Young blood from the stones
Michael Wines, August 27 (LUSAKA): The boulders are hard enough that the scavengers who have taken over the abandoned quarry south of the city centre prefer not to strike them directly with their hammers.
They heat the rocks first - with flaming tyres, plastic, even old rubber boots - so that the stones will fracture more easily, amid choking black clouds of smoke.
A boy named Alone Banda works in this purgatory for six days a week. Nine years old, nearly lost in a hooded sweatshirt with a skateboarder emblazoned on the chest, he takes football-size chunks of fractured rock and beats them into powder. Lacking a hammer, he uses a thick steel bolt gripped in his right hand.
In a good week, he says, he can make enough powder to fill half a bag. His grandmother, Mary Mulelema, sells each bag, to be used to make concrete, for 10,000 kwacha, less than £1.40. Often, she said, it meant the difference between eating and going hungry.
"Sometimes, when he's tired, I tell him to stop, but he helps me here most of the time," she says. "We work every day, to make that powder. Sometimes we work Sunday, if we don't go to church."
Across most of the globe, the number of children forced to work is in sharp decline.
But sub-Saharan Africa is the exception, in places like Lusaka and for children like Alone. Here, more than one-in-four children below the age of 14 work, whether full-time or for a few hours a week - nearly the same percentage as the worldwide average in 1960.
It is by far the greatest proportion of working children in the world. By the United Nations' latest estimate, more than 49 million sub-Saharan children aged 14 and younger worked in 2004 - 1.3 million more than at the turn of the century just four years earlier.
Their tasks are not merely the housework and garden-tending common to most developing societies. They are prostitutes, miners, construction workers, pesticide-sprayers, street vendors, full-time servants - and they are not necessarily paid for their labor.
Some are as young as five and six years old. In Kenya, nearly a third of the coffee pickers are children, a 2001 World Bank Report found. In Tanzania, 25,000 children work in hazardous jobs on plantations and in mines.
Their numbers in Africa grow even as the ranks of child laborers are dropping by the millions in every other region of the world. Child labor declines with prosperity, and so the region's economic plight (44% of sub-Saharan residents live on less than $1-a-day - far and away the greatest number on earth) is a major reason. But so are social mores that regard hard work by children as the norm, and conflicts that scatter families and kill breadwinners.
The staggering HIV rate, which has created millions of orphans who must work to survive, and forced millions more to work to support dying parents, is another reason. In Zambia alone, a 2002 independent study for the UN concluded that Aids had boosted the number of child laborers by up to 30%.
The region's population explosion is yet another factor. Well over four-in-10 people here are under 15, compared with fewer than two-in-10 in the developed world, according to the Population Reference Bureau. With economic growth lagging births, manual labor is often the only way the newcomers can feed themselves.
Worldwide, the number of children who were already "economically active" by the age of 14 fell roughly 10% from 2000 to 2004, to about 191 million, according to the International Organization for Labor, a UN agency. More impressive still, the number of young children laboring in the most dangerous jobs dropped by a third.
In Asia, the number of economically active children - meaning they worked beyond their chores, legally or not - dropped by five million in just four years.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, the decline was even more drastic at nearly 12 million. Sub-Saharan Africa was the only region where the number of working children did not fall. "It's like trying to empty a bathtub with a teaspoon while the tap is running," said Birgitte Poulsen, the technical specialist for the International Labor Organization in Zambia. "If you want to tackle this, you have to recognise the magnitude of the problem, not just in terms of its size but its complexity. It isn't just due to instability and conflict and war. It's poverty and HIV-Aids."
If the stereotype of child labor is a Dickensian world of sweatshops, with youngsters hunched over sewing machines or metal presses, Africa's reality is different.
A handful of Zambia's child workers are clearly exploited by adults - for prostitution in cities, and perhaps as miners in the emerald-rich north, near the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The International Labor Organization says there are increasing reports of Zambian children being trafficked for work in construction and farming, and as servants.
Overwhelmingly, though, what drives children into work is not greed but privation. Young people here largely work to feed themselves or their parents - or both.
Beyond the physical cruelty and lost youth, sub-Saharan Africa's child laborers are social and economic millstones on a region that can ill afford them. They are poorly educated, badly fed, inadequately supervised by adults and far more likely to become illiterates whose children, like them, will toil in fields, tend roadside stands or crush rocks.
