Epidemiological Study Of The Problem Of Working Children:

Mona Hussein Ibrahem El Mahdy

103SUMMARYThe problem of working children existed many yearsago, but recently it becomes of national andinternational concern.The labour law prevent the employment of minors (aminor is a child between 12-17 years old).This work was done to throw more light on the problemof working children in Benha.A cluster sample of 1023 children were chosen.They are 10-15 years old. (15 years old is the age ofcompletion of basic education). 231 of them are workingand the others are students. 70% of them were males.Most of these working children werelate child order in their families.found to have a13.8% of them didnot join school at all. 3/4 of them DROPout before thecompletion of primary level of education: Most of theirfathers are illiterate and manual workers. Theirmothers were illiterate and unemployed. The r.a.,weight/age, height/age and mean haemoglobin level ofworking children are significantly lower than nonworkingchildren.There is a vicious circle as these children failed inthe educational process, and now their work deprivesthem from leisure time that is needed to upgrade theirintellectual and physical functions. About 1/3 of bothworking and non-working children are parasitically104infected. So, parasitic infection seems to have nobrunt on that problem.Also, the problem of broken families can not beclaimed to be the cause of the problem of workingchildren.Failure in school is the most important factor topoint to regarding school DROPout. There is differencein the motives of both sexes to leave school.Males mainly leave school to learn a job, whilefemales to earn money. 3/4 of working children deny thepresence of troubles at work. Tterefore, only 16.5% ofworking children do not like their work.On the other hand, 40% % of them prefer to go backto school.Agricultural workers show lower 1.0. as their workdoes not need special mental functions, but betterheight/age as they live in non polluted area.The higher the age of starting work the higher ~sthe 1.0.The less the duration of the present work, theless is the 1.0. and weight/age of working children, aswork deprive children from leisure time needed forbetter physical and intellectual functions.Days off and limited working hours give theworking child better chance for growth.The more the age of starting work, the lower isheight/age as we:l as weight/age. AS these children are105derived from very low social classes.So, the existence of the problem of workingchildren leads us to design an integrated programme fortheir protection. In addition, a long term policy isneeded to prevent the serious malignant extension ofthe problem in the future.