2024-05-03 04:30:55
He child labor increased during the six-year term of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, indicates the latest measurement by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi); One of the factors of the increase could be the delivery of direct support from the federal government, says an expert.
The researcher from La Salle University, Felipe Gaytán Alcalá, considered that child labor in Mexico is influenced by several cultural and social factorsbecause there are communities where it is established that minors help with farm tasks, he said in an interview with 24 HORAS.
The National Survey on Child Labor (ENTI) 2022 – whose results were presented last October and are the latest statistics on this topic – indicates that 3.7 million children between 5 and 17 years old do some type of work, such as domestic activities and work not permitted by law.
In the case of Mexico, he said Gaytan “that number of 3.7 million children who work has a black figure and the problem is that a generation and the future of the children are being lost.”
At the start of the current six-year term, the same survey considered that in the country there were 3.3 million minors in conditions of child labor; that is, during the current Government federal increased 12.1%.
The top 10 states with the most children working make up Guerrero, Chiapas, Nayarit, Oaxaca, Puebla, Zacatecas, Michoacan, Guanajuato, Yucatan and Veracruz.
In contrast, Mexico City has the lowest incidence of child labor in the country, followed by Baja California, Coahuila, Querétaro and Nuevo León.
Regarding occupations not permitted for minors by law, the data indicate that 33% of children who work in Mexico do so in the agricultural sector; 12.5%, in electricity extractive industries and gas; 23% in services; 21%, in informal businesses, and 7%, in the construction.
62% of Mexican households with members in child labor and in illegal occupations indicated that they do so because of the high prices of products. food products.
In a report on the results of the survey, the Network for Children’s Rights in Mexico (Redim) indicates that in 2022, 1.2 million girls, boys and adolescents will be employed in dangerous jobs, such as construction work and agricultural laborers. Mexico.
The social organization highlights the case of the 350,146 boys and girls between 5 and 9 years old who are considered an employed population because they have a job, of which 138 thousand 856 carry out activities not allowed, classified as dangerous and prohibited by law.
ANALYSIS
Researcher Gaytán mentioned that in Bolivia, Years ago, an attempt was made to prohibit child labor, but the parents themselves “backed down the law because that labor was required.”
He stated that it is thought that the majority of children who work in the country are victims of labor exploitation by their parents, but these situations are a minority.
“Deep down it is a survival strategy for families to be able to cover the minimum necessary.”
In states like Guerrero Oaxaca and Chiapaseven cultural issues influence children to start working from the age of six, mainly in labor. agricultural.
Regarding gender, he indicated that boys usually enter jobs where they can be paid, but girls generally do so to help household choresr that it is heavy, dangerous and even invisible work.
“Social policy for a long time time focused in giving a scholarship that was not directly to the child, but to the mothers to solve their needs and it was an incentive.”
However, in the current six-year term “that disappeared, you give the money indiscriminately and there is no longer that incentive for the child to go to school and maintain the beca, Today they provide support whether they are there or not, then they receive the money and can manage a double income: having the support and sending the child to work.”
An example of such social programs would be the extinct scholarships Prosper, that disappeared with the arrival of the current administration, in which it was mandatory to be a regular student, as well as have proof of student permanence, issued by the director of the institution, and that have now been adapted to Welfare scholarships without monitoring some.
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2024-05-03 04:30:55