Already, a number of studies have documented increases in street children in sub-Saharan cities, many of them Aids orphans forced into sidewalk vending, stealing or selling sex to survive. "I don't think it would come to more than 50,000, but the number is definitely growing," said Yvonne Chilufya, a project manager for Jesus Cares Ministries, a Zambian organization that assists street children and other child laborers.
"We see a lot of child-headed households as a result of HIV," she added. "In other cases, you find the parents are both alive, but doing nothing, chronically ill. So the children are taking care of the parents. The parents send the children out to find food."
The last time Zambia's government counted, in 1999, it found nearly 600,000 child laborers between the ages of five and 17 - roughly nine in 10 of them on farms, the rest in the cities, working as vendors, domestics or laborers.
Almost all were unpaid. On paper, at least, most were illegal: Zambian law forbids labor by children under 13, and allows those between 13 and 15 to engage only in light work.
Zambia has also signed the two international conventions that set minimum ages for work and outlaw the most harmful forms of child labor.
In recent years, its news media have begun to expose dangerous working conditions for children, and its government has started to move against the most outlandish forms of labor.
But as elsewhere in Africa, Zambia's stifling bureaucracy, its poverty, the Aids epidemic and the sheer size of the task, all work against success.
Poulsen, of the International Labor Organization, says the government's efforts to weed out child labor would be reasonably good "if you have inspectors, cars and fuel". Zambia has precious little of each.
"We've got lots and lots of good policies in this country," she says. "But there's no coordination. It's difficult to staff basic social services - schools, clinics - because people keep dying" of Aids.
Chola J Chabala, Zambia's assistant labor commissioner and the official charged with reducing child labor, says the number of children who work is growing, despite his government's efforts - especially in rural areas where supervision is weak.
"I do this job with a passion, but it is very depressing at the end of the day," he said.
"I've heard children who work as prostitutes say they would rather die from Aids, because it is slower than dying of hunger."
Raw material for exploitation
DIAMONDS AND GOLD: After being mined by children in many African countries, diamonds are sold into the international market before being turned into jewellery for sale in the West. Children carry heavy loads, set explosives, sieve sand and dirt, and crawl down narrow tunnels.
COLTAN: An essential element of the capacitor, the electronic component that maintains an electric charge in a computer chip. Four-fifths of the planet's coltan is mined in Africa, of which 80% is in eastern Congo.
COFFEE AND TEA: Many coffee farmers in Africa receive market payments that are lower than the costs of production, forcing them into a cycle of poverty and debt. Green Gold of Tooro is one of the most sought-after teas in the world. Grown in the eponymous region in Uganda, 40,000 children under the age of 10 earn their living by plucking the green leaves, earning about 30 cents per day. They are unable to attend primary school despite it being free in Uganda.
CHOCOLATE: Cocoa farms in Ivory Coast are employing slaves so that the rest of the world can enjoy low-cost chocolate. An estimated 15,000 children, mostly from Mali, are being forced to work in Ivory Coast. Small farms there supply 43% of the world's cocoa beans.
SORGHUM: The fifth major cereal crop in the world. Gangs of children harvest the sorghum which is often fermented to make porridge, bread, wholegrain rice and couscous.
T-SHIRTS AND CLOTHING: Garments made in Lesotho, Africa, can be sold for £14.50 in some shops, but they are flimsy and often produced in sweatshops employing children, and will sell in cut-price UK High Street stores for as little as £1.50.
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1263622006
Children freed from labor raise disturbing questions
By Shyam Benegal, August 27 (The Hindu)
- Poverty drove us to work, say girls
- They are motivating parents
— Photo: Sushil Kumar Verma
Expressing solidarity: Filmmaker Shyam Benegal with child workers at a press conference in New Delhi on Saturday.
NEW DELHI: The recent amendment to the Child Labor Prohibition and Regulation Act 1986 is a triumph of civil society, says a non-governmental organization, Save the Children.
At an interaction with filmmaker Shyam Benegal, organized here on Saturday by the NGO, three rescued girls wanted to know about the follow-up for releasing children from work and ways to ensure that the needs of the families that forced their children into domestic work were taken care of.
The girls narrated how they put up with verbal and physical abuse by their employers. They said it was poverty that had forced them into labor. They were now playing an active role in motivating parents to recall their children from employment. Stating that there was need to create awareness, Mr. Benegal assured the children that he would raise their concerns at appropriate platforms.
