International Center on Child Labor and Education (ICCLE)

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First International Forum Proniño Celebrated in Ecuador under the motto “child labor is not child’s play” September 28 - Experts and authorities committed themselves to eradicate child labor from the Latin American region during the first international meeting “Proniño” in favor of education and the eradication of child labor in Ecuador. The consultations were attended by nearly 450 representatives from 18 countries and more than forty international experts from the main public organizations fighting against child labor. Kailash Satyarthi, Chair of the Global March Against Child Labor and a candidate to Nobel Peace Prize, was present on the occasion. The conference organized by Telefonica together with the Organization of Child Labor (OIT), Telephone Foundation, UNESCO-International Institute of Planning of Education (IIPE), Organization of Latin American States (OEI), ILO-IPEC, UNICEF, INNFA, National Advice of the Childhood and the Adolescence, CONEPTI, the Ministries of Education, Labor and Social Welfare, Desarrolo Y Autogestion (DYA) - the Global March National Coordinator for Ecuador. Telefonica reaffirmed its commitment with Proniño, the program of the Telephone Group that contributes to the eradication of child labor in Latin America and provides education to 24,000 children in twelve countries of the region. The objective of the meeting was to sensitize and create awareness among society and its leaders on the importance of fortifying public policies on education and eradication of child labor. The final declaration of the consultation asked the governments to eliminate child labor and enhance investments in education. It also asked the Latin American governments to deepen the social dialogue between the public and private sectors, to demand that entrepreneurs develop businesses and practices that do not involve child labor and, at the same time, to undertake initiatives that support the establishment of school and educational opportunities for children. The forum was opened by the First Lady of Ecuador, Maria Beatriz Paret de Palacio. It was addressed by Raúl Vallejo, Minister of Education and Culture of Ecuador; Dr. José Serrano Salgado, Minister of Labor and Employment; Diego Ribadeneira, Vice chancellor of the Republic; Eduardo Araujo, Regional Director of the Organization the International of Trabajo (OIT); Javier Nadal, Vice- President of Telefónica Foundation; and Jose Luis Diaz de Mera, President Ejecutivo de Movistar in Ecuador. Javier Nadal, Vice-President of Telephone Foundation, emphasized to construct a consensus on the basis of a new model of alliance between the public and private sectors for the deprived of the society in the same way as the Proniño in all of Latin America has done for almost 10 years. “Proniño is a social network that now takes care of more than 24,000 children in twelve countries of Latin America, a project that is possible thanks to the support of strategic partners.” Javier Nadal also emphasized “the firm commitment of Foundation Telefónica and Movistar with the program Proniño to contribute to the eradication of child labor.” Eduardo Araujo, Regional Director of OIT, stressed the necessity “to happen of the declarations to the actions. Child labor is a problem that invades the present, but it is not a problem without solutions or hope. The challenge is in the creation of a consensus in all the scopes, social, political, economic, etc. that allow advancement towards a solution.” On the other hand, the First Lady of Ecuador, like Raúl Vallejo, Minister of Education and Culture of Ecuador, emphasized the great number of projects directed toward the eradication of the child labor that are developed in this country on the part of public and private organizations. The Minister of Labor expressed his desire that the appointments of the labor inspectors will go a long way in enforcing the elimination of child labor from Ecuador and creating more opportunities for children to enjoy their childhood and complete school education. Some of the main international specialists in this field also participated in the different round tables of the meeting. For President of the Global March (India) and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Satyarthi “the answer to child labor is not an isolated cause, it has economic, political and social dimensions. That is why intervention requires all the sectors of the society. The solution involves cooperation between governments and all the sectors of the society.” Satyarthi was of the view that the problem of child labor will persist as long as there is political, economic and moral deficit to address the solution. Among others, also present during the first meeting were Manuel Garci'a Solaz, Executive Director of the Spanish Agency of Cooperation the International (Spain); Jose Ignacio Lopez Soria, Regional Director of the Organization of Latin American States (OEI); and Victor Chebez, Director of UNESCO-IIPE (Argentina). According to the International Program for the Eradication of the Child Labor of the OIT, there are nearly 220 million children and adolescents working in the world. In Latin America this situation affects nearly 18 million children and adolescents. From this perspective, Proniño, which is present in twelve countries and will arrive in Brazil next, is part of the commitment of the Telephone Group not only to the countries in which it operates, but also to the unprotected social and economic sectors of these countries. The objective for 2008 is to reach 40,000 children and adolescents. Source: Telephone, Note of Press Top AS YOUNG AS FIVE Hundreds of thousands of children forced to work in Ethiopia September 28 (EiTB, Spain) Some of the trafficked children are employed as domestic servants and kept within Ethiopia but others are sent abroad, sometimes in harsh and dangerous conditions. Some lucky children escape and find refuge in shelters. The United Nations children's agency UNICEF estimates there are hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian youngsters, many as young as five years old currently involved in child labor. Ethiopia is one of the world's poorest countries and many children are forced into employment or even sold in order to help their families financially. Working children often end up missing out on both their education and their childhood. In rural areas of Ethiopia people typically have large families and many parents struggle to provide for their children. 