Fighting child labour program, activated [Archives:2004/705/Business & Economy]

The ministry of social affairs and labour s working on drawing up new perceptions for fighting the phenomenon of child labour, in response to official directives and with the help of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
A meeting organized by the unit of child labour at the ministry of social affairs and labour on how to confront this phenomenon and possibility of activating the ways necessary for curbing child labour which has become serious in the Yemeni society.
The meeting stressed the importance of setting up clear-cut plans for activating the efforts in the area of preventing child labour and providing necessary protection for the life of younger people and also to work for curbing the habit of school children leaking from schools to the labour market.
The ministry intends to establish applicable treatments enabling the children families to find income-yielding resources that would get them not forced to push their sons to labour markets at an early age.
Modern social studies have warned against aggravation of child labour in Yemen and its serious reflections on childhood situations in educational and health fields. The studies have disclosed causes behind students flee schools to labour market citing the most important of which as retreat of the purchasing power of the national currency, drop in level of family income, and rise in rates of number of dependent children ranging between 5-7 children in each family in addition to the high cost of living in the country.
Children do usually work in dangerous professions like workshops, carrying heavy weight things, selling products on sidewalks and squares and other jobs that usually endanger their lives and expose them to suffering, catching diseases without entertaining any health securities.
For this reason the government has launched a campaign for curbing the phenomenon of child labour and set up a committee for implementing the national program for this purpose. The committee is consisted of a number of ministries, the higher council for motherhood and childhood and a number of societies working in this field.
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