According to an official with the NGO, its survey indicated that a significant number of employment agencies in metros including Delhi and Mumbai and in Ranchi were facades which facilitated trafficking in children.
© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu
http://www.hindu.com/2006/08/27/stories/2006082705841000.htm
Rights bodies in Asia-Pacific call for realization of Education for All
August 22 (UNESCO EFA News)
To support countries' review of progress in achieving EFA
National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) in Asia-Pacific have called on governments to maximize the allocation of resources to ensure the realization of the right to education. NHRIs will also assist governments in the region in a review of progress towards the attainment of the Education for All (EFA) goals.
Representatives of NHRIs gathered for the annual Asia-Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions (APF) from 31 July to 3 August 2006, in Suva, Fiji. The forum is one of the largest human rights events in Asia-Pacific and was hosted by the Fiji Human Rights Commission.
The APF is a non-profit organization that gives national human rights institutions the opportunity to share and learn from each other’s experience, contribute to the promotion of human rights in the region, and function as the regional coordination focal point between the institutions.
During the Fiji meeting, the Advisory Council of Jurists (ACJ), which advises the APF Forum Council on the interpretation and application of
international human rights standards, made a set of 19 recommendations to the NHRIs (which refers to members of the APF only) in relation to the protection and promotion of the right to education. Based on the interim report prepared by the ACJ, the recommendations include:
- NHRIs should assist their governments in defining, promoting, providing and
monitoring the right to education. In accordance with international standards, primary education should be compulsory and available free to all. Secondary and vocational or technical training should be generally available and accessible to all
- NHRIs should ensure that their governments acknowledge that education is a right that is vital to both individual development and economic growth. To this end, NHRIs must encourage governments to allocate the maximum available resources to ensure the realization of the objectives of the right to education
- NHRIs should ensure that national EFA plans and other education sector strategies are devised, monitored and implemented in accordance with a rights-based approach
- NHRIs should assist their governments in the review of progress towards the EFA goals of 2015 by ensuring that rights based indicators, recently developed by UNESCO and UNICEF are utilized in the review.
Sheldon Shaeffer, Director of the UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education in Bangkok, also spoke during the meeting, highlighting the major challenges the region is facing in achieving EFA by 2015. He also clarified the link between the right to education, rights in education, and rights through education, and discussed the core principles of creating a rights-based education system. He also talked about quality education, and UNESCO and human rights education strategies.
UNESCO Bangkok and APF had signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly promote universal respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, support the Plan of Action of the World Program for Human Rights Education, and recognize the financial and technical assistance needs of human rights institutions, among others.
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Bhutan to focus on access and quality of education
August 22 (UNESCO EFA News)
Country commits to undertake national assessment of EFA progress
The Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan is working on improving access to education, particularly basic education hand-in-hand with enhancing its quality, as well as focusing on boosting its adult education programs.
The Bhutanese formal education system is still in its relative infancy having started only over four decades ago, evolving from a theocratic education system provided by Buddhist monasteries. Since then, much progress has been seen in the education system but education officials also acknowledge much remains to be done to achieve the targets of Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
“Modern education started in Bhutan only in the 1960s and this year, for the first time, GER [gross enrolment rate] has reached 100 per cent while NER [net enrolment rate] reached 79 per cent,” the Honourable Lyonpo Thinley Gyamtsho, Bhutan’s Education Minister said during a meeting with UNESCO staff in Thimpu, in July.
But he noted that while many children have gone to school, many of the adults continue to lack education and basic literacy skills hence the need to also focus on non-formal education.
All these concerns will be taken into consideration as the Bhutanese government is finalizing preparations for its 10th five-year plan, its blueprint for development. The new five-year plan will commence in 2008. For the education sector, the 10th five-year plan will focus on “quality, relevance and coverage,” according to the Honourable Lam Dorji, Secretary for Bhutan’s Planning Commission, adding that education continues to be a priority for the government.
Both the Education Minister and the Honourable Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Pema Thinley also expressed confidence that Bhutan will meet the six EFA goals by 2012 or 2013, ahead of the 2015 target date. Bhutan has committed to undertake a review of the progress and gaps in achieving the six EFA goals as part of the Asia and Pacific EFA Mid-Decade Assessment (MDA).
