The Government of Costa Rica, in an event chaired by Ms. Geannina Dinarte Romero, Minister of Labor and Social Security (MTSS) and Mr. Juan Luis Bermudez, Minister of Human Development and Social Inclusion, presented the national and provincial results obtained of the application of the Child Labor Risk Indicator Model.

This is a statistical tool developed jointly by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), in coordination with the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MTSS), within the framework of the Initiative Regional Latin America and the Caribbean free of child labor.

The implementation of the Model in Costa Rica was coordinated by the Office of Attention and Eradication of Child Labor and Protection of the Adolescent Worker (OATIA) of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MTSS), with active participation of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS), the Ministry of Public Education (MEP), the Mixed Institute for Social Assistance (IMAS), the National Children's Trust (PANI), among others.

Minister Dinarte stressed that this instrument not only gives numbers, but also brings them closer to the faces of children and adolescents at risk. He also added that with this information they have great potential to accelerate the pace and shorten the path towards achieving goal 8.7 of the 2030 Agenda, which commits to ending child labor in 2025.

For his part, Minister Bermudez declared that this effort is a call for mobilization and action, emphasizing the need to deepen information on high-risk cantons. He pointed out that with an articulated and persistent work, Costa Rica can be made the first country to adequately protect its childhood so that children and adolescents work on the only thing they have to do: build their dreams.

This event also had the participation of Ms. Carmen Moreno González, Director of the ILO Office for Central America, Haiti, Panama and the Dominican Republic; Mrs. Cristina Pérez Gutiérrez, Ambassador of Spain in Costa Rica and Mr. Andrés Espejo, ECLAC Social Affairs Officer.

Carmen Moreno highlighted that for almost 101 years child labor has been present at the heart of the ILO Agenda and that they have been working together with the countries in the fight for its eradication.

Cristina Pérez stated that the application of the Model is a key step for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. She recognized that Latin America and the Caribbean is a world benchmark in progress towards the achievement of Target 8.7 and that Spain shares this need with the region to move forward and find formulas.

Andrés Espejo explained that the results of the Model will help Costa Rica to identify child labor and be able to implement more pertinent public policies. This implies that with the results and through multisectoral and intergovernmental efforts, Costa Rica will be able to design and implement targeted local strategies to accelerate the reduction of child labor and hazardous adolescent work.

In this sense, the Child Labor Risk Indicator Model is a key tool that presents the panorama of the risk of child labor in the country to give it greater visibility, raise awareness and promote its urgent attention. The application of this tool, added to the institutional capacities that the Government has. In this way, the possibility of the country to reach target 8.7 is increased.

On the results of the application of the Model

According to the results of the Model, it is estimated that vulnerability to child labor on a national scale is 27 points on average. In addition, this tool has identified risk and protection factors for each territory based on five dimensions, which group fourteen variables obtained from ENAHO 2016 and from administrative records of different public institutions. The dimensions analyzed are: labor, ethnic, demographic, children's education, and adult education.

Based on these, a list of recommendations has been drawn up in five specific areas to improve preventive policies on child labor at the national and local levels. The area that requires the most attention, given its prevalence in 6 out of 7 provinces, is the “indigenous and Afro-descendant population”, followed by “retention in the educational system and training of adults”, due to its prevalence in 4 out of 7 provinces.

For these cases, some of the recommendations mentioned are the articulation of basic and comprehensive care programs for homes with an indigenous or Afro-descendant population and the strengthening of educational policies that improve the quality and relevance of education and reduce its direct and indirect costs for the families, especially in high school.

From the analysis, the other areas that also require attention are “migrant population” (in 2 of 7 provinces), “agriculture and unpaid work” (in 2 of 7 provinces) and job creation (1 of 7 provinces) .

Know the national results  here .

Know the provincial results here .

Relive the event here .