Le Monde says industries in Naples, including leather, employ children
29/03/2012
On March 28, the newspaper said in a special report that 54,000 children across the region had left school early between 2005 and 2009 and that 38% of these children were younger than 13. It came across children as young as ten who had jobs to help their families get by. In June 2010, the regional authorities removed emergency welfare payments leaving in crisis 130,000 families who had previously qualified for this help. For some, part of the answer has been to send their children out to work.
Among the industries that Le Monde said were taking advantage of the situation to employ children at very low wages were small skin tanneries in the area around Naples and leathergoods workshops that it said were, in some cases, working for major fashion brands. It didn’t name any of the companies concerned. In other examples, it came across children working for bakers, grocers, supermarket groups and as street vendors.
Le Monde quoted the deputy mayor of Naples, Sergio d’Angelo, as saying: “It’s our children who are paying the heaviest price for this, the worst economic crisis we have seen since World War II. This has always been Italy’s poorest region, but we haven’t seen anything like this since the end of the war. We have children as young as ten working 12 hours a day. It’s a complete denial of their right to grow up well.”
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