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Bolivian boy
A 12-year-old boy who works as a porter at the El Abasto market in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Photograph: Juan Karita/AP
A 12-year-old boy who works as a porter at the El Abasto market in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Photograph: Juan Karita/AP

Bolivia to allow 10-year-olds to work

This article is more than 9 years old
Minimum working age will remain 14 but government office will be able to authorise employment of children as young as 10

Children as young as 10 could legally work in Bolivia under legislation expected to be signed into law by the president, Evo Morales, this week.

The legal working age in Bolivia has long been 14, and older teens are in theory restricted to jobs that do not damage their health and wellbeing. But despite those prohibitions, child labour is rife.

The new boys, girls and adolescents code maintains the minimum age at 14, but allows the office charged with protecting children to authorise those between 10 and 14 to work independently, and those between 12 and 14 to work for others.

Whether they are shining shoes on a street corner or collecting fares on a bus, young workers are a highly visible part of society. Extreme poverty has decreased in Bolivia in recent years but remains a hard reality for the nearly 1 million people who survive on less than 75 pence a day.

Young workers, including those belonging to the Bolivian Union of Child and Adolescent Workers (Unatsbo), were involved in conversations with the government on the minimum age. Members of Unatsbo met the president and members of congress, organised marches and made their voices heard in the national press.

"We want exploitation to be ended, but never our work, because that is our livelihood," said Jenny Miranda, a teenage Unatsbo member who began working when she was six. She said prohibiting child labour prevented the implementation of any legal protection and made young workers vulnerable to mistreatment by employers.

Sixteen-year old Junior Pacosillo, who has worked since he was nine, disagreed. Instead of making exceptions to the minimum age, he said, the government should create employment for adults as part of its anti-poverty programmes so that they can support their children.

"It would be better if with all the money they are distributing the government had created more jobs and businesses, things that could help our parents," he said.

Bolivia is party to the International Labour Organisation's minimum age convention, which permits a minimum working age of 14. In January, advocacy groups including Human Rights Watch addressed a letter to Morales objecting to the proposed decrease.

"If children as young as 12 are permitted to work, they will miss out on education during the very formative years of their development and risk being trapped in repetitive tasks, eroding their skills and prospective employability in future." the letter said. "With about 850,000 child labourers in Bolivia and only 78 inspectors, the monitoring task per inspector is 10,897 child labourers already."

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