Yemen Observer: http://www.yobserver.com

ILO delegation to combat child labor in Yemen and present Decent Work Strategy

Posted in: Reports
Written By: Huda al-Kibsi
Article Date: Sep 18, 2007 - 12:49:36 PM
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Delegation members meet with the government to discuss steps to overcome obstacles facing the labor market in Yemen.
A delegation of the International Labour Organization Regional Office for the Arab States visited Yemen last week.
The mission’s main task is to promote the “Decent Work in Yemen” agenda and to launch the National Policies and Program Frame Work for Combating Child Labor. During the week long visit to Yemen, the delegation also worked with their Yemeni counterparts to identify the sectors where assistance of the ILO is required. 
Attainment of decent work has been a central objective of the ILO.  The organization classifies “decent work” as productive work in which rights are protected; work that generates an adequate income; and work with adequate social protection. It also means sufficient work, in the sense that all should have full access to income-earning opportunities. It marks the high road to economic and social development, a road in which employment, income and social protection can be achieved without compromising workers' rights and social standards. 
The Yemen Observer met with several members of the delegation, including Khawla Mattar, Regional Consultant for Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work; Tariq Haq, Employment Development and Strategies Officer; Jean-Francois Klein, Chief, Regional Programming Services; and Shaza al-Jundi, Chief Deputy of the Regional Programming Services. The delegation spoke about some of the problems facing the labor market in Yemen and outlined some of the steps Yemen and the ILO may take to overcome these obstacles.   

Yemen Observer: Brief us on the nature of your visit to Yemen?
Khawla Mattar: In this short visit, the delegation aim to determine the priorities of the ILO intervention and to start the implementation of decent work in Yemen. Decent work is a mechanism implemented by the ILO in many countries and is now starting in the Arab region—meaning the 12 Asian-Arab countries. It started in Oman, Jordan, Bahrain, and Syria. Yemen is the fifth country. Such work aims to find a comprehensive project to solve essential problems in the country.   

YO: How can the goal of promoting decent work be achieved? 
KM: While the Decent work concept is a package deal of our four strategic objectives, it is more than just the sum of its parts. Its added value is the integration of our strategic objectives into a policy product that responds to integrated social and economic problems. The overarching objective of the ILO has been re-phrased as the promotion of opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity. Decent work is the converging focus of the four strategic objectives, namely rights at work, employment, social protection and social dialogue. Decent work is an organizing concept for the ILO in order to provide an overall framework for action in economic and social development. We need to start by confronting the global decent work deficit. It is expressed in the absence of sufficient employment opportunities, inadequate social protection, the denial of rights at work and shortcomings in social dialogue. 

YO: How many of the objectives have you achieved during this visit? 
KM: We are working on the dialogue stage. The delegation met with most of the ministries, civil society authorities, labor syndicates, and others who are concerned with these four strategic objectives in Yemen - either in Sana’a or Aden. We also met with UN organizations so that we could cooperate with each other to fulfill our projects.  There will be a primal and comprehensive document for the project that will be sent to all the production bodies like the government, employers and employees. This is to take their point of view and modify and reform this document and then launch it nationally in a conference or symposium. The project should be adopted and signed by the government to be responsible for its articles. 

YO: How do you find the reaction from the Yemeni government?
KM: Generally speaking the reaction was greatly positive from all bodies; starting from Minister of Social Affairs and Labor, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Minister of Finance, Minister of Technical Education and Vocational Training, Labor Syndicate, and others. They are prepared and motivated to support us and to start in a very near time. We also need the role of media. It has a big role to play in achieving such policies and strategies. It is the public education that needs to be modified. People think that work forms part of their children’s education and enables them to learn how to be responsible. We need media to help us in show who is a child and who is a woman in the Yemeni community. According to Yemeni law, children between the ages of 7-15 are considered juveniles, but international law considers a person a juvenile until the age of 18. This means that a girl can not marry or work before the age of 18.  

YO: How do you choose the countries to start the decent work in?
KM: This mechanism is planned to be applied in many countries, but some of them are chosen according to some principles and factors. First of all, there should be an acceptance from this country for such a project. In Yemen for example, there is cooperation with Yemen in the past. There is the project of combating child labor that started some years ago, supporting the role of worker women and her participation in the economy, and labor market information. So we have a ready ground to start a new project. There are other countries which we felt would want to start reforming the labor market so we have to help them like it happened in Bahrain.  

YO: Tell us about the labor strategy you as ILO launched in Yemen and why do you think Yemen needs such strategy?
Tariq Haq: Labor strategy was launched in Yemen two years ago, but has not been adopted by the Yemeni government yet. Yemen is facing a serous challenge. There are huge numbers of people coming out of the education system. Most of them are young who become jobless because labor market does not need them.  ILO found that it should work on the labor market and its development and economic changes in Yemen and worldwide. Today, many institutions in Yemen look to become private sectors. If this happened, huge number of employees will join that category of jobless people in the country. The strategy aims at creating a harmony between education and rapid change in the world of work. This means that it puts forward points for universities for the number of students who should be received and link it with the vocational training.  

YO: How could this strategy help labor market in Yemen?
TH: This strategy could help youth in Yemen. It searches for laws that could motivate them to start their own projects. It creates the initiative spirit to look for small projects and easy loans.  The strategy also helps the community in educating Yemeni citizens so that government will not be the owner of the big work. So he/ she should find other ways for work. 

YO: How do you see the participation of women in Yemen’s national economy?
TH: Women in Yemen currently have a very weak participation in the workforce. There should be more motivation for women to enter the labor market and the untraditional sectors. Today, all the foundations and vocational habitation programs are concerning about traditional sectors like sewing and hairdressing. Women can participate in raising the living conditions of the family and reforming the degree of poverty in the country. Poverty leads to children leaving school to join the labor market at early ages.  

YO: What about the national policies and program frame work you launched to combat child labor in Yemen?
 Jean-Francois Klein: A national strategy for combating child labor in Yemen was formed some years ago and has now been reformed because of improvement in the labor market and the high number of child workers. There are some phenomena that were not known or admitted to before, like child trafficking from Yemen to neighboring countries, which we consider to be the worst kind of child labor. The strategy has been built in dialogue with concerned bodies in Yemen. Like the Decent Work Strategy, it determines the priorities. Child labor is a serious and deep issue. It has many branches that are related to the government’s labor policies and appropriations assigned for education. There should be priorities form which we can start and laws to allow us to do so. Such strategies could help in these cases. 

YO: What does Yemen need to reduce unemployment among youth?
Shaza al-Jundi: To fight poverty young people in Yemen need to have job opportunities. During this visit we have recieved many requests from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor, but there are no demands for social security. In our opinion social security is strongly related to employment and creating job opportunities.  We found that the employment offices in Yemen only received three per cent of people seeking jobs. This means that they are not effective. The main reason is that there is no motivation. In many developing countries without systems of unemployment insurance or adjustment assistance to workers, the social pain created is particularly acute. In addition, hundreds of millions of the working poor and their families on the margins of developing country labor markets are largely bystanders rather than participants in the growth of the world economy. 

YO: So how do you see the labor market in Yemen?    
Khawla Mattar: Yemen is facing a big problem with the labor market. Every time we leave and come back, we see that the rate of unemployment is decreasing - especially among youth. There are many other issues that are decreasing like poverty, child labor, and job exploitation. There is an increase in the ‘unsystematic’ sectors which means that systems are weak in Yemen. The organizations are weak in their infrastructure. Ministries include a big number of staff, but lack the expert knowledge. We are here to help build capacity in these organizations; in ministries, syndicates, or companies.  Also the legal environment is not sufficient.