Pakistan - IPEC successfully applies model programme in football-making industry

Using the experience gained in Bangladesh and by replicating the prevention/withdrawal/rehabilitation/monitoring model tested and implemented there, IPEC has again succeeded in convincing an entire industry to prevent and eliminate child labour progressively, while providing alternatives that keep children out of work.

In 1996, there were approximately 7,000 children engaged in stitching footballs in the Sialkot district of Pakistan. In 1997, ILO, UNICEF and the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry signed the Partners' Agreement on a joint project to prevent and eliminate child labour under the age of 14 in the football manufacturing industry. Sialkot is the centre of Pakistan's football-producing industry, a major hard currency earner. Almost 20 per cent of the workforce was made up of children at the time of the Agreement's signing.

What the Agreement does

The Agreement:
n provides for an internal, industry-based monitoring system
n establishes an external compliance monitoring system implemented by IPEC
n identifies and removes full-time child workers in a phased manner
n provides educational opportunities and other support services to children and their families.

Other players are Save the Children-UK and Bunyad Literacy Community Council, an NGO. The implementation of this Agreement is financed through contributions from the US Department of Labor, ILO, UNICEF and the Soccer Industry Council of America. As a token of the commitment of Pakistani workers to the elimination of child labour, the All Pakistan Federation of Trade Unions has made a contribution.

Prevention and monitoring

IPEC set up a monitoring and verification system. The monitoring team collaborates with employers, who are responsible for the internationally-approved monitoring procedures, developed by IPEC.

Social protection

As it was considered that stipends do not always provide an ideal solution, being costly and often creating inequalities, and that children risk dropping out of education, withdrawn children take part in social protection services, which include non-formal education, vocational training and micro-credit facilities. This aspect is handled by the Bunyad Literacy Community Council.

IPEC first choice as partner

Initially, the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the major brand names in the football world were more inclined to use a private organization for the monitoring tasks planned in the Agreement. But, after seeing the IPEC operation in Bangladesh in the framework of the BGMEA/ILO/UNICEF Child Labour projects, they changed their mind and agreed to ILO monitoring through IPEC, which had demonstrated its capacity to handle this extremely delicate side of child labour prevention and elimination, where encouragement, diplomacy, persuasion and persistence play a major part.

Sporting goods industry

The Sialkot Partners' Agreement came about partly because of an initiative by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, which launched an international campaign in 1996 highlighting the use of FIFA (International Federation of Football Associations) endorsements on footballs manufactured using child labour. The World Federation of Sporting Goods, grouping more than 50 brand names, took up the campaign and FIFA agreed to change the situation. The result was a FIFA Code of Labour Practice. Hailed by trade unions as a trail-blazing code of conduct, it bans the use of the official FIFA stamp of approval on footballs manufactured with child labour; it also provides for monitoring and severe penalties for breach of the code.

Challenges

n there are still children working for non-participating manufacturers
n more public pressure is required to encourage non-participating manufacturers to join the Agreement
n other prevention and elimination activities, such as alternative income skills training, are required in addition to education
n additional steps must be taken to avoid income loss for a family when a child is withdrawn.

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