Significant levels of child labour exist in

Lesotho Lesotho, formally the Kingdom of Lesotho and formerly known as Basutoland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Entirely surrounded by South Africa, it is the largest of only three sovereign enclave and exclave, enclaves in the world, t ...

. The 1997 Lesotho

Labour Force Survey Labour Force Surveys are statistical surveys conducted in a number of countries designed to capture data about the labour market. All European Union member states are required to conduct a Labour Force Survey annually. Labour Force Surveys are als ...

found that 4.6% of males who were working full-time, 14.1% of males who were working part-time and 1.3% of male job seekers in Lesotho were aged between 10 and 15 years. Many of these would have been involved in herding and those with part-time work were not necessarily earning an income but may well have been working on family land in subsistence agriculture (i.e. they were economically active but not earning an income). Boys are most likely to be engaged in paid work, usually herding as reported in the

U.S. Department of Labor The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for the administration of federal laws governing occupational safety and health, wage and hour standards, unem ...

's ''

List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor The ''List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor'' is an annual publication issued by the United States Government's Bureau of International Labor Affairs at the U.S. Department of Labor. It has been published within the December 2014 ...

''. Girls who are paid are primarily engaged in domestic work. It is likely that both boys and girls are engaged in seasonal agricultural work across the border in South Africa, but no data on the extent of this phenomenon is available. Lesotho is in the process of formulating an Action Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (APEC), with the assistance of the

International Labour Organization The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is one of the firs ...

's (ILO) programme

Towards the Elimination of the worst forms of Child Labour The programme Towards the Elimination of the worst forms of Child Labour (TECL) is a programme on child labour and related issues that is run in all the countries of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), namely Action Programme on the Eliminat ...

. A Programme Advisory Committee on Child Labour (PACC), representing government departments, organised labour and business, and civil society guides the development and implementation of the programme. The different elements of process are described in this article. Lesotho ratified both the ILO Minimum Age Convention (C138) and the ILO

Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention The Convention Concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour, known in short as the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, was adopted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 1 ...

(C182) in 2001. In addition, the country has also ratified the UN

Convention on the Rights of the Child The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (commonly abbreviated as the CRC or UNCRC) is an international international human rights treaty which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of ch ...

in 1992 and the

African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (also called the ACRWC or Children's Charter) was adopted by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1990 (in 2001, the OAU legally became the African Union) and was entered into force i ...

(in 1990). Lesotho’s Labour Code is the principal law governing employment-related matters in Lesotho. This law defines a “child” as a person under the age of 15, and a “young person” as a person over the age of 15 but under the age of 18.

References

Labour Labour in Lesotho Human rights abuses in Lesotho {{Lesotho-stub