Le double défi du travail des enfants et de la marginalisation scolaire dans la région de la CEDEAO : vue d'ensemble

Overcoming the twin challenges of child labor and educational marginalization will be critical to progress towards the millennium development goals in the Economic commission for West Africa States (ECOWAS) region. ECOWAS Ministers recognized the challenge of child labor, and signaled their commitment to addressing it, in developing the ECOWAS child policy and the accompanying strategic plan of action for the ECOWAS child policy 2009-2013, as well as in adopting the West Africa regional action plan to eliminate child labor, especially its worst forms in December 20122 and the follow-up Accra Declaration of the ECOWAS and International Labor Organization (ILO) Symposium on the West Africa regional action plan in May 2013. This report promotes the translation of these plans into concrete action by helping build the evidence base necessary for the design and targeting of specific interventions against child labor. It brings together the most recent available information from a variety of national household surveys to provide a detailed picture of child labor and the related challenge of educational marginalization in the ECOWAS region. The report is structured as follows: chapter one gives introduction. Chapter two discusses definitions and data sources as background for the descriptive statistics presented in the subsequent chapters. Chapter three reports both regional and country-specific estimates of children’s involvement in employment and child labor, and how these estimates differ across countries and across population subgroups within countries. Chapter four assesses factors associated with children’s employment. Chapter five looks at the characteristics of children’s employment in order to shed light on children’s workplace reality and their role in the labor force. Chapter six provides a more in-depth look at children’s employment in the agriculture sector, where the overwhelming majority of child workers in ECOWAS are found. Chapter seven assesses the interplay between children’s employment and schooling, and in particular employment as a factor in educational marginalization. Chapter eight reports on out-of-school children, a closely-related policy concern in the ECOWAS region. Chapter nine reviews policy priorities for addressing the issue of child labor.