'Mulu', whose name has been changed to protect her identity, says after her mother died, her father was looking after her and her sister. But when someone approached him and promised to take care of 'Mulu' and give her an education, he agreed. For the next three years, 'Mulu' was treated as servant at the woman's house in the city, and forced to do all the household chores. She ran away and was found living on the streets by police who brought her to a shelter for street children run by the Organization for Prevention, Rehabilitation and Integration of Female Street Children (OPRIFS). OPRIFS OPRIFS was started in 2000, and, is backed by organizations such as Save the Children, it helps girls aged seven to eighteen who have been trafficked and who end up on the streets. Timnit Lulu, a psychologist and counselor at OPRIFS, helps the girl's to talk about their experiences. Many have been physically or sexually abused. Timnit says that children find it difficult to express what happened to them. The police in Addis Ababa work closely with the government and various NGOs (non-governmental organizations) like OPRIFS in an effort to stop child trafficking. Inspector Atsede Wordofa, chief of Addis Ababa's Child Protection Unit says that as many as thirty girls are being brought to Addis Ababa every week. Wordofa says that girls arrive at the bus station and are either identified as likely trafficking victims by police immediately or are later brought to police's attention by members of the public. Fifteen-year-old 'Dina', whose name has also been changed, says she was just eight when she was trafficked from her home in northern Ethiopia. 'Dina' spent the next seven years in forced labor in various homes. She says found herself too afraid to escape because as time went by she couldn't remember where she came from and since she never received a salary, she had no money to go anywhere. 'Dina' says she worked seven days a week cooking, cleaning and taking care of children, often for families who had children her own age. Finally, after being kicked out by her employer, she managed to contact police who sent her to OPRIFS in Addis Ababa. Six-month stay Here girls like 'Dina' receive skills training such as sewing or weaving, as well as a basic education. The girls stay at OPRIFS for a maximum of six months, usually until their parents or families have been found. The organization is currently looking for 'Dina's family. Stories like those of the trafficked girls are not uncommon and child labor is widespread in Ethiopia where labor laws are vague. UNICEF says one in three girls in Addis Ababa, aged between ten and fourteen, do not live with their parents and are working instead of going to school. Head of UNICEF in Ethiopia Bjorn Ljungqvist says there are a huge number of children without parents or families in the country. But at places like the OPRIFS centre these girls are learning how to enjoy being children again. http://www.eitb24.com/portal/eitb24/noticia/en/international-news/as-young-as-five--hundreds-of-thousands-of-children-forced-to-wor?itemId=B24_12587&cl=%2Feitb24%2Finternacional&idioma=en Top Congo's child miners start school September 28 (BBC News, UK) Children in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have begun attending school this week instead of sifting for minerals in a vast open-cast mine. Some 250 children in the province of Katanga have been given school places in and around the town of Kigoma. The project is being run by a Belgian organization, Groupe One, with funding from the government in Brussels and the UN children's agency, Unicef. The plight of the children of Katanga was featured in a BBC report this year. The report, timed to coincide with the World Day Against Child Labor, showed three boys working in Katanga's Ruashi mine, where 800 children worked digging for copper and cobalt. Eight-year-old twins Decu and Kabu and their friend 15-year-old Cedric told the BBC how they wanted to go to school but their families could not afford the fees. Cedric told the BBC this week he was now thrilled to be at the Maman Mbuyi school in Kigoma "to become more intelligent and to have the opportunity to improve my life". Decu said school was much better than working at the mine. "I already made friends and we play together," he said. Cut-off date A total of 250 former child miners aged between eight and 15 began school this week in Ruashi, near Kigoma. Fees of $75 (£40) per year for primary school pupils and $100 (£53) per year for older pupils are being covered by the scheme run by Groupe One. That money includes the cost of new uniforms, often an extra expense families cannot afford. The scheme has a budget of $90,000 (£48,000), one-third of it provided by Unicef. Help is also being provided to the children's families to cover the loss of income. Funding is secure until next year, but the Belgian scheme is due to wind up during 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/5386040.stm Top $10 billion could buy universal schooling, say reports By Jim Lobe, Sep 26 (FinalCall.com News) More than 43 million children living in conflict-affected countries are not able to attend school, according to a new report that called on donor countries and multilateral agencies to commit $5.8 billion a year to address the problem. The 48-page report, recently released here and in 39 other countries worldwide by the International Save the Children Alliance, said only 30 percent of total foreign aid earmarked for education in the world’s 63 poorest countries––the vast majority in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia––went to the 30 countries affected by or emerging from regional or internal conflicts. Among the countries with the highest percentages of non-enrollment are Afghanistan, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Ethiopia, Pakistan, Sudan and Uganda, according to the report, entitled “Rewrite the Future.” “Today the majority of victims from war are civilians, not soldiers, and those left destitute are mostly children,” said Charlie MacCormack, president of the U.S. chapter of Save the Children. “The world cannot stand by, leaving these children without education and without hope or opportunity, in some cases for generations.” The group stressed that, without schools, children were far more susceptible to recruitment by armies and militias or other forms of exploitation. The report was released just days before next week’s annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, which takes place this year in Singapore. The bank, whose current lending portfolio includes $8.4 billion for education, has increased its lending for primary education in recent years as part of its Education for All Fast Track Initiative. It also comes amid growing concern that the goal set by world leaders at the 2000 Millennium Summit of ensuring primary education is universally available by 2015 is unlikely to be met. Some 115 million children––or almost 20 percent of the world’s primary school-aged children––are still not enrolled, according to Britain’s foreign aid agency, which estimates that donors will have to increase their spending on primary education from the current $2 billion a year to some $12 billion a year in order to close the gap. Of the additional $10 billion a year, according to the report, $5.8 billion should be earmarked for countries affected by or recovering from violent conflicts. Much of the assistance to these countries comes in the form of humanitarian aid, only two percent of which, according to the report, is earmarked for education. “It is far more difficult to implement development programs in conflict areas than it is in secure areas, and too little donor funding has been devoted to educating children in conflict settings,” according to New York Rep. Nita Lowey, one of three U.S. lawmakers who participated in the report’s launch here. Ms. Lowey, who was joined by Rep. Donald Payne of New Jersey and Diane Watson of California, is also the co-author, with New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, of the Education for All Act, which, if passed, would increase U.S. aid for basic education from $500 million to $2.5 billion by 