The Government of Peru, through its Ministry of Labor and Employment Promotion (MTPE), inaugurated at the national level the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labor in a virtual event chaired by the Vice Minister of Labor, José Luis Parodi, and the Director of the Office for Andean Countries of the International Labor Organization (ILO), Philippe Vanhuynegem.

The Vice Minister of Labor pointed out that all children and adolescents have the same rights, therefore, they must be protected and have the same opportunities. He added that Peru, along with other countries, continue to work to accelerate the step towards achieving goal 8.7 on ending child labor, especially in the current context of crisis due to COVID-19 that threatens to push more children, girls and adolescents to the labor market. Along these lines, he stressed that the International Year is an opportunity to reaffirm the national commitment and strengthen territorial management for the prevention and eradication of child labor.

For his part, the Director of the Andean Office of the ILO called for accelerating the work to protect children and adolescents; Along these lines, he pointed out that today more than ever it is necessary to act decisively with sufficient policies and budgets from the labor, development and economic sectors, for the implementation of concrete and immediate actions. In this sense, he stressed that we all have a responsibility to future generations to provide a collective and differentiated response, because child labor is not the same in all regions, productive sectors, or for children and adolescents.

As a Pioneer Country of Alliance 8.7 and one of the founding countries of the Regional Initiative Latin America and the Caribbean Free of Child Labor, Peru will implement during the year a series of actions related to the promotion of public policy instruments on child labor. , as well as training and awareness campaigns for different actors and will promote the exchange of good practices in the matter.

As the first action in 2021, during the conference, the results of the application of the Child Labor Risk Identification Model (MIRTI) were delivered to the regional governors. The MIRTI is a statistical and strategic instrument of public policy used to identify and classify territories according to their level of probability of risk of child labor. With these data, the country will be able to design targeted, multisectoral and multilevel responses to prevent child labor and accelerate the pace of its reduction at the local, regional and national levels.

To continue with the national campaign for the International Year, the Ministry has the support and participation of the members of the National Steering Committee for the Prevention and Eradication of Child Labor - CPETI, made up of representatives of the public, private, union and society sectors. civil. Those who, it is necessary to mention, received the recognition of the Director of the Office for the Andean Countries of the ILO for the effort and institutional commitment shown since the creation of the Committee in 2003.

Thus, Peru has reaffirmed its commitment to continue advancing towards the achievement of goal 8.7 of the 2030 Agenda on ending child labor in 2025, more now in the context of a health and economic crisis that especially affects the education of children. and adolescents and the livelihoods of the most vulnerable families in the country.

It should be noted that the proposed declaration of 2021 as the International Year was an initiative of 12 countries in the region, including Peru, which was presented during the IV World Conference on the Sustained Eradication of Child Labor (Buenos Aires, 2017) to encourage the promotion of multi-stakeholder alliances and the strengthening of public policies around the issue.