|
 Printer-Friendly Version
OPA News Release: [04/08/2002]
Contact Name: Bob
Zachariasiewicz
Labor Secretary Announces Grants to Counter Child Labor
WASHINGTON –U.S Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao today
announced the award of a $4 million grant to implement education programs for
children removed from or at risk of entering child labor in El Salvador. The
International Labor Organization (ILO), the grantee, will work on the education
component of what is known as a Timebound Program; the grant will supplement
funding that the Labor Department has already contributed to the ILO’s
International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) for projects in
El Salvador.
“Education is pivotal not only to a child’s development but
indeed to a country’s development,” Chao said. “Removing a child
from hazardous, exploitative work is only half the battle. The other part of
the solution is to provide a meaningful opportunity for a future through
education.”
The department’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) made
the grant under its Child Labor Education Initiative. Congress appropriated the
funds for international programs that provide children with access to education
in areas with a high incidence of exploitative and abusive child labor.
ILAB’s International Child Labor Program manages the programs.
The timebound approach has been spearheaded by the ILO and specific
countries, including El Salvador, as a means to eliminate the worst forms of
child labor within a defined time period through a set of integrated and
comprehensive activities.
According to El Salvador’s General Department of Statistics and
Census, in 1999 an estimated 14.6% of the country’s 1.1 million children
between the ages of 10-17 worked. Almost a quarter of these children were not
enrolled in school.
As part of the Timebound Program, the government of El Salvador and
ILO/IPEC identified forms of exploitative labor from which children will be
removed. Under the grant, the ILO will provide enhanced educational
opportunities to the children targeted by the Timebound Program in six
departments (states) in El Salvador. These children include victims of
commercial sexual exploitation, scavengers at dumpsites, and those working in
sugar cane production and commercial fishing. The ILO will work closely with
the government of El Salvador to develop model interventions that improve
access to and the quality of education for the targeted children. These models
will then be expanded to address the educational needs of other children in the
worst forms of child labor.
Two similar $4-million grants were awarded to World Education for work
in Nepal and to Education Development Center for work in Tanzania. The grantees
will work with the host governments and ILO/IPEC to enhance educational
alternatives for the targeted child workers in those countries.
# # #
_________________________________________________________________
| 
