Challenges for combating Roma child labor through education in Romania
15 September 2006
Maria-Carmen Pantea, 2006 - CPS featured article
Challenges for combating Roma child labor through education in Romania
- Pantea FeatArt-2006 - 83 kB
The link between child labor and education is complex and needs to be considered from many aspects. It is argued that not only school attendance, but also school performance, should be taken as indicators of early entry into the labor force. Apart from involvement into paid work, however, the definition of child labor should also include other forms of children's economic activities and domestic work. In Romania, social and economic exclusion of the Roma population makes Roma children more vulnerable to low school achievement and dropout, which can be directly caused by different forms of child labor. Without "ethnicizing" the issue, the paper strives to bring this problem into the center of the policy agenda for Romania and other Eastern European countries.
