Since 2002, the World Day Against Child Labor has been celebrated every June 12.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child states that "Contracting parties recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that could be dangerous or interfere with the child's education or be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual , moral or social development of the child."
At the root of child labor is poverty.
Since 2014, Serbia is one of the ten countries included in the global project of the International Labor Organization (ILO, i.e. ILO) with the intention of combating child labor. According to ILO data from that year, 8000 to 10.000 children under the age of 15 worked in Serbia.
The results of the two most recent studies on the abuse of child labor in Serbia are worrying.
Last year, almost 82.000 children were exposed to the abuse of child labor, according to a survey conducted by the Republic Institute of Statistics and the International Labor Organization.
The survey was conducted on a representative sample of 2.325 households where 3.471 children aged five to 17 live.
It turned out that every tenth child in Serbia, or 9,5 percent, was a victim of abuse at work. Among them, the majority are those in non-urban areas, in agriculture, in households with a lower level of education.
21.000 children aged 15 to 17 and 14.000 children aged five to 14 are exposed to hazardous work.
At the presentation of the results of this research, it was said that the state had previously adopted a list of hazardous work for children, but that they had updated it and that a new one was awaited.
Abuse of child labor on the street
Another study, by the SeConS Development Initiative Group, looked at the abuse of street child labour. It includes children from poor families, Roma national minorities, beneficiaries of material benefits and families where child labor appears as an additional way of earning.
It was observed that children of both sexes are equally present on the street and that there is often an adult nearby who supervises them.
It was concluded that one of the key consequences of children working on the street is the neglect of education or early school leaving.
Both researches were conducted as part of the International Labor Organization project entitled "Measuring, raising awareness and engaging policies to improve the fight against the abuse of child labor and forced labor", which was financially supported by the Department of Labor of the United States of America.
It is expected that the results of these researches will help the institutions in solving this problem.
S.Ć./FoNet
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