Topic: 2024-Forced Labour
Country: Gabon
Delegate Name: Owen Krueger
2/15/24
Submitted to: International Labor Organization
From: Gabon
Subject: Forced Labor
The Gabonese Republic over recent years has passed legislation to end forced labor in the country to end child labor, which was the only unsolved forced labor in the nation. Gabon enacted legislation in accordance with the ILO`s minimum age convention to establish a minimum employment age that corporations would have to follow. The Gabonese Republic believes that if the UN established a similar resolution with proper adjustments to fit a global audience it would have a similar effect globally.
Even though child labor is globally looked down upon, some developing nations have had to use it to allow for families to stay economically afloat as the “breadwinners” don’t make enough to provide for their families on their own. Therefore an important step to solve the issue of forced/child labor would be to determine how to help families who rely on child labor to stay afloat during a period of transition away from child labor. This could come in the form of financial assistance from UNICEF or the ILO mandating a global minimum wage if it comes to those extremes.
The Gabonese Republic is a developing country that has grown and gotten rid of forced and child labor and the nation can contribute insight as to how to identify and prevent child labor as well as offer assistance to the UN and ILO to resolve the issue on a global scale.
The UN has committed to ending child labor by 2025, and to achieve this the UN and ILO must work together in order to achieve this. Also, nations must work to identify and prevent child labor within their nations. Gabon’s progress has shown that with proper legislation child labor and forced labor can be resolved. Gabon looks forward to discussing this further in committee.