The Education Secretary also noted that reforms are being undertaken to improve the quality of education in Bhutan, including an improvement of its math, science and technology curriculum in the next five years as well as focusing on teacher training.
Even teachers and school administrators have to face the challenge of balancing quality and access as Bhutan builds more schools to ensure quality education for all.
UNESCO through its Cluster Office in New Delhi, and with technical support from UNESCO Bangkok’s Assessment, Information Systems, Monitoring and Statistics (AIMS) Unit – the Office of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) Regional Advisor for Asia-Pacific – are extending assistance to Bhutan to undertake the national MDA. The assessment is designed to identify gaps and disparities across the system, and to suggest means to reform the system to meet the national and international education goals.
UNESCO New Delhi Education Program Specialist Akemi Yonemura, and AIMS-UIS Assistant Program Specialist Jon Kapp, and Information Manager Leotes Marie Lugo visited Bhutan in late July to brief national officials on global and regional plans for EFA assessment and review, to seek endorsement from the Ministry of Education for undertaking the assessment, and to organize preliminary structures and develop a timeline and work plan for national assessment. The mission also provided an opportunity to coordinate with international partners and donor agencies working in the area of education to seek support for national activities.
Following the series of meetings in Bhutan, UN agencies, NGOs, bilateral and donor agencies working in Bhutan have also expressed general support for the national MDA. The Ministry of Education’s Policy and Planning Division (PPD) will be the lead coordinating body for the MDA in Bhutan. The PPD reiterated the importance of a national assessment process and will steer the process to ensure that the findings are recognized and utilized.
The national assessment of EFA comes at a good time as Bhutan prepares for a terminal review of its 9th five-year plan and is laying the groundwork for the 10th five-year plan. The national EFA assessment – as in other countries – will be integrated into this process, the results of which can be used as evidence for new policies in education and in planning education reform.
http://www.unescobkk.org/index.php?id=369&tx_mininews_pi1%5BshowUid%5D
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From the Cradle
August 20 (bangkokpost.com) Late last month nine-year-old Ananya Muen-suwan, nicknamed Nong Lee, came to sell flowers and flower garlands made by her mother at the very busy Tuk Chai intersection, as she did almost every day after finishing her household chores. But that night she would not be going home to her family, nor would she ever again join her friends at school. The driver of the six-wheeled truck that took her life didn't even know he had run over the poor little girl until he climbed down from the cab to check on his back wheel and saw her bloodied head.
Two years earlier, Nong Lee had suffered a broken leg after she was hit by a car while selling flowers at the same intersection.
Though most prefer not to make eye contact, Bangkok motorists are familiar with the sight of children who work to support their families by selling flower garlands or newspapers, providing a windshield cleaning service, or simply begging for money from vehicles at intersections.
Under a Ministry of Human Resources and Development policy to remove the children from the roads and intersections, Nong Lee was offered shelter and an education. However, she was allowed to come back and stay with her parents after they promised not to send her out on the street again. Similar to many of the city's poor, their family difficulties were complicated and involved much more than educational expenses.
With a father who either couldn't or wouldn't work and a two-year-old brother, Nong Lee had little choice but to return to the street to help her mother earn a living.
Since Nong Lee's death the children have been forced off the street. But they've been replaced with the aged and the disabled who also risk their lives to feed themselves and their families.
It's been argued that the only way to really protect Nong Lee and countless others is for the government to provide expanded health and social services to all members of society. Many academics, including Magsaysay Award winner and caretaker Senator Jon Ungpakorn, agree that Thailand should set upon the path to becoming a welfare state. According to Senator Jon, this model would provide everyone with an opportunity for development.
Full article available at
http://www.bangkokpost.com/200806_Perspective/20Aug2006_pers001.php
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Vice-President: State drafting laws to curb human trafficking
By Elizabeth Mwai, August 18 (Standard, Kenya) Lack of proper laws and policies is hampering the fight against child trafficking, Vice-President, Mr. Moody Awori has said.
Consequently, Awori on Thursday said the Attorney General was drafting laws to curb trafficking of persons. He said poverty, lack of education and high number of HIV/Aids orphans exposed many people to human trafficking.
"The Government recognizes trafficking of children as a violation of children’s rights and comprises one of the worst forms of child labor," he said.
