The World Bank Human Development Sector Reports 1818 H Street, NW East Asia and the Pacific Region Washington, DC 20433 The World Bank USA Telephone: 202-473-1000 Facsimile: 202-477-6391 East Asia and Pacific Region Human Development Sector Unit http://www.worldbank.org CAMBODIA Children's Work in Cambodia A Challenge for Growth and Poverty Reduction December 2006 Report No. 38005 Children's Work in Cambodia: A Challenge for Growth and Poverty Reduction December 2006 As part of broader efforts towards durable solutions to child labour, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), UNICEF and the World Bank initiated the joint interagency research project "Understanding Children's Work" (UCW) in December 2000. The UCW Project is guided by the Oslo Agenda for Action, which laid out the priorities for the international community to fight against child labour. Through a variety of data collection, research and assessment activities, the UCW project is directed towards improving understanding of child labour, its causes and effects, how it can be measured, and effective policies addressing it. For further information see the project website at www.ucw-project.org. CURRENCY EQUIVALENTS (Exchange Rate Effective November 2006) Currency Unit = Cambodia Riel (KHR) 1 Riel = 0.0002361 US$ US$1.00 = 4,235.85 Riel FISCAL YEAR January 1 to December 31 Regional Vice President: James Adam, EAPVP Country Director: Ian Porter, EACSF Country Manager: Nisha Agrawal, EACSF Sector Director: Emmanuel Jimenez, EASHD Sector Manager: Ana Revenga, EASHD Task Team Leader: Cristobal Ridao-Cano, EASHD ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ADB Asian Development Bank AIPO ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organisation ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations CBW Child Brickworker CCLS Cambodia Child Labour Survey CCT Conditional Cash Transfer GDI Gender-related Development Index CDW Child Domestic Worker GEM Gender Empowerment Measure CG Consultative Group CMDGs Cambodia Millennium Development Goals CNCC Cambodia National Council on Children COMMIT- Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking- Memorandum of MOU Understanding COSECAM Coalition to Address Sexual Exploitation of Children in Cambodia CSES Cambodia Socio-economic Survey DCCL District Committees on Child Labour DCCS District Committees on Children DFID Department for International Development ECE Early Childhood Education ECPAT End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes EFA Education for All EMIS Education Monitoring Information System ESCAP UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific ESP Education Strategic Plan ESSP Education Sector Support Program GDP Gross Domestic Product HDI Human Development Index ILO International Labour Organisation IMF International Monetary Fund IOM International Organisation for Migration IOM International Organisation for Migration IPEC International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour ISCO International Standard of Occupations JFPR Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction KAPE Kampuchean Action for Primary Education LAC Labour Advisory Council LSS Lower Secondary Schooling MDGs Millennium Development Goals MFA Multi-Fiber Arrangement MMR Maternal Mortality Ratio MoE Ministry of Education MoEYS Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports MoINT Ministry of Interior MoLVT Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training MoRD Ministry of Rural Development MoSALVY Ministry of Social Affairs, Labour, Vocational Training and Youth Rehabilitation MoSVY Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans Affairs and Youth Rehabilitation NGO Non-government Organisation NGO-CRC NGO Committee on the Rights of the Child NIS National Institute of Statistics NPA National Plan of Action NPA- National Plan of Action on the Worst Forms of Child Labour WFCL NPA-TIPSE National Plan of Action Against Trafficking in Persons and Sexual Exploitation NPRS National Poverty Reduction Strategy NSC-CL National Sub-committee on Child Labour NSDP National Strategic Development Plan ODA Official Development Assistance or ODA Overseas Development Administration OHS Occupational Health and Safety PACT Project Advisory Committee of Trade Union Against Child Labour PCCS Provincial Committees on Children PCCLS Provincial Committees on Child Labour PCPCR Provincial Committees on the Protection of Child Rights PPP Purchasing Power Party Prakas Ministerial Orders PTAs Parent-Teacher Association RS Rectangular Strategy SEDP II Second Socio-Economic Development Plan SNA System of National Accounts SPA Sub-Regional Plan for Action TICS Trafficking of Children and Women UCW Understanding Children's Work UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNICEF United Nations Children's Fund UNIFEM United Nations Development Fund for Women UWFCL Unconditional Worst Forms of Child Labour WFP World Food Programme WG-CL Working Group on Child Labour Children's Work in Cambodia: A Challenge for Growth and Poverty Reduction CONTENTS Executive Summary .............................................................................................................i 1. National Context: Factors Underlying the Child Labour Phenomenon in Cambodia.....1 2. Child Involvement in Work ............................................................................................9 3. Child Labour .................................................................................................................15 Incidence of child labour............................................................................................15 Incidence of "worst forms" of child labour ................................................................17 4. Characteristics of Children's Work...............................................................................23 Types of work performed by children ........................................................................23 Returns to children's work .........................................................................................24 Work intensity ............................................................................................................25 Workplace environment and hazards..........................................................................27 Work conditions in selected nationally-identified hazardous sectors.........................28 5. Impact of Work on Children's Health and Education ...................................................31 Impact on schooling ...................................................................................................31 Impact on health and safety........................................................................................34 6. Understanding Why Children Work .............................................................................39 7. National Response to Child Labour ..............................................................................45 Legal framework for combating child labour.............................................................45 National policy framework.........................................................................................46 External assistance relating to child labour ................................................................49 Local social partners in the area of child labour.........................................................52 8. Accelerating Progress Towards Eliminating Child Labour: A Discussion of Policy Options...........................................................................................................................55 Identifying an appropriate policy mix: General considerations..................................55 Preventive measures ...................................................................................................57 Protection measures....................................................................................................61 Creating an enabling environment for progress against child labour .........................66 Next steps ...................................................................................................................69 ANNEX A: Econometric Results......................................................................................71 ANNEX B: Partial Mapping of Actors in the Areas of Child Labour and EFA...............73 ANNEX C: Analysis of the Impact of Work on Schooling ..............................................77 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY C hild labour constitutes a key obstacle to achieving universal primary education and other Millennium Development Goals in Cambodia. It not only harms the welfare of individual children, but also slows broader national poverty reduction and development efforts. Children forced out of school and into labour to help their families make ends meet are denied the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills needed for gainful future employment, thereby perpetuating the cycle of poverty. Empirical evidence indicates that early workforce involvement exerts a particularly strong negative influence on school enrolment and learning achievement in the Cambodian context. A substantial reduction of child labour will therefore boost human capital accumulation and raise the country's growth potential. It will also ease the burden that an unqualified workforce will pose on the economy in terms of vulnerability to poverty and inability to adapt to a changing production environment. The current report was developed under the aegis of the Understanding Children's Work (UCW) project, a research cooperation initiative of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), UNICEF and World Bank. It is the product of a collaborative effort involving the National Institute of Statistics, concerned government ministries, local research institutes, the UCW project secretariat and the ILO/International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), UNICEF and World Bank Cambodia country offices. The report provides an overview of the child labour phenomenon in Cambodia -- its extent and nature, its determinants, and its consequences on health and education. The report also addresses the national response to child labour and policy options for its elimination. It serves three related objectives: (1) to improve the information base on child labour in order to inform policy and programme design; (2) to promote policy dialogue on child labour and accelerated progress towards national child labour reduction targets; and (3) to build national capacity for regular child labour data collection and analysis. Child Involvement in Work Child involvement in economic activity is widespread in Cambodia. In all, an estimated 52 percent of 7-14 year-olds, over 1.4 million children in absolute terms, were economically active in the 2001 reference year. This percentage is very high relative to other countries with similar levels of income, underscoring that children's work poses a particular concern in the Cambodian context. There is evidence that child economic activity has fallen and school enrolment increased since 2001, but data comparability issues make it difficult to assess trends in children's work with any degree of confidence. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA i CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Involvement in economic activity starts very early and rises sharply with age, inducing late school entry and early school dropout. About 16 percent of children are already economically active at age six years, and over half of all children are economically active by the age of 10 years. By the age of 15, the share of children working in economic activity surpasses that of children attending school. School enrolment, on the other hand, peaks at 91 percent at age 11 years; thereafter, attendance declines as children begin leaving school and working exclusively. The proportion of children studying exclusively, unhindered by the exigencies of work, peaks at the age of nine, at 49 percent. An even larger proportion of children are engaged in non-economic productive activities and specifically housework. An estimated 79 percent of 7- 14 year-olds were engaged in housework activities on a regular basis each week during the 2001 reference year. Housework tends to start earlier than economic activity, but is performed much less intensively. One of every two children performs "double-duty", i.e., is involved in both housework and economic activity each week. Child Involvement in Child Labour Children's involvement in child labour ­ a legal concept reflecting the subset of work that is injurious, negative or undesirable to children ­ is also very high. Over 750,000 economically active children are below the absolute minimum working age of 12 years, and an additional 500,000 (12-14 year-old) children in non-light economic activity are below the minimum age for this type of work. Over 250,000 children aged 15-17 years are in the seven (of 16) nationally-identified hazardous sectors for which data are available or are working in 43 or more hours per week. Putting these groups together yields an estimate of almost 1.5 million 7-17 year-olds in child labour, 40 percent of this age group. It should be stressed that this is a lower bound estimate, as it does not include involvement in nine of the 16 nationally-identified hazardous sectors, nor involvement in unconditional worst forms of work. Limited evidence from rapid assessment surveys and other sources suggests that while children in unconditional worst forms constitute a small proportion of total child labourers, their numbers are by no means negligible. Characteristics of Children's Work Most economically active children are found on farms and work for their families. Three-quarters of every four economically active children are in the agriculture sector, against only 15 percent in commerce, five percent in manufacturing and two percent in services. About 90 percent of economically active children work for their families as unpaid labour. Most of the remaining economically active children work as casual day labourers (seven percent). Very few economically active children (less than two percent) work as paid employees in formal entities, the only category currently covered by the provisions on child labour in the Cambodia Labour Law. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA ii CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA For the few children who report earning in kind or cash, daily earnings of children (in-cash and in-kind) are far from inconsequential for families. On average, children earn about US$1 per day, accounting for 28 percent of the total household labour income. If we use the child wage as an imperfect measure of the opportunity cost of schooling, and compare it with direct schooling costs estimates, it clearly stands as the most important component of the total cost of schooling; and thus the most important cost barrier for the schooling of poor children. Work is typically very time intensive for children. Economically active children aged 7-14 years perform an average of almost 22 hours of economic activity each week. The sub-group that combines economic activity and schooling puts in a slightly shorter average work week of 20 hours in economic activity. This is still only a little less than the 23.5 hours spent on average studying each week. The total work burden of economically active children rises markedly when the non-economic activity that these children perform is also considered. Non-economic activity adds an average of eight hours per week to the total work burden of economically active 7-14 year-olds, bringing total average weekly working hours to almost 31. A very high proportion of economically active children face work- related hazards and dangers leaving them vulnerable to injury and illness. Adults interviewed as part of Cambodia Child Labour Survey (CCLS) 2001 reported considering "some aspects of their child(ren)'s work risky or dangerous" in almost two out of three cases (61 percent). Many working children also appear to have less workplace protection than their adult counterparts; half of children not using safety equipment indicate that others performing similar work did benefit from such equipment. Impact of Children's Work Children's work is a key factor behind the two most important and interrelated challenges on the basic education system in Cambodia: late school entry and substantial dropout starting in upper primary. An empirical model estimated to investigate the impact of work on schooling indicates that school enrolment and work activities are negatively related, particularly school enrolment and economic activity. The relation between school enrolment and economic activity becomes more negative with age, particularly among girls. This indicates that the trade-off or degree of substitution between school participation and economic activity increases as the child gets older, and that this trend is especially pronounced among girls. Estimation results also suggest that work delays school entry (or prevents it altogether), which in turn reduces the probability of completing primary school. Additional empirical analysis shows that child work has a significant detrimental effect on learning achievement, as measured by literacy and numeracy test scores. Among fourth graders, working everyday before going to school reduces both literacy and numeracy test scores by nine percentage points, even when controlling for possible differences in school quality. This finding INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA iii CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA underscores the fact that work not only affects children's ability to enrol and survive in school, but also their ability to derive educational benefit from their school time. Incidence of work-related illness and injury is very high among Cambodian working children, underscoring that children's work is often hazardous in nature. Adults interviewed for CCLS 2001 indicated that almost half of working children in Cambodia has suffered some form of work-related ill health at some point in time. Regression results indicate that the probability of suffering work-related ill health decreases with the age of the child, underscoring that workplaces are especially hazardous for younger children. Girls are about two percentage points less likely than boys to suffer ill health, suggesting underlying differences in the nature of work tasks performed by boys and girls. The regression results also indicate that both work intensity and work sector exert a significant effect on the probability of negative health outcomes. Each hour of work performed during a week adds about an additional 0.3 percentage points to the probability of falling ill. The risk of ill- health due to work varies dramatically by sector. Cambodian children working in agriculture, for example, are 12 percentage points more likely to suffer injuries than those working in the manufacturing sector. In order to face the same injury risk across sectors, children would need to log substantially different amounts of working hours. This is a key finding, as it points to a need to consider both work sector and work intensity as primary criteria for hazardous work. Determinants of Children's Work Most families cite economic motives in explaining the decision to send their children to work. Either family poverty or the need to supplement family income are given as the primary motives in the case of three out of every four working children. For over half of child workers, households indicate that work cessation would lead either to a drop in household living standards or would pose a threat to household survival. Children's work does not appear to play a role in helping families afford children's schooling. Less than one percent of respondents cite schooling costs as the reason for their child(ren) working, and a similar small proportion indicate that cessation of work would force a child to have to leave school. It is interesting to note that, given a choice, i.e., in the absence of financial constraints, two-thirds of household heads would choose to involve their child(ren) in some form of education. The findings of a multivariate analysis point to number of additional factors influencing household decisions to involve their children in work or school: (1) household income/wealth negatively effects child labour supply; (2) exposure to early childhood education reduces child labour supply; (3) presence of preschool-aged children reduces school attendance, especially of girls; (4) school availability reduces children's work involvement and increases enrolment; (5) school quality helps working children to remain in school; (6) presence of parents' associations increases school attendance and retention, INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA iv CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA reduces child work; (7) parents' education, and especially mothers' education, reduces child labour supply; (8) possession of productive assets in agriculture is positively related to child labour supply; (9) children who are offspring of household head are less likely to work; (10) non-Khmer children are more likely to work; and (11) female-headed households more likely to send children to work rather than to school. National Response to Child Labour Cambodia has made a number of important legal commitments in the area of child labour, but important ambiguities and gaps in legislation relating to child labour remain. Of particular concern, the Cambodia Labour Law has not been extended to informal sector enterprises or settings, where the overwhelming majority of child labourers are concentrated. This means family- based agriculture and domestic service are not covered by legislation. The Law also does not specifically define what constitutes child labour in terms of type of work, conditions of work, or work hazards. The enforcement of child labour laws is another major challenge facing the government. The government by its own admission currently does not have the capacity to properly enforce and monitor laws relating to child labour. Cambodia's national development plans are highlighted in the second Socio- Economic Development Plan (SEDP II), the National Poverty Reduction Strategy (NPRS), the 2003 Cambodian Millennium Development Goals (CMDG), the Rectangular Strategy (RS) and the National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP) 2006-2010. Of these, the CMDG and NPRS documents contain specific child labour reduction targets. The CMDG document targets a reduction in the proportion of 5-17 year-old working children from 16.5 percent in 1999 to 13 percent in 2005, 10.6 percent in 2010 and eight percent in 2015. NPRS targets a reduction of labour force participation of children aged 10-14 years from 8.3 percent in 1999 to 5.3 percent in 2005. Accelerating Progress Towards Eliminating Child Labour Achieving the country's ambitious child reduction goals will require an integrated package of prevention and protection measures targeting three broad groups: (1) children at risk of involvement in child labour; (2) the "stock" of children already in child labour; and (3) former child labourers whose development has been adversely affected by their work experience. "Prevention" measures are needed both to reduce the flow of vulnerable children into child labour and to stop children already in work from moving to worse forms; while "protection" measures are needed to identify and safeguard the existing stock of child labourers, facilitate their recovery and reintegration, and prevent them from re-entering work. Empirical analysis conducted for this study, as well as policy experience in Cambodia and elsewhere, points to a number of relevant prevention and protection measures for reaching these three groups. Social risk mitigation instruments (social insurance, micro-credit, conditional cash transfers (CCT), INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA v CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA etc.), improved school access and quality (including early childhood education), better access to basic services, and parent education will be particularly important to preventing children from entering work. Better formal workplace inspection instruments, together with expanded grassroots level monitoring, will be critical to identifying and protecting children already in child labour. Recovery and rehabilitation services, including transitional and remedial education, will be important to ensuring the successful reintegration of former child labourers. Progress towards national child labour reduction targets will also depend on measures to ensure an enabling political, legal and institutional environment. Political commitment is needed to ensure that child labour is mainstreamed into broader development plans and programmes. Concerned government institutions, some newly established, require strengthening and their respective roles in combating child labour need clarifying; better information on child labour in its various dimensions is needed for policy formulation and effective targeting; and more detailed legislation, consistent with international child labour norms, is needed to provide a legal framework for efforts against child labour. The elimination of child labour will also require that society at large and affected communities in particular internalise the problem and mobilise against it. What relative weights should be accorded to these broad strategies in combating child labour? The main burden for a sustainable reduction of child labour and increase in human capital investment rests on prevention. Clearly, sustainable reductions in child labour cannot be attained without addressing the factors causing children to enter work in the first place. By changing the economic and social environment, mainly of the household, preventive policies should aim at changing the "equilibrium" or long run level of child labour and school enrolment. But "protection" policies should not be neglected. They are critical to preventing large numbers of children from entering adulthood in a disadvantaged position, permanently harmed by early work experiences. Children with little or no schooling will be in a weak position in the labour market, at much greater risk of joining the ranks of the unemployed and the poor. These children and youth if left alone are likely to be in need of other (more costly) remediation policies at a later stage of their life cycle. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA vi 1 NATIONAL CONTEXT: FACTORS UNDERLYING THE CHILD LABOUR PHENOMENON IN CAMBODIA C ambodia has seen significant progress since the United Nations- supervised peace process of 1991-93.1 The country is at peace, increasingly integrated with the region and the world, and has enjoyed a decade of largely unbroken macroeconomic stability and growth. It has regained its seat and representation at the United Nations after the armed conflict in 1997 and became a full member of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1999. A new government was successfully formed in July 2004, and commune elections were successfully held 2002, both representing major steps forward in the country's political development. The government released a Socio-Economic Development Plan for 2001-2005 (SEDP II), developed a National Poverty Reduction Strategy (NPRS), and signed on to the achievement of the localised Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), all reflecting its commitment to human development. Notwithstanding these advances, the country's development agenda remains daunting: poverty is widespread, aggravated by rapid population growth, and inequality appears to be increasing; the HIV/AIDS infection rate is highest in the Asia region; 70 percent of the population live without sustainable access to an improved water source; 12 percent of children die before their fifth birthday, and almost one-half of young children are malnourished.2 State institutions remain weak, with the judicial system, public financial management, public administration, and local governance all in need of substantial reforms. Cambodia ranks 130th out of 177 countries on the human development index (HDI).3 Cambodia has since 1993 enjoyed over a decade of high average economic growth, driven largely by construction, tourism, and since the late 1990s, a very rapid emergence of a garment sector which benefited from preferential arrangements under the Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA) and quotas agreed for clothing produced under ILO-accredited labour standards. The return to political violence in 1997, coinciding with the impact of the Asian financial 1 This section is drawn primarily from the following documents: Country Assistance Strategy for the Kingdom of Cambodia, (World Bank, 2005); Cambodia Quality Basic Education for All (World Bank 2005) and From Peace to Prosperity: An Assessment of Poverty in Cambodia (World Bank, 2005). 2 United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report 2004. 3 The human development index (HDI) is a composite index that measures the average achievements in a country in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, as measured by life expectancy at birth; knowledge, as measured by the adult literacy rate and the combined gross enrolment ratio for primary, secondary and tertiary schools; and a decent standard of living, as measured by GDP per capita in purchasing power parity (PPP) US dollars. United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report 2004. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 1 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA crisis and the withdrawal of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in reaction to continued weaknesses in the management of forestry revenues, created a short-lived period of economic contraction in the last years of the 1990s. But economic recovery since then has been relatively rapid. Progress was reinforced in 1999 by the final collapse of the Khmer Rouge insurgency. Although the agricultural sector has continued to lag, with severe floods or droughts in three of the last four years exacerbating a generally low rate of improvement in productivity or incomes, there has been an expansion of off-farm opportunities in Phnom Penh or across the border in Thailand, prompting the emergence of migrant labour and remittances as important aspects of rural livelihoods and rural socio-economic change. Poverty fell significantly during the period from 1993 to 2004. There was a universal reduction in poverty headcount (incidence) during this period in all agro-ecological zones (i.e., Tonle Sap, Mountain/Plateau, Plains, Coastal regions) as well as in Phnom Penh, rural, and other urban regions. Best- informed projections suggest that poverty headcount in Cambodia fell from 47 percent in 1993/94 to 35 percent in 2004. Non-monetary aspects of living standards corroborate the picture of rising average living standards and falling poverty rates: the quality of housing materials, human development indicators, access to more reliable energy sources and ownership of consumer durables all suggest marked gains. While poverty reduction has been universal, the rates are not uniform. The rural population started with the lowest average level of real consumption in 1993/94 and grew at the slowest rate. Indeed, poverty in Cambodia remains primarily a rural phenomenon. About 91 percent of the poor in 2004 were in the rural areas. Rural Tonle Sap and rural Mountain/Plateau regions experienced both the highest poverty headcount and the worst poverty severity. Poverty headcount measures in rural Tonle Sap and rural Mountain/Plateau regions were, respectively, 45 percent and 56 percent. Their poverty severity measures were about twice the national average. But poverty profiles suggest that levels of inequality rose in the last 10 years, especially in rural areas. Consumption grew universally between 1993/94 and 2004, but the growth was not uniform in all regions or across different population segments. The impression of rapidly growing inequality, both between urban and rural areas and within rural areas, is something that is strongly felt in popular debate, including at the village level. Figure 1(a) indicates that although per capita real consumption has significantly increased between 1993/94 and 2004 in rural and urban regions, the growth in rural region was the slowest at 24 percent compared to 36 percent in other urban region. In 1993/94, rural real consumption level was 67 percent of that in other urban areas, but fell to 61 percent in 2004. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 2 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Figure 1. Trends in Equality during the Period from 1993/94 to 2004 (a) Rural regions progressed but nonetheless fell further behind ) 6 , 0 0 0 p e r - c a p i t a l r e a l c o n s u m p t io n nh$eP 5 , 0 0 0 1 9 9 3 / 9 4 2 0 0 4 nomhP 4 , 0 0 0 49 3 , 0 0 0 1993/ 2 , 0 0 0 ni( eliR 1 , 0 0 0 0 P h n o m P e n h O t h e r U r b a n R u r a l C a m b o d i a (b) Inequality rose within the rural region but not in Phnom Penh or in other urban areas yti G i n i c o e f f i c i e n t s , a m e a s u r e o f i n e q u a l i t y 0 . 5 1 9 9 3 / 9 4 2 0 0 4 0 . 4 5 nequalilatot 0 . 4 0 . 3 5 1=;yti 0 . 3 0 . 2 5 0 . 2 equalt 0 . 1 5 ec 0 . 1 0 . 