First Arabic-language guide for practitioners attending to child labour in agriculture launched
The guide offers practical and detailed information on attending to child labour in the hazardous agricultural sector in Lebanon, where the incidence of child labour has increased dramatically in recent years.
The ILO and FAO will launch “Child Labour in Agriculture in Lebanon: a guide for practitioners” in Beirut on 6 September, presenting the first such practical guide to be published in the Arabic language.
The launch will take place at the Movenpick Hotel, at 9:00 am, in the presence of officials from Lebanon’s Ministry of Labour and Ministry of Agriculture.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that 13.4 million, or about 15 per cent, of all children in the Arab region are child labourers. In Lebanon, The onset of the Syrian crisis, and the influx of refugee families desperate for income, has greatly increased the incidence of child labour in the country. Children are being exploited in their hundreds, under hazardous – and sometimes deadly - working conditions.
Agriculture is one of the three most hazardous work sectors alongside mining and construction, and accounts for 60 per cent of child labour worldwide. In the case of children, agricultural work is comprised of activities and conditions that are considered “hazardous” due to frequency of harmful consequences of such work. Yet many children enter this field of work at a very young age, sometimes as young as five years old, thus increasing the duration and extent of exposure to the hazards of such work over the course of their lifetime.
Child labour hampers access to viable business and employment opportunities when these children become young adult and is at the same time a symptom of non-sustainable agriculture and a drag on rural development.
The guide has been produced in a comprehensive and detailed manner to offer valuable information and tolls to practitioners attending to child labour in agriculture. It consists of five chapters in addition to a related CD that includes power points presentations to be used by facilitators and trainers combatting child labour.
Whereas the guide’s legal framework is geared towards the situation in Lebanon, it is also of relevance to many other countries in the Arab region.