2010. The report details the consequences of armed conflict on education in 30 countries, 18 of which face ongoing violence. In many cases, schools have been destroyed or commandeered by armed groups or used as shelter for those who have been displaced; students have been forcibly recruited; and teachers have been killed or forced to flee due to their status as government representatives. “Given that most conflicts last for more than 10 years, children are spending their whole childhoods living in fear and without access to education,” according to the report. It also noted that some two million children have been killed in armed conflicts during the past decade, six million more have been injured, and another 20 million displaced from their homes. And because children in conflict-affected countries are unable to start school until they are older, there is often an above-average age school population when peace is restored. After 14 years of conflict in Liberia, for example, some 60 percent of the primary pupils were over age. The countries with the largest number of children––nearly eight million in each––out of primary school are Nigeria and Pakistan, both of which have been affected by internal and external conflicts in recent years. Nearly six million children in Ethiopia are out of school, although the report noted that the government in Addis Ababa has devoted increasing resources to primary education since the 1999 war with Eritrea. In the DRC, which despite recent elections continues to be ravaged by local conflicts, more than five million primary-aged children are not receiving an education. Nearly 2.5 million children are out of school in the Sudan, which ended a 23-year-old civil war with its southern population only last year. At the same time, less than 40 percent of primary-aged children are enrolled in school in Darfur, its westernmost region, due to violence that has displaced more than two million people and killed as many as 450,000. In neighboring Chad, more than 40 percent of primary-aged children are out of school. Outside of sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia, the conflict-ravaged countries with the greatest enrollment problems include Haiti and Colombia, which each have around half a million primary-aged children who are not in school; Burma/Myanmar, with nearly one million absentees; and Iraq, where some 800,000 children are not receiving an education. http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_2942.shtml Top UN refurbishes schools in Haiti's slums Sept 25, CITOLEIL, Haiti: Books are replacing bullets in some of Haiti's worst slums where gunmen once ruled the roost, as scores of thousands of youngsters return to school thanks to a joint operation by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and its partners. For years, powerful gangs seized control Citoleil, the seaside slum in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince that has long been regarded as one of most violent neighborhoods in the whole Western Hemisphere. They forcibly recruited children and kept away outsiders, including humanitarian workers. Violence and increased poverty forced many schools to shut down, leaving thousands of children without an education. But following the election of Rene Prival as the new President in February, a window of opportunity opened up when the gangs declared a unilateral truce, and the area finally became accessible. UNICEF immediately launched a massive vaccination campaign for all of the slum's children and women, immunizing 20,000 children and 30,000 women against common preventable diseases. Together with the International Organization of Migration (IOM) and local authorities, UNICEF identified requirements to bring every child back to classrooms. Water and sanitation facilities are being improved in 40 schools, while essential supplies are distributed to all students and their teachers in all 201 schools. Now, 271 schools and more than 68,000 children are being provided with basic learning materials in Citoleil and other violence-affected neighborhoods. "There are still a lot of children in Citoleil and in other parts of Haiti who do not have access to school," UNICEF representative Adriano Gonzalez-Regueral said. "We need to join efforts and to mobilize enough funds to reach those children in order to keep them away from being given guns instead." Together with the World Bank, UNICEF is also supporting the School-Fee Abolition Initiative, part of the National Strategy for Education for All. The average Haitian family spends a higher proportion of its income on education than any other country in the world. Only 54 per cent of Haitian children attend school. An additional $78 million will be required annually to reach the 2015 Millennium Development Goal of having all children in school, a small price to pay to set the country on a path to peace and development, UNICEF says. http://www.mycaribbeannews.com/news3/060925c.htm Top Beijing Closes Schools for Migrant Children in Pre-Olympic Clean-up Thousands in Beijing Left without Access to Education New York, September 25 (Human Rights Watch News) Over the past two weeks, Beijing municipal authorities have shut down more than 50 schools for children of migrant workers, Human Rights Watch said today. The schools’ closure – part of a campaign to close all unregistered schools for migrants by the end of September – threatens to leave tens of thousands of children without access to education, in violation of several of Beijing’s obligations under international law. The campaign, which began four months ago, appears designed to discourage migrants from staying in the capital. In mid-September, city officials discussed expelling a million migrant laborers from Beijing for the duration of the Olympic Games. “Beijing is spending over $5 billion to prepare for the 2008 Games, yet at the same time it’s denying a basic right to migrant workers’ children, most of whom are unable to access state-run schools,” said Sophie Richardson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division. “Beijing appears to be moving ‘faster, higher, and stronger’ toward limiting – not ensuring – migrant children’s access to education, all in the name of the Olympics.” On July 12, 2006, the Beijing Municipality issued the “Notice of the General Office of the Beijing Municipality People’s Government on the Work of Strengthening the Safety of Non-Approved Migrant Population Self-Schools.” That document set a deadline of September 30 for the “clean up and rectification” of all unregistered schools through “dispersion, standardization and closure.” According to the document, 239 unregistered migrant schools in Beijing provide education to more than 90,000 children. In some cases, the Beijing authorities have dispatched large numbers of police to close particularly popular schools. On August 29, more than 90 policemen forced the evacuation of the Weimenkou school of Shijingshan district. Petitions to the Beijing Commission on Education, signed by hundreds of parents in support of certain schools and denouncing the brutality of the closures, remain unanswered. The Beijing government has justified the wave of closures on the grounds that many migrant schools are unregistered and substandard. They quoted the lack of qualified teachers, inadequate or dangerous facilities, and noncompliance with hygiene