“Action with punishment does not solve the problem every time, we live together and deal with different issues with people in the community. So, we need to plan kindly, sympathetically and diplomatically to sensitize the local people on risk of child labour.” the statement was shared by the former chairperson of Manahari Rural Municipality, Makawanpur Ek Raj Upreti.   The Rural Municipality is now keeping concerns and serious on the emerging issues of child labor and has initiated to move ahead for the process to minimize and mitigate the issues. Child Labour Reduction Project (CLARP) in partnership between Shaplaneer and CWIN-Nepal is a three-year project (May 2021-April 2024) implementing with the objective to reduce Child Labour in and from Makawanpur District (one of the source/district areas of child labour in Nepal). The key purpose of the project is “Child Protection Mechanisms are strengthened in line with National Child Protection Policy and action plan to eliminate Child labour in Manahari Rural Municipality”. Total Beneficiaries children are nearly 550 most vulnerable children (350 for emergency supports and 200 direct supports to vulnerable children at high risk of child labour) from the project areas for three years project period. To fulfill the purpose; Government of Japan provided financial assistance of $428,234 equivalent to approximately 51.10m Nepali rupees, to the Shapla Neer Citizens’ Committee in Japan for Overseas Support, an international NGO based in Japan. 

There are three types of child laborer in Manahari Rural Municipality:

1. Children of Manahari Rural Municipality working in the same Municipality
2. Children of Manahari Rural Municipality working outside the Municipality
3. Children from adjoining rural municipalities who are working in Manahari Rural Municipality.

Transportation, carpet factory, small hotel and restaurant and construction works are the main working sectors of the child laborers. Nearly 24 percent households have child laborers and 29.6 percent children are engaged in laborer work among the 600 children found in the baseline survey in the three wards of the rural municipality.  Mostly boys are involved in the labor work in comparison with the girl child, but the equal numbers indicate that the girls are also working in outside districts mainly at Kathmandu in the carpet factories. Many efforts have been attempted on the children’s issues by the community people, child groups/clubs and the social department unit of Rural Municipality. They are very enthusiasm and energetic on the serious issues of child marriage and child labour as it is a big challenge and highly spread out in the areas. The project is focused in the three major Outputs to decrease the child labour in Manahari rural municipality, they are:

1. Child Protection Mechanism strengthened and rolled out at Rural Municipality level.
2. Decreased Child labour in Manahari Rural Municipality by providing need-based support
3. Increased knowledge and practice on “No child labour” in Community.

The project aims at addressing the child labour issues in line with the government policies and priorities. For this, the project will directly contribute, coordinate and conduct joint monitoring with local government in compliance to the different policies such as  Article 39 of Constitution of Nepal (Fundamental Rights), Section 7.7 of Fifteen National Plan (FY year 2019/20–2023/24) related to Children and Adolescents, The 8.7 target of Sustainable Development Goal 8, Master Plan for elimination of Child Labour (2075-2085/2018-2028), Multi-Sector Nutrition Plan II (2018-2022), National Education Policy 2076 and Local Government Operation Act, 2017.

As Nepal restructured to federal, provincial, and local level governance in 2017, the local level has been granted the rights to draft, endorse and implement laws that are not in conflict with federal law, with the residual power remaining with the federal government. Similarly, after the restructuring of the country, the budget allocated to each local level has increased significantly. But the local levels only prioritize infrastructure development activities as an indicator for development. It is to note that, the provision of 15 percent budget in the children sector that was in practice during the centralized governance system before; has been currently dismissed in the new federal system of governance in Nepal. Manahari rural municipality being one of the source areas of child labour, there was also a lack of strong child protection mechanism under local government to deal with the urgent issues of children. Therefore, with the technical support of CLARP Project the three municipal level guiding documents mainly “Child Protection Policy”, “Child Protection Monitoring Procedure”, and “Child Labour Reduction Implementation Plan” have been developed and endorsed. While conducting meetings for drafting the municipal level documents, it was noted that only 0.63 percent of the total budget was spent on children, women and senior citizens in Manahari Rural Municipality. Through a series of consultations on the importance of investing in a child’s future and advocacy by the CLARP Project, the Child Protection Policy has been endorsed stating that at least 15 percent of the total budget annually of Manahari Rural Municipality will be allocated to child rights and their child protection. This has been one of the major achievements and we further believe that the successful coordination between Shaplaneer and CWIN-Nepal has helped to replicate and advocate in all the 753 local levels to allocate budget in their annual plan and programme. This has built an example of best practices of a meaningful partnership between local government and development partners in breaking the vicious trap of child labor and saving the lives of thousands of children.