Child labor in Morocco slides by 59% to settle at 1.3%, Minister says

Child labor in Morocco has declined by 59% since 2017, bringing the rate to less than 1.3%, Morocco’s Minister of Employment Younes Sekkouri said Monday in Rabat, stressing the need to pool efforts to eradicate this phenomenon.

During question time at the Lower House on child labor, the minister highlighted the major strides Morocco has made in this area, enabling it to earn recognition at the international level.

In his words, this progress was achieved thanks to the Kingdom’s policy pursued under the enlightened leadership of HM the King Mohammed VI, as well as the direct supervision of HRH Princess Lalla Meryem as President of the National Observatory for Children’s Rights (ONDE).

The number of children engaged in economic activities stands at around 100,000, mainly in rural areas where they help support their families, he added, while the number of working children in urban areas ranges between 20,000 and 23,000.

The minister recalled that Morocco submitted its bid two years ago to host the 6th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labor, an initiative that received the backing of many countries in view of the progress made by the Kingdom in this field.

Stressing that the conference was marked by the adoption of the “Marrakech Global Framework for Action against Child Labor”, the governmental official noted that all these measures draw on the Moroccan experience in terms of monitoring, legislation, the withdrawal of children from the labor market, and the ratification of international conventions.

Sekkouri also highlighted that the approach adopted by the Kingdom includes the generalization of preschool education, as well as the development of integration and training programs, such as the “Tadaroj Program” which targets young people aged 15 to 17 who have dropped out of school, with a view to enabling them to access vocational training.