A report of the conference hosted by the United States
Department of Labor, in collaboration with the International Labor
Organization, on May 17, 2000 at the United States Department of
Labor in Washington, D.C.
Preface
DOL-ILO Conference on Advancing the
Campaign Against Child Labor
On May 17, 2000, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) co-sponsored
a conference with the International Labor Organization (ILO),
entitled Advancing the Campaign Against Child Labor: Progress Made
and Future Actions. The conference brought together
representatives of government, non-governmental organizations,
academic institutions, and civil society to share their experiences
and discuss strategies for overcoming exploitative child labor
around the world. A webcast of the day's events also allowed
several secondary schools from around the United States to observe
and even participate in the conference by posing questions to
panels of child labor experts.
Through this conference and these proceedings, the U.S.
Department of Labor and the International Labor Organization hope
to draw greater international attention to the child labor issue
and to encourage broader and more coordinated action to end the
exploitation of the world's children. This volume contains an
edited collection of the speeches and papers prepared and presented
for this meeting, as well as news feature stories and photos
documenting many of the efforts discussed. It seeks to
highlight some of the innovative and effective strategies being
used in various countries around the world to address the problem
of exploitative child labor.
Today, it is widely known that child labor is a problem that
touches every country and every region of the world. While
the number of working children remains large -- the ILO estimates that
at least 250 million engage in child labor worldwide -- there is much
cause for hope. Over the past decade, the international
community has seen a dramatic increase in the attention shown to
the issue of child labor. Governments that once hesitated to
recognize the issue are now accepting the challenge to collaborate
to end this global problem.
The 87th International Labor Conference, held in June 1999,
demonstrated the international community's heightened awareness to
the plight of working children. As President Clinton
proclaimed, speaking as the first U.S. President to address the
International Labor Conference in Geneva, "Today, the time has come
to build on the growing world consensus to ban the most abusive
forms of child labor -- to join together and to say there are some
things we cannot and will not tolerate." Joining together,
the delegates to that conference adopted ILO Convention 182 on the
Worst Forms of Child Labor, saying to the world that our children
should be nurtured not neglected, educated not exploited.
More than fifty countries -- roughly a third of the ILO's total
membership -- have already ratified this Convention, making it the
most quickly ratified treaty in the ILO's 81‑year
history. The Convention, which passed through the U.S. Senate
with record speed, was signed by President Clinton in December of
1999 and formally came into force as international law on November
19, 2000.
The Advancing the Campaign Against Child Labor Conference
builds upon this growing momentum within the international
community. In the conference's opening session, U.S.
Secretary of Labor Alexis M. Herman called for broader and bolder
action to address child labor globally. She called for
programs that seek on a national scale to remove children from
hazardous and abusive work, increase their access to quality
education, and create economic alternatives for their
families. ILO Director General Juan Somavia, in turn, urged
advocacy on a worldwide level to create a climate of moral outrage
that would make continued exploitation of children unprofitable and
ultimately impossible.
The Conference also included several notable speakers from the
United States, including U.S. Senator Tom Harkin, U.S. National
Economic Advisor Gene Sperling, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, and
U.S. Council for International Business President Tom Niles.
Each called for expanding efforts on behalf of the world's
children. Senator Harkin described child labor as the single
most important practice inhibiting economic and social growth and
emphasized education as the best alternative for working
children. National Economic Advisor Gene Sperling spoke of
the remarkable opportunity the United States has to form a new
consensus and partnership with developing countries to make
progress on a range of issues including promoting core labor
standards, ending the most abusive forms of child labor, and
promoting universal education.
In his remarks, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney expressed the
commitment of America's working families and unions to
endingBanywhere in the worldBthe vicious cycle that traps families
into poverty and despair and creates the desperation that drives
children into harmful work. Calling the global struggle
against child labor a question of values, he decried the economic
imbalances that result in children being valued, not for who they
are or who they will become, but for what they can represent in
terms of cheap, docile and expendable labor. U.S. Council for
International Business President Tom Niles similarly cited poverty
as one of the prime causes of child labor, but suggested that
globalization, under proper conditions, could promote economic
development and contribute to a solution to the problem of child
labor.
Speaking on behalf of their respective governments, Minister of
Labor and Social Security Jorge Nieto Menéndez of El
Salvador, State Minister for Labor and Transport Surendra Hamal of
Nepal, and Deputy Minister of Labor and Youth Development William
Lukuvi of Tanzania announced their governments' commitment to
launching national and comprehensive programs to eliminate child
labor using a "timebound approach." These programs will
involve a set of comprehensive and integrated initiatives intended
to show visible results in eliminating the worst forms of child
labor in these country within a specified period of time. It
is hoped that progress in these countries will provide models and
encouragement for additional countries to pursue this
comprehensive, national approach. The governments of these
three countries should be applauded for taking this important step
forward, helping to set the bar for which other countries can now
reach.
A highlight of the conference was the participation of three
former working children from Bangladesh, Guatemala, and Tanzania,
who shared their stories with us all. Speaking with Secretary
Herman, Director General Somavia, Senator Harkin and National
Economic Advisor Sperling, the three children -- Julekha Akhter,
a 15-year-old girl who worked in a Bangladesh garment factory; Juan
Alberto Hernández, a 14-year-old boy who worked in a
Guatemalan stone quarry; and Mwaja Mahundi, a 13-year-old girl who
worked as domestic servant in Tanzania -- described their experiences
as child laborers. For each of these children, engaging in
child labor meant giving up the opportunity to go to school.
Thanks to the ILO's International Program on the Elimination of
Child Labor (IPEC), however, these children left work and returned
to school. IPEC programs are also instrumental in helping
families of working children identify income generating
alternatives that reduce their dependence on the labor of their
children.
Following the conference's opening session, representatives of
government and nongovernmental organizations from around the world
participated on several child labor panels. The expert panels
covered a range of topics under the following headings:
Raising Awareness Against Child Labor, Implementing Effective
Strategies in the Workplace, Providing Educational
Opportunities, and Reworking the Economic Equation: Raising
Family Earnings Potential. The panelists shared their
insights on issues related to child labor, spoke of lessons learned
and best practices, and debated next steps in the global campaign
to end child labor.
In closing, I would like to thank Secretary Herman, Director
General Juan Somavia, Senator Tom Harkin, National Economic Advisor
Gene Sperling, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, and U.S. Council for
International Business President Tom Niles for their leadership and
tireless efforts on behalf of the world's working children. I
would like again to acknowledge the historical commitment made by
the governments of El Salvador, Nepal, and Tanzania to ending the
worst forms of child labor within their borders within a set time
frame. Moreover, I would like to say a special thank you to
the three former working children -- Julekha Akhter, Juan Alberto
Hernández, and Mwaja Mahundi -- for sharing their lives and
experiences with us and enriching us all in the process. For
their efforts in making this conference and this publication a
reality, I would like to recognize Associate Deputy Undersecretary
Macarthur DeShazer, the co-directors of the Department of Labor's
International Child Labor Program (ICLP), Marcia Eugenio and
Maureen Jaffe, along with the staffs of the ICLP and ILO's IPEC
program. Finally, thank you to all those who participated -- in
person or via webcast -- in this landmark conference. I believe
that together we can and will defeat child labor and ensure for the
world's children a future free of abuse and exploitation and full
of hope.
