23,316 children saved from child labor in 2016

CAIRO – 5 June 2017: The International Labor Organization (ILO) celebrated World Day Against Child Labor Sunday in a ceremony attended by Minister of Labor Mohamed Saafan.

Among the attendees were the head of the National Council for Motherhood and Childhood, Maysa Shawky, the head of the programs sector at Tahya Misr Fund, Manal Shahin, and Executive Manager of the Federation of Egyptian Industries Ahmed Kamal.

Roughly 23,316 children - 20,101 boys and 3,215 girls - were saved from child labor in 2016 through inspection campaigns over 25,735 establishments, Al-Masry Al-Youm reported Saafan as saying during his speech at the ceremony. Of those establishments, only 19,321 are registered; the rest operate in the informal sector.

In collaboration with the U.N.’s World Food Program, Saafan said the ministry executed a project to increase educational opportunities. The ministry withdrew 110,000 children from the labor market and helped them join societal schools established and run by NGOs, as well as provided training for their mothers to generate income through MSEs.

The ministry also held 240 seminars in establishments around Egypt to raise the awareness of business owners as well as children of their labor rights, according to Al-Masry Al-Youm.

Saafan said the ministry plans to build a database for child labor on a national scale. There will also be an increase in inspection campaigns, especially in the sectors that most often hire children. The ministry is working on developing child labor units in the governorates as well as finalizing the national plan for combating the ‘Worst Forms of Child Labor’ to start executing the plan.

Governmental statistics agency CAPMAS issued a report in 2011 stating that 1.6 million children were employed in Egypt, more than nine percent of all Egyptian children, Ahram Online reported. The children were aged between 5 and 17 years old.

Two-thirds of working children are younger than 15. About 68 percent of employed children are in rural areas, while 18 percent are in urban areas, where they predominantly work in difficult conditions, the CAPMAS report added.