Paraguay's efforts to end child labor face uncertain future.

AutorGaudin, Andres

Two weeks before businessman President-elect Horacio Cartes' Aug. 15 inauguration, no one yet knows what his policy regarding children will be, even though, since his electoral win in April (NotiSur, May 10, 2013), national and international children's advocacy agencies have urged him to make some commitment to the most powerless and neglected sector of society.

Before the election, however, Cartes had told the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) that he was willing to increase funding for prevention and treatment programs to eradicate child labor as part of the "20 commitments to improve the efficiency of investment in children and adolescents," a joint program sponsored by the UN agency and the national Frente por la Ninez y la Adolescencia. He had also told representatives of UK-based Save the Children and Paraguay's Global Infancia that he was ready to eradicate child domestic labor.

However, in contrast with his later silence on the issue of children, Cartes has let it be known that, as soon as he is sworn in, he intends to back a program to transfer state assets to private capital, beginning with privatizing the Administracion Nacional de Electricidad (ANDE) and Asuncion's Aeropuerto Internacional Silvio Petirossi, the country's most important airport.

In light of reports from the state Direccion General de Estadisticas, Encuestas y Censos (DGEEC), the International Labor Organization (ILO), and Partnership for Educational Revitalization in the Americas (PERA)--an Inter-American Dialogue program--in May and June various social organizations launched the national campaign Termina con el Criadazgo (small children working as domestic servants) to end the practice.

Poverty at root of child-labor problem

The studies found that in Paraguay at least 47,000 children of both sexes (2.5% of the population between 5 and 17 years of age) work for families without receiving any remuneration. Their parents turn them over to a family to do domestic work--wash clothes, clean, cook, and care for the family's children--in exchange for housing, food, clothing, and, at times, education.

"We are talking about a problem directly related to poverty and about children of up to 17 years of age who are vulnerable and likely to be victims of all kinds of violence--physical, emotional, sexual, and work-related--since their work is made invisible, hidden from the eyes of the citizenry, many times in isolated places or away from their homes," said Andrea Cid, a UNICEF...

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