Child labour
By Editor
Fri 07 June 2013, 14:00 CAT
HE issue of child labour seems to be grossly misunderstood to mean no work at all for a child. As a result of this misconception, we have children who are growing up totally spoilt.
They can't clean their own mess; they can't make their own beds; they can't clean the plates on which they are fed. Everything has to be done for them. Today, even the most humble worker is an employer of another humble worker as a maid. Both the humble worker employer and his or her children don't do anything for themselves. Everything is done for them by the humble worker employee they have employed as a maid. The pay is very low but even with that very low payment, one still finds someone to employ as a maid.
As a result of this, we have children who are growing up not knowing anything, not being able to do anything for themselves.
Some of them can't even boil water and make a cup of tea for themselves. We have teenagers who are just short of having a maid to clean their bottoms and flush the toilets for them. This may seem an exaggeration but this is how bad things have become.
Michael Sata is talking about going into the bush to collect firewood when he was growing up in Mpika. Many parents in Mpika town today, very near to his village, cannot allow that to happen because doing so is a sign of not having enough love for the child; it is child labour. Even at school, the class- rooms are not cleaned by the pupils themselves. There are workers doing this; there is no work the children do at school.
Teachers who have tried to make children do some work, some cleaning have been harangued by parents. So today's children do nothing but watch television, eat and…
We seem to have grossly misunderstood the issue of child labour. Making a child clean his mess; making a child make his bed or clean his plates is not child labour. Child labour is work that is considered harmful to the child, and therefore should be eliminated.
However, child labour should not be automatically associated with children who engage in non-harmful work.
Non-harmful work is part-time and does not stop children from playing, having an education. And this can be beneficial to the child. It
can be beneficial in the sense that it gives the child the opportunity to learn certain necessary things in life. It teaches children useful
social skills.
Therefore, it is vitally important to not only eliminate harmful child labour, but to also allow children to learn useful social skills. And this may help some children gain useful skills that they can use to continue their studies and gain an education.
It is vitally important to support children who do have to work so that they are able to continue their studies and gain an education. Strict bans on child labour may cause more harm than good, forcing children to work in underground and more dangerous conditions than they would otherwise.
And certain things have to be taken into consideration when looking at what constitutes child labour. For instance, there are certain things a child living in an affluent community may not need to do that may be necessary for a child living in a poor neighbourhood. There is need for local definitions of what constitutes child labour.
A poor approach to the issue of child labour can cause a lot of problems for children. Today, we have adults who are still staying with their parents simply because they cannot live a life of their own. We have 30-year-olds who are still treated as children being protected from child labour. These are provided with all the necessities of life and luxuries like cigarettes, alcohol, perfumes, nice clothes and so on and so forth by their parents. They are being treated the same way they were treated as under-fives. Some of them are even bringing spouses in their parents' homes and siring children there. Both themselves and their children are protected from 'child labour'. The only people who work are the parents and the servants they have employed.
These are the consequences or the results of our narrow definition of child labour. We have a generation that has been destroyed by the 'love' or rather 'foolishness' of their parents. This is a generation that receives everything from the parents. They have degrees obtained from expensive universities abroad and locally but they don't work, they don't do anything. Those degrees are just there to help them in discourse with others when they are drinking. Everything is about my mummy this, my daddy that, my bally this and that. Some of them are in their forties still being protected from 'child labour'. Where will this end? What will be the consequences of all this on the individuals involved and on the nation?
Michael is very right when he says: "If our parents brought us up the way we are bringing them up today, we wouldn't be here.
These children are not objects. When I was growing up, I used to fetch firewood. That's what made me to be disciplined…"
Labels: CHILD LABOUR
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21 million trapped in forced labour, says ILO
By Mwala Kalaluka in Geneva, Switzerland
Mon 11 June 2012, 13:23 CAT
ALMOST 21 million people are victims of forced labour globally, trapped in jobs into which they were coerced or deceived and they cannot leave, according to a new International Labour Organisation study. And the ILO says the situation of workers in the occupied Arab territories is extremely worrying and remains precarious.
According to an ILO report released on the sidelines of the ongoing International Labour Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, it was noted that Africa, the central and south-eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States region CSEE and CIS had the highest prevalence rate figure at 4.2 and 4.0 per 1,000 inhabitants, respectively.
But the ILO cited the Asia-Pacific region as having the largest number of forced labourers in the world at 11.7 million, representing about 56 per cent of the 21 million global tallies.
