This has been a week full of end-of-course activities, but we didn't want to miss a special day that has just been celebrated, World Day Against Child Labor 2011, which every year draws attention to child labor worldwide. On this occasion he wants to give an educational vision to the problem of child labor.
Child slavery is closer than we think, so in about 60 countries around the world hundreds of activities have been organized to celebrate this day.
The Office for Gender Equality of the International Labor Organization (ILO), as part of the one-year campaign on “Gender equality: the heart of decent work”, has highlighted the fight against child labor through the education with the motto: “The formula for progress: Educate both girls and boys!”.
In this way, emphasis is placed on another of the worldwide problems we have talked about on other occasions, that of universal education and non-discrimination between boys and girls when receiving training.
In this regard, the ILO's International Program for the Elimination of Child Labor indicates, for example, that rural working children have a tendency to be among the most disadvantaged, and that girls often have a double workload within and outside the home, which endangers their schooling.
The ILO maintains that a large part of the 75 million girls and boys without access to primary education start working at an early age, and raises the need to boost access to schools to break the cycle of poverty and child labor, and to eradicate its worst forms by 2016.
It is necessary to strive to achieve education for all children at least until the minimum age for entering work, achieve education policies that reach working children and other excluded groups, and demand quality education and training with adequate resources to all the children.
We hope this recent World Day Against Child Labor 2011 has served to raise awareness of this problem and, above all, that the authorities of each country put the batteries in the fight against child labor and for an equal education for all children.
