أضافه crinadmin في
In Arabic As the international community marked World Day Against Child Labour on Thursday (June 12th), Moroccan Employment and Vocational Training Minister Jamal Aghmani noted Morocco's ongoing commitment to eradicating the phenomenon and building what he called a Morocco "worthy of its children". The International Labour Organization (ILO) launched the annual event in 2002 to call attention to the worldwide crisis. With the support of the ILO's Fighting Child Labour Program, the Labour Directorate of the Moroccan Ministry of Employment, Social Affairs, and Solidarity conducted a comprehensive study on the issue four years ago to identify intervention mechanisms ranging from legislation to social programmes. "Moroccan child labour experts consider poverty, poor quality education and poor access to education (particularly for girls), broken families, and widespread social acceptance of child labour as primary factors explaining the prevalence of child labour," Human Rights Watch said about the 2004 study, noting that "Morocco has one of the highest child labour rates in the Middle East and North Africa". Study results helped Morocco prepare a national plan to help these "invisible children". Although Morocco had already ratified two ILO child labour conventions by 2001, it enacted a new Labour Code which went into effect in June 2004. The new code prohibits employing children less than 15 years of age, bans dangerous labour for all children under age 18 and provides for legal sanctions against employers who recruit children under the age of 15 to work. The law is not enough, however, without a comprehensive strategy to address the socio-economic factors which contribute to this phenomenon, said Ahmed Leqsiouer, an expert at the International Labour Bureau (BIT) in Morocco. "In addition to the growing poverty in rural areas, the general expenses allocated to curb child labour are still very little, foremost among which is attention for schooling. There are still 15 million children who don't go to school, including 600,000 children aged between 7 and 14 years. Of these children, 16% contribute to the family's income," he told Magharebia. A study conducted last year under the ADROS initiative, sponsored by Washington, DC-based Management Systems International (MSI) showed that 380,000 Moroccan children under 15 years old left school in 2006, and that a number of them entered the labour market at an early age: "something that threatens the future of thousands of children by denying them the right to schooling and exposing them to all forms of dangers against their health, and their physical and psychological well-being". Morocco's comprehensive strategy to curb child labour involves improving rural education and living conditions as well as fighting adult illiteracy so that parents may understand the need to educate their children instead of exposing them to work at an early age. Indeed, an ILO-World Bank report published in 2005 said that Moroccan parents’ level of education and access to water and electricity have a strong impact on whether rural children work. Legal prohibition by itself did not stop the child labour problem in Morocco, agrees Said Haida of Association Hadaf. "Therefore, we are working on organising awareness campaigns for parents in order to convince them of the need to look for other means for their children's future instead of making them work," she told Magharebia. However, Fatima, who makes her daughter Nozha work as a house maid, had a different opinion. She doesn't have any objections to her 14-year-old daughter's work. "If it hadn't been for that work," she says, "we wouldn't have found a means of living to feed me, her three brothers and crippled father". Further Information ** Child Labour, Trade Relations and Corporate Social Responsibility [Stop Child Labour: School is the best place to work] **Morocco: Child Rights References in the Reports of the WG of UPR ** More on Children's rights in Morocco