The study further highlighted that Africa came second from the Asia-Pacific region with 3.7 million 18 per cent, followed by Latin America with 1.8 million nine per cent.
The Developed Economies came at the bottom with 1.5 million seven per cent, with an estimated 600,000 forced labourers in the Middle East.
"This means that three out of every 1,000 people worldwide are in forced labour today," the ILO study read. "It is the lowest in the Developed Economies and European Union at 1.5 per 1,000 inhabitants."
The study revealed that 90 per cent 18.7 million of the affected individuals were exploited in the private economy by individuals or enterprises.
"Of these, 4.5 million 22 per cent are victims of forced sexual exploitation and 14.2 million 68 per cent are victims of forced labour exploitation in economic activities, such as agriculture, construction, domestic work or manufacturing," the report read in part.
"Looking at the age of forced labourers, 5.5 million 26 per cent are below 18 years old."
The study indicated further that the remaining 2.2 million or 10 per cent were in state-imposed forms of forced labour, for example in prisons, or in work by the state military or by rebel armed forces.
"This figure 21 million like the previous one in 2005, represents a conservative estimate given the strict methodology employed to measure this largely hidden crime," the ILO stated.
"Human trafficking can also be regarded as forced labour, and so this estimate captures the full realm of human trafficking for labour and sexual exploitation or what some call 'modern-day slavery'. This figure means that around three out of every 1,000 persons worldwide are in forced labour at any given point in time."
The ILO further states that the practice was extremely difficult to quantify and research because being a criminal activity, it was most hidden, out-of-sight of law enforcement and administrative personnel and invisible to the public at large.
"The ILO is working with governments to assist them to measure forced labour in their country, but so far only a handful of countries have been able to undertake special surveys on this topic," the report read in part.
ILO's Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour director Beate Andrees said attention should now turn to better identification and prosecution of forced labour and related offences such as human trafficking.
"We have come a long way over the last seven years since we first put an estimate on how many people were forced into labour or services across the world. We have made good progress in ensuring most countries now have legislation in place which criminalises forced labour, human trafficking and slavery-like practices," Andrees said.
And another ILO report on the situation of workers of the Occupied Arab territories, released during the three-week International Labour Conference in Geneva that comes to a close on June 14, 2012, states that the international response to the Palestinian and Israeli peace stalemate was weaker than before.
"This is above all due to the realities of the occupation on the ground and unabated expansion of Israeli settlements, leading to a shrinking space for Palestinian development," outgoing ILO director-general Juan Somavia states in the report's preface.
"The peace process is at a standstill more than at any time since the Oslo Accords of 1993."
Somavia is quoted in the report as saying the evolving facts on the ground involving Palestine and Israel seriously diminishes the scope for a negotiated two-state solution.
"This is due to a particularly damaging combination of political intransigence, the incapacity of outside actors to assist the parties or effectively exercise influence on them, volatility in the region, and the elusiveness of Palestinian reconciliation," he stated.
Somavia stated that for the issue to be resolved, there was need for a development and peace logic based on a long-term vision of the economic, employment and security interests of all workers in both the occupied Arab territories and Israel.
Labels: CHILD LABOUR, ILO, LABOUR
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ZAWA workers protest
By Moses Kuwema
Fri 07 Oct. 2011, 06:10 CAT
ZAMBIA Wildlife Authority employees yesterday protested and demanded the abolishment of the institution. But labour minister Fackson Shamenda has appealed to all employees in the country to remain calm while his ministry was carrying out the presidential directive of reviewing the current minimum wages.
A spokesperson for the workers, Teddy Lubinda, called on President Michael Sata to abolish ZAWA and let the government take full control of the institution.
"The President should abolish ZAWA and take the institution into government as stated
in the PF manifesto. Since 2000 to date, ZAWA management has done nothing apart from pleasing themselves with better conditions of service at top management," Lubinda said.
He accused the ZAWA management of failing to remit NAPSA contributions since 2000 despite making deductions on workers' salaries.
"This also includes ZAWA pension schemes. ZAWA does not provide any retirement package to the general staff while top management give themselves huge salaries and gratuity upon completion of a three year contract, while the general staff get K1,500,000 after retirement," Lubinda said.
He also accused ZAWA management of deducting money from their salaries, but that the money is never remitted.