Andrew James Samet
Deputy Under Secretary
for International Affairs
U.S. Department of Labor
Washington, DC
December 2000
Table of Contents
Introduction
I. Introductory Addresses
Alexis M. Herman, Secretary of Labor
Juan Somavia, Director General, International Labor
Organization
Tom Harkin,
Senator
Tom Niles, President, US Council for International
Business
John Sweeney, President,
AFL-CIO
Gene Sperling, National Economic
Advisor
II. Addresses to the Conference by Ministers of
Labor
Jorge Nieto Menéndez, Minister of Labor and Social
Security, El Salvador
Surendra Hamal, State Minister for Labor and Transport,
Nepal
William Lukuvi, Deputy Minister for Labor and Youth Development,
Tanzania
III. Conversation With Former Working
Children
Julekha Akhter, Bangladesh, age
15
Juan Alberto Hernández, Guatemala, age
14
Mwaja Mahundi, Tanzania, age
13
IV. Panel
Presentations
-
Panel A: Raising Awareness
Against Child Labor
-
The Global March Against Child Labor,
Kailash Satyarthi
-
Brazil: Mobilizing Journalists to
Advocate for Children´s Rights,
Geraldinho
Vieira
-
The Philippines: Advocacy and
Awareness-Raising Campaign Against Child Labor, Alcestis
Mangahas
-
In Focus: Where there's School,
there's Hope, by Luz Rimban
-
Tanzania: Awareness-Raising and
Social Mobilization to Prevent Child Domestic Servitude, Vicky
Kanyoka
-
In Focus: The Plight of Young
Girls in Domestic Work, by Rose Haji
-
Kenya: Utilizing the Grassroots
Structure of Local Trade Unions in the Movement Against Child
Labor, Francis
Atwoli
-
Panel B: Implementing Effective
Strategies in the Workplace
-
Bangladesh: A Multilateral
Collaboration to Eliminate Child Labor in the Export-Oriented
Garment Industry, Anisur Rahman
Sinha
-
In Focus: Reaching for Bigger Dreams,
Aasha Amin Mehreen
-
Pakistan: Eliminating Child
Labor in the Soccer Ball Industry, Aseema Zahoor
-
In Focus: Light in Bhagwal Awan,
by Salman Rashid
-
Central America: Cooperative Effort to
End Child Labor in the Coffee Industry, Rijk van Haarlem
-
In Focus: Coffee's Children, by
Maite Puertes
-
Guatemala: Finding a Long-Term
Solution to Child Labor in the Coffee Sector, William Hempstead
Smith
-
Turkey: Using Training to Promote
Local Ownership of Interventions to Eliminate Child Labor, Dr.
Irfan
Yazman
-
Nepal: The Rugmark Way of Restoring
Childhood, Saroj Rai
-
In Focus: The Children Who Made
Carpets, by Naresh Newar
-
Panel C: Providing
Educational Opportunities
-
Thailand: Developing Quality of
Life -- "Sema Pattana Chivit" -- for Girls at Risk of Being Lured
into Prostitution, Savitri
Suwansathit
-
In Focus: Life before Death:
Making the Choice, by Chitraporn Vanaspong
-
Kenya: Capacity Building for
School Dropouts, Paschal Wambiya
-
India: Bridging the Gap Between Home
and School, Shantha Sinha
-
In Focus: Torch-Bearers of
Tomorrow, by Geetha Raghuraman
-
Dominican Republic: A Program for the
Elimination of Child Labor in Commercial Agriculture, Karen
Ovalles
-
In Focus: Sandy Goes to School,
by Ruth Herrera
-
Panel D: Reworking the Economic
Equation: Raising Family Earnings Potential
-
Guatemala: Child Labor in the
Stone Quarries of Retelhuleu, Maribel
-
Rodríguez
-
In Focus: "The Boys at the
Beach", by Carlos Bendfeldt
-
Peru: Elimination of Child Labor
in the Huachipa Brick Sector, Rochelle
-
Beck
-
Nepal: Toward the Elimination of
Bonded Child Labor, Uddhav Raj
-
Poudyal
-
In Focus: Freedom At Last, by
Naresh Newar
Introductory addresses
Host and leading speaker:
Alexis M. Herman
United States Secretary of Labor
Guest speakers (in order of speaking):
Juan Somavia
Director General, International Labor Office
The Honorable Tom Harkin
United States Senator
Tom Niles
President, US Council for International Business
John Sweeney
President, AFL-CIO
Gene Sperling
National Economic Advisor
Alexis M. Herman, Secretary of Labor, United States
Department of Labor
Child labor is a global problem that demands a worldwide
response. An estimated 250 million children between the ages of
five and 14 work, half of them full time, and tens of millions work
under conditions that threaten terrible harm to their physical,
moral and intellectual development.
The problem is urgent, and yet this conference is right to focus
on "Progress Made and Future Actions" -- because there has been
significant progress in recent years and we do have a strong
foundation for future action.
The Department of Labor has worked with the International Labor
Organization's International Program on the Elimination of Child
Labor since 1995. During that time, we have seen the
Clinton-Gore Administration's annual spending on child labor issues
dramatically increase -- with bipartisan Congressional
support. The United States is now IPEC's leading
contributor.
The President's budget for fiscal 2001 proposes $100 million to
combat child labor. I am proud of the President's leadership
and deep concern about children all around the world.
Programs funded by the Department of Labor provide more than
120,000 children in Africa, Asia and Latin America -- children like
the three who are with us today -- with an opportunity to
attend school, and also provide thousands of families with
income-generating alternatives to child labor.
This international crusade reached a historic milestone in
Seattle last December, when President Clinton signed an
international agreement (ILO Convention 182) under which many
nations will work together to eliminate the worst kinds of child
labor. "This Convention enables the world to say, no more,"
the President declared.
Even more recently, in March, President Clinton's visit to
Bangladesh focused international attention on a program that has
removed an estimated 10,000 children -- all of them under the legal
working age of 14 -- from work in garment factories. This
program, and others in Pakistan, Guatemala, Tanzania and
elsewhere, has shown the world that children can be rescued
from abusive child labor.
The worldwide abolition of child labor is long overdue. I
doubt that we could have held this meeting five years ago.
But the world has moved past denial to determined action. We
meet today not only with the strong support of this Administration
but of the American people.
This is the moment for broader, bolder action. In the
past, we have focused on building a framework, public awareness,
national committees, statistical surveys and targeted demonstration
programs. Now, we must accelerate our campaign and work
closely with countries to move their efforts to the next level B
national plans with specific goals and specific
timetables.
Our goal is not success at some distant, uncertain date, but the
elimination of the worst forms of child labor in our time.
El Salvador, Nepal and Tanzania, with the support of the ILO,
are initiating ambitious new national programs to remove children
from hazardous and abusive work, increase their access to quality
education, and create economic alternatives for their
families. We look to them for leadership as we enter a new
stage of the international battle against abusive child labor. We
pledge them our support.
We do not say that no child should ever work. We do mean
no child should be placed in forced or bonded labor . . . no child
should be brutalized and exploited by the commercial sex trade . .
. and no child should be placed in hazardous work.
There is only one word for that kind of work:
intolerable. At the dawn of the 21st century, we must leave
the darkness of abusive child labor behind.
Rather, children throughout the world should be nurtured not
neglected . . . educated not exploited . . . and helped not
harmed.
We recognize that economic opportunity for parents offers the
best hope for children. But we reject the claims that in its
absence children face only a choice between poverty or
exploitation. That is a false choice.
Child labor will not cure poverty. It will only perpetuate
it.
Nations cannot rise on the backs of their children. There
is another way, a better way. It is the path that leads
children to the classroom -- not to workrooms.
We must see that children everywhere have access to basic
education. As President Clinton has said, "If we want to slam
the door shut on abusive child labor, we must open the door wide to
education and opportunity."
At the same time, we must offer families of working children
economic alternatives that allow them to choose school over work
for their children. We must empower families, by such means
as training adult family members in marketable skills and opening
up access to credit so parents can start businesses.
Millions of children around the world look to us for help and
the hope of a better life.
Juan Somavia, Director General, International Labor
Organization
Imagine a country the size of the United States, in which the
entire population -- 250 million -- is child
laborers. Then imagine, within it, the worst forms. An
underclass of children -- some 60 to 80 million at least.
Roughly the population of California, Texas and New York
combined.
Child labor, in many ways, is an abuse of power. Adults
are exploiting the young, weak, vulnerable, and insecure for
personal profit. Child labor is lack of opportunity for
parents, and it is the biggest failure of development
efforts. Together with the 1.3 billion people living in
extreme poverty, it is the dark side of the global economy.
Is eradicating child labor from the face of the earth an
impossible dream? I believe it is not. It should not
be. It cannot be. That is why we are here today. All of
us are committed to this course. We want to act, participate,
contribute, and be part of a growing global movement. To make
it happen we must begin by understanding local realities, reaching
concrete communities, children with names, parents with faces,
families in need.
During the last eight years some 90 countries have formed an
alliance that has turned the issue into a global cause. From
just one donor country (Germany) and six participating states in
1992, IPEC now has more than 20 donors and 65 participating
countries.
IPEC and other field projects are vital, but they are not
enough. Worldwide advocacy is necessary, focusing on the
worst forms. A campaign that mobilizes by expanding and
deepening commitment. A campaign that creates a climate of
moral outrage making it uncomfortable, unprofitable, and ultimately
impossible for the exploiters of children to continue in their
ways.
At the same time opportunities for sustainable development are
needed so that children and their families can find alternatives to
the vicious circle of poverty and exclusion. Often, a child's
pay is the only family income. Experience has shown that
education for all is crucial. Schools for children, and
decent work for their parents.
