When a child is forced to secure one’s future, they abandon school, toys and dreams, and start growing up too early, thus losing the spring and innocence of one’s childhood under the mental and physical pressure of hard work.

This is how child labor deprives children from the purest stage of their lives, turning them into children with men’s responsibilities, so they can secure their daily bread.

In order to protect our children from the risks of child labor, the team of Syrian Society for Social Development in Homs conducted a series of awareness-raising sessions on the occasion of World Day Against Child Labor, targeting women and adolescents from both genders, aged 13-18.

These sessions aimed to introduce children and their parents to the World Day Against Child Labor, as well as identify the forms of labor, its causes and negative consequences, in addition to highlighting child labor laws, namely the differences between child labor, which applies to children under the age of 15, and child work, which applies to children aged 15-18, and raise awareness about the risks of both child labor and work labor to both age groups.

The series concluded with an event implemented under the title Too Young to Work on the occasion of World Day Against Child Labor, which consisted of many parts.

Starting with a video report about child labor, the event featured a drama sketch demonstrating the risks of this phenomenon, followed by a slide show of child labor legislation. A video shed light on the services provided to beneficiaries aged 15-18 through coordination between the Mentoring and Vocational Training programs—the whole being concluded by a singing performance accompanied by oud.

“You opened my eyes to many issues,” said a mother by the end of the event, “issues that could take my son away from me.” An adolescent boy commented, “I will definitely work to help my family and earn my daily expenses, but all this will be within the restrictions I’m now aware of.”