regulations. However, school operators say that the authorities arbitrarily refuse them registration or impose unreasonable conditions, such as possession of half a million yuan, about US$63,000, effectively preventing them from gaining legal status. The director of a school closed last month, which had served about 1,000 students, told Human Rights Watch, “All of this is because of the Olympics. They close the schools not because the schools are no good, but because they do not want this to attract further migration to Beijing. Of course I have applied for a permit to the government, but they never give it to you. Above all, they want to control and limit the development of these migrant schools.” While governments have the right to license and regulate schools, China’s international legal obligations require it to provide all children with an adequate and nondiscriminatory education. China may not arbitrarily deny education to children of migrant workers. “The reason self-run migrant schools exist is precisely because the government has failed to provide free and compulsory education for all as it is obligated under domestic and international law,” said Richardson. “Before closing down the only education to which migrant children have access, the government should guarantee their ability to enroll in state-run schools.” Although the newly revised Compulsory Education Law, which came into effect on September 1, states that children of migrant laborers must be enrolled in local state-run schools, in reality administrative and financial hurdles bar most migrant children from enrolling. Under Beijing education bureau regulations, only registered migrants who can produce the “five certificates” – a temporary residence permit, work permit, proof of residence, certificate from the place of origin, and household registration booklet – can enroll their children in state schools. An estimated 90 percent of migrant families do not have all five documents. Even for those who can obtain the necessary documents, the cost of state schools can be prohibitive for poor migrant families. State schools may charge for transportation, meals, books or activities. Only 62 percent of the estimated 370,000 children of migrant worker families living in Beijing attend state-run schools. On September 15, Science and Engineering University Professor Hu Xingtou and Beijing Duanfeng Practice Lawyer Li Fangping submitted to the Beijing municipal government a report that concluded, “On the face of it, it seems that all the … schools of Beijing have opened their doors unconditionally to migrant children. But the reality is entirely different ... The dream of equal access to compulsory education remains as distant as ever.” “The Chinese government should ensure that all children have access to education by removing administrative and financial obstacles to school enrollment, and that migrant children whose schools it has closed are immediately enrolled in other schools,” said Richardson. http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/09/26/china14263.htm Top Education remains priority in Africa JOHANNESBURG, By Mabutho Michael Ngcobo,September 19 (AND) "For young Africa children, the path out of poverty starts is in the classroom," International Monetary Fund President Paul Wolfowitz said on Tuesday. Speaking during the annual IMF and World Bank meeting in Singapore he said most of the children in Africa are still not able to attend even primary school. He said a new initiative has been set up to eradicate illiteracy in developing countries.   "The Education for All Fast Track Initiative has encouraged a growing number of countries, the majority of them in Africa, to develop credible plans for increasing primary school enrollment, especially of girls."  "This initiative could fulfill the dreams of 70 million children in 60 countries who want to go to school, if - let me underscore that - if donors increase the resources needed to match improved performance," the president said. However, the pioneers of the Education for all Fast Track Germany, Italy and Japan were condemned by the Global Campaign Education (CGE), an independent made up of a number of education lobbyist groups in more than one hundred countries. The three countries were declared "misers when it comes to educating the world’s children," by the GCE. According to the president of the GCE Kailash Satyarthi, "a hundred million children will not go to school… because of broken promises by rich countries." He said leaders of the three countries "should be ashamed" for failing to meet their targets. Source: Johannesburg bureau, AND Top Pakistani girl raped for 'acquiring education' ISLAMABAD, September 16 (IANS) After Mukhtaran Mai, the case of Mumtaz Mai has come to light in rural Pakistan, where women become victims of tribal warfare, family feuds or quite simply, male violence. The News International on Saturday reported the case of one Mumtaz Mai and her daughter, Ghazala Shaheen Bathi, who were abducted, held in captivity and gang-raped for 12 days because daughter Ghazala dared to become educated. Mukhtaran Mai, the tribal woman gang-raped in June 2002, was freed after the Pakistan Supreme Court intervened in her favor. The case raised protests and concern among civil societies across the world last year. While Mukhtaran Mai was a victim of a family feud and an act in retaliation to the rape of a girl her brother Shakur was alleged to have committed, the mother-daughter duo earned the wrath of the Mirali tribesmen when it became known that Ghazala had passed her Master's in Education from Bahauddin Zahariya University on Aug 25. The girl's father Mohammed Hussain, a retired army man belonging to village Chak Sher Khan near Kabirwala in Multan, was also beaten up. As in Mukhtaran Mai's case, influential people are said to be involved in this case too. The newspaper report repeatedly hinted at the involvement of "a minister of state", but did not name him. When informed by the villagers, the local police acted after 12 days, only to help the accused. While three men managed to escape, the local villagers prevented the car carrying the two women from driving away. It is said that among the three men overpowered the villagers included two bodyguards of the minister. Kabirwala's police chief Daud Hussain has been quoted as denying the incident. The police reportedly clarified that the two women had run away from their home "on their own". However, the newspaper said authorities in the local hospital confirmed that the two women had been raped. After Mukhtaran Mai's case was taken up by human rights organizations last year, Canada offered to grant her citizenship. Mukhtaran Mai's visit to the US coincided with that of President Pervez Musharraf. Hackled by the media on the issue, an irritated Musharraf condemned women from his country who complained of being raped, only to earn citizenship of other countries. Mukhtaran Mai remains a Pakistani citizen, involved in social work in Pakistan and using her "celebrity" status to help needy organizations in her country. http://www.southasianews.com/96896/Pakistani-girl-gang-raped-for-acquiring-education.htm Top No child-labor at home, Govt tells staff BANGALORE, By Seethalakshmi S, September 11 (Times of India): Central government employees across the country may soon have to file a yearly undertaking before the government that