One year ago, delegates from the ILO's member states -
governments, employers, and workers - voted unanimously to adopt
the new Convention on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child
Labor. Ratifying governments commit themselves to immediate
action to protect children and provide them with education and
rehabilitation. Today 15 countries, including the United
States, have already ratified the Convention. Many more
report that they will be doing so.[1]
Increasingly, societies are no longer willing to countenance the
intolerable. They are ready to assume responsibility for the
destiny of their children. National policy and international
cooperation can be brought together in comprehensive time-bound
programs for the eradication of the worst forms of child
labor. Countries that move in that direction should be
recognized and supported.
I trust that this conference will put us firmly on that
road.
Tom Harkin, Senator, United States Senate
Not long ago, few wanted to speak about this issue and those who
did speak out went largely unheard. Yet we have all come
together: Labor Ministers, non-governmental organizations,
business and labor leaders, to share best practices and find
long-term solutions for children forced to toil in fisheries,
factories, and fields.
I am proud to call myself a friend and supporter of IPEC since
1994. I have visited some of these IPEC schools and have
spoken with the children learning there. I can say it is an
uplifting experience to see excitement in the eyes of these
children as they learn to read and write.
I'm happy to report that the United States contributions to IPEC
have risen ten-fold, from $3 million in Fiscal Year 1998 to $30
million in Fiscal Years 1999 and 2000. Just last week my
Committee funded IPEC at $45 million for Fiscal Year 2001. To
date, US-funded IPEC projects have provided over 120,000 children
in developing countries around the world with educational
opportunities they would not have otherwise had. This is
something we can truly be proud of.
But more needs to be done. We are releasing the sixth DoL
report on child labor, for which I have again helped secure
funding. It confirms the importance of education for future
economic development.
This report affirms that children are better off over the course
of a lifetime if they go to school. Better educated kids grow
into more productive and better paid adult workers. Education
also benefits society as a whole: educated adults are
generally healthier; more involved in the political process; less
dependent on social support programs; and more apt to save and to
innovate. In fact, I believe the single most important
feature, institution or practice of developing nations that
inhibits their economic growth, inhibits their social growth, is
the use and practice of abusive child labor.[2]
Tom Niles, President, United States Council for International
Business
As we look at the issue of child labor worldwide, to me it is a
bad news/good news story. The bad news is that child labor
remains widespread in large parts of the world.
The good news is that the problem of child labor has assumed a
much higher profile of late. This conference today is an
example of that. The adoption last year of Convention 182 and
its speedy ratification in the United States is also a very good
sign.
My organization took a leading role in the process that led to
Convention 182, and we're proud of that. We worked together
with our affiliates, our colleagues from other business
organizations that participate in the ILO.
Convention 182 is an important document from two
perspectives. One, in terms of what it does, and that is to
call for the elimination of the most abusive forms of child labor,
and, secondly, for what it isn't.
One of the reasons why we were able to move so quickly in the
ratification of Convention 182 in the United States, and I think
it's happened in other countries as well, is that it's not an
overly-detailed and proscriptive convention, and those are the
kinds of conventions that we in the business community believe the
ILO should really focus on, so that we cannot only secure
ratification but implementation of these conventions. It does
not benefit the workers of the world or the children who are in
abusive child labor situations if a convention is ratified and then
not implemented.
Child labor is not a result of the process currently underway in
the world which goes under the general heading of
"globalization." Globalization is not the cause of child
labor. UNICEF estimates that only five percent of the child
workers in the world today are engaged in what's considered the
Aexport sector. So, trade in itself does not have a major
impact on encouraging child labor.
The cause of child labor, at least one of the principal causes
of child labor, is poverty. Poverty is a result of
under-development. Under-development can only be solved
through development, which depends upon the growth of trade and
investment, among other things.
So, the answer, at least partly, to elimination of child labor,
is economic development, sustainable economic development, through
trade and investment. And far from being the cause of child
labor, under proper conditions, globalization can be one of the
solutions to the problem of child labor through increased economic
development.
What are the requirements for this positive process? One
is that developed countries should open their markets more widely
to the goods and services of the developing countries. A good
example of what we should do is the recently-enacted Bill on Trade
Preferences for Africa and the Caribbean Basin countries.
We should encourage similar efforts elsewhere, including within
the World Trade Organization, to encourage economic development
around the world. This will produce at least some of the
resources required for more education and for economic growth,
which will make it possible gradually to eliminate child labor.
John Sweeney, President, AFL-CIO
Around the world, children are employed in some of the most
dangerous and degrading forms of work -- doing work and performing
tasks we may not even think of as a job.
A lot of this work is invisible. It is dirty, dangerous
and even, at times, deadly. And it is work that may require
very little skill -- only the strength and stamina of a desperate,
hungry child.
In today's imbalanced global economy, these children are valued
not for who they are, or for who they will become, but because they
are cheap, docile and expendable. They suffer from illness,
injury and disease. They are part of families who struggle
every day to survive, where adults are without work, where families
are locked in a cycle of poverty, hopelessness and despair.
With all that we know and understand in this vaunted information
age, who would have thought that we could not solve a problem which
wreaks such devastation? We have conquered the moon and
mastered the stars. We have designed machines to dig the
deepest wells and lift any boulder. We can move goods production
anywhere in our global village in a matter of days. We can
split atoms and clone sheep.
Yet we have not been able to end child labor, which destroys
lives and homes and communities as surely as any hurricane, fire or
flood. It is one of the genuine nightmares of our time, one
from which millions of children have not been able to escape.
We must fight the exploitation of children wherever it may
be. Sometimes child exploitation has been taken head-on -- on
plantations in Kenya, in garment factories in Bangladesh, rug looms
in Nepal and garbage piles in Indonesia. Other times we've
taken our battle to classrooms or conference rooms, sometimes to
Capitol Hill or union halls.
In Kenya, workers have mobilized against child labor B
harnessing community activism in areas where child labor is
rampant. Village chiefs and teachers identify at‑risk
families. Local unions, churches and officials pool resources
to educate working families about financial aid and family
counseling. Teachers organize youth groups to provide parents
an alternative to taking their children into the fields.
Employers help distribute information while workers weigh in their
coffee.
In Pakistan, unions exposed the contradiction of young children
who suffer serious injury while making and polishing the surgical
instruments used in American hospitals.
In Nepal and Bangladesh, we established schools for children
rescued from bondage.
We at the AFL‑CIO are proud to be playing a supportive
role in these movements through our Solidarity Center, at the same
time as we are humbled by how much more we could -- and should B
do.
This struggle is about our basic values: what we will
stand up for, and what we will put up with. What we are prepared to
fight for, and what we are prepared to stomach.
America's working families and our unions are committed to fight
to end the vicious cycle that traps families in poverty and despair
anywhere in the world. We want to end the conditions that
create the desperation that drives children into harmful work.
Gene Sperling, National Economic Advisor and Director of the
National Economic Council, United States
We have a remarkable opportunity in the United States to make a
major leap forward in forming a new consensus on our partnership
with developing countries and their economic development.
But if we're going to do that, we have to see the
interconnections. We have to see the whole. There are
disagreements that exist between this Administration and some of
our friends on some trade issues, but that is only one aspect.
Beyond that, there is an emerging consensus on a range of issues
that we can make progress on, and it's not just an emerging
consensus between the Administration and some of our friends in
Labor, but between religious organizations, between NGOs, between
Democrats and Republicans, and those issues are:
Debt relief, going forward on our debt relief initiative that
was passed at Cologne, and on which the President went further by
calling for a 100 percent bilateral debt relief from the United
States.
Secondly, it is an attack on infectious diseases and a new
effort to do more for research and funding for vaccines.
Third, it is an effort to promote core labor standards.
Fourth, to attack the most abusive forms of child labor.
Fifth is to look at what we can do to reach universal education
by 2015, and increase the opportunities for developing countries to
trade with us through instruments like the African Growth and the
Caribbean Basin Initiatives.
We have a new initiative that will allow us to deal with more
basic education strategies that can complement what IPEC is doing,
so that as we're going after the most abusive forms of child labor,
we are also helping to ensure that the schools are there.
Our goal can never be to get children out of abusive factory
situations just into abusive non-work situations, whether it's
drug-running or child prostitution, or even simply
inactivity. Our goal must be to move children into schools,
into schools where they can learn.
There is a financial roadblock in so-called free schooling in
developing countries, where a parent now has to decide not only to
give up the temporary income from the child working, but take a
third of their yearly income to pay for school uniforms and fees
and all the other costs.
