The Ministry of Labour says it has noted that there are cases of child labour in arts and entertainment industry in the country.

Chief Labour Officer in the ministry, Francis Kwenda, told Story Club FM on Tuesday in Mponela, Dowa on the sidelines of a media training on Child Protection and Rights in Response to Ending Child Labour.

Kwenda said that it has come to their attention that young artists, mostly performers, are working in hazardous places which are not suitable for their age.

“Issues of child labour has not spared the entertainment industry here in Malawi. It is there as per our observation, only that the government and other partners have not paid much attention to conduct a research in order to have a clear picture and see how big it is,” he said.

He admitted that when the National Statistics Office conducted child labour survey in 2015, the entertainment sector was excluded as much of the focus was in agriculture and other sectors.

"However, we are now discussing with the office to include it in the coming survey so that the ministry might as well have the statistics of child labor in the entertainment sector," he said.

The national media training on Child Protection and Rights Reporting in Response to Ending Child Labour in Malawi has been organized by Save the Children, Plan International Malawi and World Vision with funding from European Union through Global Joining Forces Alliance to implement a new project called Joining Forces for Africa (JOFA) which is aiming at ending child labour and strengthening local and national child protection systems in Malawi.