Spain will donate 6.6 million euros (8.3 million U.S. dollars) between 2006 and 2010 for an international program aiming to end child labor in Latin America, Secretary of State for Cooperation Leire Pajin said on Thursday.

Pajin told a press conference that Spain had begun contributing to the program in 1995, and the country will totally donate 25 million euros (31.5 million U.S. dollars) on the work.

Juan Hunt, head of the International Labor Organization (ILO) office in Madrid, said the Spanish fund had helped 100,000 children to stop working.

Pajin said that although the ILO had reported positive and concrete improvements, "we cannot lower our guard while even one child remains at work because of poverty."

The most dramatic decline has been in Latin America and the Caribbean, where the number of child labor has fallen by two-thirds in four years, according to the latest ILO report.

Source: Xinhua