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Technical Cooperation Project Summary

Project Title

ADROS: Combating Child Labor through Education in Morocco

Region/Country

NORTH AFRICA/Morocco

Project Duration

August 6, 2003 – March 31, 2008 (revised)

Fiscal Year & Funding Level

FY 2002: USD 3,100,000 (revised)

Problem to be Addressed

In Morocco, thousands of children, primarily girls, work long hours as domestic servants.  These children are often the victims of a practice known as “adoptive servitude,” through which they are effectively sold by poor rural parents to more wealthy urban families.  Although this practice is expected to provide children with a better life and perhaps even an education, in practice many children are reduced to unpaid servants, expected to be on-call 24 hours a day, and seldom receive any form of an education.  Children also work in the handicrafts sector, producing textiles and carpets, participate in light manufacturing activities, and work in the auto repair sector. 

Results

The project withdrew or prevented 11,882 children from the worst forms of child labor (WFCL), primarily domestic work, but also in the auto mechanic and handicraft sectors.

Project Objectives

Curtail the employment of underage child domestic workers.

Intermediate objectives include:

  • Withdraw or prevent girl children from exploitive domestic work through the provision of educational services;
  • Raise awareness about the employment conditions and educational status of child domestic workers; and
  • Support legislative and policy development to protect and educate child domestic workers.

Summary of Activities
  • Developed and implemented a national public awareness campaign;
  • Developed and implemented neighborhood-based programs in target cities for identifying underage petites bonnes and fostering employer-supported education;
  • Developed and implemented, in selected sending areas, programs that discourage the sending of underage girls into employment and encouraged families to keep children in school;
  • Adapted existing non-formal education models for use in educating child domestic workers;
  • Adapted girls’ safe shelter/housing models for use on a demonstration basis in the target cities; and
  • Worked with Ministry of Education to identify and rectify policy or behavioral impediments to the participation of child domestic workers in formal education programs.

Grantee

Management Systems International (MSI)

Implementing Partners

Sidi Moussa de Développement de la Communication et de l’Environment; Espace Associatif pour le Développement de la Solidarité; Association Grand Atlas, Association Régionale pour l’Intégration des Métiers dans le Développement (Al Hirafyate); Association Soutien au Développement Rural; Association Tamesna, Organisation Marocaine pour l’Equité de la Famille (OMEF); Association Benabid; SOS Villages d’Enfants Maroc, Fondation Zakoura; Créargie

Contact Information

Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking (OCFT)

(202) 693-4843