Next Thursday, "Arab Children" and "League of Nations" launch "Arab Child Labor"

According to reports, 10 million Arab workers have been exposed to conditions and factors in the world of employers that would deprive them of exploitation in such a way as to deprive them of their childhood and look to the future. This exploitation takes many forms, the most important of which is to employ them in unskilled jobs to exercise them psychologically and physically. Among the international conventions have deprived the economic exploitation of children, in addition to Arab conventions specialized in the field of child labor.

The Secretary General of the Council, Mr. Hassan al-Baylawi, said that this alarming figure was widening his circles under the current conditions of instability in some Arab countries.

The Council called on the Council to take action to remedy this problem in the long term, taking into account five concepts of "child labor", which weigh heavily on the child and threaten his safety, health and safety. welfare. Work that exploits child labor as an inexpensive alternative to adult work, work that uses the presence of the child and does not contribute to its development, and work that hampers education and the training of the child and changes his life and his future.

Al-Baylawi told the Middle East News Agency that the council had a role to play in monitoring the phenomenon of child labor in Arab countries and that these children had dropped out of basic education and had entered the country. labor market in different circumstances. Their numbers are increasing from year to year without planning or direction. Summed up by a report published by the Council, which persists in the development gap between the countries of the North and the South and the persistent problem of indebtedness that hampers development efforts in developing countries, including the Arab countries .

He added that the Council had prepared four studies on this issue, which showed that working children are more independent and more able to fight than their non-working peers, but that they are more aggressive and that most of them are victims of physical and psychological violence on the part of the employer. Vocational training for working children and low social and personal compatibility.

He pointed out that the Council had examined the situation of child workers in the Arab countries in the framework of the first regional study on child labor in 1993, which included nine Arab countries and was conducted in cooperation with the United Arab Emirates. International Labor Organization (ILO) to determine the magnitude of the problem and its reasons, and to propose ways to resolve it. Expanded seminar in collaboration with the ILO.

The Secretary-General of the Council noted that one of the Council's most outstanding achievements in this regard had been its participation in the preparation of the Arab Strategy for the Reduction of Child Labor in cooperation with the Arab Organization. Labor and the League of Arab States, and its contribution to the support of the Maritime Scouting Project in Alexandria. And the translation and localization of the comprehensive training program for the design, implementation and evaluation of intervention programs aimed at solving the problem of child labor in cooperation with the program Abec de l'& # 39; 39, ILO and the Arab Gulf Development Program (AGFUND).

In 2003, the Council established a general framework for tackling the problem of the worst forms of child labor, which was distributed to Arab countries to take advantage of it, in cooperation with the League of Arab States, the United Arab Emirates. Arab Labor Organization and the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

Enas Makkawi, Director of the Women's, Family and Children's Department of the League of Arab States, has already pointed out that the elimination of child labor in Arab countries is linked to several factors, including the fight against poverty and the strengthening of security and stability, comprehensive development programs, distinguished education and health programs, etc. The issue of child labor is a large-scale multidimensional issue that has become a reality because of terrorism in the region, armed conflict and instability in many Arab countries.

These conflicts and situations of instability have led to an increase in the number of children in the labor market, whether they engage in natural activities such as agriculture or industry, who are not internationally criminalized, or criminals. international organizations, such as child labor, are in hazardous areas in several countries in the region. That it takes a calculated break to deal with the future of this issue and help the member states of the university in their efforts to reduce them.

In 1989, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which defines each child as being 18 years old and insists on the need to protect the child from the Economic exploitation and to carry out any work likely to constitute a danger or to hinder its education, Physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social.

The issue of child labor is governed by international conventions and standards, including international labor Conventions on the minimum age of employment, the worst forms of child labor, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Rights of the Child. 39, child and the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, as well as the Arab Conventions on the work of the Arab Labor Organization.

For its part, the Arab Labor Organization has published 19 agreements and 8 recommendations, most of which guarantee texts on child labor and the family, on the organization of child labor, in particular child labor. The minimum age of admission to employment, and its increase depending on the risks of work and hardship. Guaranteed periodic medical care and working hours.

The Arab Convention No. 18 of 1996 on the work of minors is the first Arab convention specialized in the field of child labor, which was an extension of the series of principles affirmed by previous Arab conventions in this field. : the child was defined as the person who filled the 13 men or women) and prohibited the work of persons under 13 years and stipulated that all economic activities, with the exception of non-agricultural work dangerous and non-dangerous, were regulated by the competent authority of the state, taking into account the minimum age of children.