Child labor and Development, how UNICEF is addressing this issue
Syria, Culture, 10/15/2003

A recent statistical report suggests that child labor is emerging as an issue to be dealt with in Syria.

Applying the conventional labor force framework of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and basing its conclusions on a national household survey it estimates that there are approximately 200,000 working children aged 10-14 and 420,000 working children aged 15-17, in a population of 16 million.

More boys than girls are economically active overall. However, in rural districts as many girls as boys are employed. While child workers in towns and cities work in various manufacturing businesses (textile, furniture, mining, food and beverages), child labor in the countryside is totally dominated by farm work. The vast majority of child workers have dropped out of school; they work long hours as adults do; and children receive very low payment, or nothing at all (50%). In addition to the children being classified as employed following the ILO criterion, the study reveals that about 360,000 children, mostly girls, aged 10-17 have left school and have care taking and housework as their main activity.

Nevertheless, despite the wealth of statistical information that this report yields, the government of Syria and UNICEF needs answers to other core questions, which the mentioned report do not -- and cannot -- answer satisfactory, to aid its policy and programming in Syria. These questions are: Why do children work? Under what conditions do they work? And to what extent does children's employment deprive them of the right to safe and healthy upbringing and "normal" development, including schooling? UNICEF wants to consider the issue of domestic labor, including house chores and care taking, as well as paid and unpaid employment outside of the house.

In an interview with ArabicNews.com (Arabic News), UNICEF's program Coordinator in Damascus Narinder Sharma said that to answer these questions, and hence be able to formulate good programs aiming at retaining children in school, alleviating child labor, and improving the conditions of working children, UNICEF wishes to engage Fafo Institute for Applied International Studies, Oslo, Norway, to carry out a qualitative study of working children in both rural and urban settings in cooperation with local experts.

He indicated that Child labor and school dropout are two core areas of UNICEF' s rights-based Country Program for 2002-2006. The program's disparity-reduction component targets disadvantaged communities in the five northern and north-eastern governorates (provinces), which show above-average school dropout rates and have the highest proportion of child workers according to the above-cited study. Highlighting Syria's experience to this effect, Sharma said that Syria is determined to deal with child labor, and has ratified UN's Convention of the Rights of the Child and ILO Conventions 138 and 182 noting that the main governmental partner of the study will be the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour, the body mandated to deal with child labor and implement the conventions.

Citing Child labour statistics in Syria, Sharma said that comprehensive statistics on children's relationship to the workforce in Syria has not been available until very recently. No realistic estimate of the prevalence of child labor has existed. Therefore, UNICEF has recently funded a study, which presents for the first time comprehensive statistics on children's workforce participation in Syria. This study was conducted jointly by Syria's State Planning Commission, the CBS and Fafo which based on the Syria Internal Migration Survey (SIMS), jointly carried out by the University of Damascus, Syria's Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) and Fafo Institute for Applied International Studies (Fafo). This study sheds light on the magnitude of children's participation in the labor force in Syria. Moreover, it describes the relationship between children's work and a number of background factors. Sharma outlined some of the study's major findings as follows: 600,000 working children: 18% of children aged 10-17 are members of the labor force, as defined by the ILO. This corresponds to more than 600,000 working children in Syria. Only 3%, or some 25,000 children, aged 10-11 are employed, but the employment rate is 10 percentage points higher among children aged 12-14 and increases a further 20 percentage points to reach 33% for the age group 15-17. 200,000 children aged 10-14 are working.

The study revealed that more boys than girls are employed: About 2 times as many boys as girls aged 12-14 and 3 times as many boys as girls aged 15-17 are economically active. It said that many girls become caretakers: Girls do not enter the (ILO-defined) workforce as rapidly as boys. Instead girls tend to do housework and care for their immediate - or extended - family, and at the age of 17 over one third of them have their main activity at home. This is a higher proportion than enrolled in school and 2 times as many as in the labor force.

