The My-PEC Project

Context

According to the 2015 Labour Force Survey, an estimated 1.125 million children in Myanmar were engaged in child labour, with 616,815 of them involved in hazardous work. Child labour significantly impacts children’s health, education, and overall well-being, preventing them from reaching their full potentials, which in turn affects socio-economic development at the households, communities, and the national level. The Endline KAP survey conducted in 2022 suggests that child labour has increased due to rising poverty, driven by the COVID 19 pandemic and current political crisis in Myanmar.

The Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar has ratified key conventions on child labour Convention No. 182 in 2013 and Convention No. 138 in 2020. Additionally, with ILO support, a National Action Plan (NAP) to eliminate child labour and its worst forms was adopted in 2018. To ensure the NAP’s implementation, the Myanmar National Committee for the Elimination of Child Labour (MNCECL) was established in February 2018, chaired by the Vice-President, and included representatives from key ministries, workers’ and employers’ organizations, and civil society organizations (CSOs). The country was also in the process of formalizing its first Hazardous Work List. However, the COVID pandemic and the military coup in 2021 have severely jeopardized Myanmar 's efforts to eliminate child labour.

Since the military coup on 1 February 2021, Myanmar has experienced dramatic political changes and constraints in its reform process. Civil disobedience movements have spread across the country, and violence continuing to date. Moreover, the military takeover has led to the contraction of economic activity, resulting in the loss of 1.6 million jobs.

Activities

• Expanding knowledge base: The project supported the Labour Force Survey’s 2015 child labour report and conducted 11 key studies on child labour in Myanmar covering child labour in industrial zones, agriculture, domestic work, KAP Surveys, youth employment, COVID-19, and the recent study on child labour trends in conflict-affected ethnic areas. To protect children's rights and address long-term child labour elimination in ethnic-controlled areas, the project established an online dialogue and knowledge-sharing platform, bringing together key actors under an "Area of Responsibility on child labour" to share information, experiences, and referrals.
• Increased awareness raising: The project is conducts awareness raising activities at both national and community levels to promote changes in perceptions towards child labour and to initiate a dialogue to properly address the issue. Since its inception, 187 awareness-raising activities have been conducted across different regions of Myanmar, with 131 organizations participating in advocacy activities. The World Day Against Child Labour on 12 June is commemorated yearly in the project support. The ILO’s SCREAM (Support the Children’s Rights through Education, Arts and the Media) programme has been translated into Myanmar language and is utilized by community-based organizations in various regions. My-PEC also supports youth activists, civil society, photojournalists and others in producing photo stories and impact stories on child labour. The project has trained more than 100 participants, aged 14 to 60, from different parts of Myanmar in photography and child labour documentation. These photo stories have been featured in public spaces, on social media, and with many awarded prizes and honorable mentions. They are also used in awareness raising activities, such as engagement with policymakers, in community mobilization, at international events, and in training and learning materials. MyPEC is using this methodology to train its implementing partners to produce visual impact stories on project beneficiaries. 
• Improved laws and capacity: MyPEC conducted a legal review in 2015, which was regularly updated until 2020. Before 2021, the project supported the government, workers’ and employers’ organizations in implementing ILO Convention No. 182 requirements, including determining the Hazardous Work List and developing the National Action Plan on child labour (NAP). The NAP, running from 2019 to 2033, is led by the Myanmar National Committee for the Elimination of Child Labour (MNCECL). Key achievements include the 2016 amendment to the Factory Act (1951) and the Shop and Establishment Act (1951), which raise the minimum age from 13 to 14 years, and the enactment of the new Child Rights Law in 2019. This support contributed to the ratification of ILO Convention No. 138 in 2020.
• Capacity building on advocacy and networking: The project provides capacity-building to key stakeholders at national and subnational levels, encouraging the mainstreaming of child labour concerns into ongoing and future programme. Until February 2021, the project supported the Technical Working Group on Child Labour (TWGCL), which met quarterly and comprised government, workers’ and employers' organizations, civil society, INGO and UN agencies. The project supports vulnerable children and youth above the minimum legal working age in accessing skills training, youth employment, market linkages, and youth entrepreneurs' opportunities, protecting them from hazardous work. The establishment of a Child Labour Monitoring System (CLMS) is crucial for achieving Myanmar’s NAP’s goals and meeting international commitments to eliminate child labour, particularly its worst forms. As part of this effort, the My-PEC explored the feasibility of implementing a Child Labour Monitoring System to support these objectives. Due to political situation, the focus shifted to creating community-based CLMS, empowering local organizations to monitor child labour and collect critical data. This data is vital to inform interventions and negotiating with employers. A community based CLMS was successfully piloted in My-PEC intervention areas, including the Ayeyarwaddy Region, Yangon Region, and Mon State.
  
  The project developed a series of tools and training (51 in total) to strengthen key stakeholders’ capacity to tackle child labour. Recently, in collaboration with the ILO Asia Regional Child Labour Programme (ARC) and the ILO Achieving Reduction of Child Labour in Support of Education Programme (ARISE), the first-of-this-kind child labour e-learning programme and the 3R Kit e-learning programme were made available on the ILO Myanmar education platform.
• Pilot Interventions in target areas: Since 2016, the project has implemented pilot model interventions at the village tract/ward level to increase the participation of children in in quality education, ensure access to safe work for children above the minimum age for employment, and reduce household vulnerability to child labour. The project targets 3,600 children across Dagon (Myothit) Seikkan Township inYangon Region, Labutta Township in Ayeyarwady Region; and Ye Township in Mon State. The aim is to remove 1,440 children from the worst forms of child labour and prevent 2,160 at high risk from engaging in child labour. The CLMS to identify and refer children in child labour situations. In 2023, during Phase V, the CLMS identified 96 cases of child labour, with 39 received support through emergency food aid, vocational training, life skills training, and business assistance. Phase VI continues these efforts, focusing on identifying child labour cases, providing referral services, and increasing community awareness and ownership of child labour responses. The project also supports households by providing skills trainings and established Village Savings and Loans Associations. These pilot models have been successfully used by the ARC and ARISE projects.

Development Parter

The Myanmar Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (MyPEC) is funded by the United States Department of Labor (USDOL) under cooperative agreement No. IL-25263-14-75-K. One hundred percent of the total costs of the project is financed with federal funds, for a total of US$ 9,650,000.