This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 SAN JOSE 002072 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT PLEASE PASS TO DOL/ILAB TINA MCCARTER AND DRL/IL 
LAUREN HOLT 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ELAB ETRD PGOV PHUM SOCI CS
SUBJECT: COSTA RICA UPDATE ON CHILD LABOR 
 
REF: A. STATE 143552 
     ¶B. 04 SAN JOSE 2293 
 
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SUMMARY 
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¶1. The Government of Costa Rica is committed to the 
elimination of child labor in Costa Rica by 2010.  According 
to the most recent survey, conducted in 2002, approximately 
114,000 children between ages 5 and 17 were working, a figure 
which represents just over ten percent of the country's youth 
population. (Note: Costa Rican law allows 15- to 17-year-olds 
to work under limited circumstances.)  Child labor is most 
pronounced in the agricultural sector, which employs nearly 
half of the country's working children. 
 
¶2. While Costa Rica continued to pursue numerous legislative, 
collaborative and educational programs to eradicate child 
labor and child sexual exploitation, it struggled to 
effectively enforce compliance with national programs. 
Interagency communication and coordination were generally 
good, though agency programs were frequently carried out 
independently, with poor interagency integration. 
Individually, representatives of all government agencies 
agree that child labor and commercial sexual exploitation 
present grave risks; however, they also noted the difficulty 
in implementing effective remedial programs due to budgetary 
difficulties. 
 
¶3. Earlier this year, the government adopted the National 
Plan of Action for the Prevention and Eradication of Child 
Labor and Special Protection for Adolescent Workers.  This 
ambitious, rights-based plan calls for aggressive child labor 
reduction from 2005-2010, with the goal of complete 
eradication of child labor.  Unlike the first such plan, 
implemented between 1998 and 2002, the new plan contains 
specific financing needs and requires each involved 
governmental ministry or agency to earmark sufficient 
implementation funds in their annual budget requests.  The 
new plan has sparked optimism among local government and NGO 
officials and, if successful, could provide a model program 
for neighboring countries struggling with child labor. 
 
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¶A. LAWS AND REGULATIONS 
----------------------- 
 
¶4. Costa Rica has adopted a comprehensive set of child labor 
laws, including definitions of the worst forms of child 
labor.  Children under 15 years old are prohibited from 
working, while 15 to 18 year olds may work limited hours. 
Costa Rica has ratified International Labor Organization 
(ILO) Conventions 138 and 182, addressing minimum age for 
employment and the worst forms of child labor, respectively. 
Under Costa Rican law, ILO conventions ratified by the 
country are treated as national law, and when constitutional 
or legislative conflicts arise, the conventions take 
precedence. 
 
--------------------------------- 
¶B. IMPLEMENTATION AND ENFORCEMENT 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶5. Responsibility for child welfare and labor enforcement is 
shared among several ministries and directorates, coordinated 
under the National Committee on Child and Adolescent Labor. 
The Ministries of Labor, Education, Health and Children's 
Issues are all represented on the committee.  The Office for 
the Eradication of Child Labor and Protection of the 
Adolescent Worker (OATIA), an office within the Ministry of 
Labor, has principal responsibility for drafting and 
implementing action strategies and education programs. 
 
¶6. Inspection and enforcement of child labor violations are 
delegated to the Inspections Directorate of the Ministry of 
Labor.  Officials within the directorate acknowledge that 
their operations and effectiveness are severely restricted by 
a lack of resources.  While the office represents one of the 
most widely dispersed agencies within the Costa Rican 
government, with 31 offices located throughout the country, 
most offices are under-staffed, poorly equipped and isolated. 
 The directorate maintains a small pool of official vehicles, 
which are based out of the San Jose central offices and are 
made available to regional inspection offices on a rotating 
basis.  As a result, smaller cantonal offices might have the 
use of a vehicle for one week per month.  Officers frequently 
purchase basic office supplies (paper, pens, etc.) out of 
their personal funds, and many satellite offices lack desks, 
chairs and copy machines. 
 
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¶C. SOCIAL PROGRAMS FOR WITHDRAWAL AND PREVENTION 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
¶7. Costa Rica, either unilaterally or in partnership with the 
noted NGOs, is implementing or has recently finished the 
following projects: 
 
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION TRAINING 
------------------------------------------ 
UNICEF is working with the 2500 locally organized development 
associations to help establish committees dedicated to child 
welfare.  The local committees, which are staffed entirely by 
volunteers and monitored by a national coordination 
committee, maintain schools and playgrounds, organize youth 
sporting activities, and monitor their communities for signs 
of child abuse.  During its initial phase, UNICEF trained 450 
associations, 300 of which have established child welfare 
committees.  The remaining 2,050 associations are scheduled 
to receive training over the next three years of the project, 
pending approval of funds. 
 
PANI REORGANIZATION 
------------------- 
UNICEF is working with the child protection agency to improve 
technical capability and bureaucratic efficiency within the 
Child Welfare Agency (PANI).  PANI's effectiveness to lead 
the national council on child welfare has been hampered by an 
inefficient bureaucracy.  UNICEF intends to restructure the 
chain of command, provide technical training and help to 
clarify PANI's mission. 
 
COMAGRI 
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The Project to Combat Child Labor in Commercial Agriculture 
(COMAGRI), a DOL project initiated in 1999, seeks to remove 
child laborers from agriculture through family education, 
scholarships and job retraining aimed at increasing parental 
income and reducing the necessity for child employment. 
Phase I of the regional project focused on the Turrialba 
region of Costa Rica.  IPEC estimates that the project has so 
far removed 100 children from agricultural labor, and 
prevented another 300 from entering. 
 
