<<previous  |  index  |  next>>

Harmful Child Labor

ILO Convention 182 concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor requires Ecuador to “take immediate and effective measures to secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour as a matter of urgency” and to “provide the necessary and appropriate direct assistance for the removal of children from the worst forms of child labour and for their rehabilitation and social integration.”²⁸

Ecuador does not effectively enforce its laws governing the worst forms of child labor.  HRW detailed this failure in our April 2002 report Tainted Harvest:  Child Labor and Obstacles to Organizing on Ecuador’s Banana Plantations.  In our investigation, we interviewed forty-five children who had worked or were working on banana plantations in Ecuador.   Of these, forty-one had begun working in the sector between the ages of eight and thirteen, and fewer than 40 percent were still in school at age fourteen.  The children described workdays of twelve hours on average and hazardous conditions that violate ILO Convention 182.  Most of these human rights abuses occurred in violation of Ecuador’s domestic labor legislation. 

In October 2002, Ecuador agreed to strengthen protections for children’s rights and to fully comply with its obligations as a party to ILO Convention 182.  Since then, the government has taken a number of limited but positive steps to fulfill its commitment to strengthen children’s rights protections.  For example, it created the System for the Inspection and Monitoring of Child Labor, within the National Committee for the Progressive Elimination of Child Labor (CONEPTI),²⁹ drafted the National Plan of Action for the Elimination of Child Labor, 2003-2206 (National Plan),³⁰ and adopted a new Code for Children and Adolescents.³¹  In addition, the Ecuadorian banana industry signed an agreement committing to progressively eliminate child labor in the sector, charging CONEPTI with monitoring the agreement’s enforcement and implementation.³²  Nonetheless, the government must do more to fulfill its promise.

Human Rights Watch welcomes these initiatives.  However, these commendable steps are still insufficient to meet the country’s obligations to eliminate immediately harmful child labor in the banana sector or elsewhere.  The measures fail to address adequately the primary impediments to eradicating hazardous child labor—insufficient child labor law enforcement and nonexistent or under-funded social programs to prevent child labor and rehabilitate displaced child workers.  These significant impediments have largely prevented the System for the Inspection and Monitoring of Child Labor from fully operating and have prevented the National Plan, the new Code for Children and Adolescents, and the banana industry’s agreement from being fully and effectively implemented. 

Ecuador has also recently taken steps to address the lack of child labor inspectors—one of the main problems our 2002 report documented.  Ecuadorian law requires at least one child labor inspector for each of the country’s twenty-two provinces.³³  In 2002, there were none.  In 2003, three child labor inspections were hired but conducted inspections on only ninety-eight of the approximately 6,000 plantations in the country’s banana sector—1.6 percent.  Reportedly, no other sectors were inspected, and only one of the three inspectors is still with the Labor Inspectorate.  In May 2004, the Ministry of Labor hired eighteen additional child labor inspectors, bringing the total to nineteen—still three short of the twenty-two required by law.³⁴  

Human Rights Watch applauds the hiring of the additional child labor inspectors as an important step in addressing the problem of harmful child labor in Ecuador.  Nonetheless, we are concerned that the child labor inspectors have not received sufficient funding or training to operate effectively.³⁵  We are also troubled by reports that Ecuador has failed to provide resources to ensure that child workers, who may be fired as a result of increased inspections, are successfully rehabilitated and reinserted into society, with access to appropriate education or professional training. 

Inadequate Training for Child Labor Inspectors

The ILO’s Labor Inspection Convention, to which Ecuador is party, provides that “[l]abour inspectors should be adequately trained for the performance of their duties.”³⁶  Nonetheless, the new child labor inspectors were reportedly trained over a period of roughly four and a half days, during which children’s human rights were barely addressed and inspection instruments and methodologies were provided only for the banana sector.  A second, day-long training was held on August 18.  Child workers’ human rights, however, were reportedly discussed little, if at all, and inspection instruments and methodologies for other sectors were not developed.  In contrast, the labor inspectors hired in 2003 were trained for roughly three months, over which time they developed appropriate methodologies, instruments, and procedures for the banana sector inspections they were charged with conducting and tested them and revised them in the field.  

Inadequate Funding for Child Labor Inspectors

Not only do the recently hired inspectors lack adequate training, but they lack basic infrastructural and logistical support.  At this writing, close to one third of the nineteen inspectors reportedly still do not have offices, most lack computers, and all are missing one or more important office supplies, such as desks, chairs, fax machines, telephones, and file cabinets.  No additional funding has reportedly been authorized to cover these start-up costs.³⁷

In addition, only U.S.$16,000 of the U.S.$25,000 reportedly recently authorized to cover day-to-day operational costs of child labor inspections from August through December 2004 has been disbursed.  This additional disbursement could be sufficient to cover inspection costs if all occurred in urban areas with accessible public transportation, where operational costs are estimated to be as low as U.S.$150 per month per inspector.  At least five provinces, however, involve inspections in remote rural sectors, where vehicles are required to reach the worksites.  The Ministry of Labor, however, has reportedly failed to provide rural inspectors with the necessary vehicles, so they must rent them at the prohibitively high cost of roughly U.S.$50 per day; borrow them, when possible; or use the cars often offered by employers, in many cases banana producers, raising concerns regarding possible conflicts of interest.

Finally, we are also troubled that reportedly no additional funds have been appropriated, let alone disbursed, to the Ministry of Labor for child labor inspector salaries—roughly U.S.$500 per month, per inspector.  Instead, the fines and fees collected by the Ministry of Labor are reportedly being used to cover the new costs.  These funds, however, were previously utilized for other Ministry of Labor operations.  Therefore, rather than an increase in overall funding for the protection of workers’ human rights, in this case, funding is stagnant and monies have been shifted from the protection of one set of rights towards the protection of another.  

Insufficient Programs to Rehabilitate Fired Child Workers

There are at least two scholarship programs in Ecuador that provide assistance for indigent children to attend school.  One, operated by the National Institute for Children and Families (INNFA), a primarily state-funded organization, specifically targets former child workers.  Nonetheless, these programs are reportedly full and have little to no capacity to serve newly fired child workers.  Despite the potential for more displaced child workers as child labor inspections increase, no additional funding has reportedly been authorized for these programs and no new programs have been created to address the issue.