The pandemic is worsening Venezuela’s child labor crisis in Business and Economic News

Coronavirus quarantine has led to deep economic problems and, along with mass migration, has boosted the number of children defending themselves in Venezuela, child rights activists have warned.

Twelve-year-old Moises Bracamonte knows how to prepare fertilizers and irrigate the black beans and corn his family grows in the Venezuelan state of Tachira. He says the hardest part of farming is “breaking the ground” to sow seeds without a tractor or ox.

“Why is it difficult with a choice? Because it’s a heavy choice, and because you have to do a lot of picking if you have a lot of seeds, ”he said in an interview in the living room of his home in Cordero, a town 800 km southwest of Caracas.

With schools closed and no access to the Internet, Moses and his 11-year-old brother Jesus help their father, even a 58-year-old named Moses, grow the food he provides to his family, which they almost never did before the coronavirus pandemic.

Coronavirus quarantine measures have increased the number of Venezuelan workers, according to child protection activists in a South American country that has been suffering from a deep economic crisis that has worsened over the past five years.

According to researchers, the problem of child labor has been driven by the mass migration of more than five million Venezuelans.

“[The pandemic] exacerbated risk factors for child labor, “said Carlos Trapani, Cecodap, coordinator of a nonprofit group based on the prevention of violence and the rights of children. that they are more at risk of hiring gangs.

By 2020, at least 830,000 children and adolescents in Venezuela were living in migration due to migration and were living without one or both parents, according to a Cecodap report released in December.

“Sometimes, there are no adults because they have left the country and the teenagers end up in charge of the family group,” said Leonardo Rodriguez of Casas Don Bosco, who works with young people at a disadvantage.

Venezuela does not provide statistics on child labor.

The country’s information ministry and IDENNA child protection agency did not respond to requests for comment.

World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization around the world, conducted a survey in August 2020 in 420 homes in Caracas and neighboring Miranda to determine how the pandemic affected children. Respondents were 30 years of age or older, of whom 71% were women.

“Problems that put children at higher risk in a pandemic are related to food shortages, increased child labor … domestic violence and neglect,” World Vision said in a study released in November.

Since the pandemic began, more children have been doing household chores for other families in exchange for money or food, and more of them are demanding and selling products like water or cigarettes on the street, according to research.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the UN International Labor Organization estimated in June that the impact of the pandemic could spur more than 300,000 children and adolescents in Latin America to work, adding 10.5 million. already part of that.