A total of 113 million young children are not in school, 97
percent of them in developing countries. Forty to 50 percent
of all African children are not in school.
We are going to raise this issue at the G8 and the G7, and we
are going to also push and ask for the World Bank to do more.
The World Bank's lending for education has varied only between one
to three billion dollars over the last few years, and less than
half of that goes for basic education.
One thing I've learned is that you can't just look at education
funding. Sometimes the education funding in a country is just
going to a few, an elite class. It is a kind of reverse
pyramid where most of the money is spent on a few, and a little is
spent on the many to make sure that they're getting the most basic
education.
If we could increase dramatically the World Bank funding, it
would be part of a comprehensive strategy.
This conference offers tangible actions to show the United
States Congress and the G7 what can be done on child labor,
education, and on debt relief and health, which affect the budgets
of countries and affect their ability to do more for education and
fight child labor.
Addresses to the Conference by Ministers of Labor
Ministers from three countries committing to national plans of
action for time-bound elimination of child labor were invited to
address the conference. In order of speaking, they were:
Jorge Nieto Menéndez
Minister of Labor and Social Security, El Salvador
Surendra Hamal
State Minister for Labor and Transport, Nepal
William Lukuvi
Deputy Minister of Labor and Youth Development, Tanzania
Jorge Nieto Menéndez, Minister of Labor and
Social Security, El Salvador
No one is unaware that the roots of child labor lie in social
and economic factors which are difficult to resolve. This
problem has demanded that El Salvador, its national institutions
and the NGO community establish strategic alliances in a
coordinated and continuous effort to set in motion a process to
eradicate child labor, a goal necessary for the future of our
country.
To fight child labor, it is of primary importance to examine the
social and economic forces which press parents into sending their
children and adolescents to work at such an early age.
We must embark upon actions which allow the capacity of our
children and adolescents to be fulfilled. To this end, the
government has implemented a series of programs to combat the worst
forms of child labor with the assistance of the ILO and DoL.
In 1996, the government signed an MoU with the ILO, in which it
committed itself to the gradual and progressive elimination of
child labor.
This initiative depends on IPEC support to implement specific
projects in localities and municipalities where the worst forms of
child labor are prevalent. The government is also compiling a
national report on these forms of work, which will provide a
reference and facilitate the creation of a basis for a national
program.
After the national report has been compiled and the problem
investigated, we will be ready to initiate specific actions geared
toward creating an integrated, firm, and sustainable policy to
gradually and progressively eradicate the worst forms of child
labor.
The projects which were implemented with the support of DoL were
initiated to address the sectors where one finds the worst forms of
child labor, as defined by Convention 182. We await the
adoption of the requisite laws for the ratification and
implementation of Convention 182. The government of El
Salvador has offered strong support for ratification.
To be able to implement our national program for the eradication
of child labor, we depend on support from the United States
government and DoL.
In the field of education it is important to design programs to
inform parents of the need to keep their children in school.
At the same time, efforts to prevent child labor should involve the
community in identifying the problem and in searching for
solutions. Therefore the first phase of the program,
prioritizing areas for projects, should result in better education
of children and communities in the problem municipalities.
We know that the strengthening of education and training is
essential. However, education alone cannot eliminate child
labor.
Keeping children and adolescents in school can also mean
economic sacrifice for the family group. Some families are
willing to send children to school as long as there is the
possibility of obtaining income by alternative means.
Therefore, it is important to provide support to parents.
In the field of health, there is a plan to bring attention to
and to foster the health of children and adolescents and to offer
necessary support to the family group, so that children may
energetically pursue their intellectual and physical
development.
In the field of labor and social planning, we have planned
actions to improve the living conditions of the families of working
children and adolescents.
Furthermore, the legislation on child labor must be amended,
strengthened, promoted and enforced. Enforcement will be
carried out in the first phase of this project in known problem
areas.
In El Salvador, ILO Convention 138 was adopted with a
reservation concerning the minimum age of children.
Therefore, children's right to work depends upon their age.
The prohibition of work by children who are below the minimum age
will be enforced by the Ministry of Labor, with the support of
educational and training programs.
As regards the families of child laborers, there should be
vocational training projects in productive fields, and support for
the organization of cooperatives and unions or guilds, in order to
allow families to gain access to micro credit and required
technical assistance.
The gradual and progressive elimination of child labor in our
country will not be rapid or easy, but this has not stopped us from
continuing with the process to develop a national program to combat
child labor in the next four years. The national program has
the moral support of all the sectors of our country's national life
and will incorporate participants from all the different sectors
which are concerned with child labor.
Surendra Hamal, Minister of State for Labor, Nepal
Exploitative child labor has been recognized as a major social
problem in Nepal, as there are 2.6 million children at work, out of
which 1.7 million are economically active. A household survey
report of the Ministry of Land Reform and Management indicates that
there are 15,152 Kamaiya[3] households comprising 83,375 persons
working as bonded laborers, which includes 15,000 children under
the age of 14 years.[4] In addition, there are approximately 5,000
sex workers in Kathmandu, out of which 1,000 are children. In
mid-western Nepal, there are about 17,000 women and girls who work
as prostitutes after having been offered to temples for religious
purposes. Similarly, at least 5,000 to 7,000 Nepalese girls
are trafficked to India every year and 25,000 children are engaged
in the service sector such as hotels, restaurants and domestic
service.
The Government of Nepal is very much concerned by this issue and
has followed a proactive policy in tackling the problem of child
labor. We have stood for constitutional, statutory and other
developmental measures required to protect the rights of the child
and safeguard them from abuse, neglect, violence and exploitation,
for their mental and physical development.
We have taken various protective and preventive measures.
The Constitution of Nepal guarantees rights against
exploitation. It prohibits human trafficking, slavery,
serfdom or forced labor in any form except compulsory service
required for public benefit. The Labor Act 1991 and the
Children Act 1992 restrict and prohibit the employment of children
below 14 years. Our Parliament has recently endorsed a bill
concerning the prohibition and regulation of child labor, which
will come into enforcement very soon.
We signed an MoU with the ILO for implementing the International
Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) in 1995. A
child labor section has been set up to formulate and implement
policies and programs on child labor. The National Steering
Committee on Child Labor, which is based at the Ministry of Labor
and Transport Management (MOLT), has been actively participating in
the formulation and implementation of action programs on child
labor.
We have implemented an ILO/IPEC Action Program in the
country. Under this program, we have assisted child labor
prone families by providing skills training and easy access to
micro credit and self-employment activities. We are now in
the process of implementing another IPEC Action Program directed
toward the "Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor."
Similarly, we are executing a project entitled "Improvement of the
Situation of Child Laborers." Most of our programs are focused on
abolishing the worst forms of child labor such as trafficking, debt
bondage and child domestic labor. The government
ratified ILO Convention No. 138 in 1997 and is striving for the
ratification of ILO Conventions No. 29, 105, and 182 within the
year.
The government is committed to abolish the worst forms of child
labor by 2005 and all forms of child labor by 2010. We are
also striving to establish a program office to coordinate and
collaborate with national and international agencies to improve
policies and programs on child labor.
Despite our vigorous efforts, the problem of child labor has
remained intractable. We strongly feel that this challenge
needs to be tackled through a multi-pronged approach in an
integrated manner, securing support from all concerned governmental
and non-governmental organizations, and international
agencies. However, we would like to reiterate that Nepal
alone cannot solve this complex problem. We need to build up
partnership and ownership with national and international agencies
to execute a national program on child labor in a democratic
manner, ensuring effective implementation and sustainability.
The ninth five-year development plan (1998-2002) emphasizes
eradication of Nepal's widespread poverty as its major development
objective. It has also given priority to abolition of the
bonded labor system, elimination of child labor and combating
trafficking of women and children. To put these words into
action, the Government of Nepal is taking a lead role in the
development of a master plan of action (2001-2010) in close
collaboration with IPEC and with other ministries and other
national and international agencies. The Master Plan of
Action will incorporate sectoral plans of action against child
labor, bonded child labor and trafficking in women and children
(developed under IPEC Action Programs), identify responsible
governmental and non-governmental agencies to execute specific
components of the plan, as well as develop appropriate
strategies.
