Roundup: Child labor remains major concern in Laos

In an ideal society, a child should have time to study, rest and play but children of many poor families in less-developed countries like Laos are often forced to work at an early age, stunting their growth and making their future uncertain.

While more fortunate children of well-off countries are getting the education that they need, their counterparts in poor countries are missing the opportunity for growth that education could provide.

This is the sad fate of some 168 million children and youths worldwide who have been forced to engage in child labor, according to a report released this week for the United Nations' World Day Against Child Labor that was marked Friday.

The World Report on Child Labor seeks to draw the attention of world leaders to the plight of child workers throughout the world and propose measures to solve the social malaise.

The report stresses the crucial role of parents in providing compulsory education to their children and delay their entry to the workplace. "Families should forego the short term returns of child labor in favor of the long-term returns that education can offer to their children," it said.

As commonly seen in many developing or least developed countries, poorer families in some Southeast Asian nations, including Laos, continue to see their children contribute a significant of time to work, too often at the expense of education.

And despite a legal prohibition on the employment of children below 14, a survey published in 2014 found that at least 6.5 percent of Lao children, aged 6-13, had worked as child labor often with the consent of their parents.

Entitled "Understanding Children's Work and Youth Employment Outcomes in Laos," the report found that the proportion of children aged 14-17 now working has climbed to 35 percent.

Of particular concern is hazardous and dangerous work assigned to minors, mostly aged between 15-17, which is prohibited by UN conventions of which Laos is a signatory.

The report said that despite increasing urbanization, more than 90 percent of Lao children worked in the agricultural sector of the nation's ethnically-diverse rural and remote areas that remain home to the majority of its population.

What's also worrying is that the length of time put in by children in the farms, sometimes exceeds 40 hours a week in the farm or foraging in the forest, longer than the average amount of work of many adult employees in developed nations.

As its young population reaches employable age and fertility decreases, Laos is hoping to enjoy a so-called demographic dividend, bringing a favorable ratio of working age people compared to children and the elderly.

When harnessed, such population demographics are often associated with periods of rapid economic growth and development, as noted in the major economies of Northeast Asia and more recently in such countries like Malaysia and Thailand.

However, a key component for this benefit would be to develop a skilled and productive workforce but this can be achieved only by giving sufficient education to young children.

Despite official policies for providing universal education in Laos, 9 percent of elementary age school children are not attending classes, either having dropped out or never enrolled.

Dropout rates in the country increase along with age and are influenced by a host of factors such as parents' attitude, lack of enough income or facilities near the houses of children, migration status and local labor market conditions.

Also an important deterrent to continuing their studies are effects of natural disasters like drought or floods, which often forced children to leave school and help their parents and younger siblings earning a living.

The challenge in Laos in particular is complicated by the need to balance an economy being driven by investments in high- productivity capital-intensive power generation and mining activities with a labor pool that remains largely skewed toward low skilled, low-productivity, low-income and subsistence-oriented agriculture.

As the country seeks to balance today's growth with the opportunities of the future in an increasingly complex world, it will be looking to its young to provide the momentum.

But how well prepared are the working kids in Laos for tomorrow 's employment challenges, only time can tell. Endi