Belarusian Republican Youth Union suggests legitimizing child labor

The country desperately lacks working force? It is not a problem.

It will soon be legal to hire teenagers. The BRYU put forward an initiative of creating construction teams out of school children. IN the organization they are sure that a 14-year old schoolboy is able to earn his own money, including by tiling pavements.

The functionaries from BRYU are sure that teenagers must make money and they offer to develop not only student construction teams but also schoolchildren ones in the country.

As the Zviazda newspaper reports, one of the BRYU’s suggestions is to legally extend the list of the so-called light types of labor, which can be carried out by people aged from 14 to 16, and add such kinds of works to the list as pavements tiling, papering, painting, taking care after animals etc.

“There are altogether 39 points in the suggested list. Modern teenagers are quite well developed physically and as the practice shows they are able to do different kinds of work, which are respectively better paid for”, - they say in the BRYU.

The issue of how to increase the salaries of the students working in construction teams is being considered.

“Today all the employers altogether say that they could pay students much more if those had at least basic skills of working specialties, - specialists argue. – Now the main problem with the organization of professional training is the time of training and lack of a source for its financing. We together with the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labor and Social Care have been working for two years on the organization of additional education of the participants of student construction teams on the specialties necessary for work. But unfortunately the issue remains unsolved. That is why we are addressing the Ministry of Education and rectors asking not to postpone the issue for another whole year, but to consider alternative variants of organizing short term (up to one month)additional training on specific specialties”.