Today, the Ministry of Labor held a Child Labor Frontline Training which seeks to help stakeholders identify the signs of child labor.
While child labor is an epidemic across the world, in Belize, it is particularly abundant in the agriculture sector, where children are paid meager fees and forced to harvest produce rather than be in school.
Most recently, 20 minors were found working for the Maya King Farm in Stann Creek, where they were being paid $1.50 per sack to pick oranges.
And as a part of the training today, the ministry taught the stakeholders what needs to be done to eradicate child labor, which includes learning about the newly revised policy. Minister Oscar Requena told us more today.
Oscar Requena, Minister of Rural Transformation, Labor
"During the presentations this morning, we had several partners in development who spoke and I particularly wanted to speak to the statistics presented by our national director for ILO here in Belize and it is very heartwarming to hear that whilst on a global level we see increases in child labor for the region, particularly for Latin America, and even for us here in Belize, we're seeing that there is a reduction in the forms of child labor and I want to say that as a government we have been proactive since taking over government, in July we developed a very comprehensive child labor policy and we are working very diligently with our labor officers across the country and other stakeholders and frontline workers and that is why we're having this training because we want them to fully understand what is the child labor policy that we have and what is their role in ensuring that the child labor policy is implemented and that we reduce all forms of child labor by 2025."
"We are very much proud that we are working on that to ensure that convention 138 and other conventions are adhered to and that we work diligently to ensure that we reduce child labor. We see a presence particularly in the rural area, in the agricultural sector and certainly we need to work with that sector to ensure that our children are not deprived from their childhood."
"That is not to say and I want to make it absolutely clear, we need to teach our children good work ethics, responsibilities, and for them to be able to do their chores but that aside it does not mean that we are going to take the children away from and put them in very endangered environments."
