Approximately 25% of the population of Peru are aged 15 or under. According to official statistics, 28.6% of children between the ages of 6-17 already receive wages or are paid in kind.
Around 90% work in the informal sector for more than 45 hours per week, not including children involved in domestic work, so work in many cases competes with schooling. In rural areas children are an important source of household labour so children in jungle and highland areas always stand to be further marginalised.
For more on children in Peru see this link to ‘Young Lives’, a major project including a longitudinal study on childhood poverty in four countries: Peru, India, Ethiopia, & Vietnam.
Young Lives is an international study of childhood poverty, involving 12,000 children in four countries over more than 20 years. It is led by a team in the Department of International Development at the University of Oxford in association with research and policy partners in the four study countries – their website is in English and Spanish.