By R, KNA
The Busia Sub County Children Advisory Committee has established a technical working group to develop community-based interventions against child labor.
Speaking after a committee meeting, Busia Sub County Children’s Officer Euphrasia Agala said although the cases of child labour were on the increase, reports on such exploitations were limited.
“The data for our Sub County from July 2024 to June 2025 shows that over 1000 child abuse cases were processed through our offices but unfortunately, we had only 1 case reported on child labour. This is why we have formed the technical working group to deliberately address such challenges through interventions to get evidence from the community.
Adala said the group consists of key stakeholders who will work hand in hand to address issues of child labor.
“In the committee, we have the children services department, department of labor, police, director of public prosecution, ministry of education and civil societies among others. They will help in collecting data on hotspots, data on children who have been exposed to child labor and document the intervention and integrations of these children back in the community, “she said.
Furthermore, she indicated that the committee will be mandated to put all effort that can end child labor including creating awareness, identifying hotspots and monitoring progress.
“We want to track progress, whereby the team will be doing monitoring and evaluation and having quarterly reports submitted to the Sub County Children Advisory Committee. This will enable us to have clear data on child labor, enabling us to have evidence-based approaches in giving interventions.” she said.
Busia county Labor Officer Agripinah Auma, said the cases of child labor are on the increase in the County and have a negative impact on the development of children.
“The issue of child labor is rampant in our county and our neighboring country of Uganda. This is due to increased levels of poverty and most of them are in the scenario for sustainability of their needs and times of family needs. This activity is depriving the rights, education and health of the children”
Auma indicated that the menace requires teamwork and cooperation from all sectors and stakeholders to help in controlling it.
“The multi-agency-approach composed of different stakeholders will help in complementing the departments with the responsibilities of children. When we want to make an arrest, we need police. If we rescue a child, we need a department of children to take care of these children. With this approach, we will help in addressing the issue; “she said
Lamel Owino, County Project Officer of child line Kenya said the technical group will help in coming up with techniques that will help to combat child labor.
“When a child case is reported to us as Child-line Kenya, through our 116-toll free number, the case is directed to a specific Sub County Children Officer for response. We are also helping in mapping the service providers. The committee will help in identifying which services are provided by specific partners so that we are able to bring our strength together with other departments to respond to the cases” he said.