Brasília, 5 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The government is going to call on Parents and Teachers Associations to join in the fight against child labor. The secretary of Human Rights, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, says that within 15 days new measures will be announced for dealing with the problem which consists of 3.8 million youngsters between the ages of 5 to 15 with jobs who should be in school.

The government intends to unite and expand successful programs, such as the Child Labor Eradication Program (Peti) which now assists 800,000 children. The Ministry of Education will speed up the implementation of a new curriculum that keeps children in school all day (originally scheduled to be implemented in 2006).

The Secretariat for Human Rights is working on generating income and jobs for families of vulnerable children and professional training programs for youths who are in jail. (AB)