This module intends to contribute information for quantifying and characterizing the child labor in the country. The immediate precedent about this type of investigations dates to 1999/2000, where, in a similar way to the current investigation, a group of questions of the continued questionnaire of households was incorporated.
Before commenting on each particular question it's important to use precision attending to the norms dictated by the International Organizations with competence on the topic (OIT and UNICEF):
All people ages 5 to 17, to the effect of measuring child labor, are considered children.
Child labor is understood as not only what is framed within the recommendations of OIT about work force (and that are applied in chapter F of the questionnaire), that's to say economic activity, but also all those non-economic activities that are carried out by children. These are all those personal services of domestic nature that are performed by members of the household who are minors, without remuneration, and as such are considered as non-economic services, being outside the production realm of the National Accounts System. This includes preparing and serving foods; making, sewing, repairing, washing, and ironing clothes; taking care of siblings or the sick and disabled of the household; cleaning and maintaining the household; the cleaning, use, and repair of tools of the household; the transport of the members of the household and their goods; etc., considering them as work always when the child is the primary one responsible for this task, by command of the parents or tutors.
[p. 11]
This module, adjacent to the general body of the survey, will not only allow the magnitude of the child labor to be estimated, but also, will characterize it in order to intend determining the circumstances that bring it about.
For this last one, it's important to really pay attention and obtain the direct responses on part of the interviewees, that's to say the same children who respond. Without doubt it's difficult and in some cases even complicated. Generally the child labor is associated with illegality and because of such you should make the maximum effort to avoid violent situations and obtain the best responses.
Attention: It is very important to carry out this block of questions with the most tact possible, since, given the thematic that is being investigated and the nature of the necessary interview, you should give special attention so that this doesn't affect the sensitivity of the interviewees.
MTI2. How many hours did you dedicate (in total) to the tasks of the last week?
If the youngest carried out the domestic tasks, make sure to ask how many hours were dedicated to these tasks. The total hours dedicated to all the tasks of the last week should be estimated.
It's good in these cases to use common sense and consider the rest of the questions from the questionnaire for each person, especially the attendance to the educational center, etc., so as not to have excess or deficit of hours in each response.
[p. 12]
Keep in mind that this question attempts to determine the schedule volume that each labor activity occupies, that when summed with the hours dedicated to the child's education, allows you to estimate the quantity that the child has for recreation activities or age-appropriate activities; for this reason it is very important to achieve the best approximation.