0 5 perf 0= 0 P h n o m P e n h O t h e r U r b a n R u r a l C a m b o d i a (c) The poor experienced the slowest growth in consumption 8000 real per capita consumption 7000 le 6000 1993/94 2004 Ri 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 Poorest Next poorest Middle quintile Next richest Richest Cambodia quintile quintile quintile quintile consum ption quintile groups Source: From Peace to Prosperity: An Assessment of Poverty in Cambodia (World Bank, 2005). Estimates of Gini coefficients,4 one of the commonly used summary measures of inequality, confirm that inequality of consumption has increased for geographically comparable areas in the country between 1993/94 and 2004, driven by increased inequality within the rural region. Growth in consumption was also not uniform across consumption quintile groups. As shown in Figure 1(c), while real per capita consumption increased significantly in all quintile groups during 1993/94 through 2004, the relative gains in real consumption were inversely related to the level of average per capita consumption. A significant proportion of the non-poor remain vulnerable to risks that could push them back into poverty. One way of illustrating this graphically is by looking at the distribution of per capita household consumption (Figure 2). It can be seen that a large share of the population is clustered around -- either just below or just above -- the poverty line. This implies that many of the poor require only a small, steady increase in consumption to gradually lift them over the poverty line. Conversely, however, it implies also that a great many individuals in 2004 recorded per capita consumption that put them only a short distance above the poverty line. While this means that they are classified as 4The value ranges between zero (total equality) and one (complete inequality). INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 3 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA currently non-poor, it would take only a small decline in the living standards of this group to move them back down below the poverty line. Nearly seven percent of households fall within a band 10 percent above the poverty line: in other words, if the per capita consumption of these households was to decline by just 10 percent the poverty rate would increase by seven percent from 35 percent to 42 percent. Figure 2. Distribution of Household Consumption and Vulnerability 4 3.5 3 2.5 % 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 6,000 7,000 8,000 9,000 household consumption (riels per capita per day) Source: From Peace to Prosperity: An Assessment of Poverty in Cambodia (World Bank, 2005). While the country has made progress towards achieving some of the Cambodian Millennium Development Goals (CMDGs), attaining many of the specific targets will be difficult. Cambodia is likely to meet the CMDG target for universal primary enrolment, but not of completion. However, meeting the targets for secondary education (including female secondary school enrolment) seems unlikely. There has also been some progress towards achieving health-related goals, but at current rates, the increases are probably not sufficient to meet the CMDGs. The country is likely to meet its CMDG target of reducing HIV prevalence rates by 2015. However, HIV transmission patterns are shifting, with most new infections occurring among married women and their children, a difficult group to target. Continued focus is needed to ensure that the infection rate continues to decline. Meeting the CMDG target of halving the population below the national poverty line by 2015 would require considerably faster economic growth and a more pro-poor orientation to that growth. Cambodia has among the lowest levels of gender equity in Asia as measured by the gender-related development index5 (0.557) and the gender empowerment measure6 (0.364).7 The consequences of traditional attitudes 5 The Gender-related Development Index (GDI) measures the same variables as the Human Development Index (HDI) except that the GDI adjusts for gender inequalities in the three aspects of human development. The GDI uses the same variables as the HDI. The difference is that the GDI adjusts the average achievement of each country in life expectancy, literacy and gross enrolment, and income in accordance with the disparity in achievement between men and women. (UNDP, Human Development Report, www.undp.org). 6 Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) is a composite index that measures women's opportunities. The index is calculated based on three main areas; political participation and decision- making power, economic participation and decision-making power, and power over economic resources. The greater the gender disparity in participation the lower the GEM (UNDP, Human Development Report, www.undp.org). INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 4 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA towards women are clearly manifest in the significant gender inequities in educational attainment and levels of literacy, gender inequities in access to public services, and low representation in decision-making positions. In education, while there is increasing gender equity at the primary school level, large disparities persist at higher levels of schooling. Human poverty is also greater among Cambodian women than men across all economic groups. In addition to culturally prescribed notions of "male" and "female" occupations, the lower levels of literacy and education of women make it difficult for them to compete. Table 1. Progress Towards the Millennium Development Goals and Targets Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger Target 1: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people Poverty dropped from 39% in 1993 to 36% in 1999. If direct trends are whose income is less than US$1per day. continued, the poverty rate will drop to 28% by 2015, compared with a target of 19.5%. Target 2: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who Benchmarks: prevalence of underweight children under five years of suffer from hunger. age 45.2% in 2000; prevalence of stunted children under five years of age 44.6% in 2000; and proportion of population below the food poverty line 20% in 1993. Target is to reduce by half the benchmark figures in 2015. Target 3: Decreasing the proportion of working children aged between The baseline figure upon which the target is based requires 5-17 years old from 16.5% in 1999 to 8% in 2015. clarification (see discussion in main text). Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education Target 4: Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls The net primary school enrolment rate has increased from 57% in alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling. 1998/99 (CSES, 1999) to 76% in 2003/04 (CSES, 2004). Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women Target 5: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary The ratio of girls to boys in primary, lower secondary and upper education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later secondary education was 87.7%, 66.9% and 50.1% respectively for than 2015. school year 2002­2003. Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality Target 6: Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five The child mortality remains stable at about 120 per 1,000 live births. mortality rate. Cambodia is unlikely to meet its target of reducing under-five mortality to 65 per 1000 live births in 2015. Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health Target 7: Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the The MMR was estimated at 437 per 100,000 live births in 2000, down maternal mortality ratio (MMR). from an estimated 590 in 1995. Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Other Diseases Target 8: Have halted by 2015, and begun to reverse, the spread of The HIV prevalence rate in the age 15 to 49 population has dropped HIV/AIDS. from 3.9% in 1997 to 2.6% in 2002. A linear trend extrapolation would suggest that Cambodia will meet its target of 1.8% in 2015. Target 9: Have halted by 2015, and begun to reverse, the incidence of Poliomyelitis has been eradicated from Cambodia, and immunization malaria and other major diseases. has increased substantially since 1990. Malaria remains a significant health problem. Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability Target 10: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into Cambodia has a serious problem with unsustainable and illegal country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental logging and fishing. However, since 1998 the government has resources. increased the proportion of fishing areas released for community fisheries to 56%. Target 11: Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without Cambodia is on track to meet its CMDG target of 60% by 2015. The sustainable access to safe drinking water. population with access to safe drinking water increased from 20% in 1995, to 26% in 2000. The country is unlikely to meet its target of 80% by 2015. Target 12: By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the Urban poverty (excluding Phnom Penh) has dropped from 36.6% in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers. 1993 to 29.9% in 1997, representing 80,000 people. Sources: Royal Government of Cambodia, Cambodia Millennium Development Goals Report 2003; United Nations; United Nations Development Assistance Framework 2006­2010 for Cambodia, 2005 (Draft); Asia Development Bank, Country Strategy and Program 2005- 2009, Kingdom of Cambodia, 2005. 7 Human Development Report, United Nations Development Programme, 2003, as cited in A Fair Share for Women: Cambodia Gender Assessment, ADB, DFID,UNIFEM, UNDP and World Bank, 2004. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 5 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Figure 3. Population projections by growth scenario, 1998-2020 20,000,000 18,000,000 High 16,000,000 Medium 14,000,000 Low 12,000,000 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 199 199 200 200 200 200 200 200 200 200 200 200 201 201 201 201 201 201 201 201 201 201 202 Source: National Institute of Statistics, Ministry of Planning and Center for Population Studies (Royal University of Phnom Penh), First Revision, Population Projections for Cambodia 1998-2020, June 2004. Rapid population growth is aggravating poverty and placing a major strain on the country's limited resources. According to the population projection conducted with the variables estimated from the 2004 Inter-Censal Population Survey, the population of Cambodia will reach 15 million by the end of this decade and could reach almost 20 million by 2020 (Figure 3).8 This, in turn, could nearly double the supply of labour. Growth will occur despite a significant downward trend in fertility, owing to the "population momentum" generated by the high levels of fertility during the 1980-1995 period.9 Currently, almost 40 percent of the population is below the age of 15, meaning dependency rates are very high; children age less than 15 years as a percentage of the overall population will decline by 2020, but the population structure will remain relatively "young", particularly under the high-variant growth scenario (Figure 4). Figure 4. Population Structure, 2020, by Growth Scenario High variant projection, 2020 Low variant projection, 2020 70-74 70-74 60-64 60-64 50-54 50-54 e 40-44 e 40-44 Ag Ag 30-34 30-34 20-24 20-24 10-14 10-14 0- 4 0- 4 1,500,000 0 1,500,000 1,500,000 0 1,500,000 Population Population Male Female Male Female Source: National Institute of Statistics, Ministry of Planning and Center for Population Studies (Royal University of Phnom Penh), First Revision, Population Projections for Cambodia 1998-2020, June 2004. 8 National Institute of Statistics, Ministry of Planning and Center for Population Studies (Royal University of Phnom Penh), First Revision, Population Projections for Cambodia 1998-2020, June 2004. 9 As the cohorts born during high fertility periods reach reproductive age, the number of births continues to grow even if the fertility level of individual women is decreasing. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 6 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Primary net enrolment rates have increased significantly in recent times, but coverage is still far from universal. The net primary school enrolment rate increased from 57 percent in 1998/99 to 76 percent in 2004.10 Gains in enrolment are primarily the product of more (mostly overaged) children entering school rather than children remaining in school longer once there. Seventy-two percent of children who enter school for the first time are older than six years, leading to significant age-for-grade distortion at all levels of the school system. Even though most children spend some time in primary school, significant numbers drop out before completing the primary school cycle. About one in four children fail to complete the primary cycle, and about one in two fail to graduate from basic education. This decline in participation through the years of basic education is particularly severe among children from households in the poorest two wealth quintiles. There are also differences in enrolment by gender and geographic area. The attainment of universal basic education will require addressing the bottleneck in upper primary school, and focusing on interventions that promote equitable access and participation. Figure 5. Trends and Inequality in Net Enrolment Rates 100 87 90 85 77 78 80 70 70 65 61 60 55 50 46 38 40 31 30 25 25 16 18 17 20 8 8 9 10 2 3 3 5 5 1 1 1 0 T otal Poor est Ri chest T otal Poor est Ri chest T otal Poor est Ri chest Pr i mar y Lower secondar y Upper secondar y 1997 2001 2004 Source: National Institute of Statistics, Ministry of Planning. Cambodia Socio-Economic Surveys (1997 and 2004) and Cambodia Child Labour Survey (2001). Poorest and richest refer to the poorest and richest 20 percent, respectively. Figure 6. Many Children Start Dropping Out in Upper Primary, Particularly the Poor 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Total Poorest Richest Source: National Institute of Statistics, Ministry of Planning. Cambodia Socio-Economic Surveys (1997 and 2004) and Cambodia Child Labour Survey (2001). Poorest and richest refer to the poorest and richest 20 percent, respectively. 10 The estate for 1998/99 is based on the Cambodia Socio-Economic Survey 1999 (CSES) and for 2003/04 on CSES 2004. It should be noted that household surveys consistently yield lower enrolment estimates than official Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MOEYS) statistics based on the Education Monitoring Information System (EMIS). EMIS enrolment estimates for 1998/99 and 2003/04 are 78 percent and 90 percent, respectively. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 7 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Despite the progress in primary enrolments, about one in five children that start primary school drop out before completing it, and only 58 percent complete the basic education cycle (primary plus lower secondary school). The bottleneck of the basic education cycle starts in the upper years of primary school and it intensifies in the transition to lower secondary school. This is particularly so for children from poor families (Figure 6), although those living in rural areas and girls are also disadvantaged. As shown in this report, it is at the end of primary and in the transition to secondary that direct and, particularly, indirect costs (from work) of schooling increase significantly, producing a critical barrier for the poor. The improvements in education have been achieved by focusing efforts on primary education, backed by a significant increase in public spending on education. However, if Cambodia is to achieve basic education for all, it must address as a priority the bottleneck in upper secondary, and focus on interventions that reduce the cost barriers for the poor, particularly the indirect costs from child work. The remainder of the report is organised as follows. Section 2 briefly reviews the national context, and specifically major socio-economic factors underlying the child labour phenomenon in the country. Section 3 presents descriptive data on the extent of child involvement in work and child labour, broken down by age, sex, residence and region. Section 4 examines key characteristics of children's work, including the sectors where child workers are concentrated, the intensity of work and its hazardousness. Section 5 analyses the consequences of children's work on the education and health. Section 6 looks at major determinants child labour and schooling, making use of a simple economic model of household behaviour. Section 7 outlines the national response to child labour, on the levels of both legislation and policy. Section 8 looks at strategic options for accelerating and strengthening national action against child labour. A companion report, currently under development, will assess the country's prospects for achieving national child labour reduction targets by 2015. This companion report will be aimed at giving policymakers a general picture of the extent to which the country is on track to meet its 2015 target, and stemming from this, at identifying intervention areas requiring greater resources and accelerated efforts. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 8 2 CHILDREN'S INVOLVEMENT IN WORK T his section describes the time use patterns on children in Cambodia, focusing on the extent of children's involvement in work. The analyses in this section and the remaining sections are based on data from the CCLS 2001. CCLS 2001 is a nationally representative household-based survey specifically designed to study child labour. The core of the survey collected information from children aged 5-17 years, including children's work status, working hours, children's satisfaction in the workplace, injuries/disabilities related to work and use of mechanical equipment the including. The report uses estimates based on parent responses, as parental data are far more complete than those for children.11 A more recent survey, the CSES 2004 contains a narrower range of variables relating to child labour and does not provide information on children below the age of 10 years. For these reasons, it is not used as the primary data source for this study. Child involvement in economic activity is widespread in Cambodia. In all, an estimated 52 percent of 7-14 year-olds, over 1.4 million children in absolute terms, were economically active in the 2001 reference year. One-third of children under the age of 12 years were at work in economic activity, the absolute minimum working age specified by the country upon ratification of ILO Convention No. 138 (Minimum Age) in 1999.12 These levels are very high relative to other countries with similar levels of income (Figure 7), underscoring that underage work poses a particular concern in the Cambodian context. Most working children also attend school. Disaggregating the child population by four non-overlapping activity groups -- children engaged in economic activity only,13 those attending school only, those combining school and economic activity and those doing neither -- shows that 43 percent of children work and attend school at the same time, while only nine percent work in economic activity exclusively. About one third of children aged 7-14 attend school exclusively, and about 80 percent of children are in school. Finally, about one in ten children aged 7-14 is "inactive", i.e., not involved in economic 11 In general, children indicate being less involved in school, and more involved in economic activity exclusive of school, than adults responding for them. 12 Cambodia specified a general minimum working age of 15 years. The lower age limit of 12 years refers only to "light" work (see further discussion in section on child labour). The provisions on child labour in the current labour code are largely in line with the ILO Convention No. 138. These provisions set the minimum age of employment at 15, but allow children aged 12-14 to engage in light work provided that: (1) the work is not hazardous to their health and psychological development; and (2) the work will not affect their school attendance. 13 Children's involvement in non-economic activities is examined in the next section. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 9 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA activity or in schooling. Most children in this latter category have not entered school yet, but will eventually do so.14 Figure 7. Child involvement in economic activity, Cambodia and selected comparator countries 60 GDP per capita ($US 2001, PPP) economic activity rate 3,000 52.3 2,370 2,420 50 2,330 2,500 1,950 1,960 2,040 40 2,000 1,640 1,650 1,670 1,770 t 30.8 encr 28.5 PPP)( 30 22 25.3 1,500 01 pe 20 17.5 19.2 20 15.9 1,000 $US 14.3 8.6 10 500 0 0 Kyrgyzstan Bangladesh Mongolia Gambia CAMBODIA Cameroon Ghana Lesotho Zimbabwe Bolivia Notes: Estimates of child economic activity relate to different reference years and are derived from different survey instruments; cross-country comparisons are therefore indicative only. Sources: (1) GDP per capita estimates: World Development Indicators. (2) Child involvement in economic activity: UCW calculations based on Bangladesh, National Child Labour Survey (SIMPOC), 2002-2003; Bolivia, Encuesta Continua de Hogares (LSMS), 2000; Cameroon, Enquête Camerounaise Auprès des Ménages II, 2001; Gambia, Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, 2000; Ghana, Child Labour Survey (SIMPOC), 2000; Kyrgyz Republic, Living Standard Measurement Survey, 1998; Lesotho, Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, 2000; Mongolia, Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, 2000; Zimbabwe, National Child Labour Survey (SIMPOC), 1999. Table 2. Child Activity Status, by Age Group and Sex, 2001 Reference Year Children aged 7-14 years Children aged 15-17 years Activtity status Male Female Total Male Female Total No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % Involved in economic activity only 114,485 8.1 122,503 9.1 236,988 8.6 158,875 33.4 228,306 51.8 387,181 42.3 Attending school only 508,999 36.2 495,480 36.8 1,004,479 36.5 59,969 12.6 43,189 9.8 103,159 11.3 Involved in economic activity and attending school 622,862 44.3 579,862 43.0 1,202,724 43.7 234,274 49.3 140,654 31.9 374,928 40.9 Not involved in economic activity and not attending school 160,736 11.4 149,981 11.1 310,717 11.3 21,959 4.6 28,777 6.5 50,736 5.5 Total eco. active(i) 737,347 52.4 702,365 52.1 1,439,712 52.3 393,149 82.8 368,960 83.7 762,109 83.2 Total attending school(ii) 1,131,861 80.4 1,075,342 79.8 2,207,203 80.1 294,244 61.9 183,844 41.7 478,087 52.2 Notes: (i) Regardless of school attendance status; and (ii) Regardless of economic activity status. A child is considered to be economically active if he or she spent at least one hour per week in work for "payment/non-payment, profit, family gain or own final use of consumption" or "did not work, but had a job with assurance for returning." See survey questionnaire in Annex 2: Form 1, page 9 of 12, Q7.1 and Q7.2. Source: UCW calculations based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey 2001. Children's involvement in economic activity varies considerably by residence and region. Children living in cities and towns are considerably less likely than their rural counterparts to engage in economic activity. At the same time, urban children are more likely to attend school generally and much more likely to attend school exclusive of work. Regional differences in children's involvement in work and school are also large (Figure 8), pointing to the importance of geographic targeting in efforts to reach national child labour reduction and Education For All goals.15 14 Cambodia Quality Basic Education for All (World Bank, 2005). 15 Readers are reminded that CCLS was conducted in 2001, a point in time when many parts of Cambodia had only recently opened up as Khmer Rouge combatants gave up their strongholds. This may be an important context in understanding why in some provinces, such as Preah Vihear or Siem Reap, we see a high proportion of children out of school, and thus, engaged in productive or domestic work. School enrolment has subsequently increased considerably in many of these provinces. Care is therefore warranted in drawing inter-provincial comparisons of child labour and school enrolment on the basis of CCLS data. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 10 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Figure 8. Child Involvement in Economic Activity, 5-14 Years Age Group, by Region childreninvolvedin economic activity 90 childrenattendingschool 80 70 60 entcrep 50 40 30 20 10 hcnaeMy g amhC haihC umhT dalnaK gn iriK hn earhiV gn tasr iriK eliV g g oek hey eantaB banmataB uepSg ng potmaK Koho hehcaKr Pu enrT eniR beK Ta niliaPg ongpaK ongpaK aponK Ka dolnoM Pemon apoK Ph eahrP VeyePr nakataR baeRmeSi hnokaiS engutS ayvS eancM ongrK onrK dardO Source: UCW calculations based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey 2001. Figure 9. Children's Involvement in Economic Activity, by Age, Sex and Residence(1) 80 URBAN Male 60 tn Female rce 40 pe RURAL Male 20 AGE IN YEARS Female 0 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Source: UCW calculations based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey 2001. Figure 10. Child Activity Status, by Child Age 100 90 economically active(1) 80 70 attending school(2) 60 tnecr eco. activity only 50 pe 40 school only 30 eco. activity and school 20 10 AGE IN YEARS 0 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Notes: (1) "Economically active" refers to all children in economic activity, regardless of school status; and (2) "Attending school" refers to all children attending school, regardless of work status. Source: UCW calculations based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey 2001. There is surprisingly little difference in the time use patterns of boys and girls. The share of boys and girls aged 7-14 in economic activity and in school (or both or neither) are almost equal. Other indicators also suggest that the gender plays a relatively minor role in the child labour phenomenon in Cambodia. As discussed below, working girls and boys differ little in terms of the nature of their economic activities (i.e., work sector and work modality) and in terms of the amount of time they spend performing them. There is evidence, however, that girls have a lower probability of suffering work-related ill-health, suggesting specific work tasks may differ by sex. Girls are more likely than boys to perform housework, though the differences are not large (see below). Large differences by sex emerge among older 15-17 year-old children in terms INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 11 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA of school enrolment (favouring boys), but not in terms of involvement in economic activity (Table 2). Most working children start working at a very early age, and many drop out of school and work exclusively very young. Figure 10 illustrates children's "transitions" from inactivity to school and work during the period from age 5-14 years. At age six, the first year of primary schooling only 33 percent of children are enrolled in school. This is primarily a product of late school entry; most children do eventually enter school. School attendance rises (i.e., late entrants exceed early drop-outs) for subsequent age cohorts, peaking at 91 percent at age 11 years, one year prior to the formal end of the primary cycle. Thereafter, attendance declines as children begin leaving school and working exclusively. The proportion of children studying exclusively, unhindered by the exigencies of work, peaks at the age of nine at 49 percent. Involvement in economic activity starts at a very early age rises sharply with age, inducing (as shown later in the report) late school entry and early school dropout. About 16 percent of children are already economically active at age six years, and over half of all children are economically active by the age of 10 years. By the age of 15, the share of children working in economic activity surpasses that of children attending school. For the 15-17 years age group as a whole, 83 percent are economically activity while just over half are still in school (Table 2). An even larger proportion of children are engaged in non-economic activities, and specifically housework. This form of work falls outside the System of National Accounts (SNA) production boundary and is typically excluded from published estimates of child labour (see Box 1 on terminology). Ignoring it, however, tends to underestimate the possible detrimental role of work on girls' schooling. An estimated 79 percent of 7-14 year-olds were engaged in "housekeeping activities or household chores in own parents' or guardians home on a regular basis."16 Housework tends to start earlier than economic activity but is performed much less intensively as discussed below. Girls are more likely to perform housework than boys, although the difference by sex is not large. There is little difference in non-economic activity involvement by place of residence (Figure 11). Figure 11. Children's Involvement in Non-economic Activity, by Age, Sex and Place of Residence(1) URBAN 90 male 70 female tnecr pe 50 RURAL male 30 AGE IN YEARS female 10 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Source: UCW calculations based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey 2001. 16 See survey questionnaire in Annex 2: Form 2, page 2 of 11, Q9.1. Estimates of non-economic activity involvement are also of course affected by water collection classification (see Box 2). INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 12 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Figure 12. Children's Total Work Involvement, by Age, Sex and Place of Residence(1) URBAN 90 male 70 female tnecr pe 50 RURAL male 30 AGE IN YEARS female 10 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Source: UCW calculations based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey 2001. Box 1. Children's Work and Child Labour: A Note on Terminology Terminology and concepts used for categorising children's work and child labour (and in distinguishing between the two) are inconsistent in published statistics and research reports, frequently creating confusion and complicating cross-country and longitudinal comparisons. In this study, "children's work", is used broadly to refer to all productive activities performed by children. Productive activities, in turn, are defined as all activities falling within the general production boundary, i.e., all activities whose performance can be delegated to another person with the same desired results. This includes production of all goods and the provision of services to others within or outside the individual's household. The study distinguishes between two broad categories of children's work ­ economic activity and non-economic activity. The definition of "economic activity" used in the study derives from the System of National Accounts (SNA) (rev. 1993), the conceptual framework that sets the international statistical standards for the measurement of the market economy. It covers all market production and certain types of non-market production, including production of goods for own use. "Non-economic activity" is defined as any productive activity falling outside the SNA production boundary. It consists mainly of work activities performed by household members in service to the household and its members. The term "child labour" is used to refer to the subset of children's work that is injurious, negative or undesirable to children and that should be targeted for elimination. It can be either economic or non-economic in nature, though most published estimates refer only to the former. Three main international conventions ­ the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), ILO Convention No. 182 (Worst Forms) and ILO Convention No. 138 (Minimum Age) ­ provide the legal definition of child labour and a framework for efforts against it. There is not yet an agreed international statistical definition of child labour. In general however, it is the impact of work on children rather than it technical classification that is most important in determining whether or not work constitutes child labour. The specific statistical definitions employed to measure child labour are discussed in Section 3. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 13 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Children's involvement in economic and non-economic activities need to be combined for a measure of children's total participation in work. Developing such a combined measure, however, is not straightforward as it requires decisions concerning how a unit of time in non-economic activity should be weighted vis-à-vis a unit of time in economic activity.17 This remains an area of some debate, as underlying it is the question of whether housework has similar implications on child welfare as work in economic activity. Figure 12 provides estimates of children's total involvement in work simply combining involvement in economic and non-economic activity as defined in the survey questionnaire, i.e., children spending at least one hour in economic activity and/or performing non-economic activity "regularly" each week.18 Eighty-one percent of Cambodian 7-14 year-olds, 2.8 million in absolute terms, are involved in some form of work using this measure. Girls' work rate exceeds that of their male counterparts at each age, underscoring the fact that economic activity alone often understates girls work relative to boys. One of every two children performs "double-duty", i.e., is involved in both housework and economic activity each week. These children must bear the heaviest work burden and must work the longest weekly hours (see below). The proportion of children involved in economic activity fell during the first part of this decade. Comparing the results of the CCLS 2001 with the more recent CSES 2004 shows a moderate increase in school attendance among 10-14 year-olds combined with a marked decrease in the proportion of children in this age group at work in economic activity. A straight comparison of CCLS 2001 and CSES 2004 results shows a reduction of about 16 percentage points (from 65 to 49 percent) in proportion of 10-14 year-olds involved in economic activity. This figure, however, is likely an overestimate of the reduction in children's work because of differences in survey instrument design. Differences in survey instruments also limit the comparability of results from household surveys conducted prior to CCLS 2001, making it impossible to measure the children's work trends precisely. 