Mrs Suzanne Mubarak has launched the first of its kind website to fight the problem of working minors. Reem Leila was at the launching ceremony Not just local or regional, child labour is a global phenomenon and as such needs international tools in fighting it. The conference, "The future without child labour... policy options and economic costs" held on 25 June and chaired by Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, chairman of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM), is seeking just that, launching a website to help combat child labour. The new website was part of the NCCM's contribution to regional and international efforts to fight child labour and totally eliminate it. Mrs Mubarak, who spearheaded the website initiative, said it would be effective in combating child labour. The conference discussed the increasing impact on the national economy due to forcing children into the labour market which often results in school dropouts. Mrs Mubarak said society as a whole bears the economic cost of child labour, not only the child and family. She maintained that Egypt's national child agenda already conformed with international child rights. The government, she added, was also putting education high on its agenda as an effective means by which to combat child labour. "It is unlikely that we will succeed in eliminating child labour without first establishing sufficient levels of education," Mrs Mubarak said. "Children should be educated and women empowered to help persuade girls to stay in school." During the conference, which was attended by Mushira Khattab, secretary- general of the NCCM, World Bank regional representative Emmanuel Mbi and Japanese Ambassador to Cairo Kaoru Ishikawa, a study by the NCCM said the cost of children school dropouts will reach LE135 billion in the next 20 years, whereas currently it is estimated at LE65 billion. The deteriorating health of child labourers also costs the state LE71.6 million, according to the study. The study makes clear the crucial role and responsibilities that governments have in seeking to abolish child labour. Governments, the study pointed out, can make a difference in reducing poverty by investing in social protection, social services and education and by supporting programmes that target the elimination of child labour. "Education, however, may not be enough to eliminate child labour," Mrs Mubarak pointed out. Poverty, she said, should be reduced so that low- income families would not force their children to work. In a similar vein, the NCCM launched a comprehensive plan aimed at protecting working children. Khattab explained that the council's technical consulting committee had put working children high on its agenda and its causes and possible solutions. The council also launched a survey, in collaboration with the Central Authority for Public Mobilisation and Statistics, aimed at monitoring child labour and defining what working children's age groups are and the nature of their workplaces. "We have gone a long way in the study and it has, so far, revealed many important facts," Khattab said. "We have also expanded our work to the four governorates where incidents of child labour rated the highest, mainly by training volunteers and local councils on how to deal with child labour." The NCCM, Khattab added, is also currently focussing on providing working children with social security safeguards and reducing school dropout rates by providing their families with an alternative source of income. "Increasing awareness of the problem is also high up on our agenda," Khattab added. "Child labour is directly linked to parental illiteracy and a lack of public awareness of the importance of education in reducing poverty." The NCCM study showed that the efforts under way to stop or at least limit child labour are finally paying off. According to the survey, 81.5 per cent of working children in Egypt are still enrolled in schools, and 54 per cent of these work only during the summer vacation. A working child's revenue makes up 29 per cent of his family income, whereas 73 per cent of working children are employed in agriculture. "The study also revealed that recently families have shown an increasing awareness that their children should remain in school, even while working, and more than 50 per cent of children who have dropped out of school expressed a willingness to go back," said Nehal El-Maghrabi, an economy expert at the NCCM. "Poverty has proven to be a major cause of child labour in Egypt." The figures, however, may not provide a full picture of the extent of the problem. Mrs Mubarak noted that child labour is closely associated with the kind of unregulated informal economy that is largely beyond the reach of formal institutions such as labour inspection services. "Child labour constitutes a major challenge everywhere, whether in the developed or the developing world," Mrs Mubarak said. Poverty offers neither a straightforward nor a complete explanation of the problem. According to the NCCM study, inadequate social protection and poor quality educational systems play a large part in the perpetuation of child labour. The UN children's agency UNICEF estimates that a third of Egypt's 80 million population is below the age of 15. Ten per cent of them are forced to work, often in difficult conditions. But the government, which has pledged to combat child labour, says just three per cent of minors are working and only seasonally. In the cotton industry -- Egypt is the world's 10th biggest producer -- about one million children are sent to take part in the arduous harvest that starts in May each year, working for some 11 hours a day, UNICEF says. In a country where 20 per cent live below the poverty line and another 20 per cent just above it, the practice of making children work is a bleak necessity and a reality that hardly causes a blink for most. "Many children complain of mistreatment by teachers, particularly at the lower levels of education. So the children prefer to take a job and make some money," says Mbi of the World Bank. Egypt is a signatory to the 1990 Convention on the Rights of the Child, but the convention has largely been ignored despite government efforts to revive its fight against child labour.
