Poverty leads to growth in child labour

AMMAN — Child labour around the world is directly related to underprivileged families, and “all indicators show that poverty will increase in the Kingdom,” Ahmad Awad, director of Phenix Centre for Economic Studies and Informatics Studies, told The Jordan Times on Thursday over the phone.

“Thousands of jobs are being lost in the market, the government allowed employers to deduct 50 per cent or 30 per cent of their salaries, and it will take a lot of time for jobs and vacancies lost to be back,” Awad said, noting that all elements will add up to increasing poverty rates and in turn, child labour.

Awad said that in light of the suspension of schools, it has become increasingly clear and there are “many sightings” of children working as street vendors, especially in popular areas around the Kingdom.

“We are still under the hit of the coronavirus crisis, but once that is over, the impact on the economy will be clear, with GDP growth rate expected to be -3.5, a recession indicating more poverty and more child labour,” the centre director noted.

Awad said the government needs to adopt an approach where it provides allocated sums of money to support small- and medium-sized enterprises based on the level of damage they faced, helping also in payment of salaries to ensure poverty does not increase and companies can rise up again as soon as the crisis is over.

“This is not only spending and losses for the Treasury, it is an investment to keep the economy intact and preserve workers in the private sector, reducing poverty rates and unemployment rates, which are expected to reach very high levels,” he added.

In Zarqa, in various streets filled with different shops, where movement was lively before the crisis, sightings have shown that they are now filled with children who work as street vendors; selling detergents, fruits and other products in order to support their families.

One child street vendor, who requested anonymity, told The Jordan Times that he works from 10am to 6pm and when the sirens go off he tells people to go home as the curfew continues.

The child, who seems to be either missing online school work or unable to keep up with it, said that he works to support his family because of their modest conditions.

“I see him every other day setting up shop here and selling mostly bananas,” one of the bystanders said.

The Jordan Times also contacted various people who have permits in different governorates, most of whom reported seeing children selling different items in the streets; mostly detergents, especially in areas where people have access when movement is allowed from 10am to 6pm.

“I was driving a few days ago when I saw a child sitting on the pavement, I asked him why he was sitting there and he innocently replied that he is trying to sell as much as possible before 6pm, and I saw many others over time since the crisis started a month ago but have not had the chance to talk to them,” Merna Kilani, a resident in Amman, told The Jordan Times on Thursday over the phone.

The latest child labour study conducted by national institutions and the International Labour Organisations (ILO) in Jordan took place in 2016, and to date, no new studies were conducted on the topic, Awad told The Jordan Times in January.

Internationally, ILO statistics show that the overall number of child labourers in 2019 reached 152 million children who work in different sectors, 73 million of whom work in jobs classified as “dangerous”, focused in Asia and the Pacific Ocean, as cited by a study the Phenix Centre released last June.

The national institutes and ILO study conducted in 2016 showed that there were around 70,000 children who worked in Jordan at the time, of whom 45,000 worked in jobs classified as “dangerous”.