He said institutions such as Bayport, Indo Zambia Bank, Natsave, Microfin, among others, had stopped lending money to ZAWA members of staff.
"When one goes on leave, ZAWA only provides or has a policy of paying K500,000 for 30 days. Is this normal? Where did they get this criteria? Management gets K2 million for a period of less than 10 days when they go on leave," said Lubinda.
And Shamenda said the ministry had already started working on the critical issue of the minimum wage.
He said in addition, the ministry was looking into the improvement of
conditions of service for all employees in occupations where the wages
and conditions of employment were regulated through the process of
collective agreement under the industrial relations act or where
employee and employer relationships were governed by specific
employment contracts which were attested by labour officers.
"Under the circumstances, I wish to appeal to all employees in the
country to remain calm while my ministry is carrying out the
presidential directive. We should not allow work stoppages to disrupt
productivity in our nation. My ministry remains open for consultations
from both employers and employees alike," said Shamenda.
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Labels: CHILD LABOUR, FACKSON SHAMENDA, MINIMUM WAGE, ZAWA
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Malawi tobacco child labourers being poisoned –TV documentary
By Nyasa Times
Published: May 14, 2010
The documentary was produced by Julie Noon and reporter Jenny Kleeman which uncovered that children suffer health problems from handling tobacco and some are trapped in bonded labour arrangements, leaving them unable to escape and little seems to be done to protect their health and wellbeing.
In the documentary, the team begin their journey in Mchinji district. While some children are in their uniforms on their way to school,
the team spots
[Really? How convenient. I don't believe in coincidences. - MrK]
a group of 15 to 20 sorting tobacco by the roadside. Emilida and her three children – including her three-year-old son – have been working there since dawn.
The team finds a family of seven harvesting tobacco who says they work every day from dawn to dusk. The children’s hands are covered in a sticky brown residue and they say they suffer from severe headaches: a symptom of green tobacco sickness, or nicotine poisoning, where high doses of nicotine are absorbed through the skin.
Farges, the mother of the family, says the entire family takes home the equivalent of about K4,000 a year (£18), the cost of three packets of cigarettes in the UK. Her children must work so they can fulfil the daily quota of tobacco the farm owner has demanded of them.
She says the farm owners claim they’re not getting a fair price for tobacco at auction and can’t pay them more. The family wants to escape tobacco farming, but they’ve been forced to borrow money from the land owner and can’t leave until they work off their debt. The UN says this is bonded labour, a modern form of slavery.
The team visits the local primary school to see how tobacco is affecting children’s education. The headmaster tells Channel 4 TV that a third of his class are absent, probably in the tobacco fields. He says most pupils fail their exams and then can’t go on to secondary school because they miss out on so much of their education to work with tobacco.
In Kasungu, they investigated claims that some farm owners are trafficking children to work on larger estates. They meet Elisa, 13, Akim Nkhoma, 14, and Joseph, 17. Elisa says a farm owner came to her village to recruit child labourers, promising that her family would be paid for her work at the end of the season. The boys claim they were treated very badly on the estates: their supervisors shouted at them, withheld their food and beat them with sticks.
South of Kasungu, the team joins a group of charity workers and government officials who are trying to stop child labour. They quickly find children sorting tobacco in a facility owned by a former MP.
The District Labour Officer tells the British TV the owner will definitely go to jail, but the team later discovers he has been let off with a caution. No one has ever been imprisoned in the district for employing children.
Channel 4 TV team end their journey in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe, where the majority of tobacco picked by Malawi’s children enters the world market.
Malawi is one of the world’s biggest tobacco producers. Tobacco Control Commission CEO, Dr Bruce Munthali said in the documentary that Malawi relies on the crop for 65 per cent of its foreign income and its tobacco is bought by companies including British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco and Philip Morris.
The TV crew try to arrange an interview with the Minister of Labour Yunnus Mussa to talk about their findings, but he fails to turn up to every appointment.
But Mussa told Malawi’s private Capital Radio Straight Talk programme recently that his ministry through district and regional offices had put in place initiatives to build capacity in rural communities to combat child labour
“I am told with the school-feeding programme, a lot of children are going to school. We’re actually addressing the issue with the assistance of International Labour Organization. We have a programme to eliminate child labour,” the minister said.
“We have rescued a number of children of being child-labourers. Out of those some have gone back to school. Some we have given them start-up capital and equipment so that they are self-employed in brick-laying, carpentry, tailoring and even farming,” he said.
