign of cooperation. This means that new perspectives of unification of union movements are opening to Albania. Both unions have worked well and cooperated with the Ministry of Education for the collective contracts as well as for the new approaches to education reform that is yielding initial results starting from this academic year. The improvement of teachers’ salaries was a fulfilled promise of the government of Albania. For 2007 apart from the 20 percent increase we hope that salaries will increase with another 15-20 percent. These are direct results of the work of both unions which are now both able to deal with critical situations. Our joint work should be a best practice for other unions and will hopefully lead to the unification of all the sector unions in Albania.

The 2nd section of the first day was dedicated to the experience available in order to identify best practices and lessons learned. The specific objective of the session was to hear about experiences and particularly focus on the issue how the fight against child labor can help strengthening the unions. The session started with a consolidated movie clip prepared by ILO/IPEC capturing the child labor issues in the region. It aims to provide a good outline of the situation of child labor in the region. The session continued with presentation from various countries.

2. FSASH / SPASH Unions and Child Labor

In his presentation, Mr. Stavri LIKO, pointed out that FSASH and SPASH are the biggest and the most important sector trade unions in Albania. They include more than 70 percent of 44,000 education sectors employees. They are members in the main trade unions umbrellas in the country KSSH, BSPSH as well as EI and Pan European Structures. Their work can be divided in two main different stages:

Child labor is an important trade union issue. Since the child labor flourishes in the informal sector, unions should also get organized in that sector too if they want to preserve and expand their numeric strength. Child labor undermines the negotiating leverage of the unions since it is low cost work and causes the lowering of the wages which affects the negotiating strength of the unions. Child labor contributes to adult unemployment since with a very low wage a child may replace an adult work position.
The main characteristic of trade unions is solidarity and social justice. Hence there is a strong role for the education unions since many features of the child labor are directly linked with the school as an institution. Continuing absences, lack of schools near the inhabited areas, school dismissals, poor results and the lack of will for education are just a few to mention. School drop out is the first step leading to child labor with 70 percent of working children having abandoned school and the other 30 percent work and pretend to continue to go to school. During the 2004-2005 academic year more than 7000 pupils, 48 % of which in the main cities have abandoned school. This means that there is a stronger role for the teachers and education trade unions.

The Albanian education trade unions have a long history in the child labor issues in the framework of programmes of ICFTU and EI in 1998-2000 and from 2001 and on in cooperation with ILO-IPEC. Starting from 2002 a close cooperation with AOb/FNV should also be noted. In October 2004 a conference was organized with the theme “Trade Unions against the Child Labor in Albania in cooperation with ICFTU –KSSH/BSPSH, FSASH – ILO IPEC which worked towards a national plan of action against child labor. The main areas of work consist in:

As far as the cooperation with ILO/IPEC, activities started in 2001-2002 with the training of the education unions’ leaders not only from education sector, but also from other branch trade unions and continued with the implementation of a programme of action in 2003 with training of 70 unionists in Tirana, Vlora and Pogradec. Other trainings followed suit in 2005 in Elbasan, Korce and Berat on the SCREAM package.

The current results are also mainly due to the cooperation with AOb/FNV, starting with their support from 2002 to our union and directly related to the child labor in 2005. With their support we are working at the local level focusing on 4 districts and over 40 schools by training local leaders (more than 100 in 4 seminars) and including in our work the school administrations, local government, police and the pupils themselves.
Being focussed in concrete and resultative work, especially in the schools, through a concrete engagement of the working groups in district and school levels has been the main approach of our work.
 
The main objective of the work done in the framework of AOb/FNV project, has been to reduce the number of working children and to bring back to school the ones that had abandoned school and in the same time take preventive measures against the drop out phenomenon. There have already been results where in Fier 90 children out of a total of 400 (40 from the Roma community) have escaped the drop out risk or have returned back to school.  Respective results for other cities are 110 out of 470 in Elbasan, 220 out of 1297 and Shkodra 90 out of 551. Best practices include also the cooperation between the two education unions, the use of collective contracting against child labor.

The work continues and the gathered experience constitutes a good ground for the future. 8 schools will be piloted in Fier and Tirana and other districts such as Durres and Korca will be included in the focus of work and teachers and pupils themselves will also be included in the training scheme. 

