Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Prof Stephen Ocheni, has said that the government was putting in place concrete measures to eliminate child Labour and promote the culture of sound occupational safety and health in the work place.
Speaking at the 2018 World Day for Safety and Health at Work, the Minister said the measures which include efforts at ensuring safe, healthy, and decent work, as well as the curbing of unnecessary wastages in the economy, as well as promote the culture of sound occupational safety and health through various workplace interventions that include the vigorous conduct of labour and factory inspection of workplaces nationwide.
He disclosed that the Ministry of Labour and Employment has been involved in the development and subsequent review of policies, legislative and regulatory frameworks that are critical to achieving sustainable improvement in safety and health standard in work places, adding that the Ministry was recently involved in the development of three subsidiary regulations under the Factories Act, which had received the approval of the Federal Executive Council.
He said Nigerian children have the right to freedom from all forms of Child Labour and the right to some level of education, while all workers have the right to safe and healthy work places, and emphasised that โโIt is, therefore, my hope that this World Day for Safety and Health at Workplaces will advance the required cultural change, which will put safety and health on the top agenda of every organization in this countryโโ.
In his remarks, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Bolaji Adebiyi, said the focus of the World Day for Safety and Health at Work is on the improvement of the Safety and Health of young workers and the elimination of child labour in the country.
In his good-will messages, the Regional Director for the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Dr. Dennis Zulu and the representative of the Director-General of the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA), Mrs. Adenike Adebayo Ajala, agreed that the combating of Child Labour can only be through a joint effort for all stakeholders, adding that, there was need to launch a world campaign to improve the health of young people and also secure a suitable and healthy environment for all workers.