17In line with the international definition of employment, one hour spent on economic activity during the reference week is widely used as the threshold for classifying a child as economically active. But, a similar statistical standard for housework unfortunately does not yet exist. As housework is very common for both boys and girls, and some housework is considered a normal and even beneficial part of childhood in most cultures, the one hour per week threshold would seem too low for measuring housework involvement. But further research is needed on how time on housework affects health and education outcomes in order to determine what the appropriate time threshold should be. 18This, of course, implicitly sets a higher time threshold for including of non-economic activities as work. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 14 3 CHILD LABOUR I dentifying the extent to which children's work constitutes "child labour", i.e., the extent to which work is injurious, negative or undesirable to children,19 is critical for policy purposes. There is at present no internationally agreed statistical definition of child labour, and therefore, an unambiguous estimate of child labour in Cambodia or any other context is not possible. While international child labour norms provide a common conceptual definition of child labour,20 a wide variety of statistical definitions and measures are employed in the child labour literature and in programming and policy documentation on child labour. Lower- bound estimates of child labour and worst forms of child labour are presented below based on national child labour legislation and the nationally-identified list of worst forms. Section 5 attempts to identify child labour by analysing the impact of work on schooling and health. Child Labour Incidence The Cambodia Labour Law sets a general minimum working age at 15 years, but allows children aged 12-14 years to perform "light" work that is not hazardous to their health or interfere with their schooling.21 Cambodia's Labour Law sets the minimum allowable age for any kind of employment or work which by its nature could be hazardous to the health, safety, or morality at 18 years. Therefore, for a complete estimate of child labour in accordance with national legislation, it is necessary to look at all below-age workers (all economically active 7-11 year-olds), all economically active 12-14 year-olds except those in light work, and all 15-17 year olds in hazardous work or worst forms of work (Figure 10). 19Implicit in this distinction is the recognition that work by children per se is not necessarily injurious to children or a violation of their rights. Indeed, in some circumstances, children's work can be beneficial, not harmful, contributing to family survival and enabling children to acquire learning and life skills. 20Three main international conventions -- the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), ILO Convention No. 182 (Worst Forms) and ILO Convention No. 138 (Minimum Age) -- define child labour and provide a framework for efforts against it. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) recognises the child's right to be protected from forms of work that are likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education, or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development. In order to achieve this goal, the CRC calls on States Parties to set minimum ages for admission to employment having regard to other international instruments. ILO Conventions No. 138 (Minimum Age) and No. 182 (Worst Forms) target as child labour (1) all forms of work carried out by children below a minimum cut-off age (at least 12 years in less developed countries); (2) all forms except `light work' carried out by children below a second higher cut-off age (at least 14 years in less developed countries); and (3) all `worst forms' of child labour carried out by children of any age under 18 years, where worst forms include any activity or occupation which, by its nature or type has, or leads to, adverse effects on the child's safety, health, or moral development. 21National child labour legislation allows light work for 12-14 year-olds, but the national definition of light work is still being refined. The definition of "non-light" work used in ILO/IPEC global estimates, i.e., work equal to or exceeding 14 hours per week, in addition to work less than this time threshold, but in the nationally-identified hazardous sectors, is therefore used in the calculation included in this study. The 14-hours cut-off point is supported by ILO Convention No. 33, as well as research looking at the link between economic activity and schooling. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 15 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Box 2. Non-economic Activity and the Estimation of Child Labour Non-economic activity also can adversely affect children's welfare, and therefore technically also falls within the definitions of child labour set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and ILO Convention No. 182. The question arises, however, of the appropriate time threshold for classifying non-economic activity as child labour. This, in turn, requires information on the relative impact of economic and non-economic activity on children's welfare (e.g., on their health, safety, and ability to attend and benefit from schooling). Questions on work-related illness and injury were addressed only to children in economic activity in CLS 2001, and therefore, it is not possible to compare the relative health effects of economic and non- economic activity. But regression analysis using school attendance data in CLS 2001 indicates that hours spent in non- economic activity add little to the probability of not attending school with respect to hours spent in economic activities, at any level work intensity in economic activity (Figure B1). This finding would support the argument that work in non-economic activity should be included as child labour only beyond a high weekly hours threshold, if at all. Figure B1. Marginal effect of hours in non-economic activity on school attendance probability by different combinations of intensity of work in the economic and in non-economic activity 0.000 te 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 rka 1 hour in the market 7 hours in the market -0.001 ytvii m het ni acticmon 14 hours in the market 21 hours in the market 28 hours in the market 35 hours in the market -0.001 hoursfotcef non-eco in -0.002 ef oursh naligra of -0.002 m ctefef alin -0.003 marg hours in hhchores Source: UCW calculation based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey, 2001. Table B1. Child Labour among 7-14 year-olds, Applying Minimum Age Criteria to Both Economic and Non-economic Activity Children (c) (a)+(b)+(c) aged 7-14 % children aged 7-14 years performing non- % children aged 7-14 years in child labour, by Sex years in economic activity by average weekly hours hours threshold employed for non-economic economic threshold(3 activity, excluding the overlapping categories activity(i) >7 >14 >21 >7 >14 >21 M 44.0 34.6 5.8 1.5 57.7 46.2 44.7 % F 43.0 39.6 7.8 1.8 59.0 45.4 43.6 T 43.5 37.0 6.8 1.7 58.3 45.8 44.2 M 619,741 486,601 81,921 21,465 811,451 649,718 629,348 No. F 578,919 533,976 105,079 24,218 795,116 612,436 587,170 T 1,198,660 1,020,577 186,999 45,683 1606567 1262153 1216519 Notes: (1) Excluding 12-14 years in light economic activity (see main text). (2)The indicators presented in Table B1 do not explicitly deal with the group of children that combine HH chores and economic activity. A lower combined hours threshold for this group is needed, but further research is needed justify what this threshold should be. Source: UCW calculation based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey, 2001. Table B1 includes estimates of child labour incorporating non-economic activity performed beyond a variety of weekly hours thresholds. It indicates that incorporating non-economic activity performed over a seven hours threshold would have a large upwards effect on child labour, but including only non-economic activity performed beyond a threshold of 14 hours would have very little effect on child labour estimates. Child labour is widespread in Cambodia. Over 750,000 economically active children are below the absolute minimum working age of 12 years, and an additional 500,000 (12-14 year-old) children in non-light economic activity are below the minimum age for this type of work.22 Over 250,000 children aged 15- 17 years are in the seven (of 16) nationally-identified hazardous sectors for which data are available or are working in 43 or more hours per week. Putting these groups together yields an estimate of almost 1.5 million 7-17 year-olds in child labour, 40 percent of this age group (Table 3). It should be stressed that this is a lower bound estimate, as it does not include involvement in nine of the 16 nationally-identified hazardous sectors, nor involvement in unconditional worst forms (see discussion below). This figure also does not include children in 22 The national definition of light work is still being refined. Light work is therefore calculated on the basis of the definition of light work used in ILO/IPEC global estimates, i.e., work that is less than 4 hours./week. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 16 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA non-economic activity, as there remains disagreement about whether non- economic activity should be considered in child labour estimates, and, if so, beyond what time threshold (see Box 2). Figure 13. The distinction between child labour and other forms of child work FORMS OF WORK Non-hazardous work (in non-hazardous industries and occupations and for Worst forms of child labour <43 hours/week) Hazardous work AGE GROUPS (in specified hazardous Light work Regular work industries and Unconditional worst (<14 hours/week) (>14 hours/week and occupations plus work <43 hours/week) >43 hours/week in other forms industries and occupations) 5-11 years CHILD LABOUR TO BE ELIMINATED 12-14 years 15-17 years Source: ILO/IPEC Table 3. Lower-bound Estimate of Child Labour Involvement, based on National Legislation (a) (b) (c) children aged 7-11 children aged 12-14 (a)+(b) Children aged 15-17 (a)+(b)+(c) years in economic years in economic years in hazardous work Sex activity activity excluding those Total in child labour, Total in child labour, in light economic 7-14 years or working excessive 7-17 years(iii) activity(i) hours(ii) % of total age group No. % of total age group No. % of total age group No. % of total age group No. % of total age group No. Male 42,6 338587 51,3 253882 34,0 592469 26 123973 38,1 716442 Female 41,8 365706 49,3 233382 31,7 599088 30 131506 40,8 730594 Total 42,2 754293 50,3 487264 32,9 1241557 28 255479 40,8 1497036 Notes: (1) National child labour legislation allows light work for 12-14 year-olds, but the national definition of light work is still being refined. The definition of "non-light" work used in ILO/IPEC global estimates (i.e., work equal to or exceeding 14 hours per week) in addition to work less than this time threshold in seven (out of the 16) nationally-identified hazardous sectors, is therefore used in the calculation included in column B. (2) Includes 15-17 year-olds in seven (out of the 16) nationally-identified hazardous sectors, and those working 43 or more hours per week. (3) Does not include children in any of the three nationally-identified unconditional worst forms. Source: UCW calculation based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey, 2001. Incidence of "Worst Forms" of Child Labour Children involved in "worst forms" of child labour, as set out in ILO Convention No. 182,23 are the sub-group of child labourers whose rights are most compromised and whose well-being is most threatened. They, therefore, constitute the most immediate policy priority. The government drafted a National Plan of Action (NPA) for the elimination of worst forms of child labour in February 2004 covering the period 2004-2010 (see Section 7). Government bodies and national stakeholders participating in this process identified a total of three "unconditional" worst forms24 of child labour and a 23 In ILO/IPEC terminology used in global publications on child labour, "worst forms" of child labour are divided into "unconditional worst" and "hazardous" forms of child labour. 24 Activities targeted by ILO Convention No. 182 as unconditional worst forms include: (1) all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict; (2) the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or for pornographic performances; and (3) the use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 17 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA further 16 "hazardous" forms25 of particular relevance in the Cambodian context. But data limitations mean that the number of children in worst forms cannot be adequately measured, even with this national listing. Table 4 illustrates the large gaps in both qualitative and quantitative information on worst forms of child labour. Table 4. Availability of Information on Nationally-identified Worst Forms of Child Labour "Worst forms" targeted in National estimates Other quantitative or qualitative Cambodia National Plan of Action Available from CCLS 2001? information available? 1. Portering yes no 2. Domestic service (private home) yes yes (1) 3. Waste scavenging or rubbish picking yes yes (2),(3) 4. Work in rubber plantations no yes (4) 5. Work in tobacco plantations no no s 6. Fishing yes yes (5) rmof 7. Work in semi-indust. agric. plantations no no 8. Brick-making no yes (6) 9. Salt production and related enterprises no yes (7) 10. Handicrafts and related enterprises yes no Hazardous 11. Processing sea products no no 12. Stone and granite breaking no no 13. Rock/sand quarrying, stone collection no no 14. Gem and coal mining yes no 15. Restaurant work yes yes (8),(9) 16. Begging no no 1. Child commercial sexual exploitation no yes (10),(11) UWFCL 2. Child trafficking no yes (12),(13),(14) 3. Children used in drug production, sales and trafficking no no Notes: (1) National Institute of Statistics (NIS), Child Domestic Workers Survey in Phnom Penh, Phnom Penh, 2003. (2) O'Leary, D., A Socioeconomic Study of Waste Pickers in Phnom Penh, Community Sanitation and Recycling Organization (CSARO) and the Center for Social Development, Phnom Penh, February 1998. (3) Chea Pyden,"Garbage Collection Children", Child Workers in Asia, vol. 16 no. 1, January-April, 2000. (4) ILO/IPEC, Child labour on rubber plantations in Kampong Cham province, Report on rapid assessment, 2004. (5) Centre for Advanced Studies, Child labour in fishing sector - Kampot and Kep provinces, Report on rapid assessment, ILO/IPEC, Phnom Penh, 2004. (6) LIDEE Khmer Research Center (LRC), Child Labour in Brick Sectors, Kampong Cham and Siem Reap Provinces, Report on rapid assessment, ILO-IPEC, Phnom Penh, 2004. (7) ILO/IPEC, Child labour in the salt production industry in Kampot, Report on rapid assessment, Phnom Penh, 2004. (8) jbj- Crossroads to Development, Beer Promotion Girls in Phnom Penh, Report on rapid assessment, Cambodia, ILO-IPEC, September 2004. (9) jbj- Crossroads to Development, Child labour in hotels guesthouses and restaurants, Siem Reap, Report on rapid assessment, ILO-IPEC, 2004. (10) jbj- Crossroads to Development, Direct sex workers in Sihanoukville Municipality, Report on rapid assessment, ILO/IPEC, 2004. (11) Cambodia National Assembly Commission on Human Rights and Receipt of Complaints, Report on the Problem of Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking in Cambodia, Phnom Penh, 1997. (11) United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), Sexually abused and sexually exploited children and youth in Cambodia: A qualitative assessment of their health needs and available services in selected provinces. Bangkok, 2000. (12) jbj-Crossroads to Development, Demand-Side of Trafficking in Three Service Sectors in Cambodia, draft report, ILO-IPEC, 2004. (13) Harrison S. & Somatheavy K., Moving Forward: secondary data review of sending and receiving areas and employment sectors in prevention of trafficking children and women in Cambodia, ILO/IPEC Program to Prevent the Trafficking of Children and Women (TICW), Bangkok, 2004. (14) Asia Regional Cooperation to Prevent People Trafficking, Gender, Human Trafficking, and the Criminal Justice System in Cambodia, December 2003 The limited available evidence suggests that while children in unconditional worst forms constitute a small proportion of total child labourers, their numbers are by no means negligible. A 1997 government report, for example, estimated that 16 percent of approximately 15,000 prostitutes working in brothels nationwide were below the age of 18;26 the demand for child commercial sex workers has reportedly increased with the spread of HIV/AIDS.27 Other reports suggest that nearly one-third of the estimated 17,000 sex workers in Phnom Penh during the latter part of the 1990s were girls under the age of 18.28 Mith Samlanh, an organization that works with 25 Activities targeted by ILO Convention No. 182 as hazardous forms include any activity or occupation which, by its nature or type has, or leads to, adverse effects on the child's safety, health, or moral development. 26 Cambodia National Assembly, Commission on Human Rights and Receipt of Complaints, 1997. 27 Ministry of Planning and UNDP, Cambodia Human Development Report 2000. According to an ESCAP study, STD rate was as high as 36 percent for child victims of commercial sexual exploitation in Cambodia (ESCAP, 2000). 28 Sophea Mar, presentation made at the Workshop on Combating the Trafficking of Children and their Exploitation in Prostitution and Other Forms of Child Labour in the Mekong Basin Countries, Bangkok, January 31, 1998; and Human Rights Vigilance of Cambodia, Results from a INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 18 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA street children in Phnom Penh, estimated that there were roughly 1,000 street children living either on their own or with their families in Phnom Penh in 2000.29 There are also reports of children being used in pornography30 and as workers in bars and hotel guesthouses.31 Child trafficking remains an urgent child rights concern in the country (Box 3). Box 3. The Child Trafficking Phenomenon in Cambodia Cambodia is reported to be a country of origin and a destination While most of the children working on the street are boys, girls for trafficking in children for several forms of work, including are also trafficked to these destinations for sexual exploitation. In commercial sexual exploitation, forced labour, and begging. cases where children are simply deported, they are often picked up Internal trafficking of children also takes place. by agents at the border and re-trafficked. Trafficked Cambodian Internal Trafficking children also end up in situations of child labour such as working in construction, domestic work and the agricultural sector in Thailand . Most trafficked Cambodian children and women end up in sexual The demand for cheap labour in comparatively wealthier exploitation in cities such as Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville, Siem Thailand is what pulls these children and women, and is the incentive Reap and urbanising border areas of Battambang and Banteay driving the traffickers. On the other hand, poverty, lack of agricultural Meanchey. The situation in the border town of Poipet , a sending, land, low levels of education and skills and few employment transition and receiving epicentre for trafficking, is particularly opportunities in Cambodia push these young people to search for worrisome. In Poipet, brothels, karaoke bars and massage what they believe will be increased prosperity across the border. parlours cater to Cambodian and Thai men. While women and children are sold to brothel owners for as little as US$50, virgins Cross-border trafficking:inbound and in-transit are sold for up to US$800 which corresponds to three times the Children and women are trafficked into and through Cambodia as annual GDP per capita in Cambodia (UNICEF). well. Vietnamese girls are trafficked into sexual exploitation in Trafficking victims mostly come from impoverished areas such Cambodia, where they are in high demand for their `prized' fairer skin as rural precincts of Kompomg Cham, Battambang, Svey Rieng, and alleged sexual `daring' (UNICEF). Vietnamese girls are Prey Veng, Kandal and Takeo or from fast developing urban commonly sold into bonded situations in brothels to pay off debts slums. Poverty, social upheaval, an underdeveloped legal incurred by their parents. A number of Vietnamese children and infrastructure, as well as weak law enforcement are all women are also trafficked to Thailand via Cambodia. contributing to the continuously thriving sex industry and to Recent studies, however, indicate that the absolute and relative trafficking in children and women. number of women trafficked from Viet Nam has decreased since the Other sectors where child labour and trafficking occur involve early 1990s. However, prostitution still flourishes and is supported by garment factories (Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville), begging (in Svay a substantial demand from both local and foreign clients. Reing province bordering southern Viet Nam), construction, The high incidence of HIV/AIDS is lowering the age of women and domestic work and work as porters (e.g., carrying loads to, and girls becoming sex workers. This occurs not only because AIDS is across, the border at Poipet). decimating the local sex worker population but also because myths about the curative power of youth (especially virgins) are increasing Cross-border trafficking - outbound demand for younger girls. Cambodian children are trafficked primarily to neighbouring Thailand mainly for begging, soliciting, street hawking or flower selling on the streets of Bangkok. Cambodian children are also seen in the relatively affluent tourist resorts such as Pattaya, Source: ILO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Mekong Sub-Regional Phuket and Hua Hin. As young as four, these children often Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women, belong to organised trafficking networks and begging syndicates. www.ilo.org/public/english/region/asro/bangkok/child/trafficking/wherewework- cambodiadetails.htm. Data from CCLS 2001 permit a partial estimate of some 232,000 children aged 7-17 years in the nationally-identified hazardous forms of work (Table 5). But it should be stressed that this constitutes a significant underestimate of total children in hazardous forms, not only because it includes only seven of the 16 nationally-identified priority hazardous sectors, but also because of likely under-reporting and difficulties in matching the national priority list with the standardised three-digit International Standard of Occupations (ISCO-88) classifications used in the 2001 survey. According to rapid appraisal on Child Prostitution and Trafficking, Phnom Penh, April 1995, as cited in Ministry of Planning and UNDP, Cambodia Human Development Report 2000. 29 Mith Samlanh, as cited in Ministry of Planning and UNDP, Cambodia Human Development Report 2000. 30 U.S. Department of State, 2003a. 31 jbj-Crossroads to Development, Beer Promotion Girls in Phnom Penh, Report on rapid assessment, Cambodia, ILO-IPEC, September 2004; and jbj-Crossroads to Development, Child labour in hotels guesthouses and restaurants, Siem Reap, Report on rapid assessment, ILO-IPEC, 2004. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 19 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA the 2001 survey, for example, only 5,900 children aged 7-17 years fall into the category of "domestic and related helpers, cleaners and launderers" (ISCO-88 occupation no. 913), yet a separate dedicated study indicated that there were some 28,000 child domestic workers in Phnom Penh alone.32 The largest omission in this hazardous work estimate, however, is undoubtedly children working in rubber, tobacco and other semi-industrial agricultural plantations. Data from CCLS 2001 indicate that there are some 65,00033 children working in non-family, non-subsistence agriculture, but it is not possible to specify how many of them work on plantations as opposed to in other forms of commercial agriculture. Table 5. Partial Estimates of Children in Nationally-identified Priority "Worst Forms"(a) of Child Labour "Worst forms" identified in Cambodia National 3-digit ISCO-88 15-17 7-14 7-17 Plan of Action number No. No. No. 1. Portering Occup. no. 933(b) 34,633 45,206 79,839 2. Domestic worker (private home) Occup. no. 913(c) 3,751 2,153 5,904 3. Waste scavenging or rubbish picking Occup. no. 916(d) 1,411 3,115 4,526 4. Work in rubber plantations ? ? ? 5. Work in tobacco plantations ? ? ? 6. Fishing Occup. no. 615(e) 34,633 45,206 79,839 forms 7. Work in semi-indust. agric. plantations ? ? ? 8. Brick-making ? ? ? 9. Salt production and related enterprises ? ? ? 10. Handicrafts and related enterprises Occup. no. 733(f) 1,161 1,364 2,525 Hazardous 11. Processing sea products ? ? ? 12. Stone and granite breaking ? ? ? 13. Rock/sand quarrying, stone collection ? ? ? 14. Gem and coal mining Occup. no. 711/931(g) 20,575 15,316 35,891 15. Restaurant work Occup. no. 512(h) 9,464 13,533 22,997 16. Begging ? ? ? . )(i 1. Child commercial sexual exploitation ? ? ? ondcnU CL 2. Child trafficking ? ? ? WF3. Children used in drug production, sales and trafficking ? ? ? Partial total in worst forms identified in National Plan of Action 105,628 125,893 231,521 Notes: (1) Priority national hazardous sectors identified in the National Plan of Action match only imprecisely with the standard 3-digit ISCO industrial classifications used in CCLS 2001. Estimates, therefore, are indicative only. (2) ISCO occupation no. 933 refers to transport labourers and freight handlers; (3) ISCO occupation no. 913 refers to domestic and related helpers, cleaners and launderers; (4) ISCO occupation no. 916 refers to garbage collectors and related labourers; (5) ISCO occupation no. 615 refers to fishery workers, hunters and trappers (6) ISCO occupation no. 733 refers to handicraft workers in wood, textile, leather and related materials; (7) ISCO occupation nos. 711 and 931 refer to miners, shotfirers, stone cutters and carvers (711) and mining and construction labourers (931); (8) ISCO occupation no. 512 refers to housekeeping and restaurant services workers; and (9) UWFCL=Unconditional worst forms of child labour. Source: UCW calculation based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey, 2001. Information on working conditions and work-related illness/injury from 2001 CCLS suggest much higher levels of exposure to work hazards. As discussed in more detail in subsequent sections, adult respondents reported considering "some aspects of their child(ren)'s work risky or dangerous"34 in almost two out of three cases (61 percent). Children themselves reported "being aware of any likely health problems or hazards, injuries or illnesses in connection with their work"35 in almost one out of two cases (41 percent). Again according to adults respondents, almost half of working children in Cambodia (44 percent) has suffered some form of work-related ill health at some 32 National Institute Of Statistics, Child Domestic Worker Survey Phnom Penh 2003, in collaboration with ILO-IPEC Cambodia, March 2004. The survey was based on a sample of 2,500 households, from which a total of 293 CDWs were identified and interviewed. The definition adopted in the survey considered CDWs as any child aged 7-17 years who works in the household of people other than their parents, regardless of the amount or kind of remuneration he/she receives. 33 Excluding children already in other nationally-identified worst forms included in Table 8. 34 See survey questionnaire in Annex 2: Form 2, page 4 of 11, Q11.7. 35 See survey questionnaire in Annex 2: Form 3, page 7 of 10, Q17.7. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 20 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA point in time.36 About one-third of ill-health incidents was sufficiently serious to require medical treatment (25 percent) or temporary work stoppage (10 percent). 36Adult respondents; children themselves report a slightly higher incidence rate, at 46 percent. It should be kept in mind that reported ill-health is an imperfect indicator at best. The health consequences of work, for example, may be obscured by the selection of the healthiest children for work, or by the fact that these health consequences may not become apparent until a later stage in a child's life. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 21 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 22 4 CHARACTERISTICS OF CHILDREN'S WORK Types of Work Performed by Children M ost working children are found in the agriculture sector. Three of every four economically active children work in agriculture, against only 15 percent in commerce, five percent in manufacturing and two percent in services. There is surprisingly little variation by age or sex in the economic activities performed by children. Older children are only very slightly less likely to be in agriculture, and slightly more likely to be in manufacturing than their younger counterparts. A marginally smaller share of girl workers are in agriculture, and a marginally larger share are in manufacturing, compared to boy workers. There are larger differences in the nature of children's economic activity by place of residence. While agricultural work predominates in rural areas, both agricultural and commerce sector work are important in urban areas. Urban working children are also more likely to be involved in the service sector, though even in urban areas this sector accounts for a relatively small proportion of total child workers (five percent). Table 6. Sector of Child Economic Activity, by Child Age, Sex and Place of Residence Background characteristic Agriculture Commerce Services Manufacturing Other Total Age 7 years 79,3 15,1 1,5 3,5 0,8 100,0 8 years 81,3 11,9 3,0 3,1 0,7 100,0 9 years 75,5 15,9 2,1 6,3 0,3 100,0 10 years 78,8 14,3 1,5 4,1 1,4 100,0 11 years 76,3 14,7 1,3 6,1 1,6 100,0 12 years 73,7 17,2 1,8 5,5 1,8 100,0 13 years 75,6 15,0 1,8 4,5 3,1 100,0 14 years 72,7 16,5 1,5 6,0 3,4 100,0 Sex male 78,5 13,1 1,6 4,7 2,1 100,0 female 73,6 17,6 1,9 5,4 1,6 100,0 Residence rural 81,2 11,3 1,2 4,6 1,7 100,0 urban 45,9 38,8 5,3 7,5 2,7 100,0 Total 76,1 15,3 1,8 5,0 1,8 100,0 Source: UCW calculations based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey 2001. Table 7. Modality of Child Economic Activity, by Child Age, Sex and Place of Residence Background characteristic Unpaid family Casual unpaid Casual paid Paid employee Own account Other Total worker worker Age 7 years 92.7 3.6 1.5 0.1 0.1 2.0 100,0 8 years 90.3 4.8 3.9 0.1 0.5 0.5 100,0 9 years 90.3 5.5 3.3 0.4 0.2 0.4 100,0 10 years 90.3 4.6 2.6 1.1 0.9 0.5 100,0 11 years 92.8 2.1 2.3 1.3 1.5 0.1 100,0 12 years 91.2 2.9 3.2 1.0 1.5 0.2 100,0 13 years 89.3 2.6 3.1 3.0 1.8 0.2 100,0 14 years 86.6 3.0 3.9 3.9 2.5 0.1 100.0 Sex male 89.7 3.8 3.1 1.6 1.3 0.5 100.0 female 90.7 3.2 3.0 1.7 1.3 0.2 100.0 Residence rural 90.4 3.4 3.1 1.6 1.1 0.4 100.0 urban 88.7 3.8 2.9 1.7 2.7 0.2 100.0 Total 90.2 3.5 3.1 1.6 1.3 0.4 100.00 Source: UCW calculations based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey 2001. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 23 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA About 90 percent of economically active children work for their families as unpaid labour with little variation by age, place of residence, or sex (Table 8). Most of the remaining economically active children work as casual day labourers (seven percent). Very few economically active children (less than two percent) work as paid employees in formal entities. This is important because children in the formal sector are the only ones currently covered by the provisions on child labour in the Cambodia Labour Law, 37 and because formal sector workplaces are the only ones typically accessible to labour inspection regimes. Inspection capacity, however, is low and systematic inspections do not occur even in the formal sector (see Section 7). Cleaning and water fetching are the most common non-economic activities.38 The CCLS 2001 queried households about four main types of non- economic activity performed by children out of a possible choice of eight. Responses, shown in Figure 14, indicate that cleaning and water fetching are the most important household tasks performed by children. Gender considerations appear to play a role in the allocation of housework tasks; girls are more likely than boys to be assigned responsibility for meal preparation, cleaning and shopping, while the opposite holds true in the cases of water fetching and food/message delivery. Figure 14. Main Types of "Non-economic"(1) Activities Performed by Children, by Sex 8. 