their homes are child-labor free, if the Union labor ministry has it way. With a large number of government staff engaging children below 14 years in their homes for domestic work, the labor ministry has written to the ministry of personnel and training to ask every central government employee to give an undertaking at the end of each year. "Now, employees declare properties at financial year-end. Likewise, we want each one of them to declare that they have not employed a child in their homes that year," Union labor and employment secretary K M Sahni told The Times of India. With the Centre making employment of children as domestic servants a criminal offence from Oct 10, 2006, the recommendation is bound to create a ripple among lakhs of central government staff, who not only hire children but abuse them too. "We’ve sent a note to the ministry of personnel and training to make it a law. The punishment could range from demotion to dismissal of services of the employees, who engage children not just in their homes but even in their own personal businesses. Once the central staff is brought under the scanner, we will tell the states to follow suit," Sahni stated. The ministry is also considering conducting surprise raids. "Ultimately, it is one’s own conscience that’ll stop kids’ exploitation," he added. To rehabilitate lakhs of children who will come out of various homes, the ministry is in consultation with other related departments to set up shelter homes. "This is an immediate measure. From October 10, when children are rescued from hotels, dhabas, resorts and houses, we need to put them somewhere. Under the 11th Plan, we have drawn up a scheme besides strengthening the National Child Labor Project," Harjot Kaur, director, ministry of labor and employment, said. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1975806.cms Top ZAMBIA: Crushing stones is not child's play LUSAKA, September 6 (IRIN) Maria Banda, just five years old, and her grandmother, Aineli, spend every day breaking stones into gravel in quarries a few kilometers from the heart of Zambia's capital, Lusaka. Hundreds of others are doing the same. Maria produces two to three tins each day, her grandmother as many as nine, which they sell for US$0.50 a tin. Roadside stalls sell the chipped stones to construction companies, but the demand is oversupplied. This backbreaking work pays for their US$15 monthly rent; the rest provides a meager living. "We eat nshima [maizemeal] once, before going to bed, because I don't have enough money to buy food to eat twice. If something remains after we have eaten, then Maria has to finish it in the morning before we go for work, otherwise I will have to buy her some fritters around 12:00 [noon] if she didn't eat anything in the morning," Aineli, aged about 70, told IRIN. Small but agile, Maria's left hand sweeps away the gravel from the stone she has just crushed and swiftly puts another one against a larger pebble. Her right hand brings down a big hammer to pound it. "I was hurting myself when I started doing this work but now I know how to avoid the hammer," she says. Maria has been living with her grandmother since her parents died from a suspected AIDS-related illness a year ago. Barefoot and dusty, her struggle to survive is a snapshot of the growing number of children drawn into the labor market here. More than 600,000 children in Zambia are believed to be working on farms, in construction and other business sectors, and in the sex industry. Anne Kamwendo, project officer for the protection of children at the United Nations International Children's Fund (Unicef), said children were forced to work to supplement low household incomes. "Poverty and HIV/AIDS are the major causes of child labor, after creating an army of orphans and vulnerable children who are now being left in the care of aged grandparents or extended family members. When times are hard, these guardians tell the children to begin contributing to their own welfare by doing some form of work for money." Although Zambia is signatory to the conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO), and although its laws do not allow children below the age of 15 to work for a living, for many of the country's million or more HIV/AIDS orphans and vulnerable children, there is little alternative. Grade six pupil Mervis Mulenga, 11, is one of nine children. She works in the stone quarry because her mother told her they needed to pay for schooling and clothing. "I am forcing myself to crush at least five tins in one day because I really want to become a nurse when I finish school. I start crushing my stones around seven [in the morning] after cleaning the house, and I go to school at eleven," she said. When school finishes, she either goes back to the quarries or helps her mother at home. By early evening, with only candles for light, sleep takes often precedence over homework. A hacking cough is often the telltale sign of a child working long days in the dust-laden air of the quarry said Godfridah Sumaili, president of the Jesus Cares Ministry. "When they first come to our centers, most of the children from stone crushing have physical symptoms of their neglect, such as stunted growth and bodily injuries. They look harassed, afflicted, hopeless and lifeless," said Sumaili. "They appear withdrawn and reserved. They have not known to look at themselves as children, but as adults, and some of them actually head families. Therefore, parents and guardians also refuse to let go of such children, who are perceived as economic pillars." With assistance from the ILO and Unicef, the ministry has managed to withdraw 5,000 children from various types of labor, including 3,000 previously involved in stone crushing. Some have been reintegrated into the formal primary school system, while others are attending the organization's community schools throughout the country. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/b2013fa8360a7b0b6b5d8a41a 74d59e6.htm Top A Red Card to Check Out Child Labor By Funmi Komolafe, September 2, Vanguard (Lagos) Getting children off hard labor has been a major focus of the International Labor Organization under Mr. Juan Somavia's leadership. In Africa, the issue of child labor has been closely linked with poverty. Though people remain poor in many African countries, efforts are still being made to put an end to child labor. June 12 is marked as Child Labor Day by the ILO annually. This edition presents a report on child labor and efforts being made to wipe it out. Dark skinned, under-fed, Agati, a citizen of Benin Republic was brought to Lagos to work as a house-girl for a middle class young couple. Agati, does not understand a word of Yourba language or any other Nigerian language so, her boss Mrs. X uses sign language to communicate with her. Agati's daily schedule begins with sweeping the floors, washing the dishes, washing up Mrs. X's new baby's clothes and other chores. From 6 a.m. when Agati begins work, she does not stop working until about 10 p.m. One day, she got it wrong. She failed to understand what madam ordered her to do. Madam turned round and hit Agati with the sharp end of the table knife with which she was cutting meat. Agati shouted, almost immediately blood gushed out from her fingers. While Agati cried, the middle man who brought her from Benin to Lagos smiles to the bank with the token Agati earns