The study showed that child labor more common in the countryside: A considerably higher proportion of children work in rural areas compared to urban areas. For the age group 10-17 as a whole, 22.5% are employed in the rural districts of Syria, while 13% are employed in the urban areas. This means that 400,000 children in rural areas and 225,000 children in the towns and cities are employed. The urban-rural differential is mainly caused by the higher workforce participation of girls in rural areas as compared to girls in urban areas.

Agriculture, manufacturing, services main sectors: Employed children are concentrated in a limited number of economic sectors. Almost 2 in 3 (65%) working children aged 10-14 are employed in agriculture, whereas 15% work in manufacturing and 11.5% are employed in the service sector (trade/hotels/restaurants). Some children (4%) are found in the construction sector, according to the study, Sharma hinted.

He also noted another fact that agriculture dominates girls' employment, adding that young girls are employed almost exclusively in farming. In fact, 98% of working girls aged 10-14 in rural districts are employed in agriculture. Agriculture dominates rural boys' employment also, as 78% are working there. In urban settings, boys' employment is primarily confined to the manufacturing (42%) and trade sectors (34%).

The study also raised the issue of long working hours. It came up with the fact that employed children by and large spend many hours at their workplaces. The proportion of economically active children spending 50 hours or more at their jobs each week is as high as for adult workers. 30% of the children work 50-69 hours, which translates into some 190,000 children; 12.5% (78,000 children) stay more than 70 hours at their jobs. Children residing in urban centers work longer hours than children living in rural surroundings.

Unpaid work in family business is widespread, especially among girls: More than half the employed children aged 10-14 work in some sort of family business (farm and non-farm). The great majority of them work without pay. The general trend is that with age, children move from unpaid employment in family enterprises to paid work for non-family employers, and new entrants obtain work outside of the family-run enterprises.

Few child workers attend school, the overall enrolment rate for employed children is only 8%., the study said.

In late 2000 the minimum working age was raised from 12 to 16. The new law further states that the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor should prevent children below the age of 18 from working in heavy industries. The law also states that children aged 13-15 can do very light work if they receive an approval from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor. In 2002 the age for compulsory education was raised from 12 to 15, in order to comply with the new law for minimum working age.

The government has stated that it is unacceptable for children to drop out of school and work. Syria has ratified ILO Convention 138 (1973) regulating ages for entrance into various sorts of work and the more recent ILO Convention 182 (1999) on the "worst forms of child labor," thus indicating the country's intent to deal with the issue of child labor. The main governmental partner of the study will be the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor, as well as the body implementing the CRC.

Child Labour, Child Education and School Dropout: it is important for the Government and the Society to deal with these issues, as they are strikingly inter-related and can, and should not be separated. In order to tackle the problem of child labor it is very important to know the reasons why girls drop out of school? Is it due to economic, cultural, or social reasons, or is it because the quality of schooling is so poor that parents and children alike see little reason to complete the education? To get a clearer understanding of the nature of child labor, to answer the above questions, and thus bring about knowledge to inform programatic interventions, there is a tremendous need for the qualitative study and UNICEF will embark on this in partnership with the concerned ministries and departments.

Giving wide coverage to the issue of child labor in Syria, UNICEF program coordinator said that three main questions needs to be addressed: Why do children work? Are there "outer" mechanisms (related to poverty, school) driving them into employment? Or, are there strong, "inner" motivational factors at play? Or both? And, which role do cultural aspects and traditions play? How do people, for example, look at idleness? If economic factors are important on decisions regarding children's work, how and to what extent are they mediated by cultural values and practices? How are the decisions to work taken, and by whom? Under what conditions do children work? How many hours, and how many days a week? With or without breaks and time to rest? Do children work evening or night shifts? Do they receive on-the-job or other training? What about supervision? Are the tasks they perform difficult, and physically and/or mentally hard? To what extent does children's employment deprive them of the right to safe and healthy upbringing and "normal" development, including schooling? Is it possible to combine work and education without jeopardizing school achievements? Do children learn and grow in their jobs? To what extent, if any, does the work affect children's health?

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