Labor Treaty Raises Minimum Worker Age in Mexico JMR - The News | |
go to original June 12, 2015 |
Labor secretary Alfonso Navarrete (L) shakes hands with ILO head Guy ryder after ratifying a child labor treaty. (Notimex/Gabriela Sotomayor)
An International Labor Organization (ILO) convention to raise the minimum employment age in Mexico from 14 to 15 was ratified by Labor Secretary Alfonso Navarrete Prida this week.
The child labor convention was signed during the 104 International Labor Conference held at the U.N. headquarters in Geneva with the organization’s president, Guy Rider, in attendance.
“For Mexico, this means fulfilling one of the goals that President Enrique Peña Nieto set from the beginning of his mandate: to make Mexico a responsible actor globally,” Navarrete Prida said after ratifying Convention 138.
Navarrete Prida highlighted the importance of this the step for Mexican labor history and said its magnitude is evident in the unanimous approval of the constitutional revision.
The change from age 14 to 15 as the minimum age for employment “means that Mexico fulfills its commitments,” he said.
According to the Mexican official, the number of child laborers has been reduced by 500,000 since the start of the current administration.
Read the rest at The News
Around 300,000 children work illegally in the fields of Mexico, providing produce for dinner tables across the globe. The government recently brought in new labor laws to help crack down on child labor. But authorities are finding it hard to prosecute offenders, who are mostly poor farmers. Al Jazeera's Rachel Levin reports from Sinaloa, Mexico. (AlJazeeraEnglish)
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