Mobile data technology deployed to combat child labor in Morocco

With mobile tablets in their hands, 22 researchers from Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakech went door-to-door during 2016 in the Marrakech-Tensift-Al Haouz region, surveying 1,200 households on attitudes, behaviors and demographic information around the issue of child labor.

The study is part of the four-year Promise Pathways Program which aims to reduce child labor in the Marrakech-Tensift-Al Haouz area and reach more than 5,500 youth and 1,000 family members. Funded by the U.S. Labor Department, Creative Associates International is implementing the program with several local partners.

An estimated 92,000 children ages 7 to14 are working—sometimes in dangerous and taxing trades like agriculture, domestic labor or artisanal sectors—according to Morocco’s High Commission for Planning.

“We have instant access to information that is collected and we can monitor the quality of the data collected,” says Seddik Ouboulahcen, the local Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist for the project, speaking about the benefits of a mobile-based study and database.

The information the researchers input in the tablets is synchronized in real-time in web-based data system designed by MTDS to catalog and analyze risk factors and critical information on child labor in the region.