AMMAN, June 11 (Xinhua) -- Fourteen-year-old Abdullah said he worked almost every day at a vegetable market in the city centre of Amman to help support his family.
Abdullah, who has four other siblings and resides in Hai Nazzal of Amman, goes to school but still needs to earn some pennies to help his family.
The teenager said he was forced to work as his father died a few years ago and the family relies on him and on the aid they receive from charities in the eastern Amman neighborhood.
"I make sometimes five dinars per day and sometimes less. No matter how much I make this is important for me to help my family and my little brothers," Abdullah told Xinhua on Sunday.
Abdullah is among thousands of children who work in Jordan to help support their families.
As the world will mark the World Day Against Child Labour on Monday, figures by the Department of Statistics in Jordan indicated that there are 75,000 children who work in Jordan.
"The main reasons for child labour in Jordan is poverty...This phenomenon has increased after the influx of Syrian refugees," Economic Hosam Ayesh told Xinhua Sunday.
"There is a need for more efforts in Jordan to combat child labour as those who work rarely return to school and thus they lose their future and we end up having lost generations," Ayesh said.
According to figures from the UN, there are some 168 million children who work across the world.
"We need swift interventions and programmes to help the needy families as poverty is what drives parents to make their kids leave school and start working and earning money to make ends meet," Ayesh said.
The economist said there are serious psychological, physical and social impacts that affect working children.
Although Jordan has taken many steps and launched many strategies to combat child labour, more needs to be done, especially after the increase in the phenomenon after the Syrian crisis.
Since 2011 to date, more than 1.3 million Syrian refugees entered Jordan.
"Child labour is a serious issue as children face many violations at the workplace and this needs to come to an end," Ayesh said.
