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On Monday, 30^th November, 2020, Department of Labor and Social Affairs/DoLSA with cooperation of Help INGO and Organization for Sustainable Aid in Afghanistan /OSAA organized the 14^th TVET and Employment Round-Table Meeting under the title of “ COVID-19 Impact on Child Labor and Forced Labor during the pandemic era with west region and beyond & Introducing Technical Committees and Priorities of DoLSA for next year” in Women Empowerment and Social Association/WESA Conference Room in Herat province.

In this roundtable meeting, representatives from Govt. Dept. including Department of Labor and Social Affairs/DoLSA, Dept. of Commerce and Industry, Afghan Women Chamber of Commerce and Industries (AWCCI), Craftsmen Union, Chamber of Industries and Mines, Experts Council as well as representatives from I/NGO i.e. Help INGO, DACAAR, UNICEF, WISE, IRW, DRC, CRDSA, TOLO Dorakhshan Employment Service center, OSAA, and Women’s Empowerment and Social Association /WESA were attended.

At the beginning of the meeting, Mrs. Mehr Mahtab ahmadi from OSAA NGO who was facilitating the meeting, welcomed the participants to the 14^th TVET and Employment Roundtable Meeting.

The session officially began with recitation of Holy Quran, then Mr. Abdul Sattar Zarifi Head of Social Affairs Unit of DoLSA Welcomed the Participants and reviewed the 13^th TVET Roundtable discussions & explained the purpose of the 14^th TEVT Roundtable Meeting said: “It is very important to hold TVET and Employment Round-Tables with the presence of representatives from Govt. Dept. I/NGOs and private sector with the title of COVID-19 Impact on Child Labor and Forced Labor during the pandemic era with west region and beyond, introducing Technical Committees and Priorities of DoLSA for next year”. Also emphasized on the importance of NNGO and INGOs participation which are working on the field of TVET & Child protection to have synergized positive result of the sessions.

In the following, Mr. Zobair Raouf, Herat DoLSA Labor Unit Head presented his presentation about the forced labour with focus on the child labour and forced labour and talked about forbidden work that children should not be involved on it, Works that are considered violation and works which practically and legally is forbidden. This session is relevant to the last roundtable which was about the result of the research by International Labor Organization on Covid 19 and the result of the research on children in Brick kilns by the help Org. and Comprehensive research on child labor by child protection Consortium based on that to find Solutions.

In the following each participant as representatives of their Organization talked about their activates during the COID-19 that how affected children and protected them from more Vulnerabilities also talked about their project which directly was on child protection. In the following the representatives of the Help, UNICEF, IRW, DACAAR, CRDSA, DRC, WISE and OSAA shared information about their activities that how affected child labor in the society.

According to the Agenda at the end of the Roundtable Mr. Abdul Sattar Zarifi Head of Social Affairs Unit of DoLSA in Herat Introduced Provincial Technical Committees also asked from the NNGO and INGOs representatives which voluntary wanted to be member of any of these three committee, the three technical committees are as following:

• Statistics Committee
• Case Management Committee
• Awareness Committee

After that Mr. Zarifi presented the 9 out of 12 Priority plans of DoLSA to be implemented in the next year projects in Herat- Afghanistan. He with cooperation of Mr. Sebqatullah Habibi introduced 9 Priority plans of the next year which are the social protection priorities of DoLSA. In this proposed plans the priorities of the DoLSA for the next year is mentioned to the representatives of organizations.

The Prioritized plans are as follow;

• TVET
• Employment
• Entrepreneurship
• Conducting Educational training for the Government and Private employees for better implementing the work.
• Having Comprehensive research on employment Situation in Herat.
• Awareness on Vulnerable children in Herat districts.
• Fundamental Projects on betterment of vulnerable children Situation.
• Protecting mentally retarded children.
• Supporting the old people.
• Support from derelict elders.

At the end of the meeting, Mr. Abdul Sattar Zarifi concluded the topics of the meeting.

Again he emphasized to the strong presence of the relevant organization and alliance in response to the children cases also to the TVET and employment roundtable meetings.

The ceremony was ended with prayer.

The End