Daily Star staff
BEIRUT: The General Labor Confederation (GLC) in cooperation with the International Labor Organization (ILO) launched the third phase of a nationwide campaign to combat child labor Tuesday, as the GLC head called for commitment to the project from the Labor Ministry.
A workshop on combating the worst forms of child labor in the country was held at GLC’s headquarters in Corniche al-Nahr.
Despite the high literacy rates Lebanon experiences, experts believe more than 150,000 children work, and many can be seen in cities and rural areas throughout the country.
“A kid who grows up neither in a family nor in a school would be unable to join the labor market [at the right time] that we as Lebanese have been striving for in the past decade,” said GLC’s head Ghassan Ghosn.
According to several UNDP reports over the past decade, Lebanon’s steady move toward the U.N. Millennium Development Goals has paved the way for a high literacy rates and relatively elevated life expectancy rate compared to other countries in the region.
However high regional and rural-urban disparities in development have led to unequal access to social services such as education and child care.
Ghosn told the workshop’s participants that deteriorating unemployment and economic crises increased rates of child labor across the country.
“To fight child labor we need to fight poverty and high unemployment rates in the country,” Ghosn added in reference to unemployed parents who push their children into the labor force.
The state, through the efforts of its ministries and civil society groups, should endeavor to curb child labor rates, said Ghosn. He called on the Labor Ministry to fully commit to the GLC and ILO project, which was launched in 1999.
The first stage of the project was funded by France while a U.S. grant funded the second stage from 2007 until 2009.
Speaking at the workshop, the project’s coordinator Siba Meraashli said that the third stage of the campaign will span a period of two years with the cooperation of all Lebanese state institutions and ILO.
“Training of members in charge of spreading awareness among parents and children has already started in the northern province of Akkar, and the Bekaa Valley, where the highest rates of child labor are found,” said Meraashli.
Activists who attended the workshop complained that the previous two stages of the campaign fell short of accomplishing the goals of the project. But senior trainer at the project, Butros Saade, said the challenges faced should be countered by a national will to combat child labor.
“While we are passing our expertise and training to Arab countries in the field of combating child labor, ongoing political bickering and disputes in the country obstruct all national work,” Saade added.
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