AMMAN — Ahmad,
13, works 12 hours a day, six days a week for a flat rate of JD4. He has no
breaks and stands on his feet all day under a scorching summer sun, waving to
cars in an Amman street in the northern district of Hashemi Shamali for the
coffee joint he works for.
اضافة اعلان
Ahmad is the
eldest in his family of five and must work to help his family put food on the
table.
“My shift starts
at 5:30am on weekdays and 7am on weekends,” he told
Jordan News.
“I must keep two
things in mind everyday: Not to get hit by any cars, and not to let anyone flee
without paying because it’s going to be cut from my paycheck,” he added.
Ahmad, who was
supposed to be in eighth grade, said his dream was to become a teacher.
Asked why not to
be a doctor, or engineer, like many other Jordanian school children, he said: “I
get to shush the other kids all day, and that’s very cool.”
His favorite
subject in school was geography because he said it made him think “how huge the
world is”.
Jordanian
legislation prohibits the work of children under 16 years, according to Article
73 of the Jordanian Labor Law.
Article 74,
however, allows children between 16 and 18 years to work within specific
controls, the most important of which is not to work in dangerous, exhausting,
or harmful environments.
It also stipulates
that working hours should not exceed 36 per week, or six hours a day for six
days a week. It designates a break after working four hours continuously. A
written consent from the child’s guardian to work is required. The monthly wage
must not be less than the minimum wage.
Haitham
Al-Najdawi, head of Inspection in the Ministry of Labor, pointed out to
Jordan
News that employing children under 16 years is subject to the provisions of
the Labor Law, with a violation ranging between JD300 to JD500.
He asserted that
the ministry carries out daily inspections to target the facilities which
employ children, such as specific professions like vehicle maintenance and
mechanic shops.
Najdawi said that
the ministry carried out 6,658 inspection visits in the first half of the year.
The visits showed 236 violations involving child labor. “Legal measures were
taken against the employers,” he said, noting that 133 warnings and 45
violations were issued.
As for Ahmad, he
remembers the “best day ever” in his life, as he called it.
“It was last July.
I stood for almost two hours waving for cars and only one customer parked near
me asking for water. The weather was extremely hot. I was wearing a hat and
beneath it a wet towel wrapped around my head,” he recalled.
Suddenly, he
added, his boss came, he gave me my JD4 for the day, and “told me I could go
home. At that point I thought I was fired.”
But then the boss
shouted to me “come early tomorrow.”
“I wanted to laugh
so hard thinking what’s earlier than 5:30? But I didn’t give it much thought
and just went home,” he said.
Ahmad said he
found out the next day that there was an inspection visit that day, which
prompted his boss to send him home early.
Tamkeen for legal
aid and human rights said child labor has increased in almost every sector in
Jordan. It said the highest percentage was in cargo loading, which is
physically harmful to children.
Tamkeen CEO Linda
Kalash told
Jordan News that the economic conditions following the
COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the increase, which is estimated at 100,000
last year.
Kalash said that
the labor ministry inspection is “insufficient” since there are only 200
inspectors responsible for all the sectors.
She stressed that
fines should be hiked to discourage violators from employing children.
“Children who
didn’t have the needed equipment for online schooling failed to attend school
for almost two years,” she said. “This led to an increasing number of school
dropouts.”
The National Child
Labor survey, issued by national institutions and supported by the
International Labor Organization, said in it last published study in 2016 that
the percentage of child labor in the category from 5–17 years reached 75,982
children.
The figure
included 8,868 girls working at a rate of 11.6 percent, which represented a 130
percent increase over 2007 and 2008, when the number of working children at
that time was 33,000.
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