Dr. Nahed Ramzy, Counselor of Psychology at the National Center for Social and Criminal Research, warned against the gravity of some practices against working children. She stressed that eliminating child labor would be, economically, seven times better than pressing ahead with it, according to a study recently published by the International Labor Organization.
Speaking at a conference on forced labor and human rights in the context of human trafficking, staged by the National Center for Social and Criminal Research on Sunday, she said there are 2.8 million working children in Egypt according to the latest study by the National Council for Motherhood and Childhood in cooperation with the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics in 2006. She also noted that some of these children were attending school while working.
She explained that child labor might have serious health repercussions on those children. A study has been conducted by the National Center for Social and Criminal Research in cooperation with the United Nations on a sample of working children under the age of 15. The study shows that 21.8% of them were infected with schistosomiasis, 22 .8% with chronic diarrhea, 21.9% from chronic and continuous tenesmus, 2.8% from acute bronchitis, and 1% from heart diseases.
Dr. Nahed pointed out that industrial workshops were the most violent places for those children to work in. The study of the National Center for Social and Criminal Research shows that 46.41% of children are working in mechanic workshops, 21.38% in the chemical sector and 18.73% in textile workshops. As for working girls, 54.72% (more than before) work in tanneries, factories producing pipes and plastic hoses and in factories specialized in dyeing and auto painting, while 11.32% work for mechanical industries.
