17 Million Latin American Children Work
One out of five Latin American
children, or more than 17 million, work in the unofficial economic sector
and in rural areas, the International Labor Organization said yesterday. In
conjunction with the Guatemalan non-governmental organisation Intervida and
Save the Children, Norway the ILO said the countries with the highest rates
of child labour in Latin America are Haiti - where one out of every four
children works - Guatemala, Brazil and the Dominican Republic, with more
than 16 percent of their child population employed in diverse occupations.
The ILO said that in Bolivia,
the poorest country in the region, the percentage of the population under
age 19 working in the mines of the Andean plateau has increased from 14
percent in 1992 to 44 percent in 2001. Around 13,500 children work up to 12
hours a day in the mines, enduring high temperatures and transporting
mineral loads beyond their physical capacity. They also come into contact
with toxic substances such as nitrate and poisonous gases, the ILO said.
Intervida yesterday said that
one out of six Guatemalan children, or more than 800,000 children, are
forced to work. Many of these child labourers are working in dangerous
occupations, it said, such as street vending, pyrotechnic production, refuse
recycling and in the worst cases, prostitution. "Children are exploited with
low salaries, very long working hours and no social protection," Intervida
said.
"Adults who worked when they
were young send their own children to work because their deficient education
prevents them from getting better-paying jobs, and thus it perpetuates the
vicious cycle of poverty and child labour," Intervida said, adding that 80
percent of Guatemala's population lives in poverty.
[source: UN Wire]
