CHILD LABOR IN HONDURAS: INFORMATION FOR THE TRADE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 TEGUCIGALPA 002172

SIPDIS

STATE FOR DRL/IL (GRIGG),EB, WHA/PPC, AND WHA/CEN
STATE PASS AID FOR LAC/CAM
DOL FOR ILAB (EMUIRRAGUI)

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ELAB EIND ETRD PHUM SOCI EAID PGOV HO
SUBJECT: CHILD LABOR IN HONDURAS: INFORMATION FOR THE TRADE
AND DEVELOPMENT ACT (GSP) REPORTING REQUIREMENTS

REF: STATE 143552


1. Summary. Over the past several months, EmbOffs have
spoken with government officials, private sector, labor
unions, non-governmental organizations, and child advocates
regarding the situation of child labor in Honduras. The
Embassy has been active in promoting an agenda to support
the eradication of the worst forms of child labor. Post
believes that child labor is a serious problem in Honduras
and will continue to pressure government and private sector
stakeholders to eradicate the worst forms of child labor.
The Government of Honduras (GOH) and the Ministry of Labor
have demonstrated the political will necessary to implement
and uphold their obligations to eliminate the worst forms of
child labor, but progress has been slow. The formal export
manufacturing sector has a relatively good record on child
labor, the informal and agricultural sectors do not.
Answers below generally follow the subjects specified in ref

A. End Summary.

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CHILD LABOR IN HONDURAS
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2. The most recent survey by the Honduran National Institute
of Statistics, financed by the U.S. Department of Labor
through the International Labor Organization (ILO)-managed
by the International Program on the Elimination of Child
Labor (IPEC) program SIMPOC, in 2004 determined that
approximately 359,752 children (or 14 percent of children)
between the ages of 5 and 18 work either part-time or full-
time in Honduras, the majority for their own families, in
the informal sector and in rural areas. Of the 359,752
children, 76 percent are boys (almost three times as many in
rural areas as urban),and 24 percent are female (with no
noticeable disparity between urban and rural). Sixty-eight
percent live in rural areas and the remaining 32 percent are
in the urban areas. According to INE, in 2002 61.2 percent
worked unpaid for their families, while 27.6 percent were
paid for work outside their families. Many of these
children work out of economic necessity alongside other
family members. The figure of 359,752 children is slightly
down from 2002 estimates of 367,405 children.


3. Bonded and/or enslaved labor are rare, but work in
hazardous conditions and for long hours is common,
especially for those children who have given up schooling.
The largely U.S.-funded ILO/IPEC identified the worst forms
of child labor in Honduras as commercial sexual
exploitation/prostitution (particularly in tourist areas
along the North Coast),fireworks industry workers in Copan,
child divers on lobster boats in the Mosquitia (Caribbean
coast),limestone quarry and lime production workers,
garbage dump pickers in the two largest cities of
Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, and coffee and melon
agricultural workers. Of these occupations, the most
hazardous is diving, and the one with the most significant
incidence of child labor is in the agriculture industry,
where NGOs and the GOH previously estimated that
approximately 2,000 children worked as seasonal laborers for
melon production. Harvesting sugar cane fields is also a
dangerous area of child labor. The NGO Casa Alianza
documented more than 1,000 minors in Honduras that were the
victims of commercial sexual exploitation in 2003. Casa
Alianza also recently conducted a study in 20 cities of
Honduras and found that 10,000 children were either victims
of sexual exploitation crimes and/or trafficking in persons
(the vast majority of the victims were girls; only 400 of
the children were boys). Casa Alianza is beginning a
regional project that would investigate trafficking of
children and help reintegrate them.

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PROSCRIBING WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR
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4. Honduras has adequate laws and regulations proscribing
the worst forms of child labor. The Honduran Congress
ratified ILO Convention 182 in May 2001 and Honduras became
a party to the convention in June 2001. The definitions of
the worst forms of child labor are identical to that of the
ILO Convention 182. All child labor laws, including the ILO
Convention 182, are applicable in all sectors and
industries.


