WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs said Thursday that it will award $9.5 million of new grant money in fiscal year 2010 to organizations fighting child labor in the cotton and other agricultural sectors in Egypt.
An estimated 2.7 million children work in Egypt, primarily in the informal economy, and an estimated two-thirds of working children toil in the agricultural sector, according to reports on human rights from the U.S. State Department. The International Labor Organization estimates that 215 million children globally are engaged in exploitative child labor. Of those, 115 million are doing hazardous work.
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The Labor Department said the Egyptian government has taken steps to fight child labor, including establishing a national strategy to eradicate the worst forms of child labor earlier this year.
Applicants for the grants must submit a strategy to the Labor Department that will eliminate exploitative child labor in agricultural areas, “especially in cotton,” according to the grant application. Applications from organizations for the grant money are due by Nov. 22 and the Labor Department said it would decide how to distribute the money by the end of December.
The Labor Department has earmarked funds to fight child labor in Egypt before. The agency funded a four-year, $5.6 million project to address child labor in Egypt in 2006 in three specific regions of the country.