ABUJA, May 14 (Xinhua) -- The International Labor Organization (ILO) is to set up a child labor monitoring system to record statistics about Nigeria, the most populous African country with apopulation of over 138 million.

    In a news briefing at the weekend in the Nigerian capital Abuja,ILO Country Director in Nigeria Sina Chuma-Mkadawire said "ILO is setting up a monitoring system and hoping to work with the Bureau of Statistics to keep us updated on the statistics of child labor as it is done in other countries."

    Chuma-Mkadawire said child labor had decreased in Latin Americabecause the government took it upon itself to fight the menace as it posed a great threat to the society.

    "The reduction in child labor in these regions is attributable to increased political will, awareness and concrete action, particularly in the field of poverty reduction and mass education," she stressed.

    She advised African countries to emulate the gesture, so that child labor could be reduced to the barest minimum.

    She, however, pointed out that through the intervention of ILO's International Program on Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC), Nigeria contributed to the global drop in the number of child laborers.

    Chuma-Mkadawire listed these interventions to include adoption of multi faceted approach and in built component of advocacy and awareness.

    She also listed the rehabilitation and reintegration of more than 4,000 ex-child workers, among the intervention.

    "Almost all of the children withdrawn from child labor have been either placed in schools or are acquiring vocational skills,"she said.

    She further said that more than 10,000 children had been prevented from being trafficked for exploitative labor.

    Chuma-Mkadawire said the ILO/IPEC project in collaboration withthe Nigeria's federal and state ministries of women affairs had established two emergency shelters in Akwa Ibom State in the southand Kano State in the north. Enditem