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Tanzania 'home to 4.8m child workers'
2005-05-16 08:11:39
By Nasser Kigwangallah
Tanzania has over 4.8 million child labourers, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
ILO Director for East Africa Ali Ibrahim told a child labour elimination workshop in Dar es Salaam that hundreds of thousands of children aged between five and 17 were involved in child labour in the country.
He urged participants to deliberate on the way to invigorate fight against the worst forms of child labour.
'Tanzania, like many countries in the world, has ratified Convention No. 182 of the International Labour Organisation on the Elimination of worst forms of labour.
This is a testimony to the increasing international concern about the exploitation of children,' he said.
Ibrahim identified poverty as one of several factors for the increased number of working children.
He also mentioned the HIV/Aids pandemic as another contributory factor.
'As a result of increasing poverty level and the HIV/Aids pandemic, poor households and caretakers of orphaned children find it difficult to send their children to school.
They force them to work as means of supplementing their family income,'he said.
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