Agustiyanti, Surabaya – Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar on Thursday called on regional governments to help return 10,000 child workers across the country to school this year.

"The phenomenon of child workers is a serious problem because it is threatening the quality of the children's life, their rights and their future," Muhaimin said at the signing of a joint agreement between the ministry and the East Java government on returning child workers to schools.

He said the central government and regional administrations should step up and conduct inter-sectoral programs to pluck these children from the work force and return them to schools.

Muhaimin said the government was targeting to return 10,750 child workers to school this year, while between 2008 and 2011, 11,305 child workers were returned to school.

He said the focus for this year was on 84 district and municipalities in Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara, Jakarta, Gorontalo, Java, Kalimantan and Sumatra.

He said the local manpower offices would supply data on the child workers, between 6 and 18 years of age, and joint efforts would be made by the local authorities to remove these children from the work force.

"They will then be put in transit shelters and provided with motivation so that they can return to school," Muhaimin said.

The local education offices, he said, will have to facilitate their return to schools. To support these efforts, the offices should also ease the administrative and financial requirements for the children.

"Without providing them with special attention, these children could easily return to the working world at any time," he said.

Muhaimin took the opportunity of the signing to hand out school equipment packages to 1,010 children who had returned to school in East Java. (BeritaSatu/JG)