5. Honduras regulates child labor in the Constitution and in
two codes, one relating to minors, and the other to labor.
The Constitution (Chapter 5, article 128, section 7)
establishes that minors under age 16 or who are students
ages 16 and older cannot work, unless authorities determine
it is indispensable for the family's income and will not
conflict with schooling. The Constitution also establishes
the maximum hours worked for children under 17 years as six
hours daily and 30 hours weekly. Under the 1996 Child and
Adolescent Code parents or a legal guardian can request the
Ministry of Labor (MOL) for special permission to allow
children ages 14-15 to work, as long as the Ministry of
Labor performs a home study to assure that the child both
shows the need to work and will be working under non-
hazardous conditions. The maximum workday permitted for
children is four hours per day for 14-15 year-olds, and six
hours per day for 16-17 year-olds. No child under age 16 is
allowed to work in hazardous conditions. No minor is
allowed to work in undersea fishing or work abroad. By, the
Ministry of Labor is required to carry out home studies and
limit the number of permits that can be issued to children
ages 14-15. In practice, the MOL is limited in its ability
to conduct home studies. The Labor Code, passed in 1959 and
subsequently revised, prohibits night work and overtime for
minors under age 16, and also requires that employers in
areas with more than 20 school-aged children on their farm,
ranch, or business must provide a location for a school. In
practice, the vast majority of children work without going
to the Ministry of Labor to request a permit, particularly
those who work in the informal sector and in rural areas.


6. International treaties supercede the Constitution.
Honduras is a party to ILO Convention 138, which was
ratified in 1980. Convention 138 establishes the minimum
age of work at 14 years and specifies the minimum age for
completing educational requirements at 15 years, or 14 years
in the case of developing countries. The United Nations
Convention on the Rights of Children, ratified by Honduras
in 1990, requires each signatory government to establish a
minimum age of work, conditions and hours of work, and
penalties to assure effective application of the law. The
1996 Child and Adolescent Code was based on the UN
Convention, according to the Ministry of Labor.


7. Honduran law defines hazardous work to include the
following: standing on scaffolding higher than three meters;
use of toxic or noxious substances; exposure to vehicular
traffic; exposure to abnormal temperatures; work in tunnels
or underground mining; exposure to noise louder than 80
decibels; manipulation of radioactive substances; exposure
to high voltage electric currents; underwater diving;
exposure to garbage or to biological or pathogenic
substances; painting with industrial or lead paint; work on
dangerous machines such as those that cut, shape, or file
metal or wood; activities related to ovens, smelters, metal-
working, or heavy presses; and/or high-risk agro-industrial
work.


8. The minimum age for employment is consistent with the age
for completing educational requirements in law, but in
practice, approximately 56 percent of children do not
complete sixth grade, despite GOH increased spending on
educational budgets and improvement to school access in
rural areas.

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IMPLEMENTATION AND ENFORCEMENT MECHANISMS
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9. The laws and regulations regarding child labor are better
implemented in urban areas than in rural areas. A rural
economy in which a significant portion of employment is in
the informal sector and in which parents face high
opportunity costs to send children to school (often there is
a lack of available schooling) makes it difficult to
implement and enforce these measures against child labor.
In large-scale manufacturing and services, however,
implementation and enforcement of these measures are more
consistent. National enforcement remedies are not adequate
to punish or deter violations, but pressure from
international agreements, such as the Generalized System of
Preferences (GSP) and Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act
(CBTPA),the signed and ratified but not yet implemented,
U.S.-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA),and
awareness of the Department of Homeland Security's
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (DHS/ICE) Forced Child
Labor program, have sensitized employers who work in the
export sector. Post invited a DHS/ICE Forced Child Labor
expert to come to Honduras in August, where he spoke at two
conferences in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula sponsored by
ILO/IPEC and the Honduran Private Business Council (COHEP).
The conferences had wide attendance from business
associations.


10. Regarding the worst forms of child labor, the GOH has
not established enforcement or penalties beyond those
mentioned above and - for child labor in illicit activities
- in the criminal code. Penalties imposed on firms for
violating the Child and Adolescent Code include sanctions
between USD 265 and 1,323 (5,000-25,000 Lempiras),or twice
that if the employer is a repeat offender. For sale or
trafficking of children, the criminal code prohibits illegal
detention of minors and imposes a 14-18 year prison
sentence. Forced child labor, prostitution, and other
immoral activities are characterized as economic
exploitation in the Child and Adolescent Code and are
subject to a three to five year prison term. Furthermore,
the criminal code specifies a seven to 12 year sentence, and
a USD 397 to 794 (7,500-15,000 Lempiras) fine for persons
found guilty of prostituting minors. Adults who use
children in narcotrafficking are sanctioned according to the
Law on the Illicit Use and Trafficking of Psychotropic
Drugs.


11. The GOH has yet to publish in La Gaceta (equivalent to
the Federal Register) the reformed Chapter 2 (regarding
sexual exploitation) of the Penal Code. The new amendments
to the law are significant since they increase penalties in
the years of imprisonment and impose larger fines, as well
as expand the punishable offenses. The law's passage is a
significant step towards combating the worst forms of child
labor.