3. Intervention from AOb representative, Mr. Marten Kircz, who gave a detailed information about the AOb work in Morocco and gave some evaluations regarding his engagement in training seminars in Albania.
He appreciated very much the concrete work done by working groups in both cases and  encouraged such a work based in the schools also for the future activities, also collaborating with parents and pupils themselves as the basis for concrete results.  

4. Romania

The Romanian team presented the project of Employment promotion for children/ youth vulnerable to trafficking and their adult family members from Bucharest. The project is implemented from CSDR - Democratic Trade Union Confederation of Romania and FSLI – Free Trade Union Federation of Education with technical and financial support from ILO IPEC. Partners of the project include:
 

The main objectives of the project were the elimination of child labor and preventing child trafficking; Prevention of school dropouts; raising awareness about Romanian labor legislation and legal work conditions. The final outcome of the project consisted in 30 youth and 15 adults to be employed on labor market. Target groups consisted of:

The services offered included:

As the result of work 102 children were conciliated, 26 parents received some of the services, 13 youth employed over the summer and are still working for supporting themselves through school and 12 youth involved in vocational courses for waiter, cook, pc operator, hairstylist, etc

5. Bulgaria

The Bulgarian presentation started by stating the reasons for occurrence of child labor in Bulgaria which consisted in the following:

                        - the children are easy to control
                        - their labor is cheaper
                        - they are not able to organize and protect themselves
                        - their dismissal is easy

Child labor has many consequences specifically affecting the lower level and quality of the education of the children: it increases the work related accidents and the development of various diseases and on a general note it damages the moral principles and endangers the children’s safety. There are four types of forms of child labor, which the international community considers as very terrifying:

The first three of them are responsibility mainly of the police departments and the last one of the labor inspections. Sectors where child labor is observed in Bulgaria include:

A national study was done during 2000 on the problems of child labor in transition in Bulgaria. It was done with the financial support of ILO and IPEC and made by scientific team from the Institute of sociology of BAS and the Institute of social and trade union research of CITUB. The results from the research were published during 2001 and they still remain the only data about child labor in Bulgaria. According to the data:

The sudden decrease of the incomes and the living standards creates difficulty for more than 30% of the families with children of school age to meet the expenses connected with the education /textbooks, transportation, etc./ and applies pressure (especially in some ethnic minorities) for early involvement of the children in activities for the support of the family. The education is a critical point: the children who do not start school at the determined age and the ones who drop out prematurely are around 7%. The workload with different kind of activities referring to economical involvement, home farming and household labor or not working at all shows statistical difference in the various ethnical groups. The research shows that serious problems exist in connection with the realization of Convention N 182 of ILO. Hard physical labor as paid workers was practiced by 5.4% of the economically active children, 4.2% or 5000 from the children participating in the research were practicing activities in potentially health hazardous working environments. The street begging is a problem which we see every day. In the child prostitution which according to experts represents a real problem children of all ethnical groups are involved and it is already an element of the organized criminal activity. About 3.3% from the economically busy children were involved in prostitution. Over 90% of the yearly sentences of children are for theft by somebody else’s order.

From the total number of children accounted in the child pedagogy rooms during 2005 as uncontrolled /children under 18 years of age without care of their parents or guardians/ are 514 children – there is 89.7 % increase from 2004 when their number was 217. Children aged 14-18 represent 52.3 % from the total number of uncontrolled children, accounted in the child pedagogy rooms. The data shows that 1.8% of the children have shown that they have health problems, connected with the fulfillment of their work requirements. The research shows that 61.3% of the employers who participated think that it is normal for children under 17 years of age to work for payment, 42.5% that in their sector there are activities which can be executed by children.

6. Serbia

The ILO Convention No 182 (the worst forms of child labor) was ratified in Serbia on 31.01.2003. There is also national legislation such as the Family Law (harmonized with European standards) that gives business capacities to a 15-year-old child allowing them to handle earned money; and the Labor Law that sanctions the lower age limit for employment is 15 years. However there is a need for both legislations to be harmonized and the monitoring will be introduced in implementation of new legislation.

