Human Rights

HELPING to push Cambodians out of poverty will also help eliminate conditions that lead to the exploitation of hundreds of thousands of Cambodian children, officials said Wednesday during a meeting examining the issue of child labour. Ngy Chan Phal, secretary of state at the Ministry of Interior, said the Cambodian government had started to pay serious attention to the child labour problem. More than 250,000 children in the Kingdom between the ages of 15 and 17 are currently engaged in heavy labour in agriculture industries and other sectors, he said, citing studies done for the Ministry of Labour. Poverty is the main reason for child labour, Ngy Chan Phal said. Measures to alleviate child labour, then, coincide with poverty reduction initiatives, he said. “We need to help create jobs for poor families so that they can earn income by themselves,” he said. The International Labour Organisation is working with the government to eliminate all forms of heavy child labour and serious child exploitation by 2016, said Uk Siosvan, an ILO representative.