Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2014, published 104th ILC session (2015)

Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) - Egypt (Ratification: 1999)

Article 1 of the Convention. National policy on the effective abolition of child labour and the application of the Convention in practice. The Committee had previously expressed its concern at the number and situation of working children under the minimum age in Egypt and urged the Government to strengthen its efforts to ensure the progressive elimination of child labour.

The Committee notes the Government’s information that a project aimed at reducing hazardous child labour through supporting policies, living means and sustainable education is being implemented in collaboration with the World Food Programme in the agricultural sector of Assiout, Sohag, Menya, Fayoum and Sharkeya governorates. This project seeks to reach out to 16,000 children involved in child labour, by protecting 8,000 children from entering the labour market and assisting in enrolling them into formal education; withdrawing 5,000 children from child labour and reintegrating them into informal education; and training 3,000 boys as apprentices so as to address the underlying causes of the child labour phenomenon.

The Committee notes, however, that, according to the findings of the National Child Labour Survey of 2010 conducted by the ILO and the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, out of Egypt’s 17.1 million children, an estimated 1.59 million children aged between 5 and 17 years of age are engaged in child labour, 21 per cent of whom are girls and 79 per cent boys. Almost half of the employed children are engaged in hazardous non-wage work, mostly as unpaid family workers, about 9 per cent of working children between the ages of 5 and 9 years are engaged in hazardous wage work, while this proportion increases steadily with age, reaching 48 per cent for 15 to 17-year-old boys and 28 per cent for 15 to 17-year-old girls. The majority of children work in agriculture (63.8 per cent), followed by 17.7 per cent in the industrial sector and 18.5 per cent in services. The survey results also indicate that working children are exposed to hazardous working conditions such as in work exposed to dust or smoke, work in severe heat or cold temperatures, work with chemicals and exhausting work. These children are highly exposed to work-related health consequences and injuries, with 45 per cent of working children in hazardous wage work and 37 per cent of working children in hazardous non-wage work being affected. The Committee expresses its deep concern at the situation and the high number of children involved in child labour in Egypt, including in hazardous conditions. The Committee therefore urges the Government to strengthen its efforts to ensure the progressive elimination of child labour with particular focus on the agricultural sector. It requests the Government to provide information on the measures taken and the results achieved in terms of the number of children who are effectively removed from child labour and provided with appropriate services. It also requests the Government to provide information on the results achieved through the work of the steering committee to eliminate child labour in the governorates, as well as the project implemented in collaboration with the World Food Programme to eliminate hazardous child labour.

Part III of the report form. Labour inspection. Following its previous comments, the Committee notes the Government’s information that a monitoring and follow-up system of children working in the agricultural sector was established. It also notes from the Government’s report that the Ministry of Manpower and Migration (MoMM), in collaboration with the departments of manpower and migration at the governorate level, has prepared an annual plan on field visits aimed at inspecting child labour in accordance with the Labour Code of 2003, the Child Law of 2008, as well as the application of Ministerial Order No. 118 of 2003 prohibiting hazardous work for children under the age of 18 years. This annual plan includes providing training courses to labour inspectors in all sectors and awareness-raising campaigns for parents, workers and employers against child labour. The Committee notes, however, an absence of information in the Government’s report on the number of violations detected and penalties applied for the violations related to child labour. The Committee therefore requests the Government to provide information on the number and nature of violations relating to the employment of children and young persons detected by the labour inspectorate, the number of persons prosecuted and the penalties imposed.