NAIROBI, Kenya Sept 17 – Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu, has reaffirmed the Judiciary’s commitment to eliminating child labour and strengthening access to justice for children during the closing ceremony of the Third Employment and Labour Relations Annual Symposium and Exhibition (ELRASE 3) held at Strathmore University.The Deputy Chief Justice highlighted the need for judicial courage and creativity in translating legal provisions into real protections for children, stressing that judges and magistrates hold the power to make justice a lived reality for Kenya’s youngest and most vulnerable.“Every judgment we deliver, every case we handle involving a child, is an opportunity to tilt the scales of justice towards tangible societal transformation,” she emphasized.DCJ Mwilu lauded the symposium as a platform for reflection, learning, and action in addressing child labour, describing it as both a legal obligation and a profound matter of social justice.“The fight to eliminate child labour and guarantee children access to justice is about restoring dignity to the most vulnerable, protecting the powerless, and ensuring that every child has the chance to learn, to grow, and to dream,” she said.The symposium examined Kenya’s legal and policy frameworks, international and regional conventions, as well as emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence that can help detect and prevent exploitation. DCJ Mwilu particularly noted the vulnerabilities of children in displacement contexts and called for urgent, collective efforts to address such challenges.She further reaffirmed the Judiciary’s alignment with its institutional blueprint, Social Transformation through Access to Justice (STAJ) to protection of vulnerable groups including children, pledging that the lessons from ELRASE 3 will strengthen jurisprudence in child labour matters.“No child should work when they should be learning; no child should suffer when they should be safe; no child should be invisible when they should be heard,” she declared, officially closing the symposium.” Said the DCJ.Speaking during the closing session, ELRC Principal Judge Byram Ongaya, said access to justice for children is about children being recognized as rights holders and that child labour violates rights of the children as provided in the conventions, constitution and statutes.“We must work to remove barriers for children to access justice such as costs, distance, language, stigma, fear of retaliation and other barriers. There must be effective remedies such as identifying the disconnection between laws or policies and lived realities; termination of harmful labour arrangements; and remedies that restore protection, care and dignity of the child. We need strategic and public interest litigation to further care and protection of children,” said Justice Ongaya.The Employment and Labour Relations Annual Symposium and Exhibition (ELRASE) is a flagship platform of the Employment and Labour Relations Court (ELRC). Now in its third edition, ELRASE brings together judges, practitioners, academics, and stakeholders to discuss emerging issues in labour law and justice, with this year’s focus on the elimination of child labour and strengthening children’s rights.