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In order to achieve ATPA and ATPDEA compliance, Human Rights
Watch believes that Ecuador must meet the following benchmarks:
Issue implementing regulations, as required by law,
for the new Code for Children and Adolescents, adopted in January 2003, and
amend the Labor Code to conform with the Code for Children and Adolescents’
provisions governing child labor;
hire three additional child labor inspectors, for a
total of twenty-two, as required by Ecuadorian law, to implement child labor
laws and the Banana Industry Agreement on Child Labor through proactive
monitoring and unannounced on-site inspections, rather than reliance on a
complaint-driven enforcement strategy;
authorize and disburse additional funds to the
Ministry of Labor sufficient to fully cover start-up costs, salaries, and
operational expenses for twenty-two child labor inspectors;
provide additional training to newly hired child
labor inspectors to ensure that they fully comprehend Ecuadorian and
international law provisions governing child workers’ human rights and have
adequate instruments and methodologies to conduct child labor inspections in
all sectors; and
develop, adequately fund, and implement meaningful
social protection measures to prevent child labor and effectively rehabilitate
former child workers, with a special focus on access to education or other
professional training, as contemplated by the National Plan of Action for the
Elimination of Child Labor, 2003-2006.
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