Programs and Events

Child Labor Eradication Program in Panama

July, 2003

The International Labor Organization's regional office in Costa Rica recently inaugurated a 3-year child labor eradication program in Panama. The principal funding for this program comes from the United States Department of Labor. The ultimate goal of the program is to remove children from the worst forms of child labor in Panama and reintegrate them into the education system.

The Country Program for Combating the Worst Forms of Child Labor in Panama will run through May 2005 with a budget of $1.6 million, of which the U.S. Department of Labor will contribute $1 million. The program will target working children and those at risk of work, from the ages of 5 to 17, in both the rural sector and the informal urban sector of the country.

The Country Program for Combating the Worst Forms of Child Labor in Panama will collaborate directly with the National Committee for the Eradication of Child Labor and the Protection of Working Adolescents (which includes, among other agencies, the Ministry of Labor; Ministry of Education; Ministry of Health; Ministry of Youth, Women, Children, and Family; the First Lady's Bureau; and the National Ombudsman); the Institute for the Training of Human Resources; and the National Institute for Vocational Training

Many children in Panama who are members of indigenous groups or living in rural or poor urban areas do not attend school. Lack of land, migration and poverty push many of these children into work in potentially hazardous occupations, such as harvesting sugar cane, at an early age.

The project will contribute to the elimination of the worst forms of child labor in Panama by strengthening the institutional capacity of both governmental and non-governmental actors and by pursuing the following strategies:

• Organize workshops for employers, unions, journalists, universities, regional and local government, NGOs and parents' associations to raise awareness of the problem
  
  
• Improve coordination mechanisms among national and provincial governments in regard to the issue of child labor
  
  
• Develop a national plan for the eradication of child labor and define the worst forms of child labor in the country
  
  
• Provide technical assistance to strengthen the legal framework against the worst forms of child labor
  
  
• Enhance the quality and accessibility of education
  
  
• Develop local monitoring systems for child labor
  
  
• Improve employment conditions for adolescents and parents