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HONDURAS
Thousands of children working
as domestics
BY MARIA VICTORIA
VALDES-RODDA—Granma International staff
writer—
ILL-TREATED and enslaved children are a persistent
problem in our region. The Honduran government’s
disregard of these issues keeps reappearing.
According to a recent report by the International
Labor Organization (ILO), there are thousands of
children working in the domestic labor sector,
considered all over the world to be one of the worst
forms of child exploitation.
Rosa
Corea, an ILO official, pointed out that Central
America and the Dominican Republic stuck out in
contrast with the rest of the continent regarding
poor working conditions and low wages paid to
children who lack any kind of labor rights or social
security. Corea stated that the situation was very
serious in Guatemala, Panama and the Dominican
Republic, but Honduras is the country with most
disadvantages for its youth.
On
September 25, Thaís Aguilar, director of the Women's
News Service, corroborated this information,
affirming that besides the high levels of juvenile
delinquency, and sexually abused teenagers, the
country should be ashamed of its 20,764 child
domestic workers.
Even
if there is a widespread belief that only girls are
recruited by the so-called apron army, today in
Honduras, indigent boys are also opting for this
means of survival.
According to the ILO, the domestic labor sector
employs 6.2% of children and teenagers in the
workforce. Paradoxically, working in this sector
comes almost as a relief for these young people,
taking into account that 80% of the population lives
in poverty in this Central American country.
Silence has not been maintained in this context.
Many professionals in different areas: pedagogy,
psychology, criminology, and sociology are asking
why Honduras tolerates these levels of child labor
without taking action.
Senior members of the Child Labor Eradication
Program, CLEP, have repeatedly urged the higher
Honduran authorities to concentrate on social labor
issues and the most marginalized sectors. In their
considerations, these officials affirm that child
domestic workers receive the lowest wages, lose
contact with their families indefinitely – an
important environment for to shaping their
personalities — and, as one would expect, quit their
education.
But
the worst, they claim, is that most of these
children are beaten and even raped, and that police
agents have failed to intervene until the damage
done to these victims is almost irreversible.
The
Public Health Ministry officially admits that six
out of 10 girls under 19 have been pregnant at least
once or have at least one child. Almost all these
pregnancies, according to the source, are the result
of rape.
The
debate over the somber future of Honduran children
heated up last month when her own family’s sexual
abuse led a 14-year-old girl to commit suicide on
September 10. Society was profoundly shocked since
the suicide occurred on the day when Hondurans
celebrate Children’s Day.
In
reference to this, Aguilar stated: “the government
should carry out institutional reforms complying
with international agreements, and enforce laws
regulating child and teenage labor and all their
years of growth.” She emphasized that the
authorities should no longer treat this issue
superficially, but implement systematic approaches
“putting into place social and educational policies
to counter poverty, and allow children and teenagers
to fully enjoy their rights.”
In
1994, the Honduran Committee for Children’s Rights
and the spokesperson of the Children’s Convention,
of which Honduras is a member, suggested that the
country should implement mechanisms to protect
children from the moment that they are born.
This
assertion was based on the sad fact that a large
number of newborn babies were not recorded in the
civil registry, and these children will grow up
without knowing their age or family, and be
abandoned or sold into slave labor.
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