Furthermore, the Ministry of Land Reforms and Management (MOLRM)
has resolved to abolish the bonded labor system both legally and
practically within the next four years (2001-2004).[5]
The MOLRM,
with technical assistance from the ILO, drafted a Bill on the
Abolition of Bonded Labour and registered it at the parliamentary
secretariat for debate during the winter session (December
2000). The proposed bill provides the legal framework for
enforcement of the ban by prohibiting the inheritance of private
debt and annulling outstanding loans.] The MOLRM has already
initiated programs aimed at generating income of bonded laborers by
providing them with skill-oriented training. A plan of action
has been developed, in collaboration with IPEC, for launching
programs in an integrated manner with a view to improving the
quality of their life. The MOLRM is setting up a coordination
directorate within the current fiscal year in Nepalgunj (in
mid-western Nepal) for coordinating activities of all governmental
and non-governmental organizations working on the issue of
bonded labor. The MOLRM allocated NRs.40 million (US$598,000)
during fiscal year 1999/2000 for debt relief, housing and
rehabilitation programs. The Ministry acquired 20 hectares of
land for the rehabilitation of Kamaiya families. Similarly,
it has proposed a budget of NRs.20 million (US$294,000) for fiscal
year 2000/2001 for the training and rehabilitation of Kamaiya
families. It is expected that the national contribution for
the elimination of the bonded labor system in Nepal will increase
each year.
Simultaneously, the Ministry of Women, Children and Social
Welfare (MOWCSW) has also developed a national plan of action to
prevent trafficking in women and children under the first phase of
the sub-regional project supported by DoL. At present, the
second phase of the sub-regional project funded by DoL to combat
trafficking in children is underway. The Ministry aims to
resolve the problem of trafficking in ten years (2001-2010), and
trafficking among children in five years (2001-2005).
During fiscal year 1999/2000, the MOWCSW has allocated NRs.5
million (US$73,500) to prevent the problem, as well as to
rehabilitate victims of trafficking. In addition, the
Ministry has proposed a budget of six million Nepalese rupees
(US$88,235) for the fiscal year 2000/2001 to deal with the
problem.
We would like to assure you that Nepal is willing to join hands
in this global cause and will provide every necessary support
required in addressing the problem.
William Lukuvi, Deputy Minister for Labor and Youth
Development, United Republic of Tanzania
The government of the United Republic of Tanzania is privileged
to have joined the global campaign on child labor in 1994, when we
began to implement the IPEC program. The government and the
social partner organizations have since then made considerable
progress towards containing the problem of child labor.
It is indeed largely within and through the framework of the
IPEC program that we have in Tanzania today, at all the levels of
society, a strong commitment and support for the fight against
child labor, along with an institutional and policy framework which
is increasingly conducive for program interventions on child
labor. We now have, in addition, a considerable level of
accumulated experience among the social partners in addressing
child labor problems. The government of the United Republic
of Tanzania, having consulted with the social partners, is
presently finalizing the preparations for the ratification within
the year 2000 of ILO Convention 182 on the worst forms of child
labor.
I do not need to state that in our resolve to rid our society of
hazardous and exploitative child labor practices, we are
constrained, like many other developing countries, by widespread
poverty in its different manifestations, a generally weak
institutional capacity, limited budgetary resources at the disposal
of the government, limited educational opportunities for our
children, and so on.
These constraints notwithstanding, I wish to inform this
conference that, given the continued support of the ILO, the United
States government and other partners, Tanzania is keen to propose
and implement a five-year program to achieve the effective and
sustainable prevention of the worst forms of child labor, in three
sectors to start with. These sectors are commercial
agriculture, mining and commercial sex.
We are of course mindful of the fact that this is by no means a
small challenge and that wide-ranging socioeconomic and political
initiatives will be needed to achieve this objective.
As an input to the program, the government will implement
strategic programs on poverty alleviation, employment promotion,
primary education and HIV/AIDS control. We shall also
disseminate and apply a national policy on child labor, which is
now under final preparation in consultation with the social
partners.
This conference provides us with added inspiration to act
immediately on the worst forms of child labor and it is my
anticipation that it will send the same signal to all countries
around the world.
Former Working Children
Children from three countriesCBangladesh, Guatemala and
TanzaniaCwere invited to attend the conference along with their
parents. They were introduced to the audience by Liz Cransky,
a senior high school student at Brattleboro Union High School in
Vermont and a Steering Committee Member for the Child Labor,
Education and Action Project, a group (in attendance) which seeks
to educate youth and adults on child labor. The children,
guided by Secretary Herman, explained their experiences as child
workers and their subsequent rehabilitation, and went on to answer
other questions from the Secretary regarding their hopes and
ambitions. Their parents also spoke.
Below is a summary of the session.
Julekha Akhter, Bangladesh, 15
Julekha was seven when she was admitted to primary school.
When she was in class three, her father fell ill and could not
work. To help support the family, at the age of nine, Julekha
found work in a garment factory.
After some time, Julekha was approached by IPEC representatives
who offered her a stipend to enroll in a school for former garment
workers. Excited by the opportunity, she presented this
proposal to her parents, who agreed to it. The stipend paid
the rent for the family home. Besides general education,
Julekha participated in cultural activities like singing, dancing,
reciting poems and acting. One of her poems even won a prize
in a program arranged by the British Council.
After a year and a half at school, when Julekha turned 14Cthe
legal working age under Bangladesh's laws, her stipend ended.
Although her parents wanted her to return to work, Julekha was more
interested in continuing her education. She did six months of
skills-training and got a job with Dragon Sweater. Currently,
she studies and works under an Aearn and learn program. Her
salary now means that her family is no longer in poverty, and her
parents are very proud of Julekha's educational achievements.
Her father told the audience, "I was a very poor person, and I
didn't have the money to send my daughter to school . . . As
a father, I want my daughter to study hard and go as far as
possible in her education."
Julekha's aim? "I want to be a teacher." Her
favorite subject in school is environmental sciences.
Juan Alberto Hernández, Guatemala, 14
Juan Alberto started working when he was seven years old in the
Retalhuleu stone quarry on a river bank alongside his father,
reducing stones to gravel with a hammer.
He worked for six years breaking stones during the afternoons
and helping his mother with household chores. He attended
school in the mornings but had difficulty keeping up.
Talking of the work by the river, Juan Alberto said, "I did get
hurt on several occasions on my fingers. It was very hard and
difficult to work there. Sometimes, I would even cry because it was
so hard. The sun was really terrible, and we had to work all
day long, breaking the stones into smaller stones . . . until I
filled five containers of smaller stones."
Through a DoL-funded IPEC project aimed at eliminating child
labor in the stone quarries of Retalhuleu, Juan Alberto was removed
from work and placed in school. He recently completed primary
school and wants to continue studying.
"I would like to be a teacher," Juan Alberto claimed with
pride.
His father told the conference, "Juan Alberto is my son and I
love him very, very deeply, and I want to give him everything he
deserves, and I will continue to struggle so that he will be able
to continue studying."
"The program, the people from Habitat [6], have given us all
their support . . ."
"I learned about the program while we were working at the
river. Some people came and they talked to us and offered us
a loan . . . The truth of the matter is that we were
extremely afraid because we didn't understand very well why they
were going to give us this money . . ."
"Many of my companions left our group out of fear, and others,
amongst them myself, said let us keep on going and see what
happens, and they did give us a loan. We were able to buy a
stone-crushing machine . . . Secretary Herman explained
that using the machine meant that the stone-crushing could be done
mechanically, and Juan and his siblings could go to school.
Mwaja Mahundi, Tanzania, 13
Mwaja is the youngest child in a family of six children.
Her father passed away in 1994. In February 1999, Mwaja
dropped out of school due to her mother's inability to pay for her
school fees and uniform. She was taken by a neighbor to
Dar-es-Salaam to work as a domestic servant for a working class
family.
In response to a question from Secretary Herman about the work
she did, Mwaja said, "My typical work when I went to take care of a
baby, I had to wash the baby's clothes, and to maintain the
cleanliness of the baby." She had to do this every day and
was 12 when she started.
"The village chief," Mwaja's mother confided, "came to me and
told me that there is a program which can help rescue my child . .
. I was introduced to the people in this program. They
went to where my child had been taken, and they helped me rescue my
child and bring her back, and they put her back in school."
In July 1999, Mwaja was withdrawn from work and reintegrated
into school through an IPEC action program. She was returned
to her village and reunited with her family. She is now in
grade five. Her favorite subjects at school are English,
science, Swahili and mathematics. "I'm very pleased to return
to school, she remarked, and I'm progressing well with my
studies."
"I want to be a pilot," she told the conference, covering her
face in case anyone should laugh. Instead, like the others,
she received long and loud applause for her ambitions. When
Secretary Herman asked her what she would like to do in Washington,
she replied, "I would love to go to a school and see how children
learn their lessons in the United States."
