The United States of America labour department and her Nigeria counterpart are set to consolidate on her existing labour relationship. This was contained in a statement Tuesday in Abuja by the U.S ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Beth Leonard at the ministry of Labour and Employment when she paid a courtesy call to the ministry.
“It is a pleasure to have my introductory session with his Excellency. It part of our duties as new ambassadors to do this. To get around and meet members of government. For me, its particular one. I’m glad to be with the ministry of labour. I know we have a cordial working relationship which allows us to collect all the information we need to do certain required reporting about the response in child labour. It’s a pleasure to meet people who are engaged in a subject that occupies my dear family members time and also a ministry which has a strong working relationship with my country evidenced by the really warmed welcome by all of you”. The U.S envoy said
In his response, the minister of Labour and Employment, Sen Chris Ngige used the opportunity to welcome the new diplomat to Nigeria as well as intimating her on the journey thus far as it concerns labour activities between both countries.
“I want to welcome you to our ministry and in the same token welcome you to Nigeria. We have a very good working relationship with the department of labour of the United States government here. We want that cordiality in our relationship to continue. In also saying that, I want to point out that Nigeria as a country, we have done a lot in the area of corporation with your department of labour. This is
because all of us agreed that child labour, oppressive labour, slave labour and illegal migration especially labour migration have to be tackled from the roots. As a country, we have adopted the ILO conventions especially convention 187 which talks about child labour, force labour and the minimum age for people to be engaged in labour.
“We have even gone further to put in the child right Act. In consonance to working in this direction, we have also put up a national steering committee on the provision of child labour, human trafficking and slavement”.
Sen Ngige further stated that Nigeria have made tremendous improvement in the area of free and compulsory education for children In spite of the limited resources
“We have also as a country put up laws that will make for children to go to school compulsarily, we have the universal basic education Act which makes it compulsory for children to go to school.
“Our economy has gone down because we made the mistake of relying on a monopoly source of income which is petroleum. When prices of petroleum went down, and when we had some form of insurgency in the area of production in the Niger Delta, our earnings concurrentantly have to go down. But even with that, we have tried to battle poverty because poverty is one of the root causes of children not going to school, and children been sent to do menial work in the cocoa farms, goldmining field”.
He added that Nigeria cannot shoulder these responsibilities without the assistance of the U.S government. In his words
“This is not something that we can do alone, so we have called on the department of labour of America to assist us.
“In 2016, I led the Nigeria delegation to Agoa conference
in Washington, the aim of that visit was to jointly tackle the issues of child labour and poverty alleviation from that level, but unfortunately today some of the resolutions we had at that meeting have not been implemented. We are calling on the United States to assist the government of Nigeria in putting schools, hospitals in those areas that child labour is endemic.
“We are working together with you but we are not seeing your hand, the U.S department of labour is paying leap service to it”. He emphasized.
The minister seized the visit by the ambassador to address issues which burden on Visa ban to Nigerians by the U.S government.
“As you are now the ambassador, apart from labour issue, there are also other assilary matters that are attached to labour migration. Part of it is the issue on Nigeria professionals who migrated to the United States, or who go to the United States to better their skills and assist the government of United States. It came to us in this ministry as a root shock when the United States banned Nigerians and put us in the list of those countries that their legal council will be cancelled. About 70 percent of Nigerian professionals are emmenently qualified to be resident in the United States. I want you to convey it home that the ban is punitive”.
In her response, Mary Beth Leonard said
“the immigrant Visa ban is not for people who are currently resident in the United States, it is not cancelling their status. This is something that is meant to be temporary and also a problem arising from information sharring which is regratable, achievable and resolvable and we look forward to Nigeria in a very short while being able to meet the information sharring board so the decision can be reversed”. She concluded