Kathmandu, January 16:

The International Labour Organisation/IPEC in association with its partner organisation — Outreach Nepal — today launched a Behaviour Change Communication campaign against child labour in Nepal.

The campaign with the slogan ‘Stop Child Labour-Send all Children to Schools’ includes information dissemination through radio stations and other activities, according to a press release issued by the ILo/IPEC here today.

The release states that child labour has always existed in Nepal due to its agriculture-based economy. Further more, the existence of feudalism-based economy in the rural areas has contributed in social injustice, economic exploitation and deprivation of children, it adds.

It further states that perennial poverty and failure to make ends meet force the parents of rural villages to send their children, in search for better social conditions and some subsistent earnings for the family, to the cities, not realising the consequences of child labour that keeps them trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty.

The ILO has identified child labour as a major economic and social phenomenon in Nepal. It say the existing indifferent societal attitude towards the use of child labour and the socially stagnant situation in the rural areas due to the illiteracy, low perceived value of education and subsistence livelihoods force the parents to send their children to work. And the escalating conflict in Nepal has resulted in more hazardous forms of child labour, it adds.