NCCM objects parliament’s new child labor age determination

CAIRO - 29 May 2017: The National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) expressed its objection to article N.64 in the new draft labor law, concerning the legal age of child labor, according to legal advisor of the council, Hisham Abdel Rahman.

“The new draft proposes determining the child labor age 15 years, and the age of training 13, it should have been 16 instead,” Abdel Rahman said during the hearing session of labor committee of House of Representatives on Monday. He affirmed that NCCM will obey the law once it is approved by the parliament, despite the reservations.

In 2010, approximately 1.6 million children were actively working in Egypt, according to a comprehensive survey conducted by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) and the International Labor Organization (ILO.)

Since then, however, the number has increased; the World Food Program and the European Union in a September report estimated the current number of employed minors in Egypt to be at least 2.7 million.