Poverty and Unemployment In Madagascar Leads To Child Exploitation

Poverty and lack of employment prospects make many teenage girls in coastal areas of Madagascar vulnerable to becoming trapped in commercial sexual exploitation. An ILO project supports community efforts to fight against the problem, one of the worst forms of child labour.

Located in southern Madagascar on a beautiful, sun-kissed, stretch of coastline, the town of Tuléar is an ideal holiday spot. But, the presence of tourists in an extremely poor region is also a risk for children, who may fall into commercial sexual exploitation. 

From 2014 to 2016, the ILO, working with UNICEF, ran a project to help teenagers who had fallen prey to sexual exploitation leave it for good and learn a job. 

“We supported 80 children in 2014 and 2015, and 50 in 2016,” says Emma Razanakolona, who heads the local branch of SOS Villages d’Enfants, the NGO in charge of implementing the project. 

With the backing of a local anti-prostitution committee – made up of local decision-makers, regional authorities, economic agents and labour inspectors – the NGO identified beneficiaries through awareness-raising campaigns, including in discotheques and in neighbouring villages. 

The beneficiaries were children, most of them girls but also boys who worked as intermediaries. They received three months of training in the hospitality sector – as wait staff, housekeepers, cooks, bar staff – a sector where employers find it difficult to recruit qualified staff. The theoretical training was followed by a three-month on-site internship that in several cases led to job offers. 

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