6th July, 2015
An increasing number of children in Syria are being forced into work including, in the most extreme cases, fighting for armed groups or sexual exploitation, according to a joint UNICEF-Save the Children report.
The report revealed that children in Syria are now contributing to the family income in more than three quarters of surveyed households, while in Jordan almost half of all Syrian refugee children are now the joint or sole family breadwinners and in some parts of Lebanon, children as young as six years old are reportedly working.
It found that the most vulnerable of all working children involved in armed conflict, sexual exploitation and illicit activities including organised begging and child trafficking.
The report said that as at the end of last year, four out of five Syrians were living in poverty with 7.6 million people displaced from their homes (and another four million living outside the country) while the unemployment rate inside Syria stood at 57.7 per cent.
Dr Roger Hearn, regional director for Save the Children in the Middle East and Eurasia, said that as families become "increasingly desperate, children are working primarily for their survival" and becoming "the main economic players".
Partly as a result of the need for them to earn money, the report stated that some 2.7 million Syrian children are currently out of school raising fears of a "lost generation" of Syrian children.
Dr Peter Salama, UNICEF’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said child labour is known to hinder a child’s growth and development.
“Carrying heavy loads, being exposed to pesticides and toxic chemicals, and working long hours – these are just some of the hazards working children face every day around the region,” he said/
UNICEF and Save the Children are calling for the Syrian people be granted improved access to livelihoods including through making more funding available for income-generating activities, for education to be provided for all children impacted by the crisis, for the ending of the worst forms of child labour to be made a priority and for greater investment in strengthening national and community based child protection systems and services in the country.
To download the full report, follow this link.
– DAVID ADAMS
