In com­par­ing the cur­rent reces­sion to the Asian eco­nomic cri­sis of 1997, the Inter­na­tional Labor Orga­ni­za­tion found some good news. Child labor has not increased sig­nif­i­cantly dur­ing this cur­rent slow­down, whereas child labor had a huge jump in 1997. The ILO attrib­utes this to Asian gov­ern­ments con­tin­ued spend­ing on social assis­tance instead of cut­ting those programs.

From the IPS, reporter Mar­waan Macan-Markar exam­ines how the Asian coun­tries are cop­ing in the world’s reces­sion in regards to child labor.

“There are some pos­i­tive signs emerg­ing from the cur­rent cri­sis unlike in 1997,” says Gyorgy Sziraczki, senior econ­o­mist at the Asia-Pacific office of the Inter­na­tional Labour Orga­ni­za­tion (ILO). “Gov­ern­ments have learnt from the Asian cri­sis and are not repeat­ing the same mis­takes as they did then.”

“Cut­ting social spend­ing after the 1997 cri­sis was an aggra­vat­ing fac­tor to increas­ing child labour,” added Szirackzi in an inter­view in his Bangkok office. “This explains the good news this time.”

The World Bank and the Inter­na­tional Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) learned sim­i­lar lessons. The two finan­cial insti­tu­tions’ aus­ter­ity con­di­tions for large bailout or res­cue pack­ages included cut­ting social spend­ing. This time, though, “they didn’t sug­gest cuts in social spend­ing,” said Szirackzi.

“The gov­ern­ments in the region did not cut social spend­ing but intro­duced pro­grammes that strength­ened social spend­ing,” Szirackzi explained. Indone­sia and the Philip­pines are among the coun­tries where inno­v­a­tive social spend­ing pro­grammes have been intro­duced, con­se­quently keep­ing vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren in the school system.

Indonesia’s ‘Hope­ful Fam­ily Pro­gramme’, which was imple­mented in Jan­u­ary 2007, was expanded in 2009 to cover more fam­i­lies in the giant arch­i­pel­ago fol­low­ing the cri­sis hit­ting its export sec­tor. Under this pro­gramme, fam­i­lies liv­ing below the poverty line of less than 15 U.S. dol­lars per month get a direct boost of cash on top of aid for health and education.

These forms of assis­tance are con­di­tional on expec­tant moth­ers under­go­ing at least four med­ical check-ups dur­ing mater­nity, said the ILO in a study assess­ing the impact of the global finan­cial cri­sis in Asia. “Fam­i­lies with chil­dren need to take them to local com­mu­nity health cen­tres to receive vac­ci­na­tions and ensure they com­plete up to junior high school. A min­i­mum atten­dance require­ment is also set at 85 per­cent each year,” added the report.

A sim­i­lar pro­gramme in the Philippines—called ‘Pantawid Pam­ilyang Pilipino’ or poverty reduc­tion pro­gramme for the Fil­ipino familiy, which was imple­mented in 2007—was expanded in 2009 to ben­e­fit more poor fam­i­lies, says Armin Bauer, a senior econ­o­mist at the Manila-based Asian Devel­op­ment Bank. “They were given con­di­tional cash trans­fers to ensure that mater­nal care was ensured and that chil­dren went to school.”

The Philip­pines and Indone­sia gave addi­tional money to the already pre­vail­ing social spend­ing pro­grammes, he said in a tele­phone inter­view from the Philip­pine cap­i­tal, Manila. “After the 1997 crash there was no addi­tional money spent, only cuts.”

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