Panels & Panelists
Panel presentations and discussions composed the second part of
the conference. Presentations were organized under four themes:
Raising Awareness on Child Labor
Moderator:
Carol Bellamy, Executive Director, UNICEF
Panelists:
Kailash Satyarthi, Chairman, Global March Against Child Labor,
India
Geraldinho Vieira, Executive Director, The News Agency for
Children's Rights (ANDI), Brazil
Maria Alcestis Mangahas, IPEC National Program Coordinator, The
Philippines
Vicky Kanyoka, IPEC Program Coordinator, Tanzanian Federation
of Trade Unions, Tanzania
Francis Atwoli, General Secretary, Kenya Plantation and
Agricultural Workers' Union, Kenya
Implementing Effective Strategies in the Workplace
Moderator:
David Miller, President, Toy Manufacturers Association of
America
Panelists:
Anisur Rahman Sinha, President, Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers
and Exporters Association (BGMEA), Bangladesh
Aseema Zahoor, IPEC Monitor, Pakistan
Rijk van Haarlem, Chief Technical Advisor, IPEC Coffee Project,
Costa Rica
William Hempstead Smith, Vice-president, Funrural,
Guatemala
Dr. Irfan Yazman, Advisor to the President of Credit Guarantee
Funds, Confederation of Turkish Tradesmen and Handicrafts (TESK),
Turkey
Saroj Rai, Executive Director, Rugmark Nepal, Nepal
Providing Educational Opportunities
Moderator:
Marcia Reback, President, American Federation of Teachers
Panelists:
Savitri Suwansathit, Inspector-General, Ministry of Education,
Thailand
Paschal Wambiya, Education and Training Project Coordinator,
IPEC, Kenya
Shanta Sinha, Secretary Trustee, M. Venkatarangaiah Foundation
(MVF), India
Karen Ovalles, Project Coordinator, Projoven Dominicano,
Dominican Republic
Reworking the Economic Equation: Raising Family Earnings
Potential
Moderator:
James Michel, Counselor, USAID
Panelists:
Maribel Rodriguez Rodriguez, Consultant, Guatemalan Association
for Sustainable Development (HABITAT), Guatemala
Rochelle Beck, Consultant, Ibero-American Association for
Development and Marketing of Handicrafts (AIDECA), Peru
Uddhav Raj Poudyal, Bonded Labor Project Coordinator, IPEC,
Nepal
Raising Awareness Against Child Labor
The Global March Against Child Labor
Presented by Kailash Satyarthi
Kailash Satyarthi founded the South Asian Coalition on
Child Servitude (SACCS) in 1989. SACCS strove
successfully to forge a partnership with 500 partner organizations,
human rights groups and trade unions throughout South Asia.
Satyarthi is considered the architect of ARUGMARK, a voluntary
non-commercial tool to label child labor-free carpets. He was
the driving force behind the international movement which
culminated in the Global March Against Child Labor. Mr.
Satyarthi's efforts have been honored by awards from various
countries, including the Aachener International Peace Prize B
Germany (1994); Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award -- USA (1995);
Trumpeter Award -- USA (1995); Golden Flag Award -- Holland (1998);
La Hospitalet Award -- Spain (1999); and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
Award -- Germany (1999).
Background
The problem of child labor is one of the most serious,
widespread social issues facing the world today. With an
estimated 250 million children working as laborers, the issue
touches the lives of most of the world's poorest people.
While the problem is most prevalent in developing countries, even
in the wealthiest countries children are found working under
exploitative and degrading conditions.
During the eighties and nineties, there was a slow crescendo of
public awareness and concern about the issue. The media took
an active role in highlighting cases of child slavery and abuse,
and the grassroots campaigns of several organizations built a base
of public concern on the issue. High-level policy discussions
also took place at the international level. But despite these
developments, the issue was not a worldwide concern, and little
movement occurred in the towns and villages where children were
working.
Objectives
To address this situation, a number of leading child rights and
human rights organizations met in The Hague in February 1997 to
plan a Global March Against Child Labor. The objectives of
the March were to mobilize worldwide efforts against child labor
and in favor of education, and to dramatically increase the level
of global awareness and concern about the problem.
The founders of the March felt that an issue of such magnitude
could not be addressed by a handful of organizations or projects,
but would need a broad mobilization of civil society throughout
most of the countries of the world. Organizing the March
would bring together a coalition of NGOs, trade unions, activists,
government officials, academics, journalists, religious leaders,
celebrities, and children. Such coalitions, in turn, would be
capable of the sustained pressure needed to ultimately eliminate
child labor.
Similarly, raising overall public awareness was a core objective
of the Global March. The organizers realized that for the
issue of child labor, public awareness was critical on two
counts. The first was that public awareness is essential in
motivating governments to take strong steps against child
labor. In the absence of national or international attention,
few governments would be willing to challenge the vested interests
and the cultural practices that perpetuate child labor, or to make
the budgetary allocations needed to provide education and
rehabilitation to children. The second aspect was that
increased public awareness could produce a direct reduction in the
incidence of child labor. Millions of people use girls and
boys as domestic servants, subcontractors and small business owners
directly employ young children, and individual consumers purchase
products made by child slaves. Public awareness on the issue
would influence people's individual decisions and thus help reduce
the exploitation of children.
Process
The Global March initiated the process of global mobilization by
issuing a worldwide appeal to join the movement.
Internationally, this appeal went out through the various networks
of NGOs and their partners, through international trade unions and
their affiliates, and through a direct written appeal to over
20,000 organizations. At the national level, coordinators
organized meetings of key partners, informed the media about the
March, and initiated a dialogue with the government. A series
of networking trips was also critical in spreading the movement
into many countries that had not seriously considered the
issue.
This broad movement then focused on the core task of organizing
a high-profile March stretching across Asia, Africa, the Americas,
and Europe. The March kicked off in Manila on January 17,
1998 and traveled 80,000 kilometers before arriving in Geneva for
the start of the International Labor Conference. For
March organizers, a certain amount of time was spent managing the
logistical details of moving people from place to place and country
to country, but the bulk of the efforts were devoted to public
awareness-raising. These activities included:
organizing large public rallies; producing posters and other public
materials; coordinating special media features and documentaries on
child labor; making presentations to schools; collecting thumb
prints and messages of support; and establishing child labor sites
on the Internet. The Global March received a ringing
endorsement from many of the world's leaders, including Nelson
Mandela, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Pope John Paul II.
In this whole process, the participation and leadership of
children was vital. Hundreds of thousands of children
participated in the rallies and short marches held as part of the
Global March. Millions of small thumb prints from children
around the world added to the call to end child labor. And at
the forefront, the Child Core Marchers who bravely traveled
thousands of miles from their homes shared with the world the
reality of their experience and pleaded that children should no
longer be subject to such exploitation.
Achievements
The Global March has been an unprecedented success.
Indeed, at the close of the 20th century it marks a turning point
for the struggle against child labor. At the time of the
Global March, the massive global alliance which was formed included
1,400 partners in over 100 countries. Since then, the
movement has further grown to involve over 2,000 partners in 140
countries. The national coalitions of the Global March have
mobilized broad public support for the cause and have been leading
civil society action against child labor.
The Global March and the follow-up year of advocacy work were
crucial to the development of a strong new Convention on the Worst
Forms of Child Labor. The children of the Global March were
specially recognized by the drafting committee for their human
impact on the process. Now the Global March is playing a key
role in making sure that the Convention is universally ratified and
fully enforced.
Finally, the level of public concern about child labor has
increased many times over, and it has been clearly established as
one of the leading issues of our time. This awareness extends
deep into even remote villages and towns where children are
working.
Lessons Learned
The success of the Global March demonstrated key lessons for the
campaign against child labor:
-
Children who have lived through child
labor are the most effective advocates on the issue. They can
speak from the heart about their own experiences and convince even
the most powerful people that no child should be exploited.
-
Society must be broadly mobilized to
support this issue. A national coalition involving NGOs,
trade unions, activists, government officials, academics,
journalists, religious leaders, celebrities, and children can be
extremely effective in achieving social change.
-
Local ownership and leadership are
paramount in the process. This leadership is essential for
having a sustained impact on local and national
decision-making. It is also fundamental to the whole process
of social mobilization.
-
The media must be involved throughout
the process. This includes not only coverage of the
activities being organized, but also in-depth reporting on the
issue and involvement in political dialogue.
