Child labourers ask to keep working

LIMA, Peru - Dozens of child labourers in Peru have protested that they want to keep working.

"We work out of necessity, because the economic situation in our countries forces us to help our parents out," said Lizandro Caceres, a 15-year-old Peruvian who has been working in the street selling bread and washing cars since he was five.

Waving banners, the children and adolescents staged their protest outside the headquarters of the Andean Community, formed by Colombia, Venezuela, Boliva, Ecuador and Peru, as deputy labour ministers met to study a plan to eradicate child labor.

"This protest is because they want to do something without consulting us, the ones who'll be affected," said Caceres.

He and four other representatives of child laborers in the Andean bloc handed in a document stating their case to an official, who promised to pass it to the deputy ministers.

The UN's International Labour Organisation says around 2 million children in Latin America and the Caribbean work in the so-called "informal sector" -- in activities like street selling, making bricks, collecting rubbish and car washing.

The ILO says many suffer verbal, physical or sexual abuse.

"We're asking for policies that respond to our needs, like promoting work programmes for us," Caceres said.

- REUTERS