57 8. 6. 2. 50 51 male 44 44 t 7. encr 34 36 pe 9. 21 5. 9. 22 1. 19 21 5. female 69. 2. 16 6. 1. 14 97. 34. 96. 11 9 11 0.8 Total preparing meals sewing/mending cleaning shopping child care fetching water carrying food or garments house/washing delivering clothes messages Source: UCW calculations based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey 2001. Returns to Children's Work The contribution of child work to household income is very difficult to assess given that most of the children work in the family farm or business.39 For the few children who report earning in kind or cash, daily earnings of children (in-cash and in-kind) are far from inconsequential for families. On average, children earn aboutUS$1 per day, accounting for 28 percent of the total 37 Art. 173 of the Labour Act states that "a child of either sex aged below 16 years may not be hired as a wage or salary earner, foreman or apprentice in any enterprise other than an establishment employing all members of the family, where the child is placed under the authority of the parents or guardians." 38 It is worth noting that the technical classification of water fetching as an economic or non- economic activity remains an area of debate. A strict interpretation of the System of National Accounts (SNA) (rev. 1993) would place water fetching in the category of economic activity, and specifically own-account production (see Box 1 on terminology). However, in most published statistics on child economic activity and child labour, including ILO/IPEC global estimates, water fetching is not included as an economic activity. 39 For a description of the methodology and data requirement see Menon, Perali, and Rosati The Shadow Wage of Child Labour: An Application to Nepal, UCW working papers, 2002. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 24 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA household labour income. Not surprisingly, child earnings, and their share in total household labour income, increase sharply with the age of the child, regardless of sex. However, even among primary school-aged children the share is 15 percent. These results may indicate that the opportunity cost of schooling in terms of child (economic) work is high and increases rapidly with age. The child daily wage is not representative of the opportunity cost of schooling in terms of work more generally (i.e., including domestic work) and the marriage market (e.g., cultural pressures to marry after a certain age is reached). On both accounts, the child daily wage is likely to underestimate the opportunity cost of girls' schooling. If we use the child wage as an imperfect measure of the opportunity cost of schooling, and compare it with direct schooling costs estimates, it clearly stands as the most important component of the total cost of schooling, and thus the most important cost barrier for the schooling of poor children.40 Work Intensity Economic activity is typically very time intensive for children. Economically active children aged 7-14 years perform an average of almost 22 hours of economic activity each week.41 The sub-group that combines economic activity and schooling puts in a slightly shorter average work week of 20 hours in economic activity. This is still only a little less than the 23.5 hours spent on average studying each week,42 underscoring the additional constraint work places on children's time for study. Work intensity increases with age, from 17 hours at the age of seven years to over 26 hours by the age of 14 years. Twelve year-olds average 22 hours of economic activity per week, much longer than the time threshold of 14 hours frequently cited in international estimates of light work for the 12-14 age group. Differences in the distribution of working children by hours worked are relatively small across sectors (Table 8). The distributions of economically active children and adults by hours, shown in Figure 15, indicate that children work on average less than adults. Table 8. Average Working Hours by Working Status, Age Group and Industry 7-11 years 12-14 years 15-17 years Sector Sex Work only Work and study Work only Work and study Work only Work and study Male 19.7 19.7 31.7 21.6 37.3 21.6 Total Female 21.7 18.6 31.4 19.9 37.3 19.9 Total 20.7 19.2 31.5 20.8 37.3 20.8 Male 19 21.9 31.2 21.9 35 21.9 Agriculture Female 20.4 20.1 29.6 20.1 32.1 20.1 Total 19.6 21.1 30.4 21.1 33.4 21.1 Male 27.1 19 28.2 19 37.6 19 Commerce Female 26.7 19.4 30.9 19.4 37.7 19.4 Total 26.9 19.2 30.1 19.2 37.7 19.2 Male 20.2 21.7 37.3 21.7 42.3 21.7 Services Female 25.6 20.1 42.1 20.1 49.4 20.1 Total 22.1 21 40.2 21 47.4 21 Male 15.1 20.9 35.4 20.9 41.3 20.9 Manufacturing Female 25.3 21 35.3 21 49.6 21 Total 22.5 21 35.4 21 47.7 21 Source: UCW calculations based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey 2001. 40 Cambodia Quality Basic Education for All (World Bank, 2005) and From Peace to Prosperity: An Assessment of Poverty in Cambodia (World Bank, 2006). 41 Children themselves report lower weekly working hours at every age compared to adults responding for them. The reason for this discrepancy is not clear and merits further investigation. 42 National Institute of Statistics, Time Use in Cambodia, Results from the Cambodian Socio- Economic Survey, unpublished draft report, 2005. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 25 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Figure 15. Distribution of Economically Active Children and Adults by Working Hours. .06 Adults aged 18-60 Children aged 5-17 .04 hoursly ek wefoytisn .02 kde 0 0 20 40 60 80 Weekly working hours Source: UCW calculations based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey 2001. The total work burden of economically active children rises markedly when the non-economic activity that these children perform is also considered (Figure 16). Non-economic activity adds an average of eight hours per week to the total work burden of economically active 7-14 year-olds, bringing total average weekly working hours to almost 31. Work intensity applying this expanded measure is relatively high even for very young children. Economically active six year-olds put in an average of 23 total hours of total work each week, rising to 30 hours for 10 year-olds.43 Again, this compares with an average of 23.5 hours per week spent on study. Non-economic activity is performed much less intensively than economic activity. Children aged 7-14 years performing non-economic activity do so for an average of only nine hours each week. Girls put in more hours on non-economic activity than boys, though the difference by sex for the 7-14 years age group is not large. Housework increases in intensity as children grow older, but the variation in time spent on housework across the 7-14 years age range is much less than that for economic activity (Figure 16). Greater differences by sex and age in time spent on housework begin to emerge beyond the age of 14 years. Figure 16. Average Weekly Working Hours, by Age, Sex and Work Type 40 hours economic activity male 35 30 female hours non-economic activity sur 25 male ho20 female 15 hrs. eco. & non-eco. work(a) 10 male 5 AGE IN YEARS female 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Notes: This is the total average working hours put in by economically active children considering the time they spend in both economic and non-economic activity. Source: UCW calculations based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey 2001. 43 Again, these estimates are slightly lower when based on responses from children themselves. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 26 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Workplace Environment and Hazards A very high proportion of economically active children face work- related hazards and dangers, leaving them vulnerable to injury and illness. Adult respondents reported considering "some aspects of their child(ren)'s work risky or dangerous"44 in almost two out of three cases (61 percent). Children themselves reported "being aware of any likely health problems or hazards, injuries or illnesses in connection with their work"45 in almost one out of two cases (41 percent). Both adults and children cited "animal bites" and "general exhaustion" as the two most common work-related hazards (Figure 17). Figure 17. Exposure to Risky or Dangerous Work(1) (a) Proportion of economically active children exposed to risky or dangerous work, by age and respondent 90.0 84.3 adult respondent child respondent 80.0 70.0 68.5 66.5 60.0 63.1 62.6 62.2 57.3 60.7 57.7 58.0 61.1 tnecr 50.0 51.3 47.3 47.3 pe 40.0 42.2 36.1 38.8 38.4 42.0 39.9 40.9 41.3 30.0 20.0 10.0 0.0 5 6 7 8 9 AGE10 YEARS 11 12 13 14 Total IN (b) Distribution of children exposed to risky or dangerous work by nature of risk 40,0 35,2 32,0 35,0 30,0 tnecr 25,0 20,0 pe15,0 7,0 6,7 10,0 6,1 3,8 3,7 5,0 1,4 1,2 1,2 0,9 0,6 0,2 0,0 etibecfayam as/almina ecafy lar onit tnr n t e/ ia toe ral nt r re ir gn ne us as esae cui deci heot an cefa alicys ghsi s painy ari ma ge haxe butegt ctrant em llafy sedi ma atoryrip res dis pron veh ac alnistetn suffyam ph notialtium los ma he by ghim coyam drowyam faceyam may roist esaesdi ga ceafyam Notes: There was little difference by survey respondent in responses regarding the nature of risk. Source: UCW calculations based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey 2001. Other indicators also suggest that many working children face difficult conditions in the workplace. More than one in three working children must perform heavy/physical work sometimes or often; work is often or sometimes stressful or boring for over half of working children; and one-fourth of working children indicate experiencing work related problems. Many working children also appear to have less workplace protection than their adult counterparts; half of children not using safety equipment indicate that others performing similar work did benefit from safety equipment. On the other hand, very few working children appear to operate machinery or equipment, and most child economic activity appears to be supervised by an adult (Table 9). 44 See survey questionnaire in Annex 2: Form 2, page 4 of 11, Q11.7. 45 See survey questionnaire in Annex 2: Form 3, page 7 of 10, Q17.7. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 27 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Table 9. Workplace Conditions and Characteristics, by Respondent and Sex(1) % of working children Survey question Respondent Response Male Female Total always/often 4.41 3.07 3.74 Must perform heavy/physical work? adult sometimes 35.49 33.31 34.41 seldom/never 60.10 63.62 61.85 Is work supervised by an adult? adult yes 95.52 95.11 95.32 always/often 8.35 6.21 7.29 Work is stressful or boring? adult sometimes 46.52 44.27 45.40 seldom/never 45.13 49.53 47.31 adult yes 1.72 0.82 1.27 Operated machinery/equipment? child yes 1.68 0.74 1.22 adult yes 72.40 70.92 71.66 Is safety equipment used? child yes 65.57 64.37 64.98 If safety equipment not used, do others adult yes 55.07 51.47 53.28 performing same type of work use safety equipment? child yes 51.24 47.83 49.56 Source: UCW calculations based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey 2001. Work Conditions in Selected Nationally-identified Hazardous Sectors Separate rapid assessments have been conducted with ILO/IPEC support in four of the 16 nationally-identified hazardous sectors (i.e., fisheries, salt production, brick-making and domestic service). The rapid assessments offer a more detailed look at the work conditions faced by children in these four priority sectors. Work in the fisheries. A rapid assessment of children in the fisheries sector was conducted in Kampot and Kep provinces in 2004.46 The survey pointed to the existence of three different groups of working children in the fishing communities. The first group is composed by the family unpaid labourers, mainly working on boats. In this case, working time is not regular and depends on the abundance of fish. The second group includes paid daily labourers on boats or in sea food processing plants. The third group comprises those who catch fish or gather other sea products and sell them directly. Feedback from children pointed to the existence of work hazards for all three groups. Working children complained of headaches, fever, colds (62 percent), cuts from peeling crabs or shrimps (57 percent), lower back aches (44 percent) and stomach aches (28 percent). Half of the children reported that they often experienced these health problems, while the other half experienced them once or twice per season. Work on boats appeared particularly hazardous, especially when children were hired and working for adults other than their parents. This group of children indicated being faced with risks such as storms or large waves, accidents with the boat engine, sea sickness, slipping and falling in the boat or into the water, and sleep deprivation. The extent to which work interferes with 46 Center for Advanced Study (Sokhom, 2004). A total of 1,580 children and 125 parents were interviewed in four communes of Kampot and Kep provinces. The children interviewed belonged prevalently to families that had an average size of 6.3 and relied on fishery and farming; 55 percent of the sample children were female. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 28 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA school appears to depend on the season. In the peak season, 28 percent worked more than eight hours a day and 53 percent worked five days a week, while during low seasons only 18 percent worked eight hours per day and only 23 percent work five days per week. Three-fourths of children indicated that they would stop working if they could. Child brickworkers. A rapid assessment of child workers in the brick sector was conducted in two provinces -- Kampong Cham and Siem Reap -- in 2004.47 Of the total sample of 2,652 children, most belonged to older age cohorts -- 45 percent was aged 10-15 years and 49 percent was aged 15-17 years. But a non-negligible number -- 160 children -- was aged less than 10 years. When asked to state the major activities in which they spent most time in the brickmaking factories, child brickworkers (CBWs) mentioned getting soil (30 percent of CBW respondents), taking the bricks out for drying under the sun (25 percent), carrying sun dried bricks to kiln (14 percent), and filling soft paste into brick moulds (11 percent). Feedback from the children underscored the hazardous and difficult nature of this work: three quarters indicated not having a single day off during the week; more than 60 percent indicated falling sick during their work; 48 and over half indicated disliking their work, with `heavy work' and `tiredness' being the most common reasons cited. Forty-two percent of the child brickworkers were unable to attend school. In nine out of 10 cases, the parents or guardians of the CBWs were themselves brickworkers. When asked under what condition they would allow their child to stop working, parents/guardians of most CBWs said they could stop when the family had enough income. The average earnings of the CBWs were low, but far from negligible for a poor household ­ most CBWs49 earned a monthly income between 10,000 Riels and 100,000 Riels. From the employers' perspective, the main advantages of employing child workers were "suitability" (65 percent of employers), followed by "less wages can be paid" and "obedient". Salt production. A rapid assessment of the salt production sector was conduction in 2003.50 The assessment showed that the practice of children working alongside was commonplace. About 138 families with working children were identified, and as many as 400 working children were involved. Children performed tasks such as carrying heavy loads in hot weather for long hours. Many reported suffering foot injuries from walking on the salt. 47LIDEE Khmer Research Center, 2004. The survey targeted 2,652 respondents, disaggregated as follows: 1,188 children to be targeted for withdrawal (children who were directly working), 1,155 children to be targeted for prevention (siblings and other children in the vicinity who were working or not working), 277 brickworking families represented by parents/guardians and 32 brick employers to assess demand patterns of child labour. Of the 1,188 child brick workers (CBW), 661 were boys and 527 were girls. 48In Kampong Cham 70 percent of the CBWs fell sick during their work and in Siem Reap 53 percent. 49in Kampong Cham 82 percent of CBWs and in Siem Reap 86 percent of CBWs were in this earnings range. 50ILO-IPEC-Cambodia, 2003b. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 29 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Child domestic service. A baseline survey conducted in mid-200351 in all districts of Phnom Penh paints a grim picture of the conditions of CDWs: over half of all CDWs, and 70 percent of female CDWs, must work seven days per week; 60 percent do not get even an hour of rest during the working day; three- fourths receive no monthly cash salary; most must live in the house of their employer, away from their parents and siblings; and abusive treatment, in the form of being slapped with bare hands, being beaten with objects or abused with harsh/vulgar words, is reported by many CDWs. Forty percent of CDWs percent are out of school, and for those in school, limited free time and tiredness from their work make it difficult for them to keep up with other children or to do their homework. Early school drop-out among CDWs is, therefore, very common. The survey indicated that Cambodian parents typically perceive child domestic work as acceptable, and as a positive opportunity for the child to be provided with food, shelter and experience, making it difficult to generate public concern about the phenomenon. Among parents of CDWs in Phnom Penh, earning income was the primary reason cited for placing their children in domestic service (cited by 37 percent of parents) followed by perceived educational opportunities (cited by 30 percent). More than half (60 percent) of the CDWs identified in the survey were related to their employer (niece, nephew or other). This fact also serves to limit the public perception of child domestic service as a child rights concern. 51 National Institute of Statistics, 2004. The survey was based on a sample of 2,500 households, from which a total of 293 CDWs were identified and interviewed. The definition adopted in the survey considered CDWs as any child aged 7-17 years who works in the household of people other than their parents, regardless of the amount or kind of remuneration he/she receives. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 30 5 IMPACT OF WORK ON CHILDREN'S HEALTH AND EDUCATION T he harmful effects of unconditional worst forms of child labour are beyond dispute. These extreme forms of work run counter to fundamental human rights and require urgent action towards elimination. But despite the magnitude of the problem, most working children in Cambodia are not engaged in the unconditional worst forms. Rather, they are involved in family-based subsistence agriculture, household chores and, to a lesser degree, commerce and manufacturing activities. This section addresses empirically the detrimental effects of this broader set of children's work activities on health and schooling. Impact on Schooling Most working children attend school.52 However, work can delay school entry (which in turn induces early school dropout) or prevent it altogether. Also, while attending school, working children may find themselves less able to learn as a result of exhaustion or insufficient time to complete homework, which increases their chances of failing and repeating a grade or dropping out of school altogether. This section employs an empirical model to show how children's work is a key factor behind the two most important and interrelated challenges on the basic education system in Cambodia: late school entry and substantial dropout starting in upper primary. Beyond the student numbers, this section also shows that children's work has a significant detrimental effect on learning achievement, as measured by literacy and numeracy test scores. To examine the relationship between school enrolment and work (economic and non-economic), an empirical model is estimated using the CCLS 2001. Since work that can potentially interfere with schooling is the primary interest, the work variables are further redefined using the 14-hour cutoff. The model is estimated for the age groups corresponding to the targeted ages for primary, lower secondary and upper secondary school (6-11, 12-14 and 15-17, respectively), as well as by gender. The model includes a rich set of child, parental, household and community characteristics (including the supply and quality of school inputs) as explanatory variables of school enrolment and work participation (see Annex C for further details). School and work activities are negatively related, particularly school and economic activity, while economic activity and non-economic activity appear to be more complementary. Also, the relation between school and economic 52This section drawn primarily from Cambodia Quality Basic Education for All (World Bank, 2005). INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 31 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA activity becomes more negative with age, particularly among girls.53 This indicates that the trade-off or degree of substitution between school participation and economic activity increases as the child gets older, and that this trend is especially pronounced among girls. A variety of factors can explain this finding, including: (1) the opportunity cost of schooling in terms of market work increases with the age of the child; (2) the time intensity of work and school activities also increase with age; and (3) other things being equal, the older the child the more likely he or she is to be working for pay outside his or her family business, which is less flexible than working as a family labourer. The increase in the time intensity of economic activity may also help to explain why this type of work becomes less compatible with school as the child gets older. Table 10. School-work Correlations based on Model, by Age Group and Sex Age group Sex Observable characteristics Unobservable characteristics School Economic Non-economic School Economic Non-economic activity activity activity activity School 1.00 1.00 Male Economic act. 0.41 1.00 0.07 (0.07) 1.00 6-11 Non-economic activity 0.41 0.82 1.00 -0.11 (0.01) 0.38 (0.00) 1.00 School 1.00 1.00 Female Economic act. 0.44 1.00 0.04 (0.25) 1.00 Non-economic activity 0.31 0.80 1.00 -0.05 (0.00) 0.43 (0.00) 1.00 School 1.00 1.00 Male Economic act. -0.33 1.00 -0.14 (0.00) 1.00 12-14 Non-economic activity -0.29 0.49 1.00 -0.07 (0.16) 0.15 (0.00) 1.00 School 1.00 1.00 Female Economic act. -0.32 1.00 -0.15 (0.00) 1.00 Non-economic activity -0.33 0.38 1.00 -0.14 (0.00) 0.14 (0.00) 1.00 School 1.00 1.00 Male Economic act. -0.47 1.00 -0.20 (0.00) 1.00 15-17 Non-economic activity -0.26 0.55 1.00 -0.01 (0.75) 0.09 (0.04) 1.00 School 1.00 1.00 Female Economic act. -0.61 1.00 -0.32 (0.00) 1.00 Non-economic activity -0.12 0.11 1.00 -0.07 (0.11) 0.01 (0.90) 1.00 Notes: Correlations among unobservable characteristics are estimated as part of the model as the correlation parameters of a trivariate normal distribution. Correlations among observables characteristics are based on the correlation among equation indices, that is the linear combination of model covariates. Correlations are measured in a 0 to 1 scale. Numbers in parenthesis are probability values (p-value) corresponding to the test of the hypothesis that the correlation coefficient is 0 (i.e., the two equations in question are independent). The hypothesis that all correlation coefficients are zero is rejected at the 1% significance level for both males and females. Source: Cambodia Quality Basic Education for All (World Bank, 2005.) The opportunity cost of schooling (as measured imperfectly by child wages) go from CR 1,594 among 6-11 aged children to CR 4,354 among 15-17 aged children. Since children tend to enter school late, they reach "maturity" in terms of the value of their time by the end of primary school or beginning of lower secondary schooling (LSS). This also coincides with the timing of the greatest increases in direct education costs. This helps to explain the bottleneck in the education system starting in upper primary education and moving into LSS, particularly among the poor. The extend to which work interferes with schooling appears to depend somewhat on the sector in which the work takes place. As shown in Table 14, children working in the services sector are most disadvantaged in terms of their ability to attend school in urban areas, while children working in mining, construction, transport and hotels are least able to attend school in rural areas. 53 The lack of a significant relationship among 6-11 year olds is due to the fact that the true negative impact of work on schooling (see analysis of work on school entry) is overshadowed by the spurious correlation between school and work through age (i.e., the probability of working and attending school both increase with age). INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 32 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Table 11. Children Aged 7-14 , by Work Sector, Residence and Activity Status Urban Rural Economically Economically Economically Economically Work sector active and out of active and active and out of active and school attending school Total school attending school Total Agriculture 17,4 82,6 100 17,0 83,0 100 Commerce 9,7 90,3 100 13,0 87,0 100 Services(a) 26,5 73,5 100 15,5 84,6 100 Manufacturing 13,8 86,2 100 17,3 82,7 100 Other(b) 15,2 84,8 100 31,2 68,8 100 Total 14,6 85,5 100 16,8 83,2 100 Notes: (i) "Services" consist of community and social services and working in private households; and (ii) "Other" consists of mining, construction, transport and hotels. Source: UCW calculations based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey 2001. Additional analysis indicates that work tends to delay school entry (or prevent it altogether), which has negative consequences since delayed entry reduces the probability of completing primary school. The effect of work on school entry is more negative for economic activities and for boys. Performing economic activity reduces the probability of entering school (as measured by the probability of entering school by age 14) of boys by 25 percent, and the probability of entering by the official school entry age by 17 percent (Table 15). Non-economic activity also has a strong influence on school entry, again particularly for boys. Involvement in domestic work makes it about 13 percent less likely that boys enter school by age six years, and also about 13 percent less likely that boys enter school at all. Finally, the delayed school entry effect of work has negative consequences, particular for girls: for each additional year that a girl delays school entry her chances of remaining in school are six percent lower, her chances of completing primary school are 60 percent lower (Table 16), and her total number of completed years of schooling are reduced by 3 years. Table 12. Effect of Work on School Entry, by Outcome and Sex Economic activity Non-economic activity Boys Girls School entry by age 14 -25.11* -8.95 -12.60* -4.70 School entry by age 6 -17.37* -8.90 -13.23* -5.60 Notes: Reported figures measure the percentage change (expressed on a 0 to 100 scale) in the probability associated to each school entry outcome as a result of working at each age. (*) indicates that the coefficient associated to the work status variable in the school entry equation is statistically significant at the 5% level or less. See text for further details. To further examine the impact of children's work on learning achievement, use is made of literacy and numeracy test scores of 4th and 6th graders from a nationally representative survey of 191 primary schools, conducted as part of the Public Expenditures Survey in Primary Education (World Bank, 2006b). Models for literacy and numeracy test scores are estimated separately, as well as by student grade. The models include children, parental and household characteristics. In addition, to account for differences in school quality, the models are estimated with school fixed effects. The work variable of interest is an indicator for whether the child works everyday before going to school. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 33 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Table 13. Estimated Impact of Work on Learning Achievement Grade 4 Grade 6 Literacy Numeracy Literacy Numeracy No school effects -13.6* -16.2* -8.1* -9.3* With school effects -9.1* -8.5* -1.3 -1.1 Notes: Reported figures measure the change in percentage points (on a 0 to 100 scale) in test scores resulting from working everyday before going to school. (*) denotes statistical significance at the 5% level or less. Work has a significant detrimental effect on learning achievement, particularly among 4th graders. Working everyday before going to schools reduces literacy and numeracy test scores in 14 and 16 percentage points respectively. The more comprehensive model accounting for differences in school quality yields smaller but significant estimates. The negative impact of work on the learning performance of 6th graders is no longer significant once differences in school quality are accounted for. Impact on Health and Safety Incidence of work-related illness and injury is very high among Cambodian working children, suggesting that children's work is often hazardous in nature.54 According to adults respondents, almost half of working children in Cambodia (44 percent) has suffered some form of work- related ill-health at some point in time.55 About one-third of ill-health incidents was sufficiently serious to require medical treatment (25 percent) or temporary work stoppage (10 percent). About one-half of one percent of ill-health incidents required hospitalisation; though small in percentage terms, in absolute terms this means that almost 3,000 working children were hospitalised for work- related reasons at some point in time.56 Children themselves report a higher rate of work-related hospitalisation of 1.6 percent, or almost 13,000 in absolute terms. Ill-health frequency was characterised as "occasional" in 75 percent of cases, and "often or frequent" in four percent of cases. Figure 18 presents the occurrence rate and incidence density57 of ill health by various child and work characteristics. It should be kept in mind that these results reflect only 54 Data do not permit an analysis of the absolute health effects of work, i.e., an analysis of the health status of working children vis-à-vis that of their non-working counterparts. For a detailed discussion of this point, see Guarcello L., Lyon S. and Rosati F., The Impact of Working Time on Children's Health, ILO/IPEC Working Paper, UCW Project, Rome, September, 2004. 55 Adult respondents; children themselves report a slightly higher incidence rate, at 46 percent. It should be kept in mind that reported ill-health is an imperfect indicator at best. The health consequences of work, for example, may be obscured by the selection of the healthiest children for work, or by the fact these health consequences may not become apparent until a later stage in a child's life. 56 Children themselves report a higher rate of work-related hospitalisation of 1.6 percent, or almost 13,000 in absolute terms. 57 The occurrence rate does not take into consideration that differences in observed occurrence can be due to differences in exposure. To take exposure into consideration, a standard incidence density is computed as follows: children injured during a specified period of time Incidence Density = total person time where "total person-time" is cumulated exposure for all the individuals considered. In our case, it should be defined as average weekly working hours multiplied by the number of weeks worked during the reference period (assumed to be one year). We had to assume, however, constant weekly hours of work for the whole reference period. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 34 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA correlations and not causal relationships; regression analysis permits a more precise look at how these factors influence the health outcomes of working children. Figure 18. Occurrence and incidence density of work-related ill health, by various background characteristics (a) Occurence rate of ill-health th 60 55.7 58.4 53.6 ealh-li 53 55 52.2 50.6 48.9 50.2 49.6 edta 50 46.2 47.3 45.7 44.3 -relkrow 43.7 45 40.1 40.2 41 of 40 35.8 ranceucco 32.6 35 30 el el . . .c . ma mafe 5-9 no 10-14 15-17 agri .mm . . r . . no serv co nufam heot s yes ye 1-10 40+ SAFETY 11-20 21-30 31-40 SEX AGE IN YEARS WORK SECTOR FAMILY WORK WORKING HOURS MEASURES (b) Incidence density of ill-health 3 2.61 2.26 2.5 2.02 2.08 2.09 2.20 ytsi 1.8 1.92 2 1.6 1.58 1.56 dene 1.26 1.4 1.33 1.33 1.20 nc 1.5 decini 1 0.5 0 no s no male elamfe . .f . s . 