-
The scale of the effort must match the
scale of the problem. With the problem affecting 250 million
children in almost all countries of the world, the mobilization of
society and resources must be on a similar level to have a
significant impact.
- Efforts must be made with a clear sense of purpose and
vision. This genuine sense of mission is what inspires people
to join the cause and devote themselves to the struggle for a world
free of child labor.
Brazil: Mobilizing Journalists to Advocate for Children's
Rights
Presented by Geraldinho Vieira
Geraldinho Vieira is a journalist and the Executive Director
of the News Agency for Children's Rights (ANDI). He was
previously the editor of the Brazilian newspaper Jornal de
Brasilia.
Background
Brazil is a big country, a very young country that is only 500
years old. It is one of the world's ten biggest economies . .
. but we are living in economic apartheid: Brazil has the
worst indices of distribution of wealth on the planet.
Children and adolescents are the first victims: three
million of them, under the age of 14, are working. Two years
ago, the number was four million. We believe in eliminating
child labor without having to define the Aworst forms of
slavery. We want the best education for all.
Slavery is like ethics . . . You either have it or you
don't.
ANDICthe NGO that I'm in charge of as Executive DirectorCwas
founded eight years ago with only three people. It was set up
two years after the signing of a progressive bill called the
"Statute of the Rights of Children and Adolescents."
Today, we are a group of 60 people, including professional
journalists and students of journalism. Forty people work at
ANDI in Brasília and 20 work in four different cities in
different geographic regions. This Rede ANDI (ANDI Network)
is an alliance with other NGOs that reproduce the methods of media
training and mobilization developed by ANDI.
When ANDI was launched, the country was in shock regarding
revelations about street kids, child labor and the sexual
exploitation of little boys and girls. These problems still
exist, but we are proud to say that, today, we are talking a lot
more about the main solution: education.
The Brazilian government, with IPEC, is giving financial support
to 140,000 children and adolescents who must work to make a
living. The idea is now being taken up all over the country,
especially by municipalities, sometimes with private support.
Process
Unlike a regular news agency, ANDI does not write stories to
merely distribute them to the media. Our goal is to create a
culture in which the press gives priority to children as a
strategic issue. This is only possible if we create a
dialogue between the press and the organizations that deal directly
with boys and girls.
This is why ANDI´s institutional mission is to generate a
professional, ethical and intense dialogue between the private
sector and the media. We work on the principle that
investigation, in journalism, cannot be synonymous with the mere
publication of scandals. ANDI's main focus is to stimulate
the understanding of the paradigm of Afinding solutions.
The idea of finding solutions is not synonymous with
sensationalist journalism. We seek a different reaction from
the public; that is, the sooner society knows the actions and
public policies that are effective and that prove that changes are
possible, the greater the impact of the stories. Once
journalistic investigation confronts a social problem with its
solution, the reporting of wrongdoing assumes a different
aspect: the investigation of solutions relates not only to
the reporting of problems, but specifically to the inaction of
government officials and of civil society in general. We are
sure that the roots of the problems are based on lack of
action.
Inaction is worse than all the horror stories put together, and
this is the message that is mobilizing the country.
Presenting facts
The News Agency for Children´s Rights is a kind of
reference center where journalists can find the best stories, the
best analysis for the best ways of telling stories, and up-to-date
sources of informationCa guide for getting in touch with innovators
and specialists.
Our site on the Internet (www.andi.org.br) has 100,000 genuine
hits every month, 70 percent of them by journalists looking for
social projects in all the relevant areas and new perspectives to
old problems.
One of the most effective strategies that we adopted is to
conduct research on the topics with the greatest press coverage,
with the social actors listed as sources of information, and
analyze the confrontation between the Ainvestigation of solutions
and the publishing of scandals.
Every day we analyze the 50 most important newspapers and eight
national magazines. During 1999, these papers and magazines
published 60,000 stories on children and adolescent issues, 20
times more than the number recorded eight years ago. This
observation leads us to conclude that editorial behavior has
developed a consolidated culture of Asolution finding.
Finding solutions has resulted in a major development: when Brazil
started to bring the child labor issue to the top of its agenda,
coverage on the subject of education, which ranked eighth among the
themes published in 1992, began to improve; this year, for the
second straight year, it was ranked first among the topics observed
in research.
Special sections for education are being created in almost every
important newspaper and magazine. Last year, ANDI analyzed
9,500 stories on education and almost 2,000 stories on child
labor. ANDI is also the coordinator of a permanent forum on
media & education which involves more than 150 journalists and
15 important foundations.
Three years ago we were behind the creation of the Arden Senna
Grand Prix of Journalism. This is an award that intends to
encourage stories that seek solutions to problems related to
children and adolescents. It is the major press award in the
country, with 1,200 related stories every year.
We also are involved in the organization of another award that
recognizes specific actions of the judiciary system that contribute
to the creative and efficient application of the law. This
award, which has more than one hundred candidates every year, gives
us information for new story ideas that provoke the media to work
on pieces about adolescents in conflict with the law . . . the kind
of story idea that does not come up spontaneously.
We have a dream: to create an international network of
journalists, recognizing some of them, every year, as Journalist
Friends of Children. In Brazil, this program of capacity
building is already working with 115 media professionals.
We are sure that our work would not be possible without the
support of institutions that believe that communication can be a
strategic instrument for promoting the changes we all want to
make. They include UNICEF, Arden Senna Foundation, UNESCO, W.
K. Kellogg Foundation, Avina and other national institutes and
governmental organizations that support our initiatives.
The Philippines: Advocacy and Awareness-raising Campaign
Against Child Labor
Presented by Alcestis Mangahas
"Thetis Mangahas is the IPEC National Program Coordinator in
the Philippines and has led the advocacy campaign against child
labor in her country. She has extensive experience at home
and abroad in social development projects. She holds an MSc
from the London School of Economics and a political science and
economics degree from the University of the Philippines School of
Economics."
Background
When the IPEC Philippines country program was launched in 1995,
child labor was not a new issue. Despite the years of exposure and
the creation of structures to deal with the problem, there was a
lingering sense that it refused to go away. The numbers of
child workers were increasing and, at the same time, the nature of
the problem seemed to have become more severe. In local
communities, especially those with high levels of child labor,
apathy and indifference ruled.
Objectives
Central to the IPEC strategy is the belief that in all action,
learning must result in a change in knowledge, attitudes and
skills. The strategy has been based
on:
-
The availability of comprehensive
national statistics,
-
A national media campaign (print,
radio and television),
-
The demonstration and cumulative
effect of field action programs, and
-
The competence of key players.
Process
The 1995 National Survey of Working Children of the Philippines,
implemented by the National Statistics Office, provided the
necessary numbers as well as a broad overview of the situation, and
highlighted the various hazards and risks. Obtaining
information on "invisible" children required creative approaches,
more akin to investigation and surveillance; reasonable estimates
were nonetheless made.
One of the first action programs in the IPEC campaign was the
production of a documentary on child labor called "No Time for
Play," made by the Philippine Center for Investigative
Journalism. It brought special attention to the problems of
children in mining, pyrotechnics, sugar plantations and young
workers illegally recruited from depressed communities in rural
areas to work in Metro Manila. A second documentary made by
the Center for Investigative Journalism drew even greater attention
nationally. Produced by the Ateneo Center for Social Policy
and the Archdiocese of Manila Labor Center, it became one of the
most effective communication tools in raising public awareness on
the worst forms of child labor. Several other documentaries
followed.
Print media has covered the child labor issue extensively,
especially the Global March and the adoption of the new ILO
Convention 182 on the worst forms of child labor. The launch
of the Global March against Child Labor took place in Manila in
January 1998 and was a demonstration of the Philippine partners'
strength in mobilizing action. The international marchers
were joined by 15,000 children and advocates at the launching
ceremonies. Countryside marches were held in all the three
major island groups of the Philippines.
The Advocacy and Awareness-raising Campaign Child Labor Network
publishes a child labor newsletter called "Bataman" and makes photo
exhibits and multi-media presentations available to all
partners.
Social mobilization at the community level is undertaken by
councils or committees, which perform watchdog functions such as
monitoring progress and lobbying for greater resources and/or
services for working children. Examples of such committees
are Barangay (Local) Councils for the Protection of Children (BCPC)
and other similar privately initiated committees.
Typical action at the community/local level brings together two
or three IPEC partner organizations. Community organizing and
advocacy are core elements, implemented by a lead
organization. As community mechanisms are formed (such as
BCPCs) and children identified, specialized agencies join the lead
agency in providing specialized services in education, health, and
economic alternatives.
