IPC-IG Research Coordinator discusses how income transfers can be one of the strategies to end child labour during a workshop organized by Canal Futura

Rafael Osorio, Senior Research Coordinator at the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) and the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea), participated in an online workshop organised by Canal Futura of Fundação Roberto Marinho to discuss how social protection can contribute to ending child labour.  

The workshop, held on 22 June, had the participation of members of civil society, Brazilian government, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). It aimed at deepening the discussion of the campaign “Social Protection to End Child Labour”, which marked the World Day Against Child Labour, observed on 12 June. The campaign is a partnership between the Brazilian Public Labour Prosecutor’s Office (MPT), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the National Forum for the Prevention and Eradication of Child Labour (FNPETI), and Labour Justice’s Programme to Combat Child Labour and Foster Learning, and seeks to raise awareness regarding the need to expand public policies to reduce the poverty and socioeconomic vulnerability of families, with the goal of reducing the main causes that lead children and adolescents to work. 

The first of the three panellists to speak at the workshop was Aldaiza Spozati, Senior Professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP). Ms. Spozati discussed the importance of an exclusive child grant and the value of the Auxílio Brasil cash transfer, the Brazilian government’s social programme featuring direct and indirect income transfers, which she considers derisory, and unequal compared to that received by the children of judges. 

The next speaker was Rafael Osorio. He explained that income transfer is understood to be just one aspect of the broader fight against child labour. Mr. Osorio argued that Brazil has significant expenditures in transfers to children, but they are not always carried out in an effective or equitable manner. In this vein, the researcher presented data from an Ipea study that proposes the unification of the social benefits for poor and vulnerable children, youth and adults, which is also discussed by Osorio and the other authors in this IPC-IG Working Paper (“A proposal for the unification of social protection benefits for children, youth and those vulnerable to poverty”). 

The paper presents a possible path in the current context of fiscal constraints to reform inefficient programmes targeting children and transform them into a new, improved programme. 

Finally, Maria Senharinha Soares Ramalho, Secretary of the FNPETI, shared her experience as a Member of the State Forum for the Prevention and Eradication of Child Labour and Protection of Adolescent Workers in Paraíba—FEPETI/PB. 

The workshop also set out to be a space for the exchange of experiences, with the creation of three working groups that debated the axes of the letter published at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour: education and decent work, social protection and public policies.