Four out of five Guatemalans live in poverty and three out of five in extreme poverty. Over 28% of children between the ages of seven and fourteen are compelled to work, an increase of over 300,000 in five years.
Because the areas where the Mayan girls come from have been badly affected by a collapse of coffee prices worldwide, many families send their children away to work in urban areas or on larger farms. Therefore, the increase in child worker numbers has been concentrated in urban areas, mainly in Guatemala City.
Most child workers come from rural areas dominated by the indigenous Mayan population. Girls make up almost 98% of domestic service workers in Guatemala and many start as young as ten or twelve. Many girl workers leave domestic sector jobs to work in the
maquilas (factories), where there is widespread abuse of labour and human rights.
Guatemala signed ILO Convention 138, which made fourteen the minimum working age. It also ratified ILO Convention 182, which bans the worst forms of child labour. Despite this, children in Guatemala are still forced to work in dangerous and high-risk jobs on coffee plantations, in fireworks factories, and in domestic work, construction, and rubbish collection.
The principal objective of Conrado de la Cruz is to improve the livelihoods of Mayan girl workers via education and campaigning. Conrado de la Cruz provides services for 1,600 Mayan child labourers, mostly girls, in Guatemala City and three rural areas.
Conrado de la Cruz runs an education center for Mayan girls, holds forums and open consultations on cultural identity, provides education about workers' gender and human rights, and has established an integrated health programme to help increase access to health care.
War on Want works closely with Conrado de La Cruz to ensure that child workers' lives are improved in Central America and that people in the UK are made aware of issues around the use of child labour abuses.
| Conrado's achievements in the last year |
- Conrado's education centre gained legal recognition and enabled over 200 girls to qualify for primary school. 67 girls have proceeded to taking the basic grade, which follows on from primary school
- Labourers participated in designing the child protection law and campaigned to ensure it was approved
- Groups led by Mayan girl labourers also gained legal recognition. This means that they now have better access to education, health, recreation and training in labour rights
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| The Facts |
- In Guatemala, 28% of children between the ages of 7-14 work
- Indigenous areas suffer the highest incidences of poverty
- The approval of the Central American Free Trade Agreement is likely to increase child labour across Guatemala
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La Asociación Conrado de la Cruz works with women and girls in some of the poorest areas of Guatemala City. It helps Mayan migrants who are exploited and discriminated against because of their ethnicity, gender and age.