12. In theory, if children are found to be working in
illicit conditions, either through a labor inspection or
through a police investigation, the Public Ministry's
Special Prosecutor for Children, founded in 1997, works with
the investigative police to gather evidence and bring the
perpetrators to trial. The Special Prosecutor for Children
conducts joint operations with the police, the Honduran
Institute for Children and the Family (IHNFA),judges, and
the NGO Casa Alianza to try to rescue children that are
victims of commercial sexual exploitation and to arrest and
subsequently prosecute the offenders. The judicial branch
has also established Children Courts, where violations of
children's rights are tried. In practice, the Honduran
police and judicial system are rife with inefficiencies and
corruption and face many difficulties in administering
justice. Nonetheless, the GOH has begun to improve its
police force and recently implemented a new modern criminal
procedures code that is intended to improve the Government's
ability to bring cases to trial and to administer justice.


13. For children employed in the worst forms of child labor
that are not illicit by their nature, but are hazardous or
illegal for minors, the authority that would investigate
such cases is the Ministry of Labor, which has trained
inspectors to identify child labor. Labor inspectors, upon
being told of a violation or in a routine inspection, report
the incident for administrative action. The inspection unit
cannot immediately sanction employers, and the Ministry has
only 119 inspectors (102 general labor inspectors, and 17
occupational safety and health inspectors) in a country of
approximately 7 million people. (Note: Even more than most
government ministries, a severe lack of resources restricts
what the MOL is able to accomplish. End Note.) The MOL has
also cooperated with the Honduran Private Business Council
(COHEP) to conduct education campaigns among private
industries to increase business awareness of the worst forms
of child labor. Early in 2001 the Minister of Labor
personally directed a special inspection of the melon
industry in order to uncover the incidence of abuse in that
sector. Since then, Minister German Leitzelar has visited
Choluteca several times to observe the problems of child
labor in the melon and sugar cane industries.


14. In addition, lobster diving has been identified as one
of the most hazardous occupations employing children in
Honduras. Lobster divers who have sustained injuries while
diving have formed their own organization, the Honduran
Mosquitia Association of Handicapped Divers, to push for
improved conditions. In March, this association, together
with other Mosquitia organizations, brought a complaint
against the GOH to the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights. As a result, Honduran press coverage of health and
safety risks in this industry increased. The former Vice
Minister of Agriculture stated that a complete ban on
lobster diving is the only viable solution to the violations
of worker safety regulations in the industry. The ban was
debated by an inter-ministerial committee with
representatives from the Ministries of Agriculture, Labor,
Trade and Industry, Governance and Justice, and Education.
There have been two concrete actions by the inter-
ministerial committee in regards to lobster diving: (1)
installation of a decompression chamber, and (2) health
checks for divers conducted by the Ministry of Health.

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WHAT DOES THE GOH DO?
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15. The Government provides free, universal, and compulsory
education through the age of 13; however, in 2004 the
Government estimated that as many as 237,245 children ages 5-
13 fail to receive schooling of any kind each year. (The
total national population of children ages 5-18 as of 2004
is 2,630,305.) Keeping students in school is one of the
largest problems facing the education system in Honduras.
Though there is high enrollment at the early primary level,
dropout rates increase dramatically from one grade to the
next. According to the 2002 INE study, only 1 in 2 Honduran
students makes it to the sixth grade, a dismal 1 in 5 reach
the ninth grade, and less than 1 in 10 reach twelfth grade;
only 1 in 3 students makes it to sixth grade in 6 years, and
less than 1 in 10 makes it to ninth grade in 9 years.
According to the 2004 study by INE, only 21 percent of
children between 16 and 18 years of age are currently in
school. Educational achievement in Honduras, whether
measured by enrollment or by test results, is well below the
regional average. As of 2004, the average Honduran woman
has approximately 4.7 years of primary education, and the
average man has approximately 4.9 years of primary
education. As of 2003, only 25.4 percent of the adult
population had at least some secondary or tertiary
education, compared to the Latin American average of 35
percent.


16. A number of social and educational programs exist that
are intended to reach children at risk for working instead
of attending school. A school grant program run by the
Ministry of Education provides very poor families with money
for school supplies. The Ministry of Education also
provides alternative schooling by radio and long-distance
learning for children in distant rural areas with few
schools. Regional committees of "Child Defense" volunteers
try to convince parents to send their children to school.
Nonetheless, extreme poverty, occasional famine in some
rural areas, and lack of jobs for grade school and high
school graduates create an atmosphere where government
incentives or programs have not yet impacted the flow of
working children.


