294 institutions employ children — Labour Ministry

AMMAN — The Labour Ministry fined and issued warnings to 74 institutions in March for employing children, a government official said Monday.

An inspection campaign to detect child labour cases at restaurants and coffee-on-the-go shops showed that 294 institutions hire children, which is a violation of the Labour Law.

“The campaign, which covered the country’s governorates, also found that 92 children work at restaurants and cafeterias that sell coffee on the street. Forty-three of the working children are Jordanians and 49 are foreigners,” Ayman Khawaldeh, director of the inspection department at the Ministry of Labour, said.

Legal measures were taken against coffee vendors and restaurants hiring children, Khawaldeh added, noting that the department’s inspectors provided 18 institutions with guidance, while 56 were issued warnings and others were fined.

He highlighted that the ministry will carry on with inspections to end child labour, noting that children belong in schools, not the labour market.

The problem of child labour has increased over the past two years due to the Syrian crisis and its impact on the national economy, Labour Ministry Secretary General Hamadah Abu Nejmeh said recently, underscoring that there is a real problem regarding the actual number of working children and the sectors where child labour is most common.

Official figures put the number of working children in the Kingdom at around 30,000. According to the law, the minimum age for regular work is 16, and 18 for hazardous work, which the Labour Ministry defined in 1997 as dangerous, tiring or harmful to the health of juveniles.