CSEC 
---- 
Another regional DOL program, this one launched in 2003, 
seeks to end commercial sexual exploitation of children 
(CSEC) by training prosecutors and strengthening anti-CSEC 
laws.  The Costa Rica-specific portion of the project has 
focused on the Limon region.  Project organizers state that 
arrests and prosecution rates in Limon have increased 
dramatically, resulting in the strongest enforcement regime 
in Central America. 
 
CHILD LABOR EDUCATION INITIATIVE 
-------------------------------- 
Just launched in 2005, the DOL's Child Labor Education 
Initiative is a global project intended to improve 
children's, access to basic education.  The program is 
currently in the bidding process. 
 
RURAL CHILD LABOR EDUCATION PROJECT 
----------------------------------- 
This recently launched project, undertaken in conjunction 
with the Ministry of Public Education (MEP), will provide 
sensitivity training to teachers that will help them identify 
children at risk of entering the workforce.  It also will 
provide training and counseling to parents and children, 
highlighting the risks of child labor and helping them to 
find alternative means of increasing family income. 
 
OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH CURRICULUM 
----------------------------------------- 
In April, 2004, the Government of Canada partnered with the 
MEP and MTSS to design primary school curriculum for teaching 
occupational health and safety.  The program was designed to 
instill a cultural awareness of workplace safety from a young 
age, and included printed materials and teacher training. 
The program was carried out as a limited pilot, but has not 
been implemented country-wide due to lack of funds for 
printing, distribution and training expenses. 
 
Canada has also worked with the ILO's International Program 
for the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) to focus on child 
domestic workers, which represent some 8% of Costa Rica's 
child laborers. 
 
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¶D. NATIONAL POLICY 
------------------ 
 
¶8. This year, the OATIA issued its second National Action 
Plan for the period 2005-2010.  Drafted in conjunction with 
some twenty governmental offices and NGOs the plan 
ambitiously seeks to eradicate child labor in Costa Rica by 
2010 through implementation of eight rights-based goals. 
Each general goal is accompanied by specific goals, 
strategies and action plans calling for significant 
involvement and contribution from diverse child governmental 
agencies and NGOs  Among the strategies to be implemented are 
training of teachers, parents and labor inspectors, detailed 
regional information gathering, and aggressive 
poverty-reduction campaigns. 
 
¶9. The five-year plan appears carefully crafted, and 
represents a concerted effort to address the problem of child 
labor.  Its success will depend heavily on the availability 
of financial, human and political resources to carry out each 
of its strategies.  In recognition of the budgetary problems 
that greatly diminished the effectiveness of the first 
five-year plan, from 1998-2002, drafters this year 
incorporated strict financial planning guidelines.  Under the 
new rules, each involved governmental ministry or agency is 
required to include in its annual budget requests sufficient 
funds earmarked for implementation of the plan.  Should the 
funds requested be insufficient to meet projected costs, the 
budgets must be rejected.  To assist participant agencies in 
crafting their budgets, detailed cost estimates are included, 
which specify the funds necessary to assist each child 
laborer within specific age ranges. 
 
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¶E. COUNTRY PROGRESS 
------------------- 
 
¶10. Costa Rica is making a determined effort to eradicate 
child labor.  The National Plan represents the country's most 
comprehensive program yet, and is notable for its attention 
to detail and broad interagency integration.  In addition, 
efforts to reform PANI represent a significant step toward 
developing responsive, child welfare-focused government 
agencies.  However, while the National Plan has sparked 
optimism among governmental and non-governmental leaders that 
child labor will soon be eradicated in Costa Rica, a number 
of significant obstacles remain: 
 
--Education: Approximately forty percent of students leave 
school before secondary education.  Of those that enter 
secondary schools, approximately one third drop out before 
completing their high school degree.  In response to space 
and personnel shortages, the Ministry of Education 
implemented three-shift school days in many rural and urban 
schools, under which each student receives roughly three 
hours of classroom instruction per day.  When faced with the 
prospect of longer daily commute times than actual 
instruction time, many students in rural areas have dropped 
out. 
 
--Poverty: Using a food basket measure formulated in 1987, 
official statistics indicate a 21 percent poverty rate. 
UNICEF, however, estimates the current poverty rate at 26 
percent when using the government standard, and 35 percent 
using an updated necessities scale.  Poverty is the lead 
factor in contributing to domestic child labor; nearly one in 
ten child laborers are domestic workers. 
 
--Immigration: Notably absent from child labor surveys is an 
accounting of child laborers from Nicaragua.  The 2002 survey 
did not identify respondents by nationality, but the results 
are generally interpreted to include both Costa Rican and 
foreign national children.  Immigrants and migrant workers 
from Nicaragua make up a sizable proportion of the country's 
population, with higher-than-average proportions in the 
principally agricultural provinces of northern Costa Rica, 
where nearly 18 percent of children are working.  Given the 
generally poor living conditions encountered by many 
undocumented Nicaraguan immigrants, the proportion of 
children working among their communities is likely much 
higher than the national average.  The national plan contains 
no immigrant-specific programs. 
 
--Reliance on NGO collaboration:  IPEC feels that local 
government agencies have come to rely on ILO's coordination 
and funding, and lack the institutional will to initiate and 
complete their own programs.  For this reason, IPEC intends 
to incrementally diminish its role in policy-making in Costa 
Rica, though it will continue to operate its regional office 
in San Jose and to partner with DOL for country- and 
region-specific projects. 
FRISBIE