as a house-girl. This simple story of Agati is typical of what a number of house-girls and boys go through. Millions of children face similar situations like Agati. Others are exposed to worse conditions. They work hard, they are exposed to hazardous situations as child soldiers in war situations, commercial sex workers, or street hawkers. Consequently, majority of them have no opportunity of formal education and have no time to leisure. In cities like Lagos, Kano, Enugu, Port- Harcourt and other major Nigerian cities, evidence of child labor abound. In Nigeria, child labor is a reality. So, when the International Labor Organization launched its campaign against child labor, many people in Africa thought that the ILO did not understand the African setting where children complement parental efforts at sustaining the family. Others, simply blamed it on poverty. It was not until the ILO made it clear that it was out to rescue children from the worst forms of child labor that many African governments began to accept the reality of Child Labor. The ILO's intensive campaign through the International Program for the Elimination of Child Labor ( IPEC) brought to focus the reality of child labor all over the world. Children working in the mines, on cocoa farms, child prostitutes, child-soldiers were identified in many countries. Africa and Child Labor - Africans generally find it easy to attribute the rise in child labor cases to poverty. It was confirmed that Africa may not be moving at the same pace as other parts of the world. For as Mr. Myrstad said, "Progress is not even throughout regions. We are not achieving our goals in Africa". In Nigeria we live daily with the evidence of child labor on our streets. Children especially boys under 12 years are seen daily hanging out of moving buses as conductors, such children are at ' work' when their privileged colleagues are in the classrooms. They usually end up as miscreants. Girls are also not left out, though child labor may not be prevalent in the formal sector in Nigeria, in the cities girls are either engaged as house help or hawkers of fruits, packaged water etc along the streets. In the rural areas, it is worse. They are engaged as farm hands or young commercial sex workers or doing other strenuous jobs meant for adults thereby making them vulnerable to accidents, rape etc. The ILO's Regional Director for Africa, Mrs. Regina Amadi- Njoku of Nigeria recalled that there was a time that Nigerian officials denied the existence of Child Labor in Nageia but, they have since admitted. She commended the initiative of Nigeria in signing bilateral agreements with her neighbors, Benin Republic, Niger, Chad and Cameroon on human trafficking. By her assessment, Nigeria "is a sending and a receiving country just as she is a transit country". This means that children are sent out of Nigeria to work in other countries, while children citizens of her neighbors are also brought to work in Nigeria. As a transit point, children are moved in and out of Nigeria to other countries. Mrs. Amadi - Njoku partially agrees with those who attribute Child Labor in Africa to poverty. She said, "If you have 10 children you can't feed, then you can give up three for domestic work somewhere. You don't really care what happens because you have to survive." A way out in her opinion is for Nigeria to make child trafficking a criminal offense. Nigeria's efforts - Contributing to a discussion on the Global Report : The End of Child Labor Within Reach", the permanent secretary in the federal ministry of labor, Dr. Timi Koripamo-Agary said Nigeria remains committed to putting an end to Child Labor. Government, she said, has "ratified the two core ILO Conventions on the Elimination of Child Labor". These are Conventions 138 on Minimum Age of Employment and 182 on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor. Dr. Agary said Nigeria moved beyond mere ratification of the Conventions as she has "followed with concrete actions such as withdrawing and rehabilitating 3,000 children engaged in Child Labor in the period 2000 to 2002". She admits that although more children have since been withdrawn from hazardous jobs, the Nigerian government has also established a Child Labor Monitoring System which is a "mechanism for tracking, withdrawing and rehabilitating child workers in the cocoa producing state of Ondo under West Africa Cocoa/ Commercial Agricultural Project ( WACAP) Dr. Agary who spoke during the ILC in Geneva, said "Nigeria has taken steps to formulate a National Policy and National Plan of Action on Child Labor, which is currently awaiting the approval of the Federal Executive Council. This is a fundamental point in IPEC advocacy, as well as requirement under both Conventions 138 and 182". http://allafrica.com/stories/200609020111.html Top Pakistan child trafficking law yet to be enforced ISLAMABAD, September 2 (Internews) The trafficking law has failed to describe the complexities of problems suffered by those, who fall victim to trafficking for various reasons. A recent report titled ‘Fading light: A Study on Child Trafficking’, points out the lack of recognition of complexities involving domestic child kidnapping, smuggling and trafficking in the country’s existing laws. In 2002, the government introduced the Human Trafficking Law, proposing imprisonment for human traffickers and compensation to victims but the law addresses only international trafficking and neglects the domestic, the report says. In 2004, 479 trafficking-related cases were registered, 289 individuals arrested, 248 cases filed and 72 were convicted, the report says citing cases in which law-enforcement officials “mistakenly” identified trafficking victims as voluntary participants in human smuggling and initiated criminal procedures against them, highlighting the need for training on the distinction between trafficking and smuggling. Based on the findings of the report in 2001 and 2003, as many as 39,157 male and 2,061 female children were trafficked from rural to rural and urban areas within and from Sindh, with or without their consent. A study done by a civil society organization, SPARC, also attempted to assess the scope of child trafficking while correlating the problem with level of education of children and their families, employment patterns within families, migration, as well as cultural practices. Domestic child trafficking occurs often from rural to urban areas mainly for economic reasons. “Despite laws prohibiting child labor in certain sectors and indentured servitude, an estimated 8 million children are currently working in Pakistan, with almost two-thirds employed full-time. While in Sindh, children make up a quarter of the unskilled workforce and can be found in virtually every factory, workshop, field, informal sector and domestic service. The research finds that monetary benefits are the prime reason for trafficking. Almost 90 per cent of the parents in all incidents of trafficking received some financial benefits from the recruiter or the employer. The payment, however, did not exceed Rs 4,000 in any case. An estimated 15,000 children have so far been trafficked to the Gulf as camel jockeys only from Rahim Yar Khan district, says another report prepared by Pakistan Rural Workers Welfare Organization. http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News &subsection=Pakistan+%26+Sub-Continent&month=September2006&file=World_ News200609025338.xml Top Asian child labor is still too high September 1 (7 Days, United Arab Emirates) The good news is that child labor in Asia is decreasing. The bad news, however, is that it is not declining fast enough. Despite a drop of about five million since 2000, working children number an estimated 122 million in Asia, or 64 per cent of the worldwide total, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO). That’s just slightly less than the entire population of Japan. Though the causes of child labor are complex, the UN agency says a key problem is that there are too many people who, despite wanting their children in school, either can’t afford fees or related costs like transportation and uniforms, or would find it hard to get by without the extra income. In such an environment, many families send their kids to work, in the fields, in factories, selling trinkets on the street or even in dangerous worksites, like mines. “The problem is the reduction in Asia is not as rapid as it should be,” Panudda Boonpala, senior child labor specialist at the ILO, said.  “A large number of working poor means that we have a large number of people who are unable to support children to go to school.” Child labor is one of the topics under discussion at the UN body’s first Asian conference in five years. Under the theme of ‘Realizing Decent Work’, government representatives from 40 countries and territories as well as workers’ and employers’ organizations have been meeting this week to discuss issues such as youth employment, migration, globalization, competitiveness and productivity. Participants in a session on youth employment yesterday watched a short video on child labor, in which children were shown working at a gold mine in Mongolia. In a report on labor and social trends in the region, the ILO said that the number of child workers, defined as being between the ages of five to 14, in Asia fell to 122.3 million in 2004 from 127.3 million four years earlier. However, South Asia, which includes Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, remains a child labor hotspot, according to World Bank statistics contained in the ILO report. Perhaps nowhere is the problem more acute than in Nepal, where as of 2004, according to the ILO, nearly 40 per cent of children aged ten to 14 were working, sometimes for long hours and in jobs requiring strenuous physical labor such as in mines, quarries and carpet factories. But even there, the statistics show improvement, with the percentage of children on the job declining from near 50 per cent in 1990. The Philippines, which has a national action plan crafted under ILO guidance, has also shown improvement, though problems remain in areas such as fireworks production, deep-sea fishing and mining. “The laws are all there,” said undersecretary of labor and employment Manuel G Imson.  He added that the government is working to enforce them by cooperating with NGOs and national organizations like the police. Moreover, perceptions have also improved. “I think ten years ago there was lots of denial,” the ILO’s Panudda said.  Further progress, however, depends on how much effort and resources Asian countries put into the fight, she added. People who work as children also have less chance of securing good jobs in early adulthood because their lack of basic schooling makes it hard for them to receive skills in the form of vocational education. The ILO is committed to ending what it calls the worst forms of child labor and abuse, which include slavery, using children in armed conflicts, trafficking in sex and drugs and hazardous labor, over the next ten years. http://www.7days.ae/2006/09/01/asian-child-labor-is-still-too-high.html Top Africa Adds to Miserable Ranks of Child Workers By MICHAEL WINES, LUSAKA, Zambia, August 24 (The New York Times) The boulders here are hard enough that the scavengers who have taken over the abandoned quarry south of downtown prefer not to strike them directly with their hammers. They heat the rocks first — with flaming tires, scrap plastic, even old rubber boots — so that the stones will fracture more easily. At dusk, when three or four blazes spew choking black clouds across the huge pit, the quarry looks like a woodcut out of Dante. A boy named Alone Banda works in this purgatory six days a week. Nine years old, nearly lost in a hooded sweatshirt with a skateboarder 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 $3. Often, she said, it is 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 said. “We work every day, to make that powder. Sometimes we work Sunday, if we don’t go to church.” Across the globe, the number of children forced to work is in sharp decline. But sub-Saharan Africa, in places like Lusaka and for children like Alone, is the exception. Here, more than one in four children below age 14 works, 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 age 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, haulers, street vendors, full-time servants, and they are not necessarily even paid for their labor. Some are as young as 5 and 6 years old. In Kenya, nearly a third of the coffee pickers were children, a 2001 World Bank Report found. In Tanzania, 25,000 children worked 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 percent of sub-Saharan residents live on less than $1 a day, far and away the greatest share on earth — is a big reason. But so are social mores that regard hard work by children as the norm, and conflicts that scatter families and kill breadwinners. So is the staggering H.I.V. rate, which has created millions of orphans who must work to survive, and has forced millions more to work to support dying parents. In Zambia alone, a 2002 study by independent researchers for the United Nations concluded that AIDS had boosted the number of child laborers by up to 30 percent. So is the region’s population explosion. Well over 4 in 10 people here are under age 15, compared with fewer than 2 in 10 in the developed world, according to the Population Reference Bureau, a nonprofit research organization. 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 percent from 2000 to 2004, to about 191 million, according to the International Organization for Labor, a United Nations 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, nearly 12 million. Indeed, 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 recognize 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 H.I.V.