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Experts are not optimistic about the government’s plan to eradicate child labour by 2015 [Getty Images]
Some 1.56 million to 1.97 million Brazilians aged under 18 work in hazardous jobs, according to a national study on households conducted by the government.
Brazil has a total of 3.7 million working minors.
To eradicate child labour, Brazil has implemented a programme offering subsidies to households below the poverty line.
“That’s not enough,” said Lelio Bentes, minister of Brazil’s Supreme Court of Labour and coordinator of the Justice of Labour’s Committee to Eradicate Child Labour.
Official figures show that the child labour ratio has fallen to 8.3 per cent in 2011 from 19.6 per cent in 1992, though a large number of Brazilian children aged from five to 17 continue to be exploited.
Experts are not optimistic about the government’s plan to eradicate child labour by 2015.
“We will not be able to meet that goal,” said Bentes.
Bentes noted that most counter-measures are in family farms to end domestic child labour, stressing the need for “new strategies”.
There are some 215 million child labourers worldwide, half of whom in hazardous or illegal jobs, according to the International Labour Organisation.
The agency has called for eradication of child labour around the world by 2016.
An international conference on children will be held in the capital Brasilia in October.
Brazil hosted the Earth summit in 2012 and will host a World Cup and an Olympics in the next three years.
Brazil has lifted 20 million people out of poverty and catapulted them into the middle class through its famed social welfare programmes.
Source: Agencies