5-9 41- 71- . .cir no s ye 10 15 ag .mm .vr se nu co ma herto ye ye FAMILY WORK SAFETY ALSO PERFORMING SEX AGE IN YEARS WORK SECTOR MEASURES NON-ECO. WORK Source: UCW calculations based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey, 2001. Regression results58 indicate that the probability of suffering work- related ill health varies is significantly influenced by child and work characteristics. The risk of ill-health decreases with the age of the child, underscoring that workplaces are especially hazardous for younger children. Girls are about two percentage points less likely than boys to suffer ill health. This is a pure gender effect, as sector of employment and residence are controlled for, suggesting underlying differences in the nature of work tasks performed by boys and girls. Educational attainment has a negative effect on the probability of falling ill, suggesting that more education allows a child greater control over the environment in which he or she operates. A child with a completed primary education has a probability of falling ill four percentage points lower than that of a child without complete primary education. Rural residence has a negative effect on the risk of injury or illness, underscoring differences in the nature of rural and urban work performed by children. The use of protective equipment increases the probability of being injured by almost seven percentage points. This is only surprising at first sight, because protective equipment is only likely to be used in hazardous jobs. The positive sign for this variable indicates that the use of protective equipment does not compensate fully for the additional risks related to more hazardous work. 58 Marginal effects calculated after Heckman probit estimates. For further details of estimation methodology, see L. Guarcello, S. Lyon and F. Rosati, Impact of Working Time on Children's Health, UCW Project and ILO-IPEC, Geneva, September 2004. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 35 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Table 14. Marginal Effects (on the Probability of Work-related Injury-illness) after Heckman Probit Estimates Variable dy/dx z Female* -0.019 -2.17 Age -0.022 -1.87 Age squared 0.001 2.80 Child educ. level -0.035 -3.55 Weekly wkg. hours 0.003 9.06 Safety measures* 0.072 1.76 Log of expenditure squared -0.007 -1.09 Agriculture sector 0.039 1.64 Commerce sector -0.140 -5.74 Services sector -0.140 -4.49 Manufacturing sector -0.082 -2.97 Rural residence* -0.029 -2.90 No. of children aged 0-4 years in household 0.012 2.66 No. of adults in household -0.002 -1.61 Household size -0.003 -2.45 Education level of household head -0.012 -2.79 Sex of household head -0.017 -2.67 Notes: * dy/dx is for discrete change of dummy variable from 0 to 1. Source: UCW calculation based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey, 2001. The regression results also indicate that work intensity and work sector exert a significant effect on the probability of negative health outcomes. Each hour of work performed during a week59 adds about an additional 0.3 percentage points to the probability of falling ill. This implies that a child working eight hours a day for six days a week has a probability of an ill-health episode eight percentage points higher than a child working only four hours a day. These results offer a solid empirical rationale for identifying a cut-off point, in terms of working hours, for identifying hazardous forms of child labour. The risk of ill-health due to work varies dramatically by sector. Cambodian children working in agriculture, for example, are 12 percentage points more likely to suffer injuries than those working in the manufacturing sector, while those in manufacturing are six percentage points more likely to get injured than those working in commerce or services. The difference in risk between the commerce and services sectors, on one hand, and the agriculture sector, on the other, is the largest, reaching 18 percentage points. In order to face the same risk across sectors, children would need to log substantially different amounts of working hours. This is a key finding, as it points to a need to consider both work sector and work intensity as primary criteria for hazardous work.60 Iso-risk combinations (i.e., the combinations of hours and sector of employment that give the same overall risk of suffering from ill-health), calculated on the basis of logistic regressions, 61 are presented in 59 It was also possible to use as a regressor the hours worked during the past year. (These were computed under the assumption that a child would work the same hours during all the weeks he/she declared to work last year, as he/she worked during the reference week). Such an exposure period is more consistent with the reference periods considered for reporting injury/illnesses. The results of the estimates are very similar to those presented in Table 4 and, once appropriately scaled, show that the marginal effects do not differ significantly from those already presented. 60 For a more detailed discussion of this point, see Guarcello L., Lyon S. and Rosati F., Impact of Working Time on Children's Health, draft working paper, ILO-IPEC and Understanding Children's Work (UCW) Project, September, 2004. 61 In order to make the analytical calculation possible, these estimates have been based on logistic regressions. As can be seen from the results, no substantial differences emerge with respect to the Heckman estimates discussed above. We can therefore be confident that the iso-risk curves INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 36 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Table 15 and Figure 19. They illustrate that a child working in manufacturing would need to work about five and a half more hours a day, and a child in commerce about eight more hours per day, than a child working in agriculture to face the same health risks. Note that the difference in hours needed to compensate for the sector specific risk does not change in any relevant way according to the risk level. While these equivalence estimates must be interpreted with care, given the nature of the data and the precision of the estimates, they suggest that both sector and work intensity need to be considered when identifying possible boundaries separating permissible children's work from child labour. Table 15. Interplay of Work Sector and Work Intensity on Injury Risk Weekly hours of work necessary for constant Increase in weekly hours of work necessary to keep the same Sector probability of injury probability of injury with respect to the agricultural sector 60% injury risk 50% injury risk 40% injury risk 60% injury risk 50% injury risk 40% injury risk Agriculture 51.7 18.7 -14 -- -- -- Manufacturing 89.9 56.9 23.9 38.2 38.2 37.9 Commerce 110 77.4 44.5 58.3 58.7 58.5 Service 112.7 79.7 46.7 61 61 60.7 Source: UCW calculation based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey, 2001 Figure 19. Iso-risk Curves: Probability of Injury/illness, by Sector of Employment 120 100 60% prob. of injury rkowfosur 80 60 hoyl 50% prob. of injury ekeW 40 20 40% prob. of injury 0 Services Commerce SECTOR OF EMPLOYMENT Manufacturing Agriculture Source: UCW calculation based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey, 2001 It is also important to consider the seriousness of injury or illness in assessing the health risks associated with work. The results discussed above relate only to the probability that an injury or illness occurs; they do not consider the seriousness of ill-health episodes. Unfortunately, it is difficult to find reliable indications of the seriousness of a given health risk, and it is therefore difficult to combine information about probability with seriousness. In Cambodia, information is available on the treatment that followed the episode of injury/illness as a proxy for the "intensity" of the injury. Specifically, information is available on four possible eventualities that might follow the occurrence of an injury/illness: (1) did not need any medical treatment; (2) medically treated and released immediately; (3) stopped work temporarily; and (4) other (which includes hospitalised, permanently prevented work and miscellaneous).62 we have computed are not substantially biased by the fact that we have not taken into consideration the possible selection bias. 62Obviously, this is far from being a perfect proxy for the severity of the ill-health episode. The kind of treatment received is the result of a household decision: identical health accidents can, to a INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 37 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Table 16. Marginal effects after ordered probit regression: Cambodia Did not need any Medically treated and Stopped work medical treatment released immediately temporarily Other Variable dy/dx z dy/dx Z dy/dx z dy/dx z Child education level 0.01948 1.56 -0.01295 -1.56 -0.00566 -1.56 -0.00087 -1.53 Female* 0.03019 2.60 -0.02008 -2.59 -0.00877 -2.59 -0.00135 -2.46 Age -0.00959 -0.62 0.00638 0.62 0.00279 0.62 0.00043 0.62 Age squared -0.00001 -0.02 0.00001 0.02 0.00000 0.02 0.00000 0.02 Weekly working hours -0.00066 -1.61 0.00044 1.61 0.00019 1.60 0.00003 1.58 Workplace safety measures -0.07039 -1.49 0.04419 1.59 0.02236 1.37 0.00384 1.23 Log of expenditures squared -0.02085 -2.62 0.01386 2.62 0.00606 2.61 0.00093 2.48 Agriculture sector* 0.13458 4.76 -0.08629 -5.01 -0.04139 -4.46 -0.00691 -3.63 Commerce sector* 0.02537 0.89 -0.01705 -0.88 -0.00723 -0.91 -0.00109 -0.92 Services sector* 0.07647 2.10 -0.05349 -2.01 -0.02019 -2.33 -0.00279 -2.47 Manufacturing sector* -0.01171 -0.35 0.00772 0.36 0.00345 0.35 0.00054 0.34 Rural residence* -0.11978 -9.22 0.07727 9.27 0.03651 8.38 0.00601 5.60 Notes: * dy/dx is for discrete change of dummy variable from 0 to 1 Source: UCW calculation based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey, 2001 Estimation results indicate that the risk of serious ill-health is also influenced by child and work-related factors.63 Girls and more educated children are less likely to experience serious accident. This might also reflect a gender bias, in that girls might receive less medical attention, not because their injuries are less serious, but because of a gender bias within the household. Income seems to have a positive impact on the seriousness of the health episode. This can be explained by the well-known effect that income has on the reporting of health and by the fact that richer households may be more likely to get proper treatment following an injury/illness. Hours of work are positively and significantly associated with the seriousness of the health episode. However, the effects are very small: an increase on 10 hours per week of the hours worked decreases the probability of needing any treatment following an injury by about one-half of one percentage point. Sector of work also appears to have an important influence on the risk of serious ill-health. Work in the agriculture and services appear to decrease the risk of serious injury (i.e., children working in these two sectors have a lower probability of getting serious illnesses/injuries than in the other sectors). This fact appears to qualify, at least partially, the previous results showing agriculture to be the sector where accidents were most likely. Children are more likely to suffer from illnesses/injuries in agriculture, but such events are less serious than those in the other sectors. This obviously adds an additional complication to the already difficult task of identifying criteria to define hazardous work. However, the estimates on ill-health seriousness should be interpreted with caution, as the variable used is only an indirect proxy for the seriousness of the injury or illness episode. Reporting and treatment can be influenced by individual and household characteristics, as well as by the sector of work. certain extent, be treated in different ways depending on the income, the education, the preferences etc., of the household and on the characteristics of the individual. In order to take these factors into account, we have introduced in the estimates a set of household and individual controls. 63 Given the nature of the dependent variables, with a set of alternative states ranked in increased order of intensity, we have estimated the model using an ordered probit. The results of the estimates are shown in Annex B. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 38 6 UNDERSTANDING WHY CHILDREN WORK A s most children (excluding those that live on their own) exercise little control over their time allocations, determining why children work requires investigating why parents choose to engage their children in work rather than sending them to school or leaving them idle at home. This section analyses some of the factors influencing parents' decisions concerning children's time use. Table 17. Supply-side Factors Affecting Decisions Relating to Children's Work Survey question Response male female total Main reason for letting Poor family 48.95 48.91 48.93 child work? to supplement household income 23.08 24.07 23.57 to pay outstanding debt under contractual arrangement 0.22 0.04 0.13 to assist/help in household enterprise 24.41 22.92 23.67 to gain experience 1.90 1.92 1.91 to pay schooling 0.53 0.96 0.75 to start own business 0.11 0.14 0.12 education/training program is not suitable 0.08 0.11 0.10 school/training institutions are too far 0.10 0.22 0.16 other 0.63 0.71 0.67 What happens if child household living standards decline 47.55 49.35 48.44 stops working? household can't afford to live 4.73 5.26 4.99 household enterprise cannot operate fully and other labour not 18.00 17.07 17.54 affordable no effect 28.80 27.14 27.97 Stop schooling 0.78 0.81 0.80 other 0.15 0.37 0.26 What would you prefer going to school full time 26.56 23.83 25.20 that your child does? working for income full time 8.68 10.05 9.36 helping full time in household enterprise or business 1.85 3.20 2.52 helping full time in household chores or housekeeping 2.72 4.54 3.62 going to school part-time and working part-time for income 5.41 5.90 5.66 part time in household enterprise or business 0.46 0.55 0.51 part time in household chores or housekeeping 3.19 3.94 3.56 complete education/training and start work 31.77 27.71 29.75 full/part time skill training 6.75 6.95 6.85 find a better job/work than present one 3.98 6.69 5.33 Want to do same work 1.34 1.20 1.27 public leader 4.74 2.63 3.69 other 2.54 2.81 2.68 Source: UCW calculation based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey, 2001. Most families cite economic motives in explaining the decision to send their children to work. Either family poverty or the need to supplement family income are given as the primary motives in the case of three out of every four working children. For over half of child workers, households indicate that work cessation would lead either to a drop in household living standards or would pose a threat to household survival. Children's work does not appear to play a INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 39 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA role in helping families afford children's schooling. Less than one percent of respondents cite schooling costs as the reason for their child(ren) working, and a similar small proportion indicate that cessation of work would force a child to have to leave school. It is interesting to note that, given a choice, i.e., in the absence of financial constraints, two-thirds of household heads would choose to involve their child(ren) in some form of education (Table 17). Multivariate analysis64 permits a more precise identification of the factors influencing household decisions to involve their children in work or school. Results of a multivariate analysis of current school and work activities, broken down by age group and sex, are detailed in Annex tables A1-A3 and summarised below: · Child age. School participation increases with age at first (i.e., along the 6- 11 age segment) as children who delay school entry finally enroll, but then declines at an accelerated rate as children drop out of school after a few years of schooling. This decline starts earlier and is significantly faster for girls than for boys: school participation declines by 8.9 percent per additional year of age among 12-14 girls, but only by 1.9 percent in the case of their male counterparts. The probability of work increases with age along the whole age spectrum (except domestic work for 15-17 aged boys) for both types of work, but significantly more rapidly in the case of economic activity, particularly at early ages. · Child relation to household head. If the child is a son or daughter of the household head, she or he may be treated differently from other young relatives living with the family, lowering the probability of working and raising the probability of attending school. Evidence indicates that this is indeed the case for schooling among children aged 12-17 years, suggesting that the relationship with the household head matters more for remaining in school and less for entering school. · Ethnicity. Khmer children are consistently and significantly more likely to be in school and less likely to be engaged in work than ethnic minority children. Minority 12-14 year-old girls, for example, are 19 percent less likely to be in school than their Khmer counterparts. There is also some evidence that ethnic minority children are more likely to work than Khmer children, particularly at younger ages. · Parental education has a significantly positive effect on children's time use. The effect of parental education seems to be greater among 6-11 aged children, suggesting that parental education matters the most for gaining access to school. Mother's education in particular appears to increase the probability that a child attends school and reduces the probability that he or she is inactive or engaged in work. Parental education can potentially influence the allocation of children's time directly, mainly through income and preferences, and indirectly through its effect on the bargaining power of 64A simple economic model of household behaviour is used to guide the empirical specification. For detailed information on the model, see Cambodia Quality Basic Education for All, World Bank, 2005, Appendix I. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 40 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA the mother relative to that of the father in making household decisions. Another possible explanation is that education confers on the mother greater weight (moral authority or, if education translates into income, bargaining power) in family decisions. · Household composition. Preschool children put pressure on household resources, as they do not contribute to household income and generate demands for child care. Thus they are expected to increase child work while reducing schooling, particularly among girls, to the extent that child care is mainly performed by females. The results show that the presence of preschool children does indeed reduce the probability of going to school among 6-11 aged girls, but surprisingly, it has the opposite effect on boys of the same age.65 The schooling of school-age children (i.e., 6-14) is only affected negatively by the presence of other school-age children, while their work is affected negatively by the presence of both other school-age children and older children. This suggests that the shadow price of schooling of 6-14 aged children tends to increase as a result of: (1) the competition for schooling resources from other school-age children; and (2) the reduction in the value of child work as a result of having other school-age children, as well as older children in the household. In both cases, school-age children's work seems to be more responsive to the presence of children of the same sex than children of the opposite sex. This finding suggests that there is some division of labour within the household along gender lines, which is further corroborated by the results on the presence of adults. Economically active adult females and old people tend to ease the domestic work load of boys, but relieve girls of their economic activity duties. The presence of economically active adult males tends to increase the demand for domestic work among girls while easing the work responsibilities of boys. Finally, the presence of adults in the household tends to increases child schooling, particularly at older ages and among girls. · Household wealth has a significant impact on child schooling. In addition to making more resources available for schooling, household wealth may also increase schooling by acting as a cushion against economic shocks in the absence of well-developed capital markets. The differences in enrolment rates by household wealth are more marked at early ages (6-11) and later ages (15-17). This indicates that household wealth plays a particularly crucial role on getting children in school early (which is further confirmed by the results below on school entry) and allowing them to gain access to the more expensive secondary school. The relationship between household wealth and schooling is, however, non-monotonic, i.e., there are three clearly defined groups: the lowest two wealth quintiles, the two quintiles in the middle and, at a clear distance from 65 The number of pre-school children reflects fertility decisions that are determined along school- age children's time allocation. This makes this variable endogenous to child work and schooling. Thus, the results on this variable must be interpreted with caution. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 41 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA the rest, the richest quintile. For example, among 15-17 aged boys, those belonging to the richest wealth quintile are almost 19 percent more likely to be enrolled in school than those from poorest households. Household wealth also reduces the probability of working, but only among boys and only at high levels of wealth. By providing greater resources and insurance against shocks, household wealth reduces the need for child work. However, household wealth may also be associated with more child work to the extent that wealthy families tend to own productive assets, which increase the potential value of child economic activity.66 These two opposing forces may help explain why household wealth plays a less significant role on child work than it does on schooling. · Main economic activity of the household. The status and nature of employment of the household head, which determine the main source of livelihood for the household, play a key role on the allocation of children's time.67 As regards to schooling, children from households whose main income is derived from casual employment are the most vulnerable, particularly older children. This is explained by the low levels and erratic nature of income from casual employment, particularly when most of this employment is found in agriculture. Children from household whose income is mainly derived from own farm business are most likely to be engaged in economic activity, followed by those from households with other non-farm business. The latter indicates that child economic activity is mainly related to subsistence agriculture and that the existence of household productive assets increases the value of child's work. · Geographical area and commune characteristics. The initial differences in school participation rates between urban and rural areas disappear once we control for differences in socio-economic characteristics between them. There remain, however, differences in the incidence and nature of child work. Child economic activity is predominantly a rural phenomenon, but children in urban areas tend to compensate, at least in part, with more engagement in domestic activities. · Early childhood education. Availability of preschool facilities is consistently associated with lower rates of work in economic activities and with higher rates of school attendance. This seems to indicate that the possibility of beginning to invest on children's human capital when they are very young, spills over also to human capital investment at later stages of childhood. · School availability. The availability of primary and lower secondary school in the commune tends to increase enrolment. Children in communes where there is a higher availability of school are more likely to continue to be in school even if they begin to work. Children who live physically near a lower 66Recall that out household wealth measure is constructed using information from household ownership of non-productive assets as well as household living conditions. 67This variable may be endogenous to children's time allocation decisions if the time of the household head and that of children are good substitutes. The results on this variable should thus be interpreted with caution. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 42 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA secondary school are more likely to stay in primary school, suggesting that even when supply constraints are limited to higher levels of schooling, they can be part of the reason why children drop out of the primary school. · School quality, as proxied by a set of indicators like the number of female teachers and the level of education of teachers, tend to increase the number of children going only to school and to reduce the number of children economically active. The effect is especially relevant for children both working and attending school. An increase of school quality seems to induce children already attending school not to also take on an economic activity. In addition, schools with health- and learning-related facilities have consistently lower dropout rates. The quality of school management, teacher monetary incentives also appear to play a role in attracting children to school early and keeping them in school. · The existence of parents' associations is linked to reduction of the involvement of enrolled children in economic activity. It is likely these associations increase parents' awareness of the benefits of education and of the human capital costs of working at an early age. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 43 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 44 7 NATIONAL RESPONSE TO CHILD LABOUR Legal Framework for Combating Child Labour C ambodia has made a number of important legal commitments in the area of child labour. The Government signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1992, ratified the ILO Convention No. 138 (Minimum Age) in 1999 and ILO Convention No. 182 (Worst Forms) in 2005. Cambodia's Labour Law sets the minimum age for employment at 15 years, though children aged 12-14 years are allowed to do light work that is not hazardous and does not affect regular school attendance or participation in other training programs. Provision No 2, Article 177 of the Law provides that the minimum allowable age for any kind of employment or work that by its nature could be hazardous to the health, safety, or morality is 18 years. It further states that minors below 18 years cannot be employed in underground mines or quarries and in night work.68 The Cambodian National Assembly has also adopted and approved for implementation an ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organisation (AIPO) resolution to prevent and eradicate the worst forms of child labour. The resolution, adopted during the AIPO 25th General Assembly in September 2004, calls for immediate, comprehensive, and concerted action to remove children from hazardous and sexually exploitative work, and to provide for the safety, rehabilitation, and social integration of affected children. But important ambiguities and gaps in legislation relating to child labour remain. Of particular concern, the Cambodia Labour Law has not been extended to informal sector enterprises or settings, where the overwhelming majority of child labourers are concentrated. This means family-based agriculture and domestic service are not covered by legislation. The Law also does not specifically define what constitutes child labour in terms of type of work, conditions of work, or work hazards. Provisions on apprenticeship are also lacking from current legislation. The provisions of the Labour Law are to be qualified by supplemental prakas (Ministerial Orders) formulated and adopted by the Ministry of Labour. Prakas on hazardous work, adopted by the Labour Advisory Council (LAC) and approved for implementation in March 2004, and another on light work for children aged 12-14 years, adopted and approved in April 2004, go some way towards removing ambiguities on what constitutes child labour. Five other prakas relating to child labour in the sectors of plantation work, fishing, brickmaking, salt-production, garment and shoe making are currently in draft form and have yet to undergo approval. Laws on the suppression of human trafficking and sexual exploitation and on inter- 68Other regulations that have also been issued to address the problem of child labour include a Circular on the Implementation of Occupational Health and Safety, Instruction on Enrolling Children in Each Local Village in Chub rubber plantation and Instruction on the prohibition of Children Carrying Heavy Load by using labour. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 45 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA country adoption are being developed as a legal framework for efforts against child trafficking. Enforcement of child labour laws is another major challenge facing the government. The government by its own admission currently does not have the capacity to properly enforce and monitor laws relating to child labour. The Department of Labour Inspection is understaffed, and monitoring has been constrained by lack of operational funds and severe logistical problems. There is also a lack of understanding and awareness on laws and systems of enforcement among inspectors. Sanctions for violators of legal provisions relating to child labour are unclear, and no employer has to date been brought to court for violating current child labour laws. The lack of proper birth registration procedures and registration of child workers also hinders the effective regulation of child labour and undermines the ability inspectors have to investigate worksite violations. There is, therefore, a need to strengthen the government's ability to monitor workplaces for compliance with child labour laws, starting with the priority hazardous sectors identified in the NPA on the Elimination of Worst Forms of Child Labour . There is also a need for labour inspectors to join hands with other organisations (e.g., employers' organisations, social workers, local community organisations) in order to extend their monitoring reach. National Policy Framework Cambodia's national development plans are highlighted in SEDP II, NPRS, the 2003 CMDG, the Rectangular Strategy (RS), and NSDP 2006-2010 (Box 4). The national development plans emphasise strengthened governance, poverty reduction, better services coverage, and improved schooling, all necessary elements for a durable solution to child labour. The CMDG and NPRS documents contain specific child labour reduction targets. The CMDG document targets a reduction in the proportion of 5-17 year-old working children from 16.5 percent in 1999 to 13 percent in 2005, 10.6 percent in 2010 and eight percent in 2015. The NPRS targets a reduction of labour force participation of children aged 10-14 years from 8.3 percent in 1999 to 5.3 percent in 2005.69 69The targets were calculated using different datasets and methodologies, and therefore, are not consistent. The baseline for the CMDG target is derived by taking (1) the economically active 5-17 year-old population as estimated in CCLS 2001, and then (2) applying the standard formula used in ILO/IPEC global child labour estimates to calculate the proportion of children in worst forms. This baseline is therefore imprecise, as it is based on a global formula that may or may not be accurate for Cambodia. There is a need to clarify time-bound targets for 2015 on the basis of a more precise measure of the baseline population in child labour. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 46 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Box 4. National Development Frameworks The government's development strategy has evolved through a The RS draws on SEDP II and the NPRS and is a synthesis of number of documents. The most recent - the RS - was priorities of these documents. The SEDP II is a comprehensive announced by the new government that formed in July 2004. development program focusing on promoting growth, regional The RS can be visualized as a series of interlocking rectangles, integration, and reducing poverty. It serves as the government's with good governance at its core. The other rectangles focus on principal planning document. NPRS is closely based on SEDP II the desired environment to implement the strategy, and on and elaborates the poverty reduction agenda, providing a promoting economic growth through agriculture development, framework for support by intemational development partners and rehabilitation and construction of physical infrastructure, PSD, a comprehensive set of monitoring indicators towards achieving and capacity building and human resource development. The the CMDGs. The NPRS identifies eight priority poverty reduction RS provides the broad framework for national efforts towards the outcomes, each with detailed actions: (i) maintaining development goals articulated in the CMDGs document. While, macroeconomic stability; (ii) improving rural livelihoods; (iii) conceptually sound, the RS currently lacks an action plan, and is expanding job opportunities; (iv) improving capabilities; (v) in need of prioritization and costing. To implement the strengthening institutions and improving governance; (vi) development vision set out in the RS, the government and reducing vulnerability and strengthening social inclusion; (vii) development partners have agreed to prepare a single planning promoting gender equality; and (viii) focusing on population document, the NSDP, for the period 2006-2010. through maternal health, increased access to education, and rural opportunities. Source: World Bank, Country Assistance Strategy for the Kingdom of Cambodia, Report No. 321 18-KH, Southeast Asia Country Unit, East Asia and Pacific Region, International Finance Corporation, East Asia and Pacific Department, April 18, 2005. Figure 20. Framework for National Action on Child Labour National efforts to combat child labour take place mainly within the frameworks of the 2004-2010 National Plan of Action on the Worst Forms of Child Labour (NPA-WFCL), the 2006-2010 National Plan of Action Against Trafficking in Persons and Sexual Exploitation (NPA-TIPSE), and the 2003- 2015 Education for All (EFA) National Plan. The goals of the EFA National Plan are in turn supported by the 2004-08 Education Strategic Plan and by a rolling Education Sector Support Program (ESSP), which identifies specific action areas. The ESSP is annually reviewed jointly by all education partners (government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international organizations), thus ensuring a sense of commitment and ownership to educational change. A number of sub-regional and bilateral agreements provide the framework for cross-border efforts against child trafficking.70 70 These include the Memorandum of Understanding for the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking (COMMIT-MOU); the Sub-Regional Plan of Action (SPA) for the 2005- 2007 period; the Memorandum of Understanding between Cambodia and Thailand; and the agreement between Cambodia and Vietnam on the Elimination of Trafficking in Children and Women and Assisting Victims of Trafficking. Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative involves Cambodia, PR China, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 47 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA NPA-WFCL is aimed at reducing incidence of child labour among children aged 5-17 years to eight percent by 2015.71 The plan adopts an integrated, cross- sectoral approach to child labour reduction and envisages the active involvement of all key stakeholders. The plan contains eight areas of action: (1) research and study (to generate information needed to guide policy and raise awareness); (2) policy and institutional development (to strengthen the policy framework and institutional capacity to implement policy); (3) legislation and enforcement (to strengthen the legal framework and national capacity for enforcement); (4) advocacy, networking and social mobilisation (to raise awareness of child labour and national commitment to address it); (5) education (to provide a viable alternative to child labour); (6) prevention (to address supply- and demand-side factors causing children to enter worst forms of child labour); (7) protection (to protect the existing stock of older [15-17 year-old] child workers from workplace harm); and (8) withdrawal/removal and rehabilitation (to remove children from harmful or exploitative work and enable them to reintegrate into society). The Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Vocational Training and Youth Rehabilitation (MoSALVY) was the lead ministry in actions to combat child labour prior to the adminstrative restructuring that took place in August 2004. This restructuring saw the former MoSALVY split into the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training (MoLVT) and the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veteran Affairs and Youth Rehabilitation (MoSVY), and led to changes in institutional responsibilities and mandates in the area of child labour. MoLVT is officially responsible for the implementation of the NPA-WFCL and MoSVY for the areas of child trafficking and child commercial sexual exploitation. A new Department of Child Labour was also created within the Ministry of Labour.72 The department has a technical and advisory function, and supports integration of child labour issues across government. These new institutions require capacity-building in a number of areas, including using data for strategic planning, policy and programme design, programme monitoring and evaluation and programme coordination. The main mechanisms for implementing the NPA-WFCL are summarised in Box 5. A non-exhaustive mapping of actors involved in supporting implementation of the national plan is provided in Annex B.73 71This target is consistent with that contained in the CMDGs document. However, as explained above, the baseline for the target is imprecise, as it is based on a global formula that may or may not be accurate for Cambodia. There is a need to clarify time-bound targets for 2015 on the basis of a more precise measure of the baseline population in child labour. 72This was Child Labour Unit within the former Ministry of Social Affairs, Labour, Vocational Training and Youth Rehabilitation (MoSALVY). 73Similar mappings of actors involved in implementing the National Plan of Action Against Trafficking in Persons and Sexual Exploitation (NPA-TIPSE) and the 2003-2015 Education for All (EFA) National Plan are provided in Annex 4. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 48 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Box 5. Main Mechanisms for Implementing the National Plan of Action on the Worst Forms of Child Labour (NPA-WFCL) National Plan Body Description National Plan of Ministry of Labour and Vocational Mandated to implement actions against child labour, as well as to coordinate and monitor the Action for the Training (MoLVT) Department of implementation of action programmes on child labour by other stakeholders. Elimination of Worst Child Labour Forms of Child Labour (NPA- MoLVT Department of Labour Undertakes occupational health and safety (OHS) inspection and monitors the compliance of all business WFCL) Inspection establishments to the Labour Law. National Sub-Committee on Child Presides over strategic actions on child rights and child labour and other forms of commercial exploitation of Labour (NSC-CL) children. It has the role of ensuring the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of policies and programmes related to child labour and other forms of commercial exploitation of children. NSC-CL is now a sub-committee of the CNCC(b) and is comprised of representatives from government institutions (inter- ministries), business, trade unions, and NGOs. Provincial Committees on Child Similar role to NSC-CL at the provincial level. Oversee the planning, monitoring and implementation at the Labour (PCCLs) provinces and municipalities. These provincial committees are to date limited to Kampot and Kampong Cham, and Sihanoukville which were covered by an ILO/IPEC Programme. Working Group on CL (WG-CL) Fosters joint planning and experience-sharing among national and international organisations. Provincial Committees on Children Proposed mechanisms merging the existing/planned Provincial Committees on Child Labour (PCCLs) and (PCCs) Provincial Committees on the Protection of Child Rights (PCPCR). District Committees on Children Proposed mechanisms merging the existing/planned District Committees on Child Labour (DCCLs) and (DCCs) Provincial Committees on the Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR). Commune councils Implement NPA-related activities at the commune level; operates under the Ministry of Interior (MoInt). Village development councils Implement NPA-related activities at the village level; operates under the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD). Source: jbj-Crossroads to Development, A Review of the Policies and Programmes on Child Labour in Cambodia, unpublished draft, Phnom Penh, September 2005. External Assistance Relating to Child Labour External assistance has contributed to the implementation of all major public sector development projects in Cambodia. From 1992 to 2003, ODA disbursements to the country reached US$5.2 billion, with 28 percent from multilateral sources, 64 percent from bilateral sources, and eight percent from NGOs. Grants account for 80 percent of ODA. In 2003, about US$546 million in ODA was disbursed, equivalent to nearly eight percent of GDP. Pledges made during the annual Consultative Group (CG) meetings have increased from US$471 million in 1999 to US$548 million in 2000 and US$635 million in 2002. Based on a revised definition of ODA, donors pledged US$504 million in 2004. On a per capita basis, Cambodia has received significantly more ODA than other low-income countries during the past decade. Aid inflows were mainly used to improve health and education, rebuild physical infrastructure, and for institutional capacity building. Given Cambodia's substantial financial needs, its limited capacity to mobilise domestic revenues, and the narrow private sector base, it will continue to depend heavily on ODA in the medium term.74 External assistance plays a key role in national efforts to combat child labour. The World Bank75 and Asia Development Bank76 are by far the most 74 World Bank, Country Assistance Strategy for the Kingdom of Cambodia, Report No. 321 18- KH, Southeast Asia Country Unit, East Asia and Pacific Region, International Finance Corporation, East Asia and Pacific Department, April 18, 2005. 75 The World Bank education sector support is provided as part of a broader Country Assistance Strategy, containing a number of other programmes for poverty reduction and improved service delivery that are of relevance to child labour. 76 Asia Development Bank support to the education sector is provided within the framework of it broader Country Strategy and Programme for 2005 -2009. The programme aims are three-fold: (1) INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 49 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA important providers of external assistance to strengthening basic education, which is in turn critical to reducing flows of children into child labour. World Bank education sector support is directed towards enabling equitable access to education and nurturing educational quality enhancements. Support to the former goal includes: (1) school construction in areas with incomplete primary or no lower secondary schools; and (2) reduction of access barriers through targeted scholarships to encourage disadvantaged children to attend school. Support to the latter goal includes: (1) strengthening of decentralized quality education service delivery; and (2) developing a national assessment monitoring system. Underlying these activities is the recognition that both supply- and demand-side barriers to schooling access need to be lifted, and that the systemic issues affecting school quality must be addressed to ensure that learning occurs once children are in school. World Bank support places particular emphasis on reaching most disadvantaged children, through preferentially targeting girls, ethnic minority areas and communes with high poverty incidence. ADB education sector support is closely aligned with World Bank efforts and focuses mainly on the lower secondary school level, from grade 7 to grade 9. According to Ministry of Education (MoE) data, 800 of the country's 2,000 communes do not have lower secondary school buildings. Specific areas of support include enhancing access to secondary education by means of a targeted investment programme for facilities development; providing a targeted and expanded programme of education incentives ("scholarships") for the poor, with an emphasis on girls and minorities; and providing capacity building support for decentralized education, especially at the post-basic level and in non-formal education. ADB is also active in supporting implementation of policy reforms designed to expand opportunities for the poor at primary, secondary, and post- secondary levels. Other key multilateral actors in the area of child labour include UNICEF, International Organisation for Migration (IOM),77 UNESCO, and ILO/IPEC.78 The child labour element of the UNICEF Country Programme mainly targets children in unconditional worst forms, and is aimed at helping to strengthen referral, protection, recovery and reintegration services for these children. The education element of the UNICEF Country Programme includes support to the establishment of "child-friendly" schools and to the implementation of inclusive learning measures, both of which contribute to making schooling more accessible and accommodating to vulnerable children at risk of involvement in child labour. UNICEF also focuses on early detection and assistance to vulnerable children, through access to education for children at border districts, community-based child protection networks, community-based awareness raising, and support to MoE literacy classes. promote broad-based, private sector led growth; (2) strengthen governance for development; (3) and promote inclusive social development. 77International Organisation for Migration. 78International Labour Organisation, International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 50 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA IOM is active in the area of child trafficking. Within the framework of the national plan of action against child trafficking, it supports a variety of efforts to prevent child trafficking and promote the return, recovery, and reintegration of trafficked children. UNESCO support includes introduction of non-formal basic education and vocational skill training for at-risk children and youth, and introduction of inclusive education measures for vulnerable children within the formal education system. ILO/IPEC is the only multilateral organisation focused exclusively on child labour. ILO/IPEC assistance is provided primarily within the framework of its Project of Support to the NPA/WFCL for the period 2004-2008. The Project of Support has four main elements: (1) strengthening the policy and legal frameworks for combating child labour; (2) building national capacity to implement child labour policies and laws; (3) information-based advocacy and social mobilisation, aimed at building commitment among key stakeholders at all levels to child labour elimination; and (4) targeted model interventions in six priority hazardous sectors.79 The final element is aimed at reaching some 16,000 children for withdrawal and prevention from exploitative and/or hazardous work through provision of educational or non-educational services.80 ILO/IPEC also supports wider sub-regional initiatives addressing child trafficking81 and child domestic work. A wide range of international NGOs provide support to national efforts against child labour. A non-exhaustive list of international NGOs active in the area of child labour in Cambodia includes World Education, Care International, the Asia Foundation, the Kampuchean Action for Primary Education (KAPE), World Vision Cambodia, and Save the Children Alliance. The first four organisations on this list are active in implementing OPTIONS, a four-year programme designed to combat trafficking and commercial exploitation of children. The OPTIONS programme is specifically aimed at reducing the number of children, especially girls, who fall victim to trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation, and at ensuring that children, especially girls, removed from the risk of trafficking and other forms of abuse are educated in programmes relevant to their needs. The programme works in 13 districts of Kampong Cham, Prey Veng and Banteay Meanchey. Areas of World Vision Cambodia support include aftercare for trafficked and sexually exploited children, child sex tourism prevention, child safe tourism, trauma recovery, and protection of children in high risk of trafficking. Save the Children Alliance 79The project supports the implementation of direct action in the following municipalities and provinces: Phnom Penh (domestic work); Sihanoukville (fishing and brick); Kampot and Kep (salt and fishing), Kampong Cham (rubber and brick); Banteay Meanchey (porters), and Siem Reap (brick). 80ILO/IPEC, Support to the Cambodian National Plan of Action on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour: A Time-Bound Approach, ILO/IPEC project no. CMB/04/P51/USA Phnom Penh, 2004. 81The UK DFID-funded IPEC Mekong Trafficking in Children and Women project (TICW) covers Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and Yunnan Province of China. In Cambodia, together with UNICEF, the project strengthens coordination and monitoring by the Cambodia National Council on Children (CNCC) and supports creating provincial plans for prevention of trafficking with links to the district level. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 51 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA provides technical and financial support to a number of grassroots organisations with activities targeting children in unconditional worst forms.82 Many of the bilateral development agencies represented in Cambodia provide support to efforts relating directly or indirectly to child labour. This support is channelled either through multilateral organisations and NGOs or through direct programmes of cooperation with the government. Local Social Partners in the Area of Child Labour Local NGOs have multiplied rapidly in the last 15 years, and there are now hundreds of such groups active in the country. But with the exception of the main NGO coalitions described below, little systematic information is available about the activities of the local NGO sector, or their coverage and impact in the area of child labour. Very few NGO programmes have been systematically evaluated, seriously limiting the country's ability to identify what works and what does not work in combating child labour. Key local NGO coalitions include the NGO Coalition to Address Sexual Exploitation of Children in Cambodia (COSECAM), End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT) and the NGO Committee on the Rights of the Child (NGO-CRC). COSECAM consists of 23 local NGOs with the common goal of addressing the exploitation and abuse of children in general and sexual exploitation of children. General areas of COSECAM support include advocacy, research, institutional capacity building, and rehabilitation and reintegration of child victims. Specific measures include a scholarship fund for victims of trafficking, aimed at helping surviving and at-risk women and youth to become economically self-sufficient. ECPAT has 33 member organisations. Its main efforts include prevention of child sex tourism and the collection of statistics on incidence of child trafficking. ECPAT is also active in lobbying for the adaptation of the new Anti-Trafficking Law by the government. NGO-CRC is a 40-member NGO coalition active in advocating for, raising awareness of and monitoring the rights of Cambodian children. The coalition also has an important role in establishing child advocacy networks at the community level. The organised component of the labour force in Cambodia remains small, and trade unions are concentrated mainly in the formal sector in Phnom Penh. They also exist outside Phnom Penh in selected sectors such as the hotel, salt- making and rubber plantation. At present, there are 16 union federations, which participate in two confederations. Trade unions are beginning to make their voices heard in the fight against the worst forms of child labour. Trade unions have been involved in studies on the situation of trafficking within their ranks, and in defining the role of organised labour in preventing child labour and child trafficking in the industries they represent. Efforts thus far have primarily involved individual trade unions or federations rather than the organised worker 82These include NGO-CRC, an NGO coalition of 40 members; Legal Aid of Cambodia (LAC); Cambodian Children Against Starvation and Violence Association (CCASVA); Cambodian Centre for the Protection of Children's Rights (CCPCR); and VCAO. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 52 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA movement as a whole. Steps are being taken, however, towards more collective action. In 2004, for example, 10 members representing different trade unions took the lead in establishing an Inter-Union Committee on Child Labour. Another new group called the Project Advisory Committee of Trade Unions Against Child Labour (PACT Against Child Labour) was formed with ILO/IPEC support in 2005, and has begun implementing an action programme on mobilizing workers and workers organizations against child labour. A number of employers' groups and business organisations are active in Cambodia, including the Cambodia Chamber of Commerce, the Garment Manufacturers' Association in Cambodia, the China, Hong Kong and Macau Expatriate and Business Association of Cambodia, and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Cambodia. The involvement of these groups is critical to addressing the demand side of the child labour equation. But with the exception of a degree of success in the garment sector,83 the potential of employers' groups and business organisations in efforts against child labour has yet to be fully realised. This may, however, be starting to change. With ILO/IPEC support, the Cambodian Federation of Employers and Business Association (CAMFEBA) has begun developing an action programme designed to mobilise employers and employer's organizations against child labour. 83Garments form the largest sector of the economy, and in this sector child labour has been successfully tackled in Phnom Penh area (although more work remains to be done on supply chains in particular). INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 53 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 54 8 ACCELERATING PROGRESS TOWARDS ELIMINATING CHILD LABOUR: A DISCUSSION OF POLICY OPTIONS Identifying an Appropriate Policy Mix: General Considerations T he Cambodia Millennium Development Goals strategy sets a target of halving the 1999 rate of work among 5-17 year-olds by 2015.84 Achieving this ambitious goal will require an integrated package of preventive and protective measures targeting three broad groups: (1) children at risk of involvement in child labour; (2) the "stock" of children already in child labour; and (3) former child labourers whose development has been harmed by their early work experiences. Empirical analysis conducted for this study (see Section 6), as well as policy experience in Cambodia and elsewhere, points to a number of general strategies for reaching these groups. Better access to schooling and other basic services, combined with mechanisms to reduce social risk, will be particularly important to stopping children from entering child labour, and to preventing children already in work from moving to more hazardous forms or leaving school prematurely. Better formal workplace inspection instruments, together with expanded grassroots level monitoring, will be critical to identifying and removing the stock of children already in child labour. Recovery and rehabilitation services, including second chance education, will be important to ensuring the successful reintegration of former child labourers, and to overcoming work-related damage to children's welfare. Progress towards national child labour reduction targets will also depend on measures to ensure an enabling political, legal and institutional environment. Political commitment is needed to ensure that child labour is mainstreamed into broader development plans and programmes. Concerned government institutions, some newly established, require strengthening and their respective roles in combating child labour need clarifying; better information on child labour in its various dimensions is needed for policy formulation and effective targeting; and more detailed legislation, consistent with international child labour norms, is needed to provide a legal framework for efforts against child labour. The elimination of child labour will also require that society at large and 84The specific CMDG target was a reduction of proportion of 5-17 year-olds working from 16.5 percent in 1999 to 13 percent in 2005, 10.6 percent in 2010 and eight percent in 2015. The baseline for this target, however, is derived by taking: (1) the economically active 5-17 year-old population as estimated in CCLS 2001; and then (2) applying the standard formula used in ILO/IPEC global child labour estimates to calculate the proportion of children in worst forms. This baseline is therefore imprecise, as it is based on a global formula that may or may not be accurate for Cambodia. There is a need to clarify time-bound targets for 2015 on the basis of a more precise measure of the baseline population in child labour. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 55 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA affected communities in particular internalise the problem and mobilise against it. Figure 21. Identifying an Appropriate Policy Mix for Tackling Child Labour Enablling national environment (i.e., political commitment, institutional capacity, reliable information base, legal and regulatory framework, coordinating mechanisms and social mobiliation needed preventing child labour and protecting existing child labourers). children in unconditional worst forms of Prevention measures aimed Protection measures aimed at reducing flow of vulnerable child labour at identifying and reducing children into work, and at the stock of children in child preventing children already labour, faciltating their in work from entering worse recovery and reintegration, forms or leaving school. children in hazardous and preventing their return forms of work to child labour. working children who are denied schooling working children whose learning is compromised and/or who are at risk of early drop-out In summary, as illustrated in Figure 21, "prevention" measures are needed both to reduce the flow of vulnerable children into child labour and to stop children already in work from moving to worse forms or leaving school, while "protection" measures are needed to identify and withdraw the existing stock of child labourers, facilitate their recovery and reintegration, and stop them from re- entering work. The effective implementation of both prevention and protection measures requires political commitment, reliable information, an appropriate legal and regulatory framework, functioning coordination structures, capable institutions and a mobilised society, i.e., an "enabling environment". What relative weights should be accorded to these broad strategies in combating child labour? The main burden for a sustainable reduction of child labour and increase in human capital investment rests on prevention. Clearly, sustainable reductions in child labour cannot be attained without addressing the factors causing children to enter work in the first place. By changing the economic and social environment, mainly of the household, preventive policies should aim at changing the "equilibrium" or long run level of child labour and school enrolment. Such policies are also the most relevant in quantitative terms. But "protection" policies, although likely to absorb fewer resources, should not be neglected. They are critical to avoiding large numbers of children entering adulthood in a disadvantaged position, permanently harmed by early work experiences. Children with little or no schooling will be in a weak position in the labour market, at much greater risk of joining the ranks of the unemployed and the poor. If left alone, these children and youth are likely to be in need of other (more costly) remediation policies at a later stage of their life cycle. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 56 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Preventive Measures Prevention measures designed to stem the flow of children into work constitute the most important component of a policy response to child labour. As children are rarely responsible for their own choices, the design of preventive measures requires an understanding of factors influencing household decisions relating to schooling and work. A model of these household decisions was estimated in Section 6, making use of the CCLS 2001 dataset. The implications of the estimation results for prevention policies are summarised in Table 18 and discussed in more detail below. The following discussion also draws on international evidence and policy experience. Table 18. Policy Implications from Multivariate Analysis of Child Labour Decisions Empirical result Implication for policy 1. Negative effect of income/wealth on child work supply Social Risk Management policies (e.g., access to credit, social insurance). Conditional Cash Transfer schemes. 2. Early child development reduces child work supply Increase access to pre-schooling facilities, consider targeted expansion on the basis of previously identified vulnerable groups. 3. Presence of preschool-aged children reduces school Increase availability of pre-school facilities. attendance especially of girls 4. School availability reduces child work Expansion of school facilities (including secondary) in high child work incidence areas, targeting areas with vulnerable groups. 5. School quality helps attending working children to remain Policies aimed to improve school quality, (e.g. CONAFE in Mexico). in school 6. Parents' associations increase school attendance and Expand and rationalize support to parent's association. retention, reduces child work 7. Parents education, especially mother's, reduces child Adult literacy policy. labour Awareness raising components in education and other projects. 8. Positive effect on child work of productive assets in Policies aimed to affect production technology. agriculture 9. Offspring of household head less likely to work Target orphans and other vulnerable children within household. 10. Non Khmer children are more likely to work Target vulnerable groups. 11. Female headed households more likely to send children Targeting within adopted policies to work and not to school Reducing household vulnerability: Children's work frequently forms part of a household's strategy for dealing with risk, making them less vulnerable to losses of income arising from individual or collective shocks.85 Widespread poverty and a very limited social protection mean a very high degree of household vulnerability in Cambodia. According to a World Bank poverty survey conducted in 2004, about 20 percent of the country's population is indigent, living below the food poverty line, and around 35 percent is poor (below the total poverty line).86 Health shocks due to accidents and illness in particular are repeatedly mentioned as leading causes of vulnerability and poverty.87 Households spend a large proportion of their income on health care and a single health shock can be financially devastating. Reducing household 85Although not investigated in Cambodia, empirical evidence from other countries underscores this point. In Guatemala, for example, controlling for other factors, children from households exposed to collective or individual shocks are four to five percentage points more likely to work compared to children from families that had not experienced these shocks. UCW Project, Understanding Children's Work in Guatemala, unpublished draft report, Florence, April, 2003. 86From Peace to Prosperity: An Assessment of Poverty in Cambodia (World Bank, 2006). 87ADB, Participatory Poverty Assessment, 2001, as cited in World Bank, Country Assistance Strategy for the Kingdom of Cambodia, Report No. 321 18-KH, Southeast Asia Country Unit, East Asia and Pacific Region, International Finance Corporation, East Asia and Pacific Department, April 18, 2005. