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‘Donations flow in to help boy seen selling magazines to feed his family’

By Suzanna Goussous - Jan 28,2016 - Last updated at Jan 28,2016

AMMAN — After the government located a boy seen selling magazines to support his family in a video circulated on social media sites, many citizens made donations to help him through the Public Security Department’s (PSD) radio channel Amen FM on Thursday, according to the department officials.

Officials from the PSD said the department will pay the rent on the apartment where the 9-year-old boy lives with his nine siblings in Kamaliyeh area near Sweileh.

“His parents are divorced; his father abandoned him and his siblings, so he arrives at the location where he works to sell magazines in the morning hours,” Captain Hazem Mistarehi of the PSD told The Jordan Times. 

Mistarehi, who is also a correspondent of Amen FM, said the station received several calls from citizens listening to the channel’s morning show, who offered financial and in-kind assistance to help the child.

The donations included JD500 from a Jordanian woman, as well as clothes, winter gear and other necessities of life. 

In the short video, originally posted on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com watch?v=zdYNXqb
pHZI) photojournalist Firas Khalifa offered the child JD5, but the boy refused to take the money without giving Khalifa magazines worth the amount paid.

At the end of the video, the child said he is in a hurry and wants to sell what is left of the magazines and go home, since his feet are cold from walking on the snow.

On Wednesday, the boy was found at a café in West Amman by the Ministry of Social Development, which stated that he is in good condition and that it is looking into his case. 

Articles 73, 74, 75 and 76 of the Labour Law ban the employment of children under the age of 16 and set limits on the employment of minors between the ages of 16 and 18.

According to the International Labour Organisation, the Kingdom in 2011 also adopted a National Framework to Combat Child Labour to improve the nation’s legislative environment.

 

This framework lays out the various roles and responsibilities of ministries to identify child labourers, remove them from work, and provide them with appropriate education and social services. 

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