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Technical Cooperation Project Summary

Project Title

Combating Child Labor through Education in Morocco (Dima-Adros)

Region/Country

MENA/Morocco

Project Duration

September 30, 2007 – October 30, 2010

Fiscal Year & Funding Level

FY 2007: USD 3,000,000
Matching Funds: USD 500,000

Problem to be Addressed

The majority of working children in Morocco are found in rural areas, where they work to supplement family earnings and have limited educational opportunities.  In urban areas, children work in the production of textiles and carpets, the handicrafts industry, and other light manufacturing activities under substandard health and safety conditions. Thousands of street children live and work in the informal sector of Morocco’s urban centers, where they are vulnerable to sexual and physical violence, substance abuse, and involvement in illicit activities. Also in urban areas, many girls working as petites bonnes,or domestic servants, can be found in situations of unregulated “adoptive servitude,” whereby they are “sold” by their parents, trafficked, and “adopted” by wealthy urban families to work in their homes.  There are also official reports of the commercial sexual exploitation of children in many of Morocco’s urban areas.     

Targets

The project targets 4,000 children for withdrawal, and 4,000 children for prevention from exploitive labor.  Children will be withdrawn and prevented from engaging in family and commercial agriculture, domestic labor, artisan workshops, mechanic and auto repair shops, street work, and commercial sexual exploitation. Geographically, the project will target the rural communes of Timezgadiwine, Sidi Issa Regragui, Aït Adel, Skoura Lhadra, Rbaâ, and Tassift, as well as the urban areas of Marrakech, Casablanca, Skhirat Temara, Mohamedia, and Rabat/Sale. 

Project Objectives

Reduce the incidence of exploitive child labor in Morocco.

Intermediate objectives include:

  • Withdraw or prevent children from engaging in exploitive child labor and provide them with educational opportunities;
  • Strengthen child labor policies and institutional capacity;
  • Mobilize parents and communities at a grassroots level to assume a sustainable role in addressing child labor and improving the quality of education;
  • Provide anti-child labor activists and the government with access to reliable information, allowing for knowledgeable decisions regarding child labor and education to be made; and
  • Scale up piloted models of intervention with government assistance and create supportive alliances among civil society organizations.

Summary of Activities

  • Establish vocational and literacy programs for children withdrawn from exploitive child labor;
  • Support shelters for child victims of commercial sexual exploitation;
  • Establish dropout prevention and formal education support programs for at-risk children;
  • Create boarding centers for girls in rural areas;
  • Improve the legal environment through training and advocacy;
  • Provide monitoring and evaluation support to the government’s Child Labor Unit;
  • Create school watchdog/dropout prevention committees;
  • Organize anti-WFCL communication campaigns and activism workshops in target areas; and
  • Conduct research on children involved in commercial sexual exploitation and the handicraft industry.
  • As of February 28, 2009, 4,699 children have been withdrawn or prevented from exploitive child labor as a result of this project.

Grantee

Management Systems International (MSI)

Implementing Partners

Sidi Moussa; Association des Parents d’élève de Laksour ; Espace Associatif ; Al Amal Ait Messaoud ; Rihane ; Lahssoudat pour le Développement rural ; Regragua pour le developpement ; Association Al Falah ; Indimajia ; Association Al Awail Al Khoudr ; Al Waha ; Iklaa ; Amal Salé, Al Mouatana ; Association AMAESDS ; Al Hirafiate (ARIAD) ; Cooperative Noun ; Nour & Irfane ; Jisr Al Amal ; Association Al Wafae ; Association ANIG ; Association Nouvelle Generation ; Association de Bienfaisances Dar Taleb ; Ennahda ; Tawmat ; Itri ; Vocation Center Tassift.

Contact Information

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

(202) 693-4843