More than 3,500,000 Children Work for a Living or Help Their Family Patricia Munoz Rios - La Jornada
go to original February 13, 2013

Over 3,500,000 children work in Mexico to support themselves or to help their families. Of this total, 300,000 do so in the worst forms of child labor, the Assistant Secretary for Labor Inclusion of the Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS), Adam Ruby Salazar, said in a press conference.

This week, the official announced a call by the agency for agriculture businesses to become qualified as an "agricultural business free of child labor" (DEALTI) for 2013, and said that now almost 900,000 boys and girls, as well as adolescents under 14 years of age, are working in the fields.

This means that of the total number of children working in Mexico, nearly one-third do so in agriculture, 60 percent work in marginal sectors of the economy, and 10 percent work in exploitative conditions and others of the worst forms of child labor, according to figures for 2011, which have not changed in the last two years.

Ruby Salazar considered it essential to involve companies in the eradication of child labor, of which the greatest numbers in states like Chiapas, Jalisco, Guerrero and Nuevo Leon.

Calling on companies to obtain the DEALTI-2013, ... Ruby Salazar noted that the companies involved in this process will be recognized as businesses committed to the quality of life of farm workers, so they invited all companies and businesses to join in this action to obtain or renew their DEALTI.

The Secretary stated that the government seeks that the use of child labor is rejected, and it is using this mechanism as a recognition of companies that have child protection policies and take actions to support the development of the children of laborers.

The DEALTI was conceived as a means for agricultural enterprises to demonstrate that they are abiding by the Federal Labor Law that prohibits minors from working. The only exceptions to this rule are when adolescents 14 to 16 years are working in a family businesses or in the arts or crafts, and with a maximum of six hours of work. Otherwise it establishes sanctions for those who do not fulfill this obligation, the official mentioned.

See Spanish original

Posted by Reed Brundage at Mexico Voices

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