The Employers’ Consultative Association of Malawi (ECAM) has called on employers to commit and support activities that address the root causes of child labour and has since announced the 3rd Edition of the ‘Employer of the Year Awards’ which seeks to encourage best practices amongst employers.
This is according to ECAM president Anne Chavula who was speaking on Monday during a press briefing where she was giving an update on activities in Accelerating Action for the Elimination of Child Labour (ACCEL) Africa project.
ECAM is implementing the 21 months ACCEL Africa project in five districts in Malawi including Mulanje, Thyolo, Mzimba, Chitipa and Ntchisi where child labour cases are repotedly rampant.
According to Chavula, the ACCEL Africa project aims at improving and enforcing policy, legal and institutional frameworks to address child labour and also to institutionalize innovative and evidence-based solutions that address the root causes of child labour in global supply chains.
She, however, indicated that it is still a requirement for employers in the country to support some of the activities that helps in dealing with the root causes of child labour.
“ECAM as an employer body, we are trying to engage employers so that together we can address the root causes of child labour in Malawi. We want all the Malawian employers to take a leading role in eliminating the vice.
“So we are calling all Employers to willingly make the commitment and pledge on supporting activities that address the root causes of child labour and support the prevention of children from being engaged in Child Labour through Memorandum of Understanding-MoUs, and Private-Public Partnership-PPPs,” said Chavula.
She further said through the ACCEL project, the association has reviewed and updated the Employers Code of Conduct in the Elimination of Child Labour, and Employers Guide in the Elimination of Child, as well as developed a Training Manual for Employers.
As part of ECAM’s commitment towards total elimination of child labour in Malawi, Chavula also announced at the briefing the 3rd Edition of the Employer of the Year Awards (EYA) that seeks to recognize the best employers in Malawi with best practices in employment, labour laws and other important areas.
The ECAM president further explained that the awards also seek to develop a mechanism of promoting responsible best practices among employers and share relevant and latest labour/employment related information with the members, non-members and other stakeholders.
According to Chavula, participation for the awards which has ten categories, is only open to all ECAM paid-up members, and the call for Entries opens on 11th October, 2022 and will close on 21st October, 2022.