17. The National Commission for the Gradual and Progressive
Eradication of Child Labor, established by decree by former
President Carlos Flores in 1998 and maintained by current
President Ricardo Maduro (who swore in a new commission in
May 2002),provides a tripartite working group in which
civil society (including the ILO/IPEC, unions, and NGOs),
employer groups, and a number of government ministries have
been able to discuss child labor issues over the past
several years. The Commission created a social dialogue and
forum for negotiation between the groups, resulting in broad
support for the ratification of ILO Convention 182, the
development of a National Action Plan for the Gradual and
Progressive Eradication of Child Labor, and the Regulations
on the Worst Forms of Child Labor, which were drafted by the
Commission and passed by Congress in December 2001.
Furthermore, the Commission spawned seven inter-
institutional sub-committees throughout the country that
work in a tripartite fashion to develop strategies to
eliminate child labor in Honduras. Maduro's Minister of
Labor, German Leitzelar - a labor lawyer by profession - has
continued to increase the ministry's work combating child
labor. The U.S. Department of Labor-funded Cumple y Gana
recently donated a mobile inspection unit truck to the
Honduran Ministry of Labor that will act as a labor
investigative unit which should help address, identify, and
lessen child labor.


18. The MOL also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with
the ILO in 1997 to support the ILO/IPEC program, which
initiated program activities in the melon and coffee
sectors. These programs have since expanded to cover
lobster divers, garbage dumps, domestic workers, and the
commercial sexual exploitation of children. According to
ILO/IPEC, Casa Alianza, and INE, there were over 20,000
girls in June 2004 that were working as domestic servants.
The MOL also established its own office on the Gradual and
Progressive Eradication of Child Labor. In September 2005,
the municipality of Tegucigalpa ordered that children are
prohibited from entering city landfills. This decision came
mainly as a result of the work of ILO/IPEC through its
Project for Prevention and Eradication of Child Labor in
Landfills in Tegucigalpa. The project helps the 250
children who work in landfills and assists in integration,
especially into proper education.


19. The Department of Labor (through ILO/IPEC as well as the
Proyecto Aprendo through CARE and Catholic Relief Services),
as well as UNICEF, support several projects to promote the
eradication of the worst forms of child labor, including by
promoting school attendance. In general, these projects aim
to remove children from or prevent children from
exploitative work, and aim to provide educational
opportunities and social services for children and their
families.

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COMMENT
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20. The MOL has demonstrated the will given limited
resources to combat the child labor problem. Post continues
to seek greater overall GOH support for MOL and Ministry of
Education activities to combat child labor and increase
educational opportunities with the Poverty Reduction
Strategy. The industry group, COHEP, has recently had
renewed vigor to participate in the tripartite commission
and to educate its own members on the importance of adhering
to the ILO Convention 182. Post notes that this reawakened
commitment came on the heels of the 2001 visit of the USTR-
led interagency delegation to Honduras for the purpose of
discussing labor conditions and as a result of which the
delegation determined that the situation in Honduras did not
warrant opening a review of CBTPA benefits. However,
COHEP's commitment has continued over the past several
years. The Embassy continues to work with the government,
NGOs, and the private sector to send the message that the
worst forms of child labor are detrimental to business with
the U.S. and could subject offending sectors to U.S.
sanctions. ILO/IPEC has pushed for greater efforts to
combat child labor under the Poverty Reduction Strategy
Paper, especially important given recent international debt
relief that frees up additional funds for poverty reduction
programs. Strong Honduran interest in CAFTA is clearly a
motivating factor for the GOH and the private sector to
accelerate efforts to eradicate the worst forms of child
labor.


21. Child labor and failure to educate children remain
significant problems in Honduras and significant impediments
to improving the lot of the Honduran people. While
nominally compulsory, education is expensive and out of
reach for many of the poor, who are generally required to
buy their own school supplies and uniforms. Coupled with a
bloated educational bureaucracy that appears to value jobs
for its members over education for the students, these
expenses are enough to convince many poor parents that it is
better to get some small income out of their children than
to "waste time" going to school. In sum, Post believes that
although the GOH is making progress toward the elimination
of the worst forms of child labor, it will not achieve this
goal in the vast rural sector until it commits the resources
to make universal education a practical reality for its
poorest citizens. End Comment.

Williard