Support for the Latin American and Caribbean Free of Child Labour (CL) Regional Initiative by Strengthening Strategies to Prevent and Eradicate Child Labour, Slave Labour, and Trafficking in Persons

This project intends to make contributions that will promote the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (FPRW) in the Latin American and Caribbean region by implementing initiatives that collaborate toward the prevention and eradication of child labour, slave labour, and trafficking in persons. This will be done in partnership with the Ministry of Citizenship of Brazil’s federal government, which is responsible for managing and articulating the National Policy of Social Assistance, also known as PNAS (Política Nacional de Assistência Social). Thus, a pilot test will be conducted in Brazil to incorporate the subjects of eradicating child labour, slave labour, and trafficking in persons into PNAS, which will improve fighting and prevention actions. After the pilot test, the experience will be disseminated through the Latin American and Caribbean Free of Child Labour Regional Initiative (RI). The initial goal is to expand the knowledge base about child labour, slave labour, and trafficking in persons as an essential approach for strengthening the response capacity of social assistance policies, while also taking into consideration the impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Creating diagnostics about these three subjects, as well as developing a specific methodology of indicators about the causes and risks related to child labour supported by a targeting tool for sectoral and territorial identification, will play important roles in supporting the project when structuring its actions. Once a solid information base about the identified issues is established, and in consultation with countries that developed similar methodologies, the gathered data will be used to explore and test alternatives for improving the Programme to Eradicate Child Labour, also known as PETI (Programa de Erradicação do Trabalho Infantil) as a response to the new context of child labour in Brazil, focusing on victims and those vulnerable to sexual exploitation, drug trafficking, and other worst forms of child labour. Next, specific actors from the Unified Social Assistance System, or SUAS (Sistema Único de Assistência Social), will be mobilized and trained with the goal of strengthening operations to better address the challenges of child labour, slave labour, and trafficking in persons. The overall goal of the project is to share intelligent practices and successful experiences in fighting and preventing child labour, slave labour, and trafficking in persons, and to form a South-South protection network focused on borders. It is worth remembering that the final evaluation of the cooperation project, “Strategies to Accelerate the Pace of Eradicating the Worst Forms of Child Labour” conducted by the ILO and the Ministry of Citizenship (formerly called Ministry of Social Development – MDS), finalized in 2018, highlighted the potential that South-South cooperation has to more directly involve sub-national, private, and civil society actors, and how this diversity of cooperating actors can enrich the territorial character of the actions and contribute to a larger support and mobilization base in RI country members. Furthermore, this project allows Brazil to once again play an important role in the RI by helping make it stronger and by supporting other countries in reaching Target 8.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): “Take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms.”

Project symbol

RLA/22/01/BRA

Admin unit

CO-Brasilia

Start date

07/07/2022

End date

02/02/2025

Total allocation

384689

Total expenditure

Status

Active

184543

Development Partners

Brazil, Brazilian Cooperation Agency

Country/Countries

Brazil

Outcomes

Outcome 1: Strong, modernized normative action for social justice