2005News

Child labor realities

Laetitia Dumas, technical advisor of the International Labor Organization’s Child Labor Eradication Program (OIT-IPEC) estimates that 436,000 children ages five to 17 years are exploited with work. Of these 160,000 carry out farm work that should only be for adults. She said that in rural areas, 18.4% of children work, primarily in the rice, coffee, tomato and hog-raising. She said that program efforts have enabled them to rescue 1,405 children from child labor in Azua, San Jose de Ocoa and Constanza farm areas.

“We have found children in the fields that start working at five or six years,” she said during an interview with Hoy newspaper.

She also mentioned that domestic labor of minors is common. She explained that parents send their children to the homes of other families for domestic labor. “If the girl or youth is sleeping in the house of the employer, this is a situation of risk, because it opens doors to sexual exploitation, another form of abuse,” she said. Those working in domestic labor do not go to school. She said that many times the youth will only receive lodging and food as payment.