(ANS –
Madrid – June 12) – They can’t
go to school, they barely have time to eat, they don’t rest even on weekends,
and they don’t know what it’s like to play with other children. This is the
life that 158 million children around the world lead, victims of child labor
who should, instead, be at school and in the playground rather than employed
doing adult activities. Without considering that, in almost half of the cases
(73 million) they are engaged in activities dangerous to their health. Pope
Francis, recalling the World Day against the Exploitation of Child Labor,
writes: “Children must be able to play, study, and grow up in a peaceful
environment. Woe to those who suffocate in them the joyful impulse of hope!”
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goods at stations, selling them on the road, working in fields, factories, even
mines, or as servants – these are some of the occupations that minors carry out
in the world and that deprive them of going to school and enjoying childhood.
The question for a child should never be: “What are you doing: studying or
working?”
Child
labor concerns mainly agriculture (71%); 17% of child laborers are engaged in
the service sector, and 12% in the industrial sector, particularly in the
mining industry.
Salesians
all over the world work to redeem these children from child labor: so that they
can recover their childhood, go to school, play with friends, learn something
that serves their lives; so that they can feel loved and appreciated; so that
they may know God and feel loved by a loving Father, as befits children.
Children
are always cheap labor, easily replaceable; they don’t complain nor claim their
rights, simply because they don’t know them. They’re treated like adults, and
so they tire and get sick easily. They carry heavy loads, work the land
assuming postures that generate malformations and chronic diseases and, in all
cases, develop low self-esteem, distrust in people, and even forms of
depression.
The
Salesians and all the institutions that follow Don Bosco’s thoughts will never
get tired of asking for the respect of children’s rights and of putting in
place adequate measures so that children be protected and feel safe. Education
is and remains the key so that children aren’t exploited, can transform their
lives, be agents of change and development, and be protagonists of their own rightful
future.
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