There are 538,000 child labourers in the country - and more than half of them are girls, the survey has revealed. Aged under 15 years old, most of these live and work in the rural areas, where they follow the tradition of toil in the fields. But tens of thousands are sold by their parents as domestic servants in the cities. The government says it is trying to stamp out child labour. The minister in charge of child protection, Said Saadi, told the BBC that the government is concentrating its efforts on attracting children out of the job market and back into school.
Industry trying to cut costs It is a major struggle because educational standards are already low.
At the same time, industries are trying to cut costs by replacing adults with child workers. Unemployed parents feel forced to send their children out to work, and the cycle continues. Boys in Senegal learn their trade very early Morocco is hardly alone in facing the problem. It is estimated that in Africa as a whole, two in five children under 15 are working. And around the world the total is likely to be some 250m.