Belgium to finance Moroccan project to fight child labor

Belgium will finance a program to fight child labor, by granting micro-loans to parents who renounce making their children work and send them to school instead, a Belgian official said.

Belgian vice-premier and minister of employment and equality of chances, Laurette Onkelinx, told Moroccan "L'opinion" daily Belgium is also ready to make Morocco benefit from its experience in social dialogue, labor control and equality of chances.

She went on that she was impressed by projects submitted by Morocco at the International Labor Organization's latest session and had told the ILO executive bureau head that Belgium wants all the funds it pays to the international Organization to go to Morocco.

She also hoped that cooperation in sex equality would be a long-term cooperation program.

Onkelinx will meet on Friday Morocco's minister of employment, vocational training, social development and socilidarity, Abbas El Fassi, who is presently on a visit in Brussels. Talks will be an opportunity to assess implementation of the joint declaration signed last October in Rabat to promote bilateral cooperation in employment and labor.