Save the Children - Textiles without Child Labour
The textile industry in Vietnam is booming with many small family owned workshops supplying garments to larger factories for both export and internal markets.. Despite legislation, thousands of children between the ages of 13 – 16, sometimes younger, work up to 17 hours per day sewing garments for around £10 per month. The majority of these children are rural migrants with no access to school or health care. Working in unregulated environments they are highly dependent on their employers, easily exploited and at risk of sexual abuse, violence and work place injuries.
In 2011, TRAID has funded Save the Children with £67,495 to deliver a ground breaking project to build the capacity of local authorities to create a child friendly textile industry, to change attitudes to child labour at all levels, and to advocate for this work to be replicated across Vietnam.
The project will take place in three districts in Ho Chi Minh City in partnership with the Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (DOLISA). With a child protection system currently being implemented in Vietnam, local authorities are putting new plans of action in place to support vulnerable children; making this the ideal time to address the needs of children working in the textile industry.
Save the Children and DOLISA will work directly with at least 500 child labourers to help them go to school, grow up healthy, understand their rights and have the power to voice them in future. Children under the age of 15 will be removed from work, and a trained social worker will help them to go to school, or to return to their home village if they are willing. If the child is homeless, they will be given access to shelters run by Civil Society Organisations or DOLISA.
With the support of Save the Children, DOLISA will lead a Project Management Committee to draft new standards based on existing laws to ban children under the age of 15 from working in textile factories, while ensuring good conditions and contracts for children between the ages of 15 – 18. DOLISA officials will be trained to recognise, monitor and promote ‘free from child labour’ workshops in the city, and those that meet these standards will be awarded a ‘free from child labour’ mark.
Many small workshops supply larger factories to help them meet their orders and vitally, the project will also engage with these factories to persuade them to place orders with workshops not using child labour. It is anticipated that this will prove a major incentive for workshops to change their working practices.
As part of this process, DOLISA will carry out the first child focussed assessment of textile workshops in the city, counting each workshop, mapping the conditions of child workers and building a complete picture of the risks faced by children, as well as the opportunities for change.
This project is taking the first urgently needed steps towards developing child friendly standards in small workshop environments in Vietnam, and significantly, it is the first time that any authority has taken action to improve conditions in textile workshops.
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