• The decline in the number of economically active children is described as insignificant by the associations.
• The new law, in force since 2018, has failed to provide adequate solutions.
• It remains incomplete and ignored by public opinion.
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The High Commission for Planning (HCP) announced in June 2020 that the number of economically active children stands at 200,000 and is down 23.5% compared to 2017. Three months later, the Ministry of The employment, taking stock of the application of Law 19.12, gave the number of domestic work contracts and declarations to the National Social Security Fund: 2,574 contracts were signed and 2,228 declarations registered with the CNSS. Can we rejoice and think that these indicators are consistent with the application of Law 19.12 on domestic work?
In the voluntary sector, “these figures are insignificant and not segmented, and still do not reveal, two years after the entry into force of the law, a regulation of the domestic labor market employing thousands of people, mainly girls and women. women. On the other hand, these data from the ministry do not provide any indication of the situation of minors which remains, it should be emphasized, worrying ”. Indeed, and as an indication, the study carried out in 2010 by the associative collective “For the eradication of the exploitation of minors in domestic work”, estimated the number of underage girls at nearly 80,000. today ? And what assessment can we establish since October 2, 2018, the date of entry into force of this new legislation?
For the associations engaged in the fight against child labor, “we have made very little progress and we regret that, two years after the application of the law, we are told that the provisions and procedures for its implementation are still in force. installation course ”. Last September, the Presidency of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of Employment and Professional Integration presented a draft “Practical guide to the implementation of the provisions of Law 19.12”. The document, available in Arabic on the Net, presents the legal framework which concerns “domestic workers”, but does not provide any statistical data! This guide aims to demonstrate how the actions taken and the new law can promote the elimination of various forms of child labor. But, in the opinion of the Associative Collective “For the eradication of the exploitation of minors in domestic work”, the impact of the legislation alone remains limited, it must be accompanied by specific measures.
What alternative solutions for issuing families in 2023?
These include actions aimed at raising public awareness with a view to combating the worst forms of child labor, readjusting them, withdrawing them from the market and reintegrating them into the school system, encouraging and develop the second chance school and provide subsidies and income to children and their families in precarious situations.In addition, the associations come back to the need to modify the provisions of articles 6 and 27 of law 19.12 to allow immediate application of the limitation to 18 years of age of access to domestic work, to initiate an effective action plan with a timetable to regularize the situation of tens of thousands of minors in a situation of exploitation at the time of the entry into force of this provision, and also of the situation of children who could be victims of it afterwards, endow the “social workers” with a statute allowing them to ensure the actions of locating information rmations, withdrawal of minors and their support until their reintegration in coordination with the competent authorities. It would also be useful and necessary to prepare for the post-2023 period.
“On this deadline set by law 19.12, domestic work will be prohibited. But there will always be the issue of the families issuing these minors. In need, they will not hesitate to continue to send their children to work with families without worrying too much about the law or working conditions, ”said an association source. The prohibition of work stipulated by law is equivalent to the suppression of income for these families in a precarious situation. This suggests, the associations argue, that it is necessary to set up alternative solutions to ensure an income for these families. According to the results of a study by the collective, 47% of these families are poor, 28% are very poor, 16% have no regular income and 9% have regular income and 94% of mothers and 72% of fathers are illiterate.
The improvements to be made to Law 19.12 will make it possible to fill in the shortcomings that the associations have continued to denounce in recent years. They relate to the “so-called 5-year transition period” from the date of entry into force, during which it is permitted to exploit minors aged 16-17. A provision in total contradiction with all the reasons behind the setting of the minimum age of 18 years. The control entrusted to the labor inspectorate, which suffers from a critical lack of human and material resources, is also contested. In addition, this structure does not have the skills required to take care of children in difficult situations, nor the instruments to intervene, because domestic work takes place “behind closed doors” in legally inaccessible houses, without the advice of the justice. The text does not include the provisions and instruments to extract children from the workplace and to reintegrate them. Finally, the associations recommend a large communication campaign because the law unfortunately remains ignored by public opinion.
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