Addressing a conference on child trafficking at a Nairobi hotel, Awori said the Government was consulting other stakeholders on how to tackle the problem.
Child help desks, the VP said, had been established in a few districts in a pilot project. A steering committee on trafficking in persons has also been formed.
"We also want to empower the National Council for Children Services," he added.
Awori said a program to counter child trafficking in domestic labor has been started in Nairobi, Mombasa and Malindi.
Dr. Philista Onyango, the African Network for the Prevention and Protection Against Child Abuse regional director, said women were the worst culprits and victims of trafficking.
"Our research has shown that most traffickers are women. Majority of people trafficked are also women," she said.
The United States Regional Labor attaché, Randy Fleitman, called on the Government to move with speed in investigating and prosecuting those responsible for child trafficking. He urged for better anti-trafficking programs and strict laws to deter traffickers.
http://www.eastandard.net/print/news.php?articleid=1143956960
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Donors express support for EFA assessment in Indonesia
August 17 (UNESCO EFA News)
As Jakarta launches EFA MDA nationally
The donor community in Indonesia is receptive to supporting an assessment of the country’s achievements and gaps in meeting the Education for All (EFA) goals.
Indonesia’s Education Sector Working Group (ESWG), composed of representatives of UN agencies, and bilateral and multilateral agencies met in Jakarta on 2 August 2006, to discuss the EFA Mid-Decade Assessment (MDA). The meeting was organized by Indonesia’s Ministry of National Education (MONE), which presented Indonesia’s plans for a national EFA assessment.
A National Planning Workshop for the Government and other National stakeholders held from 31 July and 1 August, preceded the ESWG meeting. The EFA MDA was launched formally during the workshop and the EFA MDA Task Force established. Draft work plans and draft timeframes were also developed and participants identified areas requiring financial/technical assistance.
Results of the workshop were presented during the ESWG meeting to apprise the donor community of upcoming MDA activities and propose areas for external assistance. Donors responded positively expressing interest to support the MDA. But concrete terms for assistance will be finalized pending the finalization of the national MDA work plan and specific requests for assistance from the Government.
“The recently created Education Sector Working Group is one of the key mechanisms of the EFA movement in Indonesia, serving to bring together professionals in the field who share a high level of expertise and experience as well as a strong commitment to the achievement of the EFA goals,” Indonesia Education Minister Prof. Bambang Sudibyo said in a speech during the ESWG meeting read by Prof. Aman Wirakartakusumah, Indonesian Ambassador to UNESCO.
In the speech, the Minister noted the critical role the ESWG plays in the education sector and in the MDA. “This work cannot be done by the Government
alone and it requires to be shaped by extensive consultations with our partners,” he added as he urged other agencies to get involved. “I hope all donor agencies involved in EFA will provide all possible support to the National EFA assessment group and technical groups to carry the assessment.”
The Australian Embassy currently coordinates the ESWG. In its follow-up meetings, the ESWG has committed to discuss the types and areas of support needed in line with the detailed work plans of the EFA MDA Working Groups. The plans will be presented by the EFA National Coordinator, Dr. Ace Suryadi, Director General of Out-of-School Education.
Following the meetings in early August, the MONE in consultation with other key ministries will finalize plans for the national EFA Mid-Decade Assessment with technical support from UNESCO Jakarta and UNESCO Bangkok, through the AIMS Unit – the Office of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) Regional advisor for Asia-Pacific.
UNESCO Jakarta and the AIMS-UIS Unit are providing technical support to the Ministry in carrying out the national assessment. UIS Regional Advisor for Asia-Pacific and AIMS Unit Head, Ko-Chih Tung, and AIMS Assistant Program Specialist Jon Kapp attended the national workshop and the ESWG meeting to give a general overview of the EFA MDA and activities in the region. The AIMS-UIS Unit, in collaboration with UNICEF and other agencies, is working to extend assistance to countries undertaking the EFA MDA in the region.
“By launching the undertaking of the EFA Mid-Decade Assessment in this Workshop, we are very pleased to see the strong commitment of the Government, the Education Sector Working Group, and other donors. Through our concerted efforts, I believe we would be able to close the gaps, and increase equality in education for all by 2015,” Prof. Hubert J. Gijzen, Director and Representative of the UNESCO Jakarta Office said in his opening speech during the ESWG meeting.
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