Myanmar has over 1 mn child workers: Study

Myanmar has a total of 1,278,909 child workers, seventy-five per cent of whom are between 15 to 17 years old, an ILO study has found.

Close to 80 per cent of the child labourers are employed in rural sectors, including agriculture, fishery and forestry (60.5 per cent), trade (11.1 per cent) and services (6.1 per cent), says the study by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Myanmar's Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security.

Between 24.5-33.6 per cent of the children work at least 60 hours every week, while the remaining clock 52 hours a week, for an average hourly wage of 33 cents, EFE news reported on Tuesday citing the study.

Myanmar, whose first democratic government was sworn this year following 49 years of military rule, has a working-age population of 33.9 million, of which 21.8 million are employed, including 43.1 per cent women, according to the study.

There are around 12 million children between the age of 5 and 17 years in the country, constituting 27 per cent of its population.

The ILO estimates around 215 million children are employed in child labour worldwide.

Out of these, 1 in every 8 children, between the ages of 5-17 years, are working in Asia and the Pacific, 1 in every 10 in Latin America and 1 in every 4 in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to 2010 data by the ILO.

--IANS

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