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 57 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA vulnerability by expanding social protection is therefore a critical priority in Cambodia. Developing and strengthening community-based social safety mechanisms is likely to yield needed benefits to vulnerable households in the short-term. Community-based measures such as micro health insurance plans, community savings groups, and micro-credit initiatives should be promoted and expanded, especially targeting poorest households. The Rural Development Bank, established by the government to support micro-finance, is a particularly important potential actor in this context. Expanding early childhood education (ECE) opportunities. Empirical evidence indicates that ECE in Cambodia substantially lowers the risk of child labour and increases the likelihood of school attendance at later ages. This seems to indicate that the possibility of beginning to invest on children's human capital when they are very young spills over also to later age investment. Many reasons can be behind this effects. Early investment have high productivity and increase productivity of human capital investment at later ages, pre-school might contribute to raised parental awareness of the benefit of education. That is, learning begets learning, and skills acquired early on make later learning easier. Ultimately, more able people find learning easier. Investments in social policies that intervene in the early years have very high rates of return, while social policies that intervene at later ages in the life cycle have low economic returns. A large body of scientific evidence shows a "persistent pattern of strong effects" derived from early interventions. Significantly, these substantial, long-term benefits are not necessarily limited to intellectual gains, but are most clearly seen by measures of "social performance" and "lifetime achievement." In other words, people who participate in enriched early childhood programs are more likely to complete school and much less likely to require welfare benefits, become teen parents, or participate in criminal activities. Rather, they become productive adults. Recent studies of early childhood investments have shown remarkable success and indicate that the early years are important for early learning. Reducing barriers to school access and raising school quality: There is broad consensus that the single most effective way to stem the flow of school age children into work is to extend and improve schooling, so that families have the opportunity to invest in their children's education, and it is worthwhile for them to do so. Cambodian working children are more likely to enter school late or not enter school at all, and if enrolled in school are more likely to leave prematurely. There is a need to address the access and quality issues influencing parents' decisions to enrol and keep their children in school, within the broader reform framework of the Education Strategic Plan (ESP) and ESSP. The empirical evidence and programme experience points to a number of possible policy measures in this context: INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 58 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA · school attendance incentives. The results presented here suggest that school incentive schemes that provide cash or in-kind subsidies to poor children conditional on school attendance (see Box 6) offer a promising route. These demand incentives can increase schooling directly by providing poor families with additional resources (i.e., income effect), as well as indirectly by compensating parents for the foregone economic product from their children's labour and thus reducing child work (i.e. substitution effect). The results presented here on household wealth indicate the need to target these subsidies to the poor and suggest a potentially important direct effect on schooling. The results on the high relative value of child work and its negative relationship with schooling suggest a potentially significant substitution effect of this demand incentive scheme on schooling. Finally, the evidence presented shows that direct and indirect household costs of education reinforce each other to produce a critical barrier for the poor in upper primary and going into secondary school, which calls for a targeted school subsidy scheme starting in upper primary. A scholarship program supported by the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction (JFPR) and administered by the ADB points to the potential of such schemes. The initial phase of the program targeted mainly girls and children from ethnic minorities in 93 lower secondary schools in Cambodia. An early evaluation suggests that it had a large and positive effect on the girls' attendance in the first grade of secondary school. Girls who were offered a scholarship were 10-30 percent more likely to stay in school than comparable girls who were not offered a scholarship.88 The program has since been extended to the whole country with assistance from the World Bank. · flexible schooling measures, such as adaptive school calendars and scheduling. Extensive international policy experience highlights of potential of these measures in reducing dropout through making school more accommodating of the exigencies of light work (see Box 6). · parent-teacher associations (PTAs), designed to engage parents more substantively in their children's schooling, which evidence also suggests lowers the risk of dropout and child labour. There is growing evidence that quality and independence of school management and PTA generate improvement in student performances and in attendance. Particularly compelling is the evidence gathered from a recent evaluation of school quality programs in Mexico. 88From Peace to Prosperity: An Assessment of Poverty in Cambodia (World Bank, 2006). INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 59 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA · targeted school expansion (lower secondary) and upgrading (primary), in response to empirical evidence of a positive relationship between school availability and enrolment. Expansion efforts require needs-based criteria to ensure that the most disadvantaged and under-served groups are reached. · teacher training, in response to empirical evidence indicating that teacher education is positively associated with enrolment and negatively associated with child labour. UNICEF-supported efforts in Cambodia promoting "child-friendly" learning and teaching methodologies relevant to the needs of vulnerable children, provides one useful model in this context. Box 6. Reducing School Access Barriers for Vulnerable Children: School Attendance Incentives and Flexible Schooling School attendance incentive schemes School attendance incentive schemes involve offering transfers or stipends to families in return for their children's households cash or in-kind payments conditional on the child regular attendance at school. The Progresa/Oportunidades attending school. These transfers differ from conventional program in Mexico is perhaps the best known CCT scholarships in that their primary purpose is to encourage programme. It provides twice-monthly cash payments enrolment and only secondarily to allow talented children or conditional for students in grades 3 to 9 conditional upon young people of modest means to obtain an education. What their attaining an 85 percent attendance rate (with teachers these schemes do, essentially, is compensate families for the relied upon to verify student attendance). direct and indirect costs associated with children attending · School nutrition and food-for-schooling use food as an school rather than working. incentive for parents to send their children to school. They The primary benefit of these programs is their ability to tie involve either: (1) children being fed in school (school together short-run assistance and long-run human capital nutrition programs); or( 2) families being given food if their formation to fight the intergenerational transfer of poverty. By children attend school (food-for-schooling programs). The helping the children of poor families to enter and remain in first type, school nutrition programs, is designed to alleviate school today, the incentive schemes make it less likely that short-term hunger, and thereby improve children's ability to these children become tomorrow's poor. Incentives used in derive educational benefit from their time in the classroom. these schemes typically take the form of either cash or food These programs do not, however, compensate parents for rations: the lost income or output from child work. The second type, · Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs are often food-for-schooling programs, allows the entire family to implemented as part of a broader package of poverty benefit from a food ration rather than just the child attending alleviation initiatives. They consist of direct monetary school. As such, they go further in helping families to give up the income or productivity derived from child work. Flexible Schooling Flexible schooling measures are typically targeted specifically school later in the day, with the fewer class hours to working children, and are designed to reduce the risk of compensated for by more time on independent study. drop-out by making school more accommodating of the Another allows students to complete 1,000 hours of schooling exigencies of children's light work. Such measures can take with no time restriction to get primary school certification. various forms, including setting daily school hours to In the Nicaragua "Extra-Age" program, classes are taught in accommodate daily work schedules; setting the yearly modules to permit maximum attendance during off-work academic calendar to reflect local conditions, e.g., hours, and separate extra-age classrooms are established to agricultural seasons; adding additional school shifts during avoid the social stigma associated with older children off-work hours; and introduction of independent study attending classes with younger children. A project modules to compensate for class time lost to work. implemented by the Department of Education, Culture and There are numerous examples of flexible schooling Sports in the Philippines allows children to attend school in initiatives. The BRAC program in Bangladesh is probably the the morning and report for work in the afternoon. best known scheme. In this program, school times are set by Peru has made the school attendance of working children a local parents, and the school calendar is adapted to fit local particular priority. The Peru Child and Adolescent Code considerations such harvest seasons. guarantees special school schedules that allow children who In Guatemala, a number of flexible scheduling measures are work to attend school regularly. A number of Peruvian used to make schooling more compatible with the work- schools have established multiple shifts ­ morning, afternoon related demands on children's time. One measure allows and night ­ to allow working children to fit schooling into their children who spend the morning working on farms to begin work schedules, and teachers are charged with providing extra attention to children who lag behind because of work. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 60 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Adult education, in response to empirical evidence indicating the parents' education and particularly mothers' education, has a significantly positive effect on children's time use. Developing and expanding efforts in promoting good parenting, functional literacy and numeracy, work-related skills training and basic education equivalency programmes are all important in this context. Improving access to basic services: Although links between basic services access and children's work have not been explored in the Cambodian context, evidence from elsewhere suggests that services access can have a dramatic impact on school attendance and child labour rates.89 This is because the availability of basic services can affect the value of children's time, and consequently, household decisions concerning how this time is allocated between school and work. In addition to its health and other social benefits, therefore, expanding access to basic services is an important strategy for getting children, and particularly girls, into school and out of work. Extending basic services network to include a greater number of rural villages appears particularly important in Cambodia context, where according to the 1998 census, only four percent of the rural population in the lowest income quintile has access to piped water, and only one percent of the same group has access to publicly-provided electric lighting. Current government efforts to expand water and electricity access in rural areas need to be accelerated, with a particular emphasis on extending public water networks to marginalized communities where school attendance is low and children's work rates are high. Protection Measures Given the large size of the child labour population and the country's limited resources, the prioritisation of protection measures aimed at identifying and withdrawing children from child labour is critical. International child labour norms make clear that working children whose rights are most compromised, i.e., those facing the greatest degree of hazard and/or exploitation, should be targeted first with protection measures. As depicted in Figure 22, this means that children in so-called "unconditional worst forms of child labour" (activities against fundamental human rights) and those in hazardous forms of work (activities compromising children's safety, health or moral development) constitute the most urgent protection targets. Other working children constitute a concern if this work compromises their ability to attend, or to derive educational benefit from schooling. 89In Yemen, for example, connection to a water network increases the likelihood of attending school by over nine percentage points. For girls, the water availability is an especially important factor, raising the likelihood of their attending school by 11 percentage points and reducing the likelihood that they work by four percentage points. For further details, see Guarcello L., Mealli F., and Rosati F.C.,Child Labour and Access to Basic Services: Evidence from Five Countries, UCW Working Paper, Florence, November 2003. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 61 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Figure 22. Priority Target Groups for Protection Measures Priority hazardous and unconditional worst forms of work in the Cambodian context were identified as part of the process of developing the NPA-WFCL permitting a clearer delineation of these groups and providing a starting point for targeting.90 But data limitations mean that children in the priority hazardous and unconditional worst forms cannot be adequately quantified, even with this national listing of worst forms. Child commercial sexual exploitation and child trafficking are not captured by household surveys and by their nature are difficult to quantify with any precision. Data from the 2001 CCLS permit a partial estimate of some 232,000 children aged 7-17 years in the nationally- identified hazardous forms of work, but this figure includes only seven of the 16 identified sectors.91 An estimated 237,000 working children aged 7-14 years are denied access to schooling, while an estimated 1.2 million working children from the same age group combine schooling and work.92 Working children are not, of course, distributed equally across the country and information about their geographic concentration is also critical for targeting. Working children appear to face the greatest risk of schooling loss in provinces Kaoh Kong, Mondol Kiri and Preah Vihear (Figure 23). The nature of worst forms frequently makes geographic targeting more difficult. Nonetheless, much is known. Child begging and commercial sexual exploitation, for example, are confined mostly to major urban centres and border areas (i.e., Phnom Penh, Battambang, Poipet (at the Thai border), Siem Reap and Sihanoukville). Child trafficking studies have identified a set of priority source 90Unconditional worst forms identified were: (1) child commercial sexual exploitation; (2) child trafficking; and (3) children used in drug production, sales and trafficking. Hazardous forms identified were: (1) portering; (2) domestic worker (private home); (3) waste scavenging or rubbish picking; (4) work in rubber plantations; (5) work in tobacco plantations; (6) fishing; (7) work in semi-indust. agricultural plantations; (8) brick-making; (9) salt production and related enterprises; (10) handicrafts and related enterprises; (11) processing sea products; (12) stone and granite breaking; (13) rock/sand quarrying, stone collection; (14) gem and coal mining; (15) restaurant work; and (16) begging. 91The reliability of this estimate is also influenced by likely under-reporting and difficulties in matching the national priority list with the standardised three-digit International Standard of Occupations (ISCO-88) classifications used in the 2001 survey (see previous discussion). 92These groups overlap to an unknown extent with children involved in hazardous work. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 62 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA provinces in which efforts should be concentrated.93 A series of rapid assessments provide information on different types of hazardous work in specific geographic locations.94 Figure 23. Working Children Denied Schooling, by Residence and Province 80 60,000 70 50,000 60 out-of-school working children 50 40,000 . nte as % of total working children, 40 30,000 noeut by province perc 30 20,000 absol 20 10 10,000 0 0 absolute no. of out-of-school hcnaeM gna m hn ar gn eliV g oek working children, by province mb Cha Chhai uepSg tta ng muhTg l potmaK ndaaK ngoK hehcaKr riiKl Pe heiV Pu ok engRi beK Ta niliaPg eay Ba ondoM VeyePr tasr irKikan abeR emiS enrTg eancheyM ongrK antB apoK pongaK aponK mon aponK ohaK Ph eahrP ttaaR ahniS uentS ayvS onrK dar Od Source: UCW calculations based on Cambodia Child Labour Survey 2001. Identification and rescue (direct action). Immediate, direct action is needed to rescue children from unconditional worst forms of child labour and provide them with the support and follow-up needed for their recovery and reintegration. Such action is relevant above all in cases of trafficked children, children subjected to commercial sexual exploitation, and children facing other extreme forms of hazard or exploitation in the workplace. The effective identification and follow-up of these groups depends, first and foremost, on mobilising and capacitating the local state and non-governmental actors that operate closest to where these frequently-hidden forms of child labour occur. Initiatives such as UNICEF-supported Child Protection Networks95 and ILO- supported Community Monitoring Systems96 provide useful models for achieving this. Improving the ability of specialised law enforcement personnel, including police officers in Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Departments, to investigate and monitor criminal offences against children will also be important in this context. 93 See, for example, Harrison S. & Somatheavy K., Moving Forward: Secondary Data Review of Sending and Receiving Areas and Employment Sectors in Prevention of Trafficking Children and Women in Cambodia, ILO/IPEC Program to Prevent the Trafficking of Children and Women (TICW), Bangkok, 2004. 94 See, for example, (1) ILO/IPEC, Child Labour on Rubber Plantations in Kampong Cham Province, Report on Rapid Assessment, 2004. (2) Centre for Advanced Studies, Child Labour in Fishing Sector - Kampot and Kep Provinces, Report on Rapid Assessment, ILO/IPEC, Phnom Penh, 2004. (3) LIDEE Khmer Research Center (LRC), Child Labour in Brick Sectors, Kampong Cham and Siem Reap Provinces, Report on Rapid Assessment, ILO-IPEC, Phnom Penh, 2004. (4) ILO/IPEC, Child Labour in the Salt Production Industry in Kampot, Report on Rapid Assessment, Phnom Penh, 2004. (5) jbj-Crossroads to Development, Beer Promotion Girls in Phnom Penh, Report on Rapid Assessment, Cambodia, ILO-IPEC, September, 2004. (6) jbj-Crossroads to Development, Child Labour in Hotels Guesthouses and Restaurants, Siem Reap, Report on Rapid Assessment, ILO- IPEC, 2004. 95 Child Protection Networks in UNICEF convergence provinces (including Prey Veng, Svay Rieng, Oddar Meanchey and Stung Treng) serve to mobilise various governmental and non- governmental stakeholder in health, education, social affairs, justice, police and religion, as well as children themselves, into a multidisciplinary team to prevent violence, abuse and exploitation of children, and to provide early intervention strategies such as mediation and referral to appropriate structures. 96 The ILO-IPEC-supported pilot community monitoring program involved tripartite monitoring of children's school attendance and workplaces by labour inspectors, teachers and community volunteers. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 63 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Recovery and reintegration: Ensuring that rescued children are provided a full range of needed social services (e.g., emergency shelter, needs assessment and referral, medical care, psycho-social counselling, legal support, family tracing and assessment, post reintegration follow-up, etc.) will require strengthening and extending local social protection programmes offered by the Ministry of Social Affairs and specialised NGOs. Local staff from both these groups require intensified social work training, and mechanisms are needed for better coordination and referral among government and non-government agencies. Improved inter-ministerial coordination at national and local levels (education, health, police and social affairs) will be particularly important. Regulatory frameworks are needed to define minimum standards of care for former child labourers and other vulnerable children, and to define the respective roles of the government Social Affairs authorities and privately run children's institutions and programmes. A system of mandatory registration of private social service providers is needed to help the government authorities in monitoring minimum care standards. Strengthening enforcement and monitoring of child labour laws: There is a need to strengthen the government's ability to monitor workplaces for compliance with child labour laws, starting with the priority hazardous sectors identified in the NPA-WFCL. Ministry of Labour inspectors require training on child labour laws and on workplace inspection for occupational health and safety (OHS) purposes; implementation guidelines for child labour laws and ministerial orders are needed for use by inspectors and other enforcement bodies; the business registration and licensing system needs to be strengthened and extended to informal enterprises; and requirements relating to validation/authentication of workers' ages need to be included as part of licensing criteria. But given the extent of child labour and the limited resources of the Department of Labour Inspection, the formal inspection system alone is unlikely to be effective in protecting children from workplace violations, even with more training and a clearer legal framework. There is, therefore, also a need for labour inspectors to join hands with other organisations (e.g., employers' organisations, social workers, local community organisations) to form broad-based child labour monitoring systems at the local level. Replicating the ILO-IPEC-supported pilot community monitoring program is one possible vehicle for achieving this. The program involved tripartite monitoring of children's school attendance and workplaces by labour inspectors, teachers and community volunteers. Second chance education: Second chance education programmes are needed to reach former working children and other out-of-school children with educational opportunities as part of broader efforts towards their social reintegration. These programmes are based on the premise that working children are often difficult to insert directly (back) into the formal education system, because of their age, different life experiences and lack of familiarity with the school environment. Their lack of formal education also frequently leaves working children too far behind their peers academically to catch up on their own. Second chance education programmes offer children who have never enrolled in school, or who have dropped out, a "bridge" to successful integration or (reintegration) in the formal school classroom. They are critical to ensuring INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 64 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA that these children, once in school, remain there, and are able to learn effectively. Programming experience elsewhere points to three main options for reaching disadvantaged, out-of-school children with opportunities to ease their transition back to the formal school system: (1) mainstreaming, providing returning children and working children with special remedial support within the regular classroom context; (2) school-based "catch-up" education, involving separate, intensive courses making use of school facilities; and (3) non-formal "bridging" education, involving intensive non-formal courses designed to raise academic proficiency (Box 7). Box 7. Integrating Former Child Labourers and Other Vulnerable Out-of-School Children into the Formal School System: Policy Considerations and International Experience Programming experience elsewhere points to three main options for are useful in hard-to-reach areas lacking formal school reaching disadvantaged, out-of-school children with remedial facilities and for groups of disadvantaged children (e.g., street education to ease their transition back to the formal school system: children) outside the reach of state structures. But non-formal (1) mainstreaming, providing returning children and working children programs by definition require substantial grassroots-level with special remedial support within the regular classroom context; mobilization and organisation, often making them difficult to (2) school-based "catch-up" education, involving separate, intensive scale up and sustain. They also require strong community- courses making use of school facilities; and (3) non-formal "bridging" school links to be effective; these links remain relatively weak education, involving intensive non-formal courses designed to raise in Cambodia, although they are being addressed in the academic proficiency. context of the broader education reform program. In the · Mainstreaming: Providing returning children with remedial support absence of a link to the formal education system, non-formal in the regular classroom is consistent with the principle of education programs on the danger of evolving into parallel, mainstreaming disadvantaged children and promoting inclusive frequently inferior, education systems for advantaged education. Depending primarily on existing school facilities and children, rather than as bridges to the regular classroom. human resources, it is also likely to be most cost-effectiveness and There are numerous examples of remedial schooling initiatives. sustainable option. Mainstreaming might be most appropriate for Networks of community schools have been established in India younger, 7-9 year-old returning children, whose remedial learning and Egypt providing marginalized out-of-school children with needs and adjustment difficulties are lesser than their older learning opportunities and a bridge to the formal system. The counterparts. Two potential problems, however, require India Janshala program, a joint government-UN initiative, serves consideration. The first is teacher capacity. Teachers are not well as a vehicle for mobilizing community involvement in schooling, qualified and many lack training in even basic teaching skills, introducing teaching innovation and meeting learning needs of calling into question their ability to cope with additional children in disadvantaged children. Since its launch in 1998, it has opened their classes with substantial remedial learning needs. Placing more than 2,000 alternative schools, trained 58,000 teachers local teaching assistants in the classroom, may be one way of and established Village Education Committees in 15,000 addressing this concern. The second potential problem is villages. classroom capacity. In contexts in which class sizes are already The Egypt Community Schools project has played a similar role, large, or physical space is limited, it may not be possible to providing hard-to-reach rural children, particularly girls, with accommodate additional children in existing classes. basic education equivalency allowing them to continue to · Extra-curricular "catch-up" education: These intensive remedial preparatory school in the formal system. The initial UNICEF- courses, provided prior to, during, or after regular school hours, supported project that established 200 community schools are designed to lead to qualification to (re)enter regular classes at during the 1990s has now been incorporated into a national the age-appropriate grade level. This option provides children with Girls' Education Initiative aimed at reaching half a million out-of- a more gradual introduction into the school environment, and a school girls in Egypt by 2007. teacher dedicated exclusively to their learning needs. As such, it The Basic Education for Hard-to-Reach Urban Children project may be most appropriate for older, 10-14 year-old returning in Bangladesh is a large-scale alternative education effort children, who face a more difficult transition back to formal specifically targeting working children. Based on an "earn and schooling. Separate courses also help avoid the social learn" strategy, the project offers a two-year bridging course to stigmatization of older students attending classes with younger working children at the end of which they receive an ones. In schemes implemented elsewhere, regular teachers have equivalency of grade 3 and can be admitted to mainstream been recruited to run these courses, for a small supplement to the education. The course runs two hours per day, six days per regular income. But school capacity is also an issue here. In week, but timing is flexible in order that children are also able to circumstances in which schools are already functioning in two continue working. shifts, or all classroom space is occupied, there may not be time or physical space to accommodate additional classes of remedial An India Back-to-School pilot program, linked to Janshala and learners. This option would also require specialized training for administered by the Andra Pradesh Social Welfare Department, course instructors, and the development of specialized teaching offers bridging courses to school non-entrants and early drop- materials tailored to accelerated learning. outs in order to raise their academic proficiency to a level permitting their re-entry into the formal education system. The · Non-formal "bridging" education: Involves the establishment of India Balsakhi program, involves the hiring of young local non-formal networks of community schools offering intensive women ("Balsakhis") with the equivalent of a high school courses designed to raise academic proficiency to a level education to provide remedial education to disadvantaged or permitting entry into the formal school system. These programs lagging students within the formal school structure. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 65 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Creating an Enabling Environment for Progress Against Child Labour The effective implementation of both prevention and protection measures requires an enabling political, legal and institutional environment. Key components of this enabling environment include an appropriate legal and regulatory framework, functioning coordinating structures, capable institutions, a reliable information base, and a mobilised and aware society. These components are discussed briefly below. Strengthening and extending the legal framework on child labour. Laws governing child labour need to be strengthened, to serve as both a statement of national intent and as a basis for wider prevention and education efforts. Cambodia has ratified ILO Convention No. 138 (Minimum Age), ILO Convention No. 182 (Worst Forms) and the UN CRC. But inconsistencies remain between national legislation and these international child labour norms. The provisions on child labour in the Cambodia Labour Code (contained in Section 8 of the Code) are applied primarily to the formal sector and not to the informal sector where the overwhelming majority of child labourers are found. The lack of legal protection for CDWs is a particular concern in this context. Provisions on apprenticeship and allowable light work, inter alia, are also lacking from current legislation. A comprehensive review of current laws relating to child labour will be an important initial step in the process of strengthening the child labour legal framework. Fast-tracking approval of the six draft Prakas prepared to fill some of the gaps in the Labour Code, and the preparation and approval of additional Prakas covering other priority groups, such as CDWs, on the basis of the legal review, will also be important.97 Passing of laws on the suppression of human trafficking and sexual exploitation and on inter-country adoption, inter alia, is needed as a legal framework for efforts against child trafficking. Institution-strengthening: Strengthening institutional capacity at all levels of government will be necessary for continued progress towards national child labour reduction goals. While current policy frameworks provides a solid basis for action, these frameworks are unlikely to be implemented effectively given current capacity constraints. At the national level, an administrative restructuring has led to the creation of separate ministries of labour and social development,98 and to changes in institutional responsibilities and mandates in the area of child labour.99 A new Department of Child Labour was also created 97Prakas currently in draft form include ones relating to: types of allowable light work and employment for 12-14 year-olds; working conditions in rubber plantations; working conditions in salt production; working conditions in fishing; working conditions in brickmaking factories; and working conditions in garment and shoe-making factories. 98The full names of the newly-formed ministries are the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training (MoLVT) and the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation (MoSVY), respectively. The two ministries were previously part of a combined Ministry of Social Affairs, Labour, Vocational Training and Youth Rehabilitation (MoSALVY). 