There is currently no data of misuse according to reports from labor inspection. The Ministry of Labor claims there is no violation of Law, but there are no official statistics. The National Employments Service accounts 1 million unemployed with 0,6% being under the age of 18. There are no bodies for juvenile protection and child labor is believed to be happening in the “grey economy” and there are evidences of it in the rural areas. Despite the lack of data, child labor in Serbia is believed to consisting in begging, selling, vagrancy, prostitution and pornography. In addition, the number of deprived children from parents is increased from 190 in 1998 to 263 in 2002. Police registered during the period 2000 – 2004 294 cases of human trafficking with 11% being juveniles, 244 cases of statutory rapes, 3 cases of pornography, 23 cases of prostitution, almost 45.000 cases of begging and vagrancy, more then 400 children on the streets.

The first survey on ”Child Labor in Serbia”, undertaken by the Center for child rights in 2006 identified two groups at risk Roma children and children in families under system of social care (682 adults and children). A third of Roma children have their own experience in work to earn money for themselves and families and 92% of them would like to choose school, not work.

The passing rate in elementary schools in last 15 years is 96,2% - 99,5% and repeating rates is 0,3% - 2,0%. Drop out rates have varied between 0,3% - 2,0% and in 2002 being 0,5%. Almost 3000 of children are out of regular education in Serbia with the Roma children barely accessing the administrative, health and education systems.

Serbia’s presentation was the last one before the visit to Bathore. The common agreement after the presentations was that it is very important to have information and data as the Serbia presentation showed. It is also really important to have a national policy so the union may find a role to play. The discussion focused on how working on the child labor can help the unions strengthen? Albanian unions have succeeded to put the issue upfront with the government but a structural approach will make sure that this item remains in the top list of the agenda. Social partners in Moldova in cooperation with the federation of employers in Moldova are negotiation collectively regarding the child labor. These are difficult negotiations. The federation is not very developed and they are not concerned with this issue right now.

7. Bathore session

Bathore is an informal area that has been created during the past 10 years. It is a dwelling place and every one is a newcomer. They come from northeastern areas and they are very fond of education. With regard to the worst forms of child labor the community in Bathore faces similar problems. But the unions have tried to deal with them in different way. This meeting that took place in the Bathore School served to exchange experience while being aware that much remains to be done. The purpose was to define certain significant problems with which the community will deal in the future. The format of the meeting was on questions and answers basis and the panel included teachers, the headmaster, representative from the parents’ committee and the school senate as well as unionists from the region as well as other regions in Albania.

There is a distinct characteristic of this region that people come from various regions which poses difficulties with coming students. There are 84 newcomers pupils only for this year and the difficulties are of a complex nature. For instance the teaching and learning levels are different. They also face economic difficulties which impacts their school attendance. According to a study in Bathore, 34 percent of the population is between 6-18 years old. There are 2626 students in both primary and secondary schools and there are 340 in the kindergartens. Moreover, Bathore comprises 7 units and it is difficult to have access to the centre since there is a wide geographical area that also contributes to the drop out cases.

These problems do not exist only in Bathore. For instance in Elbasan poor households receive no social assistance and therefore they send their children working. In Shkodra there are no schools for each quarter so many kids have to come all the way down town. Some of them do not register whereas some others register and do not attend school.

Recently, with the new organization in the schooling system in Albania, school boards have been established. They have a certain decision making power. The presence of the parents in this school institution has helped tackling some of these issues.

A question was asked on how it can be ensured that children do not go back to labor after returning to school. The characteristic of the work in Bathore is the fact that work is considered as a whole process. Meetings take place with representatives from the police, the region, prefecture municipality and the chamber of commerce. Everyone needs to be on board and training sessions have been organized on this with the help of the unions and Dutch organizations.

The students’ government has also been established. They are aware about the school problems and this has also led to teachers becoming quite closer to the students. As a result of this cooperation some students have returned back to school this year.

A practical experience from a teacher who has been working for 8 years in these issues was presented. During these 8 years 10 students have been brought back to school through a personal approach. Issues have been discussed with the class council and a dropouts group was established. Family visits took place and the community was involved. Particular effort had taken place to work together with the municipality, the headmaster and the head of the union. Last year 2 girls abandoned schools for 2 months but there were back after our work. They are now here present and they are currently going to extra-curricular courses during the weekends. All these students that were brought back to school now are working as drivers, tailors due to our collegial work.

