Poverty forces Iraqi refugees into child labour

Child labour is widespread and on the rise among Iraqi refugees living in Syria, the government has said.Not allowed to work legally, Iraqis earn very low wages and find it difficult to make ends meet. And the financial struggle is driving more and more of their children out of the classroom and into work, the Syrian government admits."Families have spent their savings and are becoming increasingly destitute,” said Farah Dakhlallah at the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). “There are indications that more children are dropping out of school and entering the labour market to help support their families. Early marriages for girls are also on the rise as a result of economic hardship," "According to government statistics, there were fewer Iraqi children registered in the 2008-2009 school year than in the previous year. We believe this is primarily linked to economic duress, as well as resettlement and returns," Dakhlallah told The United Nations news service, IRIN.

Aseel Ali, aged 16, and her mother - both refugees from Iraq - earn just enough $174 (£107) a month between them. Both work in a Damascus handicraft workshop to pay their rent and buy food. “I have to help my mother as our savings ran out,” Aseel said. “We start early in the morning and finish at 4pm, and also take work home,” she said. Thirty-seven per cent of Iraqi refugees said savings were their main source of income according to a 2007 survey by market researchers, IPSOS. Twenty-four per cent relied on money sent to them; and 24 per cent on wages; 33 per cent expected their money to last less than three months; 53 per cent did not know how long their money would last. The same survey estimated that about 10 per cent of school-age Iraqi children in Syria are working.

Aseel’s family fled to Egypt in 2006. In 2007, her father went back to Iraq for a short visit but has since gone missing. After their savings dried up, the family returned to Iraq in January 2009 but the family received fresh death threats and Aseel’s 12-year-old brother was kidnapped and tortured. Once he was released, his mother decided they should flee again - this time to Syria. Aseel has not been to school since she left Iraq in 2006. In Egypt, the family couldn’t afford private schools and when they arrived in Syria, where Iraqi refugees have free access to education in public schools, she could not go to school because she needed to earn money for the family to survive.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children