This workshop was held between (19-20) of April 2000. It was attended by a group of experts and people concerned with the children’s affaires, including the director of the “Labor Forces Administration” in Beni Suif and the director of Beni Suif region at the Ministry of Labor Forces. In addition, a number of representatives for the NGOs, The Local Society in the Center of Bebba & Beni Suif attended the workshops.
The discussions revolved around several of researches’ papers. The first one deals with the scope of the Child Labor phenomenon in marble quarries, and the non-existence of official statistics dealing with their conditions – though a considerable number of families in the eastern regions of the Nile rely financially on the quarries’ Child Labor.
The paper also examines the labor conditions of these children and the most serious problems they face due to the total absence of the legal protection and of the social and health insurance, as well as their tiny wages.
The second paper explores the economic & social dimensions of these children, their families’ deteriorating living conditions, and the rareness of income resources. That is reflected on the children, as they are entirely deprived of all their rights to education, health and entertainment. The paper includes as well a survey of the surrounding conditions around the villages where these children live. They were found lacking all sorts of services; the thing that multiplies the misery of these children.
The third paper examines the role of the “Labor and Social Ins.” offices in dealing with this phenomenon showing the deficiency in their role. The paper returns the causes of this deficiency to a number of reasons mainly the small number of employees in these institutions and the absence of a clear vision of what to be done for those children. Also to the stubbornness of the owners of the quarries and the marble crushers - who employ the children – towards the attempts of the interested people and the officials’ to secure the children and consider their living conditions.
Paper 4 presented the role of the NGOs in Beni Suif province in improving the laboring children’s conditions and its defects due to the NGO’s absence from the arena of sponsoring those children effectively (if they ever existed there in the first place).
The workshop sums up a number of recommendations and suggestions to activate the role of the mentioned authorities. It also called for the participation of the officials together with the children’s families and the NGOs’ members to improve both the labor and the living conditions of children working in the marble crushers and quarries.