“The Minister disclosed that government would table a tenancy bill in parliament which proposes an age limit.
“No child shall be employed until the age of 18 years otherwise there will be a punishment of up to K1 million or imprisonment,” the minister said.
The investigations by Channel 4 TV follows another research by international children’s organisation Plan showing that Malawi has the highest incidence of child labour in southern Africa, with 88.9% of five to 14-year-olds working in the agricultural sector.
Plan called on Malawi’s government to enforce existing child labour and protection laws and on plantations to provide safer, fairer working conditions for those children forced to work.
“Plan is calling for better enforcement of child labour laws and harsher punishment for employers who break them,” said Macdonald Mumba, Plan Malawi’s child rights adviser.
Malawi is a signatory to numerous conventions against child labour, including the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of a Child, the 1973 International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 138 (setting a minimum working age of 18), and the 1999 ILO Convention 182 (outlawing child labour). —Nyasa Times/Channel 4 TV-Unreported World
Labels: CHILD LABOUR, TOBACCO
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Malawi vows to rid child labour with tobacco tenancy bill -Minister
By Nyasa Times
Published: March 25, 2010
Government has set up several initiatives to eliminate child labour on tobacco farms, Malawi Labour Minister Yunus Mussa has said.
Mussa told Capital Radio Straight Talk programme hosted by Brian Banda that his ministry through district and regional offices had put in place initiatives to build capacity in rural communities to combat child labour.
Malawi has been accused of being the worst offender in the region for exploiting child labour in the tobacco industry. Tobacco provides 70 per cent of country’s foreign exchange earnings.
“I am told with the school-feeding programme, a lot of children are going to school. We’re actually addressing the issue with the assistance of International Labour Organization. We have a programme to eliminate child labour,” the minister said.
“We have rescued a number of children of being child-labourers. Out of those some have gone back to school. Some we have given them start-up capital and equipment so that they are self-employed in brick-laying, carpentry, tailoring and even farming,” he said.
“Our district labour offices, regional labour offices are on the ground, yet we are facing a lot of challenges,” Mussa added.
The Minister disclosed that government, through the Minister of Women, Children Welfare and Gender, would table a tenancy bill in parliament which proposes an age limit.
“No child shall be employed until the age of 18 years otherwise there will be a punishment of up to K1 million or imprisonment,” the minister said.
Malawi is a signatory to numerous conventions against child labour, including the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of a Child, the 1973 International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 138 (setting a minimum working age of 18), and the 1999 ILO Convention 182 (outlawing child labour).
Apart from eliminating child labour, Mussa said the government was committed to creating jobs and economic empowerment to the youth.
“This DPP-led government under the wise and dynamic leadership of the beloved leader Ngwazi Dr Bingu wa Mutharika is doing a lot. We must really appreciate. There is so much job creation.
“We have embarked on the Public Works Programme. You are very aware about that. We have given out so many loans through the institution called MARDEF so that people should engage in various businesses.
“There is what you call cash transfer for vulnerable group. Youth Development Fund….There is no sitting idle. We are moving forward under the DPP government,” he said.
In other labour issues, the minister said government had made consultations with Employers Consultative Association of Malawi and labour unions on the minimum wage.
“We met and came up with a figure and government will make its position and then that will be a minimum wage.
“We are looking at so many indicators. We are looking at the economy itself, and we are taking even consideration a person in Kawale, in Area 18, in Ndirande even in villages. Government will come up with a position,” he said.
He said his surprise tours to work-places revealed that there were so many challenges ranging from psychological, physical and economic abuse, lack of condition services, lack of contractual agreement, lack of knowledge of their rights on labour laws and discrimination against HIV-positive employees.
Labels: CHILD LABOUR, TOBACCO, YUNUS MUSSA
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Authorities warn against child labour, lorry innterpted for carrying children to estates
By Nyasa Times
Published: August 16, 2009
Lilongwe District Labour Officer, Michael Lihuhu has warned Africa Invest, an agro-based enterprise at Bolero in Rumphi district to spare children from child labour on its estate to avoid violating their rights.
He sounded the warning, when a lorry, registration number BP 3495 of Africa Invest Limited was intercepted in Lilongwe for ferrying 19 tenants and 11 children of school going ages of between 5 and 13 on its way from Mitundu to Rumphi for a two-year tenancy contract.
