AMMAN — According
to the 2016 National Child Labor Survey, some 70,000 children between the ages
of 5 and 17 work, 80 percent Jordanian and 15 percent
Syrian; of the number,
more than 30,000 are aged 5–14.
اضافة اعلان
There is no
up-to-date data about “the reality of child labor today, in the aftermath of
the COVID-19 pandemic, the closures, the rising unemployment rates, raging
inflation, and sky rocketing living costs”, Linda Kalash, human rights activist
and president of Tamkeen Association for Legal Aid and Human Rights, told
Jordan
News.
“Based on
observation alone, there is no question that child labor has increased in
Jordan in recent months, given the deteriorating economic conditions of many
Jordanian households,” Kalash said, adding that many of them work in
agriculture and retail.
Besides the
economic hardships, the worsening school environment school contributes to
child labor in Jordan, she believes.
“Schools are
overcrowded and underserved, and some children are dropping out,” she said.
“The government
needs to invest in developmental and employment projects at national level, and
improve the school environment across the country,” she underlined.
At the same time,
“many employers prefer to hire children, as they pay them less than adults and
can avoid mandatory employment liabilities such as social security”, Kalash
said.
Another reason
child labor is increasing in Jordan are the low wages, she said.
“Higher household
incomes surely help prevent child labor; the minimum wage in Jordan is not
enough to help people cope with the rising inflation rates and living costs,”
she stressed.
Another encouraging
factor is what human rights activist Emad Sharqawi called “the normalization of
child labor culture”.
“The social culture
in Jordan normalizes child labor. Many families send their children out to get
a job at very early ages, to learn a trade or partake in the family business,”
Sharqawi told
Jordan News.
Not criminalizing
child employment, and the absence of monitoring and reinforcement, only helps
the phenomenon grow in Jordan, he said.
“This is a
dangerous issue that needs to be addressed expressly, as children face
exploitation out in the streets every day, with seldom anyone to protect them,”
Sharqawi said.
Children are
exploited physically, financially, and in some cases sexually, due to their
exposure to unjust, unsafe and unmonitored conditions at work, he added.
According to
Sharqawi, several cases have been filed with courts in Amman and elsewhere,
with the plaintiffs being underage laborers who were exploited one way or
another at the workplace.
One way to address
the issue is to form inspection teams to monitor employers who hire children,
to enable a reporting mechanism, and to criminalize the act, “instead of simply
just fining employers”, which “should face jail time” he argued.
Ministry of Social
Development spokesperson
Ashraf Khreis told
Jordan News over the phone
that an interministerial endeavor is under way to combat child employment.
A statement she
made available to
Jordan News said that the National Framework to Combat
Child Labor was launched to address the issue, in coordination with the various
government bodies, to provide various social services to help eradicate the
problem.
This framework
clearly identifies the Ministry of Labor as the party responsible for
inspection efforts to monitor and resolve cases of child labor, and refer any
such case to the Ministry of Social Development.
Child rights
activist Kathem Al-Kufairi told
Jordan News that these efforts are
mainly led by the
Labor Ministry, along
with the Minisries of Social Development, and Education, and other government
and civil society bodies in Jordan, to provide solutions to the problem.
“Efforts to address
the issue right now are humble. Nevertheless, organizations were established in
different parts of Jordan to help monitor child labor in the main cities, such
as Amman, Zarqa, and Irbid, where the phenomenon is more widespread than in
other parts of the country,” Kufairi said.
Among the measures
taken is cash subsidies given by the of Social Development Ministry to families
whose children work, “to incentivize them to pull their children from the labor
market and send them back to school”, he added.
In order for the
government to tackle the issue, funding from international donors is needed, he
said, adding that “there are other more pressing priorities at the moment
weighing on the state’s shoulders”.
“According to the
International Labor Organization, there are more than 100,000 child laborers in
Jordan, many of whom quit school due to the unfavorable conditions they face in
the classroom, such as bullying or discouragement due to low grades,” Kufairi
stated.
Many of the
children who face such conditions look to the streets for respect and income,
he added.
Still, the greater role falls upon the family
itself, as the basic social unit in Jordan, Kufairi said, adding that it is the
family’s responsibility to prevent children from quitting schools and working
at young ages.
Various government
and social actors need to work together to combat this phenomenon, he stressed.
The
Ministry of Education
should focus on rehabilitating classrooms across the country and addressing
negative behaviors, such as bullying, in schools, not to mention lowering the
teacher-to-student ratio, which is very high due to overpopulated classrooms,
he pointed out.
“A good place to start is to focus on places where children
face the most dangerous and unsafe working conditions, and these places are
known to officials as well as activists,” Kufairi said.
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