During 2004 there were 304 dropout cases and in 2006 the figure stands at 230. They are from different age groups. In 1991 when the first families arrived at the municipality of Kamza, there were one primary schools and one middle school. Now there are 8 primary schools and 3 high schools. At the beginning both 6 year olds and 9 year olds were enrolled in the same first class. This was not normal but there were no facilities. A new building was built by the contribution of Co-Plan but there is a poor library, and there are scarce sport and play grounds and there are no sufficient equipment to nurture the pupils’ talents. Moreover, there are no special arrangements for the disabled children.

There is an ongoing project from the Ministry of Labor regarding the street children. Unions have been incorporated in the project. However, there are problems. Kids work to sustain the family for purely economic reasons because 35 percent of people live below the poverty line. It is difficult to attract this category since due to some legislation shortcoming the newcomers do not benefit from the social assistance. We have tried to employ someone else from the family or tried to provide food assistance. Arguments to bring them back to school are directly related to the ones that why they do not come to school. This is a slow process that requires patience and results take time to arrive.
 
People involved are teachers and have their own work and families and we know that quality teaching requires a lot of effort. A question was asked where do teachers find the time to work and meet with all these people and institutions? As this work is being done after classes – is it paid? How do teachers do it? Is it just about enthusiasm?

Another teacher from a school in Shkodra shared her experience. The first thing to be done is to get to know the family conditions. This obviously takes place after the teaching class. This is not done on an official capacity but as parents that we are ourselves trying to build a human bridge. We have sought help from the local authorities and associations but the caretaker teachers do the major work. Teachers are not paid about this. Teachers in Albania carry a lot of sacrifices – school, family kids and only get paid for the state work.

The core of the problem is to raise the teachers’ awareness that this is their job. It is not about enthusiasm but it is about the job and its functions. The other aspect is that both unions are negotiating with the MoE that for teachers that have results in this activities for their sacrifices and extra work their work to be compensated. But sending kids back to school is the greatest compensation of all.

The role of the sector unions was also touched upon. The work of the education union is to be praised but the agriculture sector is also relevant. Kids work in family agriculture and all these are risks, as this work constitutes a breach of their rights to the childhood. Unions need to get together and work. Construction unions’ work is also relevant. Some construction companies employ minors and they are totally at risk. Other unions such as the health ones can contribute for specific issues such as health care.

There are other problems most tangible in Shkodra mainly related to blood feuds. However, the problem is not that big as the perception may be. A teacher from Shkodra and member of the Peace Ambassadors shared her experience from the Pashko Vasa School that gathers many pupils that suffer from blood feuds. Teachers work closely with these cases as these children stay locked up in their homes from the fear that they will get killed as soon as they walk out. A group of journalists from the Italian TV were impressed from a 9 year old who said that he only had 2 friends – the sun and my teacher. Teachers visit these kids after the classes. They live far away sometimes and they face issues of poverty and at the same time the fear of being killed. However, they are eager to learn and there have been some results by working together with the German Caritas to reconcile the feuding families. Despite the results the phenomenon does still exist and there are 9 pupils in this school under the conditions of blood feud.

The meeting in Bathore agreed in a series of issues to be considered and followed up in the future by the unions and other stakeholders:

2nd DAY – 21 October 2006

The second day started with the continuation of the country presentations.

8. Moldova

Moldovan delegation offered their experience of organizing different activities like competitions, sports or theatres dedicated to the 1st of June – Child day with the initiative of the construction and education federation unions. They are funded from the trade unions budget. The target group is the employees’ children as well as street children.

The convention 182 is ratified now and the unions have been working towards the collective contracting with the intention to sign a collective tri-partite agreement. Social partners in Moldova in cooperation with the federation of employers in Moldova are negotiating collectively regarding the child labor and they are proving to be difficult since the federation is not very developed and this issue is not a priority right now.

9. Macedonia

The union is not directly involved with social partners in regard to child conventions and it is not directly engaged with institutions. Activities began in 2001 and a union movement did not exist before that. Employers were forced to sign collective contracts and now the focus is shifting on child rights with the hope that soon there will be results delivered in this respect.

Unions in Macedonia should be focusing more on the implementation of UN child conventions. At the same time, the state structures should pay more attention to the rights of children. However, the education union in Macedonia works to address the drop out phenomenon due to poverty and social conditions. 90 percent of teachers and professional employers are members of the union. Our task is to engage in social dialogue since bad economic situation leads to child exploitation.