-AIDS.” Echoes of Oliver Twist If the stereotype of child labor is an Oliver Twist 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. Alone — a family name, like many in this part of the world, drawn from the English language — and his grandmother rise at about 6:30 a.m. After washing, they make the half-hour walk to the quarry where they work, under a plastic tarp mounted on scavenged tree branches. Alone describes his day in the most basic English: “I break the rocks. I get up early in the morning, before the sun rises. For breakfast, I drink tea sometimes. This morning, I didn’t eat. I’m hungry.” After two hours, he walks to Tatwasha Basic School, a state-run institution near his home, for about four hours of classes. Tatwasha, a grid of cinder-block buildings set on a yellow dirt courtyard, has 3,000 students. About 300 work in the quarries. Maureen Chinjenge, the school’s stern headmistress, has a word for the quarry children: disoriented. “Most of these children are orphans,” she said, “and in most cases, their performance is not good. For the most part, they don’t eat breakfast, and coming to classes they don’t concentrate. Things like clothing, they don’t have any, and the other children make fun of them.” Their attendance, she says, is spotty. Many are latecomers; some first-graders are as old as 11. Alone, a second-grader at age 9, fits that template well. Asked his teacher’s name, he fidgets for fully a minute, then answers ruefully, “I don’t remember.” After school, he returns to the quarry where, sitting cross-legged on the ground, he attacks his pile of rocks for five more hours, until sunset. A scab marked his left cheek, damage from a sliver of quartz-like rock that flew into his face after an especially hard strike. Other stone-crushers complain of broken fingers, impaired vision or a “heavy chest,” an early sign of silicosis, but Alone says he has suffered no serious injuries beyond some smashed fingers and cut eyes. “It’s a hard job; I hurt myself sometimes,” he said, but “I measure my size. I don’t break huge amounts. I do it according to my age.” 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, theft or selling sex to survive. In Lusaka, a city of 1.2 million, “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 H.I.V.,” 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 ages 5 and 17, roughly 9 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 also has 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. Ms. 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 said. “But there’s no coordination. It’s difficult to staff basic social services — schools, clinics — because people keep dying” of AIDS. Choosing a Way to Die Chola J. Chabala, the Zambian 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 oversight 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.” Crushing stone is ranked in international agreements as one of the worst forms of child labor, full of risks from flying rock fragments, misdirected hammers, repetitive motion injuries and years of inhaling dust. Like prostitution, it is a job undertaken for survival, not profit. Mrs. Chilufya, of Jesus Cares Ministries, says that in the last four years her group has taken close to 1,000 children from the quarries, placing them in the organization’s own schools and giving small loans to parents and caretakers to open more sustainable businesses, like roadside groceries. But Lusaka has three major quarries, and although hundreds of children have been rescued and sent to schools, hundreds more have taken their place. The quarries are sprawling outcrops of limestone or quartz-like rock that are hand-mined by hundreds of itinerants armed with hammers, shovels and sledges. In places, they have dug as much as 20 feet below the surface, leaving lattices of surface paths between pits of algae-clogged rainwater, washbasins for the workers’ laundry. The quarries have their own economy. Men split boulders into smaller chunks, then sell them by the barrow to women whose families reduce them to gravel and powder. Homeless and unsupervised children, roaming the streets, hire themselves out at about 30 cents a day to help with the crushing. The output goes on display beside highways — waist-high piles of gravel; old cement bags packed with crushed stone or powder. Construction crews buy the rocks and powder, then sell the cement bags back to the rock breakers. It is a tiring, endlessly tedious task. Its practitioners work six and seven days a week, and they make almost nothing. Fifty-year-old Ms. Mulelema and her grandson Alone live in Lusaka’s Chawama neighborhood, a slum of one- and two-room block houses linked by dirt paths, in a single room, perhaps 8 by 12 feet. A sheet draped over a rope separates a grimy foam sofa and two wooden chairs from a rudimentary kitchen. There is no electricity. Pencils of sunshine streaming through holes in the corrugated asbestos roof supply the only light. Nor is there a toilet; the stench of human waste wafts upward from bushes outside. Water is hauled in from a community tap. Mrs. Mulelema sleeps on the sofa. Alone sleeps on the concrete floor. Stenciled in black on the wall is a diamond, one word at each angle, comprising a homily: “God Bless Us All.” Alone has been living with his grandmother since his mother died in 2001. His father is a mystery. “I saw him once, but it was long ago,” his grandmother said. “It’s just Alone, and I am taking care of him.” Alone is a handsome boy, with large brown eyes and close-cropped hair, but clearly malnourished. He is short enough — a bit under four feet — to be mistaken for a 6- or 7-year-old. He has two pairs of pants, his skateboard sweatshirt and a pair of black leather shoes, which he reserves for school, the soles so worn that his toes hang out the front. Hungry, but Paying the Rent The two or three bags of rock powder that Alone can produce, at 10,000 kwacha per bag, are sold as a mixer for concrete, often to line swimming pools for Lusaka’s wealthier residents. They are the most lucrative products his grandmother offers, almost enough to pay the $11 a month she needs for rent and access to the community water tap. Sales of the gravel she produces earn barely enough money to buy corn meal and small, dried fish, called kapenta, that the two eat for dinner. For Mrs. Mulelema, Alone is literally the difference between profit and loss, and a hair’s-breadth difference at that. “We don’t eat breakfast every day,” she said. “At lunch we have sweet potatoes, and then we wait for supper. “If I decide to have my breakfast, it means I won’t have anything for supper.” Mrs. Mulelema once tried to open a food stand in the community market, but could not raise the cash. Like virtually all the hundreds of Lusakans who crush stones, she says she does it because she has no choice. “The business has no profit,” said Mwila Zulu, a 40-year-old mother of three girls. She has been crushing stone at a quarry in Lusaka’s industrial zone since the police shut down her unlicensed vegetable stand in the city’s downtown in 2002. Mrs. Zulu’s husband died last year with symptoms that pointed to AIDS. Her daughters work at the quarry after school ends at noon, trying to fill the space he left. The youngest, Kunda and Mercy, break rocks with ball-peen hammers, the handles cut down to fit their hands. By day’s end, their deep brown arms and faces wear a film of white quartz-like dust. They are 7 and 8 years old. “She started working with me in recent years,” Mrs. Zulu said of Kunda. “She couldn’t do anything when she was young, but now she’s grown, so she’s helping me.” For 50,000 kwacha, or $15, a passing construction worker can buy a chest-high heap of gravel that took them three weeks to render. But sales of that size are infrequent, sometimes once every two or three weeks, and money is short. Mrs. Zulu said she did not waste time fretting over her daughters’ fate. “If I feel pity for them,” she said, “what are they going to eat?” Gavin du Venagecontributed reporting from Sedgefield, South Africa, for this article. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/24/world/africa/24zambia.html?ex=1314072000&en= b04a522a11583e23&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss Top

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