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Child Labor In Sub-Saharan Africa Essay

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Mr. President I am here as a representative of the African Child Care Organization (ACCO). Our mission is to fight for the rights of the children in Africa. The focus I present today is geared towards the children living in the Sub-Sharan countries. Although the African Charter on the Right and Welfare of the Child recognizes that children in Africa need protection and special care and calls for protection against abuse and bad treatment such as exploitation, sexual abuse, trafficking, and child labor it lacks in programs, policy and management. Therefore, there is an urgent need for governments to increase their efforts to effectively protect children from exploitation by establishing national social protection policies and programs, ceasing the use of children …show more content…

An estimated 59 million children ages 5-17 are engaged in child labor. Nearly 29 million of these child laborers are engaged in hazardous work. Although, Sub-Saharan Africa made notable efforts to improve legal and policy frameworks related to child labor, children in the region continue to engage in dangerous forms of agriculture and domestic service. More needs to be done to prevent and eliminate child labor in Sub-Saharan Africa, we need to reduce the barriers to education, improve child labor legislation and enforcement, and implement social protection policies and programs. According to one of the most recent reports law enforcement bodies failed to collect statistics on child labor due to a lack in resources and trained personnel, thus impeding efforts to identify and sanction child labor violations. Moreover, countries had insufficient number of labor inspectors and insufficient number of criminal investigators responsible for enforcing the worst forms of child labor. More than 35 percent of the countries do not have national policies established to address child labor, and national social protection

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