99The Ministry of Labour is officially responsible for the implementation of the National Plan of Action for the Elimination of Worst Forms of Child Labour and the Ministry of Social Affairs for the areas of child trafficking and child commercial sexual exploitation. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 66 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA within the Ministry of Labour.100 These new institutions require capacity- building in a number of areas, including using data for strategic planning, policy and programme design, programme monitoring and evaluation, programme coordination, and the mainstreaming of child labour in broader development plans and programmes. The core functions of the new Child Labour Department need to be defined, and its role vis-à-vis other state agencies in the child labour field need to be clarified. The training requirements in the area of child labour also need to be looked at for emerging provincial and local structures, including provincial and district committees on children, Commune Councils and Village Development Councils, to ensure that these structures are also able to act effectively against child labour. In line with this, child labour related issues need to be integrated with decentralization programmes of the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Rural Development. Improving coordination and information-sharing: The clear delineation of roles and the strengthening of coordination and information-sharing will also be critical to the effective functioning of government institutions and their social partners in efforts combating child labour. As discussed in Section 7, assistance in the child labour field is highly fragmented, with a large number of actors operating with little or no coordination or linkages. This leads to overlaps in assistance in some areas and to gaps in assistance in other priority areas. A preliminary mapping of current activities in the area of child labour, for example, indicates that the area of child trafficking has attracted a large amount of attention and support from social partners but that few groups are working in the area of hazardous child labour. The starting point for improved coordination is a detailed mapping of current efforts in the area of child labour, and the establishment of a system for monitoring assistance on the basis of this mapping. Current coordinating bodies at the national level ­ including the CNCC, NSC-CL, WG-CL need to be reactivated, and their specific coordination functions vis-à-vis those of the ministries of Labour and Social Affairs need to be clarified. The CNCC in particular requires an appropriate position in the governmental structure effectively coordinate inter-ministerial efforts to combat child labour. Improved coordination is also needed between donors and their support to the government in strengthening the social sector, including coordinated budgeting to combat (the worst forms of) child labour. At the provincial and district levels, there is a need to rationalise the coordination function by merging existing/proposed Committees on Child Labour and Committees on Child Protection into single coordinating bodies. 100This was Child Labour Unit within the former Ministry of Social Affairs, Labour, Vocational Training and Youth Rehabilitation (MoSALVY). INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 67 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Table 19. Major Research Priorities in the Area of Child Labour Research area Rationale 1. Child labour trends: National child labour surveys conducted in Cambodia vary considerably in terms of methodologies, definitions and reference ages, making it difficult to compare estimates or assess trends across time or progress towards national child labour reduction targets. 2. Level of involvement in hazardous work The standard 3-digit industrial and occupational classifications used in CCLS 2001 and other child labour surveys do not match the priority hazardous sectors identified in the National Plan of Action, meaning the estimates of children in these hazardous sectors are imprecise and incomplete. This, in turn, complicates the setting of clear time-bound child labour reduction targets. 3. Level of involvement in unconditional worst forms Little or no reliable data are available on the extent of child involvement in unconditional worst forms. Different survey methodologies, e.g., "capture ­ recapture" and "centre sampling" are required for obtaining quantitative information on children in unconditional worst forms. 4. Qualitative information on worst forms Four of the 16 worst forms identified in the NPA have been the subject of rapid assessments or other studies, but little or no qualitative information is available for the other 12 nationally-identified worst forms. 5. Demand for child labour Very little research has been conducted in Cambodia of the demand side of the child labour equation, and the wider labour market mechanisms that fuel or constrain child labour demand are poorly understood. 6. Child agricultural workers Although child agricultural workers constitute the overwhelming majority of child workers in Cambodia, very little is known about the specific nature and hazardousness of the children's work in the agricultural sector. 7. Local attitudes towards child labour Information on local knowledge and attitudes are needed to serve as a basis for the design of communication efforts. 8. Programme impact Very few of the wide array of current programmes combating child labour have been systematically evaluated, making it difficult to draw policy lessons from these experiences. Filling information gaps. Child labour has been the subject of considerable research in Cambodia. Three separate national child labour surveys101 and numerous other specialised studies of particular categories of child labourers have been conducted since 1998. But despite this comparatively good research base, important information gaps remain, affecting understanding of the child labour phenomenon and the ability of policymakers to address it. Priority information gaps requiring further, targeted research efforts are summarised in Table19. Awareness-raising: In Cambodia as elsewhere, the elimination of child labour will not be possible until society at large and affected communities in particular internalise the problem and mobilise against it. But perceptions of child labour as either beneficial or, at worst, a necessary evil, remain entrenched in many segments of Cambodian society. This underscores the need for an accelerated communication effort on the negative effects of child labour and the benefits of schooling as part of an overall strategy against child labour. Building on communication activities undertaken by ILO/IPEC, UNICEF and other groups, such an effort needs to take place at both a national and local level, and involve a wide variety of communication vehicles. The development of an effective communication effort will require baseline information on local knowledge and cultural attitudes towards child labour. The urgent need to address unconditional worst forms of child labour, including human trafficking and child commercial sexual exploitation, should be a particular focus. Providing information on national child labour legislation, presented in terms that are 101 Cambodia Socio-Economic Survey (CSES) 1999; Cambodia Child Labour Survey (CCLS) 2001; and CSES 2003/2004. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 68 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA understandable to the populations and communities concerned, is another communication priority. Social mobilisation: There is an equally important need to mobilise key stakeholders to act against child labour. Again building on efforts being undertaken with support from ILO-IPEC, UNICEF and other groups, religious organisations, educational institutions, teachers' organisations, NGOs, the mass media, community-based organizations, trade unions, employers' organisations and numerous other groups need to be actively engaged in addressing child labour. Care providers in direct contact with children, including teachers and health workers, are in an especially good position to identify and refer child labourers, and therefore constitute particularly important allies in protecting children from child labour. Initiatives such as community-based child protection networks provide useful vehicles for bringing together a wide variety of stakeholders to combat child labour.102 Emerging local structures, including Commune Councils and Village Development Councils, also have important potential roles to play both in raising awareness of and mobilising local action on child labour. Next steps: Identifying implementation priorities and resource requirements for meeting national child labour reduction targets These strategic priorities are not, of course, new. Most are recognised by the government and dealt with either explicitly or implicitly in the NPA-WFCL, NPA-TPSE, NPRS or in other policy documents. Numerous groups are also already embarked on supporting the government in implementing these policies, as illustrated in Table 20 and discussed in more detail in Section 7. Table 20. Main Social Partners Supporting Government Efforts in the Area of Child Labour Areas of strategic intervention Multilateral partners Rescue, recovery and reintegration IOM, ILO/IPEC, UNICEF Protective measures Child labour inspection and legal enforcement ILO/IPEC Remedial learning UNESCO, UNICEF Access to basic services World Bank, Asia Development Bank Preventive measures School access barriers and quality issues World Bank, Asia Development Bank, UNESCO, UNICEF Social risk mitigation/reduction of HH vulnerability World Bank, Asia Development Bank Awareness-raising and social mobilisation ILO/IPEC, UNICEF Coordination and information-sharing World Bank, Asia Development Bank, ILO/IPEC, UNICEF Creation of an enabling environment Legal and regulatory framework ILO/IPEC, UNICEF Information for targeting and policy formulation ILO/IPEC, UNICEF, World Bank Institutional capacity World Bank, Asia Development Bank, ILO/IPEC, UNICEF 102 Child Protection Networks in two of the UNICEF convergence provinces (Prey Veng and Svay Rieng) serve to mobilise various governmental and non-governmental stakeholder in health, education, social affairs, justice, police and religion, as well as children themselves, into a multidisciplinary team to prevent violence, abuse and exploitation of children, and to provide early intervention strategies such as mediation and referral to appropriate structures. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 69 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA But will current actions be sufficient to achieve the country's national child labour reduction target by 2015? And, if not, what are the policy and resource gaps that must be filled to reach this target? These questions are critical to guiding national efforts against child labour in the lead up to 2015, and will be taken up in Volume 2 of this Inter-Agency Report. Building on the information presented above, Volume 2 will provide a detailed mapping of current assistance in the area of child labour, and project the likely impact of this assistance on child labour reduction. On this basis, areas requiring accelerated efforts will be identified and resource requirements calculated for achieving the national child labour reduction targets. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 70 ANNEX A: ECONOMETRIC RESULTS Table A1. Model for School and Work Activities by Sex, 6-11 Age Group Boys Girls Covariate School Economic activity Dom. work School Economic activity Dom. work Coeff. t-ratio Coeff. t-ratio Coeff. t-ratio Coeff. t-ratio Coeff. t-ratio Coeff. t-ratio Child's age 13.55 21.94 8.34 15.68 2.70 9.71 12.61 19.98 8.26 15.21 3.15 9.08 Child is offspring of hh head -3.12 -0.75 12.67 3.62 -1.00 -0.44 7.65 1.74 6.93 1.90 2.11 0.96 Mother's years of schooling 1.92 4.97 0.25 0.71 0.23 1.25 1.63 3.87 -0.41 -1.14 -0.02 -0.09 Father's years of schooling 0.92 2.68 0.15 0.46 0.22 1.34 1.04 2.79 0.49 1.47 0.16 0.80 # of 0-5 children in hh 2.33 1.99 2.33 2.09 0.52 0.82 -2.46 -2.06 -0.99 -0.89 1.05 1.53 # of 6-14 males in hh -3.29 -3.06 -4.06 -3.85 -2.85 -4.46 -4.01 -3.53 -0.21 -0.20 -1.23 -1.73 # of 6-14 females in hh -1.97 -1.74 -2.12 -1.86 -1.22 -2.07 -1.43 -1.24 -0.26 -0.23 -1.23 -1.69 # of 15-17 males in hh 1.33 0.70 -4.42 -2.39 -2.22 -2.14 -3.34 -1.63 -7.62 -3.95 -2.58 -2.08 # of 15-17 females in hh 6.06 3.15 -3.65 -2.02 -2.94 -2.48 -1.59 -0.77 -4.30 -2.28 -6.02 -4.63 # of 18-59 males in hh 1.21 0.85 -0.85 -0.65 0.64 0.92 0.35 0.25 -0.52 -0.39 1.87 2.51 # of 18-59 females in hh 0.95 0.71 0.41 0.31 -1.95 -2.92 1.25 0.89 0.54 0.41 -1.58 -1.83 # of 60+ individuals in hh 1.79 0.77 -0.79 -0.36 -2.37 -1.94 1.42 0.59 1.03 0.45 -0.80 -0.54 Female household head -7.92 -1.44 -2.73 -0.56 1.62 0.59 5.12 1.01 -8.02 -1.81 2.78 0.97 Khmer 18.59 4.25 3.73 0.91 5.76 3.78 19.04 3.87 8.45 2.00 4.36 2.00 HH in 2nd wealth quintile -3.90 -1.45 -1.41 -0.54 0.21 0.13 3.48 1.33 -1.92 -0.71 -2.67 -1.80 HH in 3rd wealth quintile e 5.00 1.96 -1.14 -0.43 1.80 1.17 5.56 2.03 -0.05 -0.02 0.31 0.18 HH in 4th wealth quintile 11.73 4.48 2.57 0.94 2.94 1.84 10.78 4.10 2.76 0.97 0.98 0.57 HH in richest wealth quintile 12.93 4.65 -7.57 -2.55 -2.89 -2.05 16.01 5.82 -3.50 -1.13 -2.43 -1.47 HH main activity: non-farm business -0.52 -0.23 -6.31 -3.08 -0.74 -0.64 1.92 0.85 -7.49 -3.65 -1.84 -1.42 HH main activity: casual employment -12.06 -3.00 -9.36 -2.67 -0.54 -0.25 -4.95 -1.19 -9.22 -2.44 0.44 0.17 HH main activity: regular employment 9.01 3.04 -11.58 -3.88 -3.79 -2.93 1.85 0.54 -13.24 -4.55 -2.98 -1.68 HH main activity: rents 9.76 1.76 -12.10 -1.73 -1.33 -0.33 5.51 0.81 -9.26 -1.37 -0.95 -0.27 Urban -2.92 -1.47 -6.23 -3.37 3.06 2.85 -1.83 -0.88 -3.46 -1.81 3.20 2.77 Commune poverty rate (%) -0.11 -2.31 0.09 1.89 0.05 2.00 -0.06 -1.21 0.21 4.11 0.10 3.50 LSS in the commune 1.77 0.93 5.40 2.88 4.78 4.51 1.19 0.60 5.99 3.18 2.52 2.17 Prim. schools per 1,000 population -0.65 -0.16 8.98 2.43 0.33 0.18 5.27 1.36 9.20 2.49 2.45 1.31 % of incomplete prim. schools -0.05 -1.38 -0.29 -7.29 -0.07 -3.64 -0.07 -1.71 -0.22 -5.15 -0.14 -6.27 % of prim. schools with PA 0.02 0.69 -0.19 -6.32 -0.10 -3.68 0.05 1.58 -0.14 -4.81 -0.08 -4.57 % of prim. schools with preschool 0.00 0.12 0.05 1.62 -0.06 1.64 -0.02 -0.52 0.03 1.11 0.03 1.77 % of prim. schools with teacher guides 0.07 1.61 0.04 0.95 0.07 2.81 0.06 1.42 0.11 2.61 0.04 1.50 % of female teachers 0.04 0.67 -0.12 -2.16 -0.09 -2.77 0.14 2.41 -0.09 -1.58 -0.09 -2.87 % of teachers with LSS 0.27 5.05 -0.15 -2.82 -0.11 -4.10 0.31 5.62 -0.14 -2.49 -0.13 -4.35 % of teachers with USS or higher 0.26 3.31 -0.17 -2.27 -0.14 -3.44 0.24 2.82 -0.03 -0.42 -0.15 -3.03 Wald statistic model significance (p-value) 1468.2 (0.000) 1354.4 (0.000) Source: Cambodia Quality Basic Education for All (World Bank, 2005) Table A2. Model for School and Work Activities by Sex, 12-14 Age Group Boys Girls Covariate School Economic activity Dom. work School Economic activity Dom. work Coeff. t-ratio Coeff. t-ratio Coeff. t-ratio Coeff. t-ratio Coeff. t-ratio Coeff. t-ratio Child's age -1.90 -2.05 5.15 3.16 5.74 4.71 -8.85 -7.57 5.27 3.17 5.01 3.54 Child is offspring of hh head 11.72 2.75 4.68 0.78 -3.83 -0.78 8.59 1.83 9.82 1.53 3.77 0.71 Mother's years of schooling 1.94 4.53 0.05 0.10 0.69 1.74 0.92 2.24 -0.52 -0.99 0.71 1.47 Father's years of schooling 0.57 1.73 0.23 0.48 -0.49 -1.29 0.55 1.55 -0.48 -0.99 0.60 1.36 # of 0-5 children in hh -0.36 -0.33 1.91 0.98 -1.99 -1.34 -1.44 -1.22 -0.77 -0.37 1.33 0.78 # of 6-14 males in hh -0.23 -0.25 2.46 1.54 -0.36 -0.29 -2.64 -2.36 1.78 1.07 -2.66 -1.82 # of 6-14 females in hh -1.75 -1.98 2.75 1.64 2.15 1.67 -0.08 -0.07 3.54 2.04 0.58 0.38 # of 15-17 males in hh -1.03 -0.69 -5.63 -2.26 -4.60 -2.25 -1.60 -0.96 -3.79 -1.48 -3.19 -1.35 # of 15-17 females in hh 1.44 0.89 -5.90 -2.29 -0.76 -0.39 2.23 1.25 -3.96 -1.49 -8.72 -3.44 # of 18-59 males in hh 0.60 0.55 -4.15 -2.39 -2.95 -2.17 2.81 2.34 -1.73 -0.99 0.56 0.35 # of 18-59 females in hh 0.96 1.03 1.15 0.70 -1.73 -1.27 1.42 1.28 -1.44 -0.88 -1.45 -0.93 # of 60+ individuals in hh 0.82 0.47 0.23 0.07 -1.95 -0.74 3.02 1.38 5.33 1.61 1.68 0.58 Female household head -4.24 0.85 -8.98 -1.24 4.87 0.86 -1.93 -0.38 -0.65 -0.08 6.89 0.96 Khmer 17.47 3.88 1.14 0.16 9.72 2.25 13.78 2.80 4.96 0.64 8.53 1.47 HH in 2nd wealth quintile 2.09 0.99 -4.36 -0.99 0.11 0.03 -2.00 -0.74 -2.62 -0.58 0.27 0.07 HH in 3rd wealth quintile e 3.52 1.71 -3.37 -0.77 2.72 0.80 4.55 1.83 1.74 0.40 1.32 0.35 HH in 4th wealth quintile 7.06 3.53 1.44 0.33 -2.62 -0.83 4.21 1.58 0.99 0.22 -0.55 -0.14 HH in richest wealth quintile 7.97 3.56 -9.21 -1.95 -8.61 -2.60 5.36 1.87 -5.31 -1.10 -7.73 -1.77 HH main activity: non-farm business -3.35 -1.68 -13.42 -3.99 -3.07 -1.21 -6.94 -2.70 -10.26 -2.91 -0.02 -0.01 HH main activity: casual employment -11.22 -2.85 -21.60 -3.44 -12.27 -2.77 -19.02 -3.91 -18.60 -2.76 0.03 0.00 HH main activity: regular employment 1.53 0.51 -20.25 -4.30 -9.71 -2.96 0.93 0.24 -7.95 -1.68 -3.56 -0.77 HH main activity: rents 1.72 0.26 -19.25 -2.14 0.17 0.02 7.64 1.40 -11.18 -1.01 5.20 0.75 Urban 0.58 0.35 -9.27 -2.87 6.61 2.62 -0.25 -0.12 -9.63 -3.07 4.28 1.60 Commune poverty rate (%) -0.10 -2.33 0.29 3.66 0.07 1.23 -0.09 -1.85 -0.04 -0.44 0.01 0.11 LSS in the commune 2.84 1.82 10.42 3.71 12.72 5.66 3.26 1.69 4.87 1.71 3.96 1.56 Prim. schools per 1,000 population -5.16 -1.74 1.81 0.29 0.59 0.13 0.78 0.21 4.18 0.66 2.47 0.50 % of incomplete prim. Schools 0.04 1.21 -0.21 -3.40 -0.14 -3.27 -0.01 -0.37 -0.26 -4.13 -0.09 -1.79 % of prim. schools with PA 0.02 0.78 -0.14 -2.81 -0.11 -2.89 0.07 2.10 -0.03 -0.55 -0.17 -4.19 % of prim. schools with preschool -0.01 -0.22 0.10 2.16 -0.07 -1.90 0.12 2.94 0.08 1.69 0.06 1.44 % of prim. schools with teacher guides 0.04 1.25 0.11 1.52 0.03 0.60 -0.03 -0.71 -0.06 -0.90 0.06 0.91 % of female teachers -0.01 -0.12 -0.19 -2.31 -0.04 -0.57 0.10 1.74 -0.15 -1.71 -0.09 -1.21 % of teachers with LSS 0.10 2.38 -0.12 -1.38 -0.38 -5.76 0.09 1.81 -0.37 -3.68 -0.38 -4.90 % of teachers with USS or higher -0.01 -0.14 -0.09 -0.76 -0.26 -2.86 0.05 0.59 -0.51 -3.76 -0.21 -1.89 Wald statistic model significance (p-value) 674.4 (0.000) 593.7 (0.000) Source: Cambodia Quality Basic Education for All (World Bank, 2005) INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 71 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Table A3. Model for School and Work Activities by Sex, 15-17 Age Group Boys Girls Covariate School Economic activity Dom. work School Economic activity Dom. Work Coeff. t-ratio Coeff. t-ratio Coeff. t-ratio Coeff. t-ratio Coeff. t-ratio Coeff. t-ratio Child's age -15.00 -9.11 4.24 3.10 2.66 1.47 -16.08 -9.33 4.06 3.11 2.86 1.69 Child is offspring of hh head 6.67 1.18 1.52 0.32 3.88 0.82 17.98 3.55 -1.57 0.39 0.97 0.20 Mother's years of schooling 0.95 1.66 -0.26 -0.63 0.55 1.10 2.32 4.12 -1.44 -3.50 0.57 1.06 Father's years of schooling 1.01 2.03 -0.26 -0.65 0.63 1.39 0.77 1.47 0.32 0.87 -0.06 -0.11 # of 0-5 children in hh -1.05 -0.50 1.19 0.62 1.93 1.01 -3.67 -1.65 0.23 0.13 0.16 0.08 # of 6-14 males in hh -2.53 -1.67 -2.73 -1.69 -1.17 -0.84 -1.66 -1.02 -1.49 -1.17 -0.44 -0.28 # of 6-14 females in hh -1.05 -0.68 -1.03 -0.76 -0.33 -0.23 -3.78 -2.27 -1.45 2.10 0.33 0.19 # of 15-17 males in hh 3.09 0.96 1.39 0.50 -2.75 -0.92 2.50 0.73 2.74 -0.88 -5.14 -1.47 # of 15-17 females in hh -5.99 -1.66 -1.37 -0.48 -4.02 -1.25 2.41 0.69 -2.33 0.53 -11.37 -3.17 # of 18-59 males in hh 2.84 1.65 -1.41 -1.03 1.77 1.18 3.20 1.96 1.56 0.57 1.43 0.88 # of 18-59 females in hh 3.74 2.29 -2.05 -1.53 0.68 0.44 3.66 2.23 -0.72 -3.48 -0.54 -0.33 # of 60+ individuals in hh 6.65 2.21 -3.62 -1.40 3.95 1.44 11.80 3.88 -4.30 -2.15 3.10 1.05 Female household head 2.56 0.32 1.26 0.20 -2.36 -0.30 -9.14 -1.16 -2.25 -0.36 6.40 0.84 Khmer -1.17 -0.17 -2.95 -0.48 12.96 1.92 2.71 0.35 -5.43 -0.97 8.56 1.14 HH in 2nd wealth quintile 2.18 0.47 -4.02 -0.96 0.82 0.19 -5.83 1.16 -2.33 -0.58 1.08 0.22 HH in 3rd wealth quintile e 10.20 2.38 3.29 0.85 -0.20 -0.05 1.56 0.31 0.03 0.01 -5.99 -1.23 HH in 4th wealth quintile 13.68 3.26 0.15 0.04 -9.50 -2.49 1.96 0.41 4.84 1.33 0.08 0.02 HH in richest wealth quintile 18.63 4.12 -2.82 -0.68 -12.81 -3.12 16.58 3.16 -4.64 -1.16 -4.48 -0.87 HH main activity: non-farm business -0.21 -0.06 -7.98 -2.66 -5.12 -1.66 -1.93 -0.54 -8.01 -2.69 0.94 0.26 HH main activity: casual employment -29.10 -3.80 -10.19 -1.62 -11.62 -2.05 -17.24 -2.29 -14.18 -2.34 -7.29 -1.08 HH main activity: regular employment 5.81 1.14 -14.94 -3.31 -12.59 -3.04 -9.18 -2.01 -7.61 -2.08 -3.67 -0.73 HH main activity: rents 10.20 1.31 -16.63 -2.40 -3.31 -0.44 5.53 0.57 -16.70 -2.19 1.83 0.22 Urban 1.36 0.41 -10.34 -3.56 5.63 1.82 -2.04 -0.58 -7.59 -2.72 -2.30 -0.67 Commune poverty rate (%) 0.12 1.47 -0.11 1.47 0.15 2.09 -0.12 -1.48 -0.07 -0.99 -0.01 -0.07 LSS in the commune 2.15 0.76 7.50 3.22 7.58 2.87 6.32 2.11 2.12 0.93 9.80 3.28 Prim. schools per 1,000 population 6.86 1.06 3.71 0.68 -1.59 -0.29 9.49 1.38 -9.65 -1.79 0.01 0.00 % of incomplete prim. Schools -0.20 -3.01 -0.12 -2.19 -0.15 -2.55 -0.08 -1.22 -0.14 -2.56 -0.10 -1.52 % of prim. schools with PA 0.04 0.78 -0.10 -2.43 -0.12 -2.63 -0.08 -1.68 0.01 0.34 -0.12 -2.57 % of prim. schools with preschool -0.07 -1.42 0.05 1.34 -0.00 -0.03 0.10 2.02 -0.04 -1.23 -0.17 -3.44 % of prim. schools with teacher guides 0.05 0.72 -0.21 -3.18 0.03 0.38 0.01 0.11 -0.05 -0.76 0.14 1.87 % of female teachers 0.04 0.53 -0.01 -0.10 -0.17 -2.23 0.05 0.55 -0.14 -2.05 -0.12 -1.29 % of teachers with LSS 0.18 1.74 -0.34 -3.50 -0.41 -4.34 0.04 0.40 -0.02 -0.30 -0.49 -4.93 % of teachers with USS or higher -0.08 -0.60 -0.32 -2.66 -0.25 -2.00 0.11 0.85 -0.14 -1.30 -0.23 -1.68 Wald statistic model significance (p-value) 543.3 (0.000) 540.6 (0.000) Source: Cambodia Quality Basic Education for All (World Bank, 2005) INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 72 ANNEX B: PARTIAL MAPPING OF ACTORS SUPPORTING IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NATIONAL PLANS ON WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOUR, CHILD TRAFFICKING AND EFA Figure 24. Partial Mapping of Actors Supporting Implementation of the National Plan of Action on the Worst Forms of Child Labour (NPA- WFCL) INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 73 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Table A4. Partial Listing of Actors Supporting Implementation of the 2005-2009 National Plan of Action Against Trafficking in Persons and Sexual Exploitation (NPA-TIPSE) Reintegration of Trafficked and other Vulnerable Women and Children (Mekong Region) Return and integration of & Trafficked Women and LAV Children N Capacity building for Law MO Enforcers RE AL, RATIOGE Capacity Building on Child T INT Development Education h/ .t'voG RE eap MO/V THDRAWI Peer Education on Child ds yaw W Rights mlan kph MRP of.t'voG/ Sa na Nor aliarts /WF Vocational Skills training/ h ienrF US MRP Au CE Literacy for Reintegration UNI to Public School System Mit Wath M/RP US US ONIT Job Placement LOCAL NGOs Others /EP PF EC Child Rights Awareness- OT raising at MoH, coalition KA/E members, Monitoring PR /W /WSDN Database RE Advocacy (books on anti- IERF trafficking law, lobbying) CA Research on NGO NOI Statistics on Rape and Trafficking AT Monitoring of NPA-TSEC UC CAOV NFE scholarships VESIT ED awareness raising (OPTIONS) IA IT Support to local community in building IN NG N "Trafficking, Sexual KIRO Exploitation village TIOA safety nets" F/ AVS MMES/ WT LIS Psychosocial BI rehabilitation TA/E CRC CCA Training of tourism service PE PAT groups; enforcing SCN KA ENCIES administrative measures EC PROGRA for violators CAR/E SECAMOC GO-N AG DETA NE,YCACOV MO L CIAOS T Bldg. Mechanisms/ W AD & Structures for return, MO NG recovery, integration Bldg. capacity of MOWA INGO'S/NGOs COALITIONS thru legal trainings ENTI & T Psycho-social rehab LAC ME PSE-RELIT N EN services/transit center for LO sO IO return and integration PL ATLSIGEL EMCROF NG MI Information Campaign SVY/o M EN Capacity building of law enforcers TV Expanded Basic Education ML L NA CLC/NFE, Inclusive Education UTIO NT ITT Lower Secondary OEYS Education, physical INS structures, vocational M/ & MEPOLEV training CYILOP DE EBEP EDFN Training of tourism services group & TV vulnerable children NOITN Capability building of Police for law enforcement ML/YVS Mo EVE Combating Child Trafficking & SE through Education PR YVS Education-development of Mo new books YDUTS Awareness raising to IPEC- FECI O B M DIA Sida IO promote safe tourism, AD UN US CC & strengthening social ILO ESCNU H services CN ARCES Assessment of NPA-TSEC for policy review/ recommendation RE Prevention of trafficking in Multilateral and Bilateral Agencies children and women (TICW) INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 74 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Table A5. Partial Listing of Actors Supporting Implementation of the 2003-2015 Education for All (EFA) National Plan NFE LITERACY VST SCHOLARSHIP TRAINING WORKSHOPS Formal Education Scholarships Reintegration INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 75 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 76 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA ANNEX C: ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF WORK ON SCHOOLING T he analysis of the impact of work on the schooling experience of children presents two major complications in the context of the CCLS data. The first issue refers to the timing of work in relation to school events. In particular, most of the information on child work refers to the situation as of the time of the survey, although there is also information on the age at which the child started working. Even if we were able to perfectly reconstruct the work history of children, we could not link it to their schooling histories. In particular, the information on school entry age is only available for children attending school at the time of the survey. For those children who had dropped out by the time of the survey, there is no information on the age or time at which they dropped out of school. Thus, we cannot look at the effect of work on school entry age for school dropouts, nor can we examine if work had anything to do with their withdrawal from school. The latter is due to the fact that we do not know whether a school dropout that is currently working started working before or after dropping out. The latter is crucial to implementing the right policies. If work causes school dropout, then policies to stamp out child labour are justified. However, if failure in school results in child work, then policy measures need to focus on addressing the reasons for school failure as a first priority. A second issue is that household decisions about the schooling and work of children are interrelated and thus dependent on many common factors, some of which we do not have information on in the CCLS. As a result, part of the difference between working and non-working children in terms of, say, school dropout, can be due to the influence of these common factors (i.e., how these factor differ between working and non-working children) and not to the actual effect of work on school dropout, which is what we are interested in. As a result of these two issues, we adopt a more indirect and static approach to examine the relationship between school and work. In particular, the model presented below takes into account the interrelated nature of school and work decisions by estimating jointly the determinants of current school and work participation of children aged 6-17. Based on these estimates, we then examine the degree of substitution between different work activities and schooling by looking at how these determinants co-vary with child work and schooling. The model is estimated for the age groups corresponding to the targeted ages for primary, lower secondary and upper secondary school (6-11, 12-14 and 15-17, respectively), as well as by gender. It uses a 14 hour cutoff to define work and includes a rich set of child, parental, household and community characteristics (including the supply and quality of school inputs) as explanatory variables of school enrolment and work participation. Child characteristics include the age, sex of the child, as well as the relationship with the household head (son or daughter versus other). Parental characteristics include years of schooling of the mother and the father of the child. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 77 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Household level variables include sex of the household head (female versus male), household ethnicity (Khmer versus other), household wealth -- which is based on an asset-based index and enters as a set of wealth quintiles indicators, main economic activity of the household -- own farm business, own non-farm business, regular employment, casual employment and rents (pensions, dividends, interests, property rent, etc.), and household age and sex composition -- number of 0-5 aged children, number of other children aged 6-14 and aged 15-17 in the household by sex, number of adults aged 18-59 by sex and number of older people (aged 60+). Community characteristics are represented by variables indicating the socio- economic status as well as the supply and quality of school inputs in the commune, using the WFP poverty data and Education Monitoring Information System (EMIS) data for the same academic year as the CCLS data, i.e., 2000- 2001. To avoid over-specifying the model, we searched for a parsimonious specification for this set of variables. These include an indicator for urban area (versus rural), the WFP poverty measure, availability of lower secondary schools, the number of primary schools per 1,000 population in the commune (population data is from the 1998 census, and characteristics of primary schools in the commune: percentage of incomplete schools, percentage of schools with preschool facilities attached, parental association and teacher guides, as well as teacher characteristics (percentage of female teachers, percentage of teachers with lower secondary education completed, and percentage of teachers with upper secondary or higher education completed). The available information was, however, sufficient to estimate the impact of work before school entry and the extent and timing of school entry, although the analysis is limited by the fact that we do not have information about school entry for those who had dropped out of school by the time of the survey. Also, the identification of the impact of work on school entry relies on the non-linearity of the model. This analysis also provides valuable information on other structural determinants of school entry age. Also the significance of the result on impact of work on school entry is examined by estimating the impact of late school entry on primary school completion. To further examine the impact of child work on learning achievement, we use literacy and numeracy test scores of 4th and 6th graders from a nationally representative survey of 191 primary schools. This survey was conducted as part of the Public Expenditures Survey in Primary Education (World Bank, 2006b). We estimate models for literacy and numeracy test scores separately, as well as by student grade. The models include children characteristics, such as sex, age, whether the child eats breakfast everyday, whether he or she receives any supplementary tutoring, and whether he or she gets some help at home with homework. The variable of interest is an indicator for whether the child works everyday before going to school. To correct for possible endogeneity of this variable, we instrument for it using the information on whether the main activity of the family is farming. Identification of the impact of work on learning also relies on the non-linearity of the model. The model also includes parental INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 78 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA education, and household wealth. Finally, to account for differences in school quality, we also estimate models with school fixed effects. INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 79 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 80 CHILDREN'S WORK IN CAMBODIA Sector Reports Human Development Sector Unit East Asia and Pacific Region Philippines Education Policy Reform in Action: A Review of Progress Since PESS and PCER, May 2004 (Report No. 28063-PH) Vietnam Reading and Mathematics Assessment Study (Volume 1): How Measuring Achievement Distribution Informs Education Policy Development, August 2004. Vietnam Reading and Mathematics Assessment Study (Volume 2): Study Results, August 2004. Vietnam Reading and Mathematics Assessment Study (Volume 3): Study Methodology, August 2004. Timor-Leste Education Since Independence From Reconstruction to Sustainable Improvement, December 2004 Decentralization in Indonesia's Health Sector: The Central Government's Role, October 2004 Education in Indonesia: Managing the Transition to Decentralization, August 2004 Philippines Out of School Children and Youth in the Philippines: Issues and Opportunities, September 2003. (Report No. 23132-PH) Cambodia Quality Basic Education For All, January 2005. (Report No. 32619- KH) Cambodia Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS) in Primary Education (Report No. 34911-KH) Getting Girls Into School: Evidence from a Scholarship Program in Cambodia (Report No. 36727-KH) Public Financing of Education in Mongolia: Equity and Efficiency Implications (Report No. 36979-MN) INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 81 INTER-AGENCY REPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA 82