AMERICA - World Day Against Child Labour: nothing to 'celebrate'

Brasilia (Agenzia Fides) – Today 12 June, we mark World Day Against Child Labour. According to the International Labour Organisation, ILO, the world has almost 215 million child workers aged between 5 and 17 years. Of these more than 14 million live in Latin America and the Caribbean: four million are in the age category 15 to 17 years and the other 10 million are aged 5 to 14 years. According to a report sent to Fides from the Brazil based Latin American news agency Adital, the number of child workers in Latin America is decreasing and is now lower than in other world regions such as Asia (part of the Pacific) and sub-Saharan Africa, nevertheless the percentage of child workers in Latin America and the Caribbean is still high. “According to a recent ILO report ‘Accelerating Action Against Child Labour', one out of every ten children in Latin America and the Caribbean is forced to work. Nine million of the total number of these children work in dangerous conditions” Adital affirms.
In Brazil, Isa Maria de Oliveira, secretary of the National Forum for the prevention and eradication of child labour (FNPETI), says the number is child workers is gradually dropping. She indicated “social situations which slow down the eradication of child labour such as a weak school system, low quality instruction and lack of support for families. It is also a cultural battle to convince parents that child labour does not reduce poverty”, the FNPETI secretary explained
In Peru, a statement issued by the IFEJANT (Institute for the Formation of teachers for Young People, Adolescents and Children in Latin America and the Caribbean) said “on 12 June we will hold a demonstration to protest not against child workers but against those responsible for child labour; against governments and international agencies which fail to denounce or fail to act with the necessary force to eradicate systematic and global abuse of children's rights.”
In Peru in certain parts of the Andes region, as elsewhere in Latin America, the number of child workers is increasing instead of decreasing. The director of the Regional Office for Labour and Employment in Puno (southern Peru, near the border with Bolivia), Mr. Jesus Cervantes Cruz, said “in this region we know that at least 155,000 children and adolescents forced to work. Here, far from being prevented or eradicated, the phenomenon is growing, and at an alarming rate.” (CE) (Agenzia Fides, 12/06/2010)