He said children have the right to education, care and protection among other rights for them to grow up into useful citizens.
“Tenancy work at the estate should not deprive children of their right to education and other human rights because that would be violating and infringing on such rights,” he said, adding that they should be protected from economic exploitation.
Lihuhu said government was committed to protecting children from any hazardous or harmful work that would be detrimental to their mental, physical, social and spiritual development.
To this end, the District Labour Officer ordered the Africa Invest Limited representative who went to recruit the tenants to take them back to their respective homes to collect school transfers for the children.
He also advised the enterprise representative to treat the tenants fairly, saying men and women have the right to be protected by the laws of the country.
“Government is putting measures to guard against human trafficking for labour purposes or any other human rights infringing activities,” he emphasized.
He said proper documentation of human migration for employment has to be done through the District Labour Offices in the country, as a measure to protect the rights of people in Malawi.
A representative of the enterprise, Richard Matekenya said the estate has Nkhozo and Nkhama primary schools where children would be learning if he was allowed to ferry them there.
“Tenancy work is for the elderly while the children at the estate will be allowed to go to schools,” adding that the estate tries to observe tenancy regulations by respecting the tenants’ rights,” he said.
He said the enterprise pays K175 per day per tenant, translating into K54, 600 per annum besides provisions of food rations like beans, maize and salt.
The tenants were trafficked from Traditional Authorities Chadza and Chiseka in Lilongwe District.
Parliament has not yet enacted the tenancy bill into a law since it was presented in the August House in 2005 and the delay is crippling efforts to curb child trafficking for labour purposes in the country.–Mana
Labels: AFRICA INVEST LTD, CHILD LABOUR, MALAWI, MICHAEL LIHUHU
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Rich families are perpetrating child labour, charges BETUZ
Written by Mutale Kapekele
Saturday, June 13, 2009 3:49:01 PM
THE Basic Education Teachers Union of Zambia (BETUZ) has charged that rich families are perpetrating child labour among girls. And the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has warned that the global financial crisis is threatening to erode progress made in fighting child labour.
In his message to commemorate the World Day Against Child Labour which fell yesterday, BETUZ general secretary Cosmas Mukuka observed that many “well-to-do” families were using girls from rural areas as cheap labour.
“BETUZ is cognisant to the fact that many girl children from rural areas and poor homes are employed as maids at the expense of their education,” Mukuka observed. “It has become a common trend that people perpetrating this vice are well to do and educated families that have been employing girl children below the age of 15 as maids.”
He appealed to the Ministry of Labour to introduce punitive measures through legislation to combat the “continued exploitation of girls.”
Mukuka said child labour infringed on children’s right to economic and social development.
And according to a new report issued by ILO, the global financial crisis could push an increasing number of children into child labour.
The ILO report titled ‘Give Girls a Chance: Tackling child labour, a key to the future’, noted that while recent global estimates indicated that the number of children involved in child labour had been falling, the financial crisis threatened to erode that progress.
“We have seen some real progress in reducing child labour. The policies chosen in the present crisis will be a test of national and global commitment to take this fight forward,” ILO director-general Juan Somavia is quoted in the report.
The report stated that the danger of girls being forced into child labour was linked to evidence that in many countries, families gave preference to boys when making decisions on education of children.
It also observed that the increase in poverty, as a result of the crisis, forced poor families with a number of children to make choices as to which children stayed in school.
“In cultures in which a higher value is placed on education of male children, girls risk being taken out of school, and are then likely to enter the workforce at an early age,” the report observed. “Other factors which could push up the numbers in child labour include cuts in national education budgets, and a decline in remittances of migrant workers, as these remittances often help to keep children in school.”
This year’s World Day against Child Labour also coincides with the tenth anniversary of ILO Convention No. 182 on the elimination of the worst forms of child labour.
“With 169 ratifications, we are now just 14 short of universal ratification by our member States” stated Somavia. “It is a remarkable expression of commitment. This Convention calls for special attention to the situation of girls and we want to highlight the particular risks that girls face during this crisis. Protecting girls – and all children – from child labour calls for integrated responses that include jobs for parents, and social protection measures that help them to keep both girls and boys in school. Access to basic education and training for girls and boys must also be part of the solutions for the future.”
The ILO report states that the most recent global estimate indicated that more than 100 million girls were involved in child labour and many were exposed to some of its worst forms.
Labels: BETUZ, CHILD LABOUR, ILO
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