Although the data available are not comprehensive, only 80 percent of the children enrolled are able to complete their elementary school studies. Even those who complete often do not continue the secondary education. The Ministry has been asked to provide figures and about 60 percent of those continue in the high school and around 90 percent of them manage to finish it.

There is also a specific issue about the Roma children that work on unqualified labor. Only 20 percent of them go to elementary schools and a big number of this population is illiterate. Our union is convincing the government to implement a national plan of education accompanied by legal provisions and mechanisms to prevent dropouts and measures for those to return.

10.       Kosovo

The education system in Kosovo during the past two decades has gone through many changes and challenges. Following the parallel institutions prior to the war, the education conditions were very difficult. After the war, the country is going through a total transition and this is the case with the education system too. A comprehensive reform is underway with the intention to establish western parameters and standards. The current motto is education for all meaning that all the children and youth in Kosovo should be able to enjoy equal education opportunities and guaranteeing the elementary right to education. However, there are negative phenomena such as school dropout and child labor. School drop out is a real issue in the rural areas. Aware about the problem, the Ministry of Education and UNICEF completed a study that gathered important data. It also defined the main reasons and determinants of the dropout and the forms and possible ways of combating this phenomenon. While the total numbers of students have increased, a reduction in school dropout cases is noticed. During the year 2002/03 the number of girls that abandoned school was smaller compared to boys, it appears that now their number has overtaken the boys’ dropouts.

The main reasons for these cases are the difficult economic conditions, the lack of will and early employment. As this conference is showing, the economic conditions appear to be one of the main factors in our region leading to the phenomenon of child labor. As far as Kosovo is concerned, there are no accurate numbers of the working children. It is thought that the number is large and that they work in many kind of jobs which many times are inadequate for their age and psychophysical capabilities. Poverty, the war, social and cultural background of their families, inequalities, rural exodus and internal migration are believed to be the most important causes of child labor in Kosovo.

Child labor has certain consequences either for the children themselves or the society at large. First and foremost they are obliged to give up playing and their age activities necessary for the formation of their personalities. They experience poor results at school and start skipping classes that eventually leads to lower interests in learning and ultimately abandoning school. They also suffer from stress and frustration symptoms affecting their memory and concentration with serious health consequences and dysfunctional behavior leading to drug use and criminality too. 

Prevention is the best and the cheapest cure to the phenomenon. To prevent it we need to know it better. Establishing the necessary infrastructures that will prevent the exploitation of children. In addition Social Work Centres will need to intensify their work for identifying, verifying and offering professional treatment for all the cases. They will also analyze the needs assessment of the families of working children and embark on awareness work for the consequences of their work. At the same time they should offer in cooperation with employment centres help on skills and employment. A better cooperation should also be in place between these centres, schools and families and labor inspectorates to prevent the child labor.

11.   Montenegro

There are no official figures in Montenegro about illegal work of children. Union figures show that some child exploitation happens with children working sometimes in long hours, performing dangerous work and abandoning school. A UNICEF project aimed at reducing the cases of child labor and against maltreatment of children at school. Child labor is a consequence of poverty and families are forced to send children to work. Children are unprotected and there is a need to increase all efforts to protect children. Education unions can undertake specific activities in cooperation with others for unions are best placed to protect children.

12.   IPEC and Trade Unions in Central and Eastern Europe

At his presentation, the representative of ILO-IPEC Regional Office in Bucharest, Mr. Patric Daru, pointed out that at the policy level Trade Unions are members in all the National Steering Committees on the elimination of child labor while at the field level, TUs wherever possible are members of local action committees. They participate in planning exercises (SPIF) and evaluations. They work on advocacy such as the following cases:

Capacity building has also been an important aspect of work and specifically:

They also offer direct Services:

Following the achievements the next steps should ensure a greater presence at policy and field level to ensure transparency. In addition the number of collective agreements with mainstreamed child labor should be increased and the advocacy + capacity building + services work should be continued. Further and greater focus on rural areas appears to be necessary and a follow-up of the plans of action with in built M&E and the promotion of Codes of Conduct should follow suit.

