World No Child Labor Day: Uruguay reduced by only about 10% in the past seven years

Xinhuanet Montevideo, June 13 (Reporter Liao Yuanjin) The Uruguayan Ministry of Social Development said in its sixth World No Child Labor Day recently that the number of child laborers in the country has only decreased by about 10% in the past seven years, The main reason for the slow progress of the elimination of child labor is the existence of a large number of children and adolescents who have not completed basic education.

Marina Arismendi, Minister of Social Development of Uruguay, pointed out that less than 33% of Uruguayan youth have completed secondary education. She pointed out that some parents think that "one's own children are not suitable for schooling," and that "children should learn while working on their own" should be corrected. She also called for the reduction of child labor through the strengthening of teachers and management of full-time schools.

It is reported that in 2000 Uruguay had 50,000 young children aged 5 to 17 years of employment, has now been reduced to 45,000, these child labor mostly in the 14 to 17 years old. What worries Uruguayan sociologists is that in the last seven years the share of child labor aged 5-11 in the country has risen from 1% to 2% of the total number of child labor. Despite Uruguayan law, no one under the age of 15 is allowed to enter the labor market.

The theme of this year's "World No Child Labor Day" is the elimination of agricultural child labor. According to the ILO, agriculture is the industry that uses the largest number of child labor, with agricultural child labor accounting for almost 70% of the total number of child labor. In June 2002, the 90th International Labor Conference held in Geneva decided to designate June 12 each year as "World No Child Labor Day" and called on all countries in the world to pay close attention to the increasingly serious problem of child labor and to take effective measures to solve them .