Dancing together against child labour

“It was late at night and they still hadn’t gone home,” says Napatsara. “If I were them, I would feel like I was being tortured.”

Napatsara is now a member of an up-and-coming hip-hop dance group, The Zoo Thailand. She and 10 of her friends have decided to put their talent to good use and join the International Labour Organisation in its campaign to end child labour.

Mixing fast hip-hop moves with contemporary dance, the troupe is creating a special routine to highlight the plight of child labourers.

The performance will be part of an awareness-raising event organised by the ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) today, October 8. It’s being staged at CentralWorld, a popular Bangkok hangout for young Thais, with the specific intention of engaging young city-dwellers and getting them involved in the campaign, “All Together Against Child Labour”.

“Youth are the change agents. We are reaching out to young people who will become executives or leaders in their fields when they grow up,” Birgitte Krogh-Poulsen, IPEC’s programme manager, explains.

There is no data available for the number child labourers in Thailand. Globally, the number of children in work has declined by one third since 2000, from 246 million to 168 million. But Asia and the Pacific still has the largest number, almost 78 million – equivalent to almost one in 10 children. Children in Thailand continue to be found in the worst forms of child labour, including in agriculture, and shrimp and seafood processing.

Pattanapong Suwanwong, 22, is The Zoo Thailand’s choreographer, with the tricky task of creating dance moves that can help the audience understand what it feels like to be a child labourer.

Working with his fellow crew members Pattanapong places his hands around a dancer’s neck, as if to squeeze. “I use the fast moves of hip-hop to depict children who have opportunities to have fun and be children,” he explains. “The slow moves of contemporary dance are uncomfortable to watch. It makes you hold your breath. It’s like the plight of child labour”. 

“When I was younger, I thought I was helping those children by buying flowers and other things they sold,” Pattanapong recalls. “When I grew up, I started to question my own actions. I wondered whether I was encouraging child labour instead.”

Pattanapong believes this dilemma is shared by many people. “I wonder if I see a child working, what would I do? How would I help? Would I tell the police? Then what? I myself don’t know what is the best way out”.

“So, this is a good chance for me to help, raising awareness of child labour. What I can do is to put on this show”.