13.   Discussion Session

The head of the Health Federation for Albania, Mr. Minella Mano, started by saying that the meeting in Bathore was a good experience to see what the real issues are down at the local level and it was a good and bad feeling at the same time. The union members contributions as professionals, parents and citizens are necessary to fight the child labor. Unions need to acknowledge social issues and conduct studies. We need to coordinate and understand and implement better the conventions. One of the problems that need to be tackled is the importance of ethics, behavior and manners since it is one of the main things that teachers do and convey.

The Bulgarian representative, Mrs. Yanka Takeva, mentioned that when they prepared for this conference in Bulgaria we looked back to the country’s traditions related to the problem. There are many things in common with the countries in the region – in the past we had the same system. Today we have another kind of situation – we face new developments and technologies and because money has become very important, the problem of child labor will be even more important. This is why we have to work together and tackle the issue of child labor. We must invest more money in education. It is very useful to educate children in labor traditions since it is very important. We must fight against the poverty and governments are obliged to address this. Qualification of the teachers is also important.

The Kosovo representative, Mr. Xhafer Xhaferi, reiterated the need for research. We need to know the exact numbers. We need to address the roots of the problem with all the capacities. We need to engage all the subjects that can do something in this area and work has to be systematic and cannot be done in campaigns.

Other representatives of the Albanian unions agreed with the fact that they have a duty to prevent child labor and school dropouts. At the first glance one would think that this is a problem for one or two countries. But we see that this is a problem for the whole Eastern Europe. However there should be a thorough analysis and work since school dropouts can be tracked for they are enrolled. The real problem is with those who migrate to other parts of the country and those are not registered and are difficult to track. The amount of work to get a child back to school is immense and we need to mobilize all the responsible actors. We also need to make use of how countries have tackled these issues because solidarity and exchange of information are the key words. We need to know how Ukraine and Romania have worked so we can adapt their work to our circumstances.

14.   Group work

The workshop continued with the group work following the presented guidelines. Three main themes were to be discussed and groups were multi-disciplinary central government, local government, municipality, unions and civil society. The main point of discussions are reflected below:

(i)             Education Unions versus Child Labor

After discussions, Mr. Mario Luytgaarden, the representative of FNV Holand summarized, by saing that we are talking about a Balkan problem but there are differences within the Balkans too. There are two ways of analyzing this: top down – structural issues in terms of already adapted legislation and data and the bottom up approach – just looking into a specific school. Working conditions are incomparably heavier than in Netherlands. However it is possible from the grassroots level to start with something. TU can start with just a small project for a small nucleus will work. We need to start with 1 or 2 schools and things can happen. Coordination is a key word because unions have also another big problem – getting better work conditions for their members. The Albanian best practice is proof that it is possible to go to the local level and get facts and figures. Then you can go to the government and say here are the numbers so they can do something about it.

(ii)        Child Labor Legislation

There are many problems in the field of legislation but two are the main question marks. Is there a complete legislation? How is the current legislation implemented? Discussions focused more on the implementation issue. The legal framework is based on two conventions that have been ratified by the Albanian parliament. However, there exists a huge gap from the lack of the juvenile courts and the labor courts. Kids if they are punished they are put together with adults. We need to start work with re-education institutions – schools for minors up to 14 years old. This needs to be accompanied with a detailed programme in cooperation with unions, teachers and psychologists.

With regard to the issue of school attendance discussants were of the opinion that law on penalties needs to be reformulated taking into account the actual implementation of fines. These issues need to be voiced out after the discussions at the National Council of Children. Albania has now a new practice – the Children’s Ombudsman. This office should serve to link the court activities with the real situation until we have a juvenile court and the labor court.

Another issue was about the state labor inspectorate. The legislation is based on the labor code which defines the role of the inspectorate. With regard to the implementation of the laws from the inspectorate there are many concerns and sanctions need to be imposed on the inspectorate when it does not implement legislation related to the child labor.

It was also agreed that there is a need to broaden the scope of worst forms of child labor. The Albanian government has a list of allowed jobs for children of various ages up to 16 and 16-18. However, the country is developing and new jobs are appearing therefore this list should be updated further. It has been discussed also with the MoE that teachers’ after-class work on dropout and child labor should be recognized supported financially.

The end conclusion of the group work was that unions of all levels should not just concentrate on the conditions at large but for conditions and causes for each and every child in order to be in better touch with the reality.

