Egypt has renewed its commitment to a national plan to combat the worst forms of child labour, the head of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) said on Monday.
Sahar El-Sonbaty was speaking at the ninth meeting of the Tripartite Steering Committee to follow up on the implementation of the National Action Plan to Combat the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Egypt and Support Families (2018-2025).
“Every child is born with a small dream… it is our duty to protect this dream, so that it is not stolen by the harshness of circumstances, nor extinguished by early work that endangers their dream and life,” El-Sonbaty said.
She stressed that the NCCM has placed the issue of child labour at the forefront of its priorities, based on the firm belief that childhood is the cornerstone of society and that any violation of a child’s rights is a violation of the nation’s future.
In collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO), the NCCM has taken serious steps to eliminate the phenomenon, El-Sonbaty said. This includes issuing a standard operating procedures manual for combating child labour and conducting 42 community awareness seminars for families working in jasmine harvesting in 10 villages in Gharbia governorate, reaching 1,780 families.
Additionally, 40 night monitors from the jasmine fields have been trained on how to report cases of child labour, and training for 60 members of the governorate’s protection committees is underway.
El-Sonbaty noted that despite tangible progress, real challenges remain, primarily the economic and social conditions that push some families to put their children to work, and a lack of awareness of the long-term dangers. This highlights the importance of integrating roles and uniting visions to address the root causes of the phenomenon, she said.
The meeting was attended by representatives from the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Social Solidarity, the General Federation of Egyptian Trade Unions, and the ILO’s Cairo office.
