WORLD EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH United States Govt:
AMERICA is awarding $4million Grant for project Action against Child Labor Trafficking in West Africa-THEA LEE, Deputy Undersecretary for International Affairs
*‘Project to support ECOWAS and the Federal Government of Nigeria in implementing regional and national action plans that will address child labor crisis from December 2022 to December 2026’
*To avert Corruption: ‘The Department of Labor has a rigorous process to select our grant recipients and partners, we will continuously monitor our projects to ensure proper accountability of funding’
*“We want to be good stewards of taxpayer money while implementing the Biden-Harris Administration’s worker-centered policies”-LEE
*BY GEORGE ELIJAH OTUMU/AMERICAN Senior Investigative Editor
THE UNITED STATES Government has now made a bold move and taken action to end the crisis of child labor trafficking in the Economic Community of West African States. To ensure the issue of child labor is put to an end, America is ready to release the sum of $4million (Four Million dollars) to be used in this regard.
Confirming this development in an exclusive interview with our reporter, United States Under Deputy Undersecretary for International Affairs, Thea Lee, in a press statement made available by Christine Feroli, Office of Public Affairs, US Department of Labor
said: “The Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) is working to strengthen global labor standards, enforce labor commitments among trading partners, promote racial and gender equity, and combat child labor, forced labor, and human trafficking.
“In support of this mission, the United States Department of Labor (DOL) awarded $4 million to the International Labor Organization (ILO) to implement the project Action against Child Labor in Agriculture in West Africa (ACLAWA), which will run from December 2022 to December 2026.”
Lee explained: “The ILO ACLAWA project will support the Economic Community of West African States and the Federal Government of Nigeria to implement their regional and national action plans to address child labor, respectively. The project will also build upon ILAB’s history of engagement in the cocoa sector to support cocoa farmers in Ondo State, Nigeria, to address child labor in the cocoa supply chain. Of note, in 2019, Nigeria made a commitment to accelerating progress to eliminate child labor, forced labor and human trafficking by becoming a Pathfinder Country under Alliance 8.7. The ACLAWA project activities will support Nigeria in meeting this commitment.”
To avert fraud and corruption by the recipient West African nations, Lee said: “The DOL has a rigorous process to select our grant recipients and partners, and we continuously monitor our projects to ensure proper accountability of funding. We want to be good stewards of taxpayer money while implementing the Biden-Harris Administration’s worker-centered policies.”
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