Editorials (Reflecting the Views of the US Government)VOA
25 April 2008
According to the latest estimates, fifty-two percent of children aged seven to fourteen-years, or more than one-million-four hundred thousand Cambodian children work. On average, they spend more than twenty hours a week working, mostly in agriculture.
“Excessive and inappropriate work not only stunts the normal development of individual children, it has significant consequences for society as a whole,” said U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia Joseph Mussomeli. “Children who have to work to support their families rather than attend school," he said, "don’t acquire the knowledge and skills they need to obtain quality employment in the future, contributing to a cycle of poverty in their own families, and holding back economic growth in the entire country,” he said.
Ambassador Mussomeli spoke at ceremonies inaugurating the launch of a new U.S.-funded effort to help Cambodia battle child labor, the Children’s Empowerment through Education Services project. Since 2001, the U.S. government has been working together with the Cambodian government to combat child labor through education. In that year, the U.S. Department of Labor funded the International Labor Organization’s International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor to provide education and other services to children engaged in exploitive labor, or at-risk of doing so.
Since then, the U.S. has continued to support other committed organizations, such as World Education and Winrock International, with a total investment of nearly thirteen million dollars to stop child labor. More than thirty-five thousand Cambodian children have been saved from dangerous and exploitive labor.
The four-million dollar U.S.-funded Children’s Empowerment project will withdraw and prevent more than eight-thousand children in four Cambodian provinces from exploitive labor in agriculture. It will also support schooling for the children and provide income generating activities for their parents.
“The Cambodian government has taken many positive steps to reduce child labor since our partnership began, and we applaud these efforts,” said Ambassador Mussomeli. “We all understand," he said, "the importance of taking care of young people and investing in their development."
“Excessive and inappropriate work not only stunts the normal development of individual children, it has significant consequences for society as a whole,” said U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia Joseph Mussomeli. “Children who have to work to support their families rather than attend school," he said, "don’t acquire the knowledge and skills they need to obtain quality employment in the future, contributing to a cycle of poverty in their own families, and holding back economic growth in the entire country,” he said.
Ambassador Mussomeli spoke at ceremonies inaugurating the launch of a new U.S.-funded effort to help Cambodia battle child labor, the Children’s Empowerment through Education Services project. Since 2001, the U.S. government has been working together with the Cambodian government to combat child labor through education. In that year, the U.S. Department of Labor funded the International Labor Organization’s International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor to provide education and other services to children engaged in exploitive labor, or at-risk of doing so.
Since then, the U.S. has continued to support other committed organizations, such as World Education and Winrock International, with a total investment of nearly thirteen million dollars to stop child labor. More than thirty-five thousand Cambodian children have been saved from dangerous and exploitive labor.
The four-million dollar U.S.-funded Children’s Empowerment project will withdraw and prevent more than eight-thousand children in four Cambodian provinces from exploitive labor in agriculture. It will also support schooling for the children and provide income generating activities for their parents.
“The Cambodian government has taken many positive steps to reduce child labor since our partnership began, and we applaud these efforts,” said Ambassador Mussomeli. “We all understand," he said, "the importance of taking care of young people and investing in their development."
8 comments:
gov't should reform the education system in cambodia. it ought to be mandatory for all cambodian children under 18 age to stay in school for them to have any future at all. thank you.
I used to work as a child doing all kind of fucken odd job! And I believe there should be some laws to protect the children due to the nature of the job and working hour!
I believe the children should spend more time in school than working and if they do work and the law must limit certain amount of hour that they can work and of course prohibiting them from working in dangerous environment!
If the family is poor and the luxury of not going to work in not an option because the family will starve! I always tell myself that I would rather work hard than to starve!
I HAD SEX WITH HUN SEN LAST NIGHT!
Education is important for all children and they must be avail themselves at school.
However at the same time, do understand the parents points of view when arguing about theirs children contributions to the family daily need which in turn is being translated as child labour.
One possible way to get everyone educated is to have a mandatory law in force.
Compulsory law is evil. That is what communist is all about.
to me ,i think that most parents in khmerland are so stupid,know little about life. they don't know how to care the children.i myself have kind of this experience.so the best way is that anyone who wishes to get married must have a specail training course about how to look after the children and take care them.
Special training course? ahhahhahahh
Who subsidize your special training course when your poor people can't even to pay for food!
So who is the stupid one here!
Don't worry we got plenty friends around us.
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