One of the primary goals of ILO has been to promote opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work. How much success has ILO achieved towards this goal till now?
Since the ILO was established after the First World War the organisation works to promote opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work. Work ensuring freedom, equity, security and human dignity for all women and men. Decent work is centered around the promotion of rights at work, employment, social protection and social dialogue.

Protection of the rights of the workers in the informal sectors, whose numbers are steadily growing, is an important agenda of ILO.

Women are often forced to work in low-paid jobs in poor working conditions. Decent employment for women is, therefore, a major concern for ILO. The ILO has at present 178 member countries and works with their government, represented by the Ministry of Labour and with workers’ and employers’ organisations with the aim to provide sustainable opportunities for decent work. This tripartite structure of ILO makes it unique among the UN organisations.

How effective has the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) of ILO been?
Protection of children is one of the important issues for the ILO. The aim of IPEC is to work towards the progressive elimination of child labour. Through this programme, ILO addresses the key aspects of the child labour problems, such as educational and training opportunities, awareness of the adults and decent income of the family. IPEC’s work on child labour is also an important facet of the ILO’s decent work agenda.

The ILO generally follows a two-way approach to fight child labour. One way is the legal approach through ratification of ILO Conventions and another way is to build up national capacities to address child labour problems. IPEC’s experience shows that to be effective, poverty alleviation programmes must address child labour issues through prevention, withdrawal, and the strengthening of national capacity, especially in the education system. In this regard, the National Child Labour Programme and its bridge schools initiated by the Government of India are a very effective step. We work with the government, employers’ and workers’ organisations, as well as with NGOs to create model and innovative approaches for the elimination of child labour that can be replicated through out the country. In India, our work covers a number of states, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Delhi and others.

ILO has recently launched a comprehensive report on forced labour, which also deals with human trafficking, which is a serious problem in South Asia. What are the strategies of ILO to abolish such practices?
Indebtness to employers force a large number of poor workers to work as bonded labour. In India, projects with ILO support are implemented in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

In the South Asia context, we work in a number of countries, specially Nepal, to stop the trafficking, particularly of children. Women are particularly prone to trafficking. We also look at this from the point of view of migration because trafficking in one sense is illegal migration. So we are working for strengthening the migration policies and procedures of the countries so that there is less scope for illegal migration. At the next ILO Asian Regional Meeting, which will take place in Korea in October this year, migration is one issue that will be discussed by the ILO member countries from Asia-Pacific. The members will look for taking better measures for protection of migrant workers and avoiding illegal migration.

What are the strategies of ILO for the protection of the rights of indigenous and tribal people?
Tribals and indigenous people are often the most suppressed and backward sections of the society. ILO works for the protection of their rights and also assist them to find decent income opportunities, which suit their traditions. The ILO is also actively involved in a number of United Nations activities and processes, which are relevant for the indigenous and tribal peoples.

In India, ILO has undertaken programmes for the empowerment of tribal people through self-help groups and micro-credit, amongst others in Orissa. The aim is to generate employment opportunities based on their traditional skills and linking them with the market and economic infrastructure. The new Forest and Land Act of Government of India is an appreciable step for the entitlements of the rights of the tribals. ILO is also working for the protection of their traditional rights.

One of the major ill effects of globalisation has been sub-contracting of jobs to poorer countries for cheap labour leading to major violation of labour rights. What initiatives have been taken by ILO to protect these labours?
Globalisation results in a dynamic process of job losses and gains. We, at ILO, strive to ensure that the rights are protected and those who lose jobs have adequate social protection. To analyse the impact further, the ILO has established the “World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation” to assess the impact of globilasation.

The benefits of globalisation are now reaching only a small group of countries or a small group of the population within a country. The report essentially points to the fact that globalisation is not fair, and that it can and should be made fairer.

Please share with our readers about ILO’s efforts for restoring the employment and livelihoods of people affected by Tsunami.


ILO has a comprehensive approach for the Tsunami affected areas. It is working in the Tsunami affected areas of Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India. In India, we have taken an approach in line with the