Child labor in Bolivia

Child labor in Bolivia is a widespread phenomenon. A 2014 document on the worst forms of child labor released by the U.S. Department of Labor estimated that approximately 20.2% of children between the ages of 7 and 14, or 388,541 children make up the labor force in Bolivia.^[1] Indigenous children are more likely to be engaged in labor than children who reside in urban areas.^[1] The activities of child laborers are diverse, however the majority of child laborers are involved in agricultural labor, and this activity varies between urban and rural areas.^[2] Bolivia has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990.^[3] Bolivia has also ratified the International Labour Organization’s Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (138) and the ILO’s worst forms of child labor convention (182).^[4] In July 2014, the Bolivian government passed the new child and adolescent code, which lowered the minimum working age to ten years old given certain working conditions^[5] The new code stipulates that children between the ages of ten and twelve can legally work given they are self-employed while children between 12 and 14 may work as contracted laborers as long as their work does not interfere with their education and they work under parental supervision.^[6]