More girls to work, stop schooling due to crisis

Written by Jesus F. Llanto
Monday, 15 June 2009

Their parents lost jobs in massive layoffs

The global financial crisis is expected to push a huge number of children, particularly girls, to drop out of school and become laborers, according to a study by the International Labour Organization (ILO) released Monday.

This development could erode the progress in fighting child labor in the past decade, said the report, called “Give Girls A Chance: Tackling Child Labor, A Key to the Future?”

These prospective child-laborers are children of parents who lost their livelihood due to the massive layoffs in companies worldwide.

“Although processes has been made in reducing child labor during the course of the past ten years, the onset of the global financial crisis threatens to erode recent advances,” said Michele Jankanish, director of the ILO International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor, in his foreword on the study.

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