(iii)       Child Labor Monitoring System

The group had a lack of presentation from the local governments so a better idea would have been created on the existing data. However, it was agreed that the discussions have left out the issue of street children. This issue needs to be tackled by helping parents get employment. Unions have a role to play – and not only teachers’ unions, many sectoral unions such as health. The group 3 presented the Albanian Child Labor Monitoring System. A multidisciplinary committee is established for that purpose with members from the job centre, police, education and health departments, trade unions, social services and labor inspectorate as well as active NGOs in the field. 

63 cases have been identified thus far and a decision has been reached for 33 of them. Before reaching a decision the committee gathers information about the living and family conditions by paying visits to the homes. They also gather information from institutions in terms of income, employment and welfare status, civil registry status   as well as information with regard to school and the work children do. Local charity organizations re also contacted to see whether they received any charity help. Once this full information is gathered the case is presented in the local meeting where the decision is taken respectively to increase the social assistance benefit to the family, charity help and registration with the civil registry or work for house repairs. Teachers’ unions have been included in this work and they have been training teachers for prevention work and providing the new teachers with methods how to improve teaching quality and getting closer to the students and their problems. Governments have expressed interest to replicate this project model of monitoring system – Ukraine, Romania and even the government of Albania is also keen to do it again.

15.   Concluding remarks

After the reports from the workshops, Mr. Leo Mesman pointed out that trade unions have picked the issue of child labor and are tackling it efficiently. Albanian results are remarkable and unions should try to broaden this experience in other countries and regions. There is a certain need for coordination and Education International should play a coordinating role. New ideas were explored and in some countries things are done differently but there exist a good soil to start the work. I hope that this conference will be the beginning of the next step and I hope that Albanian unions will assist others to achieve the same results that were reached here in the last few years.

The Deputy Director of ILO-IPEC, Mr. Geir Myrstad, appreciated the organising of the Conference and pointed out the importance of the fruitful collaboration of ILO-IPEC with Albanian trade unions. He followed by saying that experience of Albanian trade unions, working concretely to prevent and eliminate child labor is valuable not only in the region, but also in Europe and wider, expressing at the same time the disposal of ILO – IPEC to continue working with trade unions and other social partners in Albania and in the region.

The representative from Education International, Ms. Donatella Montaldo, considered this a good start – the first workshop in the region that gathers so many unions. It is clear from this workshop that child labor is an issue in the region and we can agree that we cannot afford not doing anything. There is a will to tackle this issue from the teachers’ unions but commitment needs to be present from all unions. We need to have a clear plan and strategy of what the union can do to tackle this problem starting with a network of information gathering and exchange that needs to be established. We need to cooperate more with sister organizations and it is our responsibility to start by disseminating the information shared in this conference.

The Albanian unions representative Mr. Dobrushi reiterated the fact that both Albanian unions have worked together for some years against the child labor. There have been modest results and plenty of problems remain. Yesterday when we started we did not have the vision and scope of the problem in the region. Now we are aware about it due to the contribution of all the participants from the region and Albania. This helped to clarify many problems and identified new ones that unions will need to include in their plan of action. We have distributed a draft project and now received a very rich material from the discussions in the plenary and working groups.

The participation of the education unions in the National Child Protection Committee will offer the opportunity for further strengthening the links and coordinating the actions not only with the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, and Equal Opportunities, but also with the other institutions, which are active in this forum, such as the representatives of the President's office, the Government, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Justice, ILO-IPEC, employers, and non-government organizations.

We have benefited from the suggestions and assistance of the partners, who are invited to this conference, particularly the Dutch colleagues and ILO-IPEC representatives with whom we have effectively and fruitfully cooperated.  We have also listened to the opinions and proposals made by the colleagues of the other regional unions.  On the basis of all this, we think that we should build a working program to achieve our joint engagement in a common front for the protection of children and the elimination of child labor.
This will be done in Albanian and English and will be shared with colleagues and partners in the region, focusing on the main following points:

Mr. Dobrushi thanked the representatives of the Dutch unions, ILO/IPEC, EI and all the colleagues from the regions’ unions that came to talk about this imperative issue. He also thanked other unions and monitoring groups at the local level and all the participants for the contribution and assistance for the success of this conference.