The Social Policies area of the EUROsociAL+ Programme together with the Ministry of Labour and Employment of Peru held a National Forum for the exchange of experiences and lessons learnt in the territorial management of the national policy for the prevention and eradication of child labour.
During the Forum “Exchange of experiences and lessons learnt in the territorial management of national policy for the prevention and eradication of child labour”, held on 21 December last year by the MTPE, with support from EUROsociAL+ and the ILO Latin American and Caribbean Regional Initiative, Child Labour-Free, it was emphasised that it is necessary to get to know the experiences, advances, achievements and challenges registered by the country’s regional and local governments in their fight against this problem.
According to the National Survey of Households on Living Conditions and Poverty (Enaho) from 2020, carried out by the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI), the rate of child labour for boys, girls and adolescents from 5 to 17 years of age is 12%. This figure is 1.6% higher than in 2019, when it was 10.4%. The majority of child labour (73.5%) is concentrated in the primary sector of the economy (agriculture, fishing and mining), followed by commerce (14.5%).
The support the EUROsociAL+ European Union Programme is providing through international exchange activities and technical advice on this issue is key. The Municipal Model for the detection and eradication of child labour pursued by Peru is a valuable tool that seeks to strengthen the control and surveillance functions in the matter, to provide comprehensive protection to boys and girls found in situations of child labour, unprotected adolescent labour or exploitation. It is an ambitious instrument, which commits various government areas at different levels, has had a pilot implementation and has been validated by authorities and teams from different government areas. All this shows the decisive political commitment for its implementation at the national level.
The Forum has marked a first milestone in the support itinerary of EUROsociAL+ to advance in the development and implementation of regional and local actions that comprehensively address the problem of child labour in the context of the pandemic generated by Covid-19, based on the experiences found in the country and on good international practices.
At the event, the regional governments of La Libertad, Loreto, Ucayali and Tacna, as well as the Regional Directorate of Labour and Employment of Metropolitan Lima, presented the actions carried out for the prevention and eradication of child labour in their territories. Also, the local governments of Lima, Piura, La Libertad and Ucayali reflected on the problem and provided their contributions on strategies to implement and strengthen for a comprehensive approach to this problem.
All these inputs, added to the recommendations of the EUROsociAL+ expert Silvina Gorsky, have been collected in the ETI Municipal Model Guidelines presented for approval by Resolution of the Ministry of Labour and Employment of Peru.