In several IPEC action programs, child workers and their
families have taken the lead in forming associations of child
workers as a venue for sharing experiences and seeking assistance
for their problems. Theater groups help project the
children's views on child labor and their needs and problems.
Training programs have been put in place for labor inspectors,
program implementors, law enforcers, defenders and dispensers of
justice, and child and youth leaders.
Challenges & Achievements
The major strength of the Philippine child labor campaign is its
broad-based and strongly committed allianceCa network of
government, employer, trade union and civil society organizations
acting in concert.
From a position of hesitation and caution, the government
position on the ratification of the international labor standards
on child labor has changed to one of endorsement. The
parliament ratified ILO Convention 138 in 1997, setting the
country's minimum age of entry to employment at 15. The
ratification of Convention 182 on the worst forms of child labor is
expected during 2000.
The importance of labor inspection in identifying and monitoring
of children most at risk has been reaffirmed. In 1997, the
Department of Labor and Employment issued an administrative order
giving priority to the inspection of establishments classified as
hazardous or high risk.
A "Magna Carta on Child Labor", Senate Bill 1530, was recently
filed in the Senate. The new bill consolidates child labor
protective legislation and provides regulations for work conditions
of young workers. It restates government responsibility for
basic education, training and welfare services, institutionalizes
the national child labor committee and requires regular monitoring
and reporting. Another bill has been filed to provide a legal
framework for protecting domestic workers.
At the provincial, city and municipality levels, local
governments have passed legislation on the protection of
children. Other government units have passed ordinances
protecting children from prostitution and trafficking and/or
banning the employment of children in specific occupations such as
fireworks, mining and quarrying.
IPEC has started direct action in communities with a high
incidence of children in hazardous work. These include
communities with children working in ports; sugar plantations;
farming and fishing; mining and quarrying; home-based work relating
to garment production; commercial sex; domestic service; and
scavenging. IPEC is currently working in 18 project sites
with 20 active partners. While the impact of prevention
programs may be difficult to measure, the advocacy program has
reached more than half a million households with its media
campaign. It has directly served some 34,000 working children
and their families. There are other less quantifiable
changes, such as self-sustaining and self-initiated activities at
various levels for "Return to School" programs; access to
livelihood and other community services; and interest in greater
development issues like poverty alleviation, environment care, and
workers' rights.
The National Child Labor Committee is sponsoring its own
strategic planning activities to mainstream child labor concerns
into the country's major development programs. The entry of
larger integrated programs poses new challenges to the provincial
and regional committees, such as coordination and management of
child labor initiatives at the local level.
Lessons learned
In the Philippines' experience with the Advocacy and
Awareness-raising Campaign to date, the following basic elements
for an effective national program have been established:
-
Focus on priority groups,
-
Participation and consultation,
-
Effective communication,
-
Integration and complementarity,
and
-
Flexibility.
-
Capacity building, and
-
Networking and collaboration.
The main goals for the coming two years are:
-
Integrating child labor into national
development planning and programs, and
-
Expanding community services for
working children, with emphasis on children in hazardous work.
Where there's School, there's Hope
By Luz Rimban
On any other Saturday, 11-year-old Gernieh Bahandi would be
squatting at a roadside, crushing into gravel the rocks his teenage
brothers chip off a hillside near their home.
This Saturday, Gernieh is taking a holiday of sorts. He
and five other boys, all quarry workers, are racing around the lawn
of a rest house not far from where they live. Indoors, their
mothers are huddled in a conference, members of the year-old
federation "Parawagan," which aims to put an end to child labor in
Montalban.
Child labor has been this town's nagging problem. Perched
on the edge of Metro Manila's urban sprawl, it has attracted
migrant families from destitute provinces like Leyte, where
Gernieh's family comes from.
In Barangay San Rafael, whole families toil in quarry
sites. It was Gernieh's father, a seasonally employed
carpenter, who found his family a puwestoCa nicheCalongside several
other families at the quarry site in Tabak. Five of Gernieh's
eight other siblings take part in various stages of the
workCchipping rock off a mountain face, crushing it, or shoveling
stones onto wheelbarrows to be carted off to trucks which buy
themCsix days a week.
Quarry families like the Bahandis in Tabak and at least two
other sitios in San Rafael form the base of what is one of the most
successful community movements against child labor in the
Philippines. True, they have few options outside the quarry
at the moment, but community action has shown them there are
alternatives in the horizon.
The residents of the three sitios organized themselves into
neighborhood associations to find alternatives and formed
Parawagan, a federation dedicated to eliminating child labor.
Parawagan's latest offspring is the organization of young quarry
workers, past and present, called ECHO or Empowering Child's Heart
Organization.
In July last year, one of the neighborhood associations, Tabak
Community Development Association (TACDA), began a small peanut
butter processing plant for quarry families. Parawagan also
engaged in sewing and selling rags. In the last school year,
with funding from IPEC and ERDA (Educational Research and
Development Assistance),
the federation made scholarships available for 129 high
school and elementary children in the quarry areas. That
figure has now risen to 150. The federation has also become
active in dialogue and in collaborative efforts with government
agencies and the private sector.
Parawagan is now a force San Rafael cannot ignore.
Barangay officials have formed the Barangay Council for the
Protection of Children (BCPC), which provides assistance to the
community groups and further helps prevent child labor through
awareness-raising and mobilizing the community for dialogue.
The Montalban town council has approved a resolution creating the
Local Council for the Protection of Children (LCPC), which
formalizes the collaboration between the federation and the
municipal government.
The Mayor has promised to channel money to Parawagan and donate
three sewing machines for the federation's rag-making
business. "We have managed to reduce child labor by 50
percent, but more squatter families are coming in," Mayor San Diego
says.
But for Gernieh, the future does not look as hopeless as it
once did. The 11-year-old, who has been crushing rocks since
he was seven, says his membership in ECHO helped him relate more
with children like himself. He is also proud of his Parawagan
scholarship, which provides him with a school bag, a ruler, paper
and crayons.
Still, Gernieh does not see himself out of Tabak's quarry
areas, at least for now. Working assures him of the four
pesos he needs every day for fare to and from the San Rafael
Elementary school where he is in fifth grade. "My father
won't give me money for fare to school if I don't work," Gernieh
explains.
But it will probably take more than a lack of fare money to keep
Gernieh from finishing his studies, and maybe even someday
fulfilling his dreams of becoming a doctor.
Tanzania: Awareness-Raising and Social Mobilization to
Prevent Child Domestic Servitude
Presented by Vicky Kanyoka
Vicky Kanyoka joined the trade union movement in 1991, and
has been involved in the implementation and coordination of child
labor programs in Tanzania as part of the Tanzania Federation of
Trade Unions since 1995. She is the current coordinator of
the IPEC child labor program for the union. Ms. Kanyoka is
also the head of the Women and Organization Department of the
Conservation, Hotels, Domestic and Allied Workers Union
(CHODAWU). An educator by profession, she has attended a
number of union training courses in Tanzania and around the world,
as well as several international conferences on child
labor.
Background
The rural districts of the Iringa region in southwest Tanzania
have a high incidence of poverty, with large families and limited
access to basic education. These factors invariably push many
children into child labor, especially domestic labor involving
young girls. It is estimated that 40 to 50 percent of
domestic servants working in particularly hazardous and
exploitative conditions in the major urban centers are girls aged
ten to 15, recruited from villages in the region, notably
Kiponzelo, Tanzangozi, Ilula, Izazi and Migoli. These
children often escape from domestic labor only to end up in even
more hazardous work in stone quarries.
Objectives
With IPEC support, the Conservation, Hotels, Domestic and Allied
Workers Union (CHODAWU), an affiliate of the Tanzania Federation of
Trade Unions, proposed and is implementing a package of strategic
activities aimed at providing children and their families in the
five targeted villages with alternatives to child labor. They
also aim to increase the capacity of the village communities to
identify, monitor and prevent recruitment of children.
Process
Community awareness-raising and social mobilization were chosen
as the initial approach in order to sensitize parents, village
government officials, school teachers, women's groups and religious
leaders on the negative consequences of domestic labor. The
sensitization campaigns were conducted through radio, community
seminars, newspapers, features and brochures in Kiswahili, as well
as via public meetings on child labor. Child labor committees
were formed and provided with training and orientation on
addressing the problem of child labor in the community, including
how to formulate and apply bylaws, how to carry out a census on
working children and so on. It was foreseen that once the
village communities understood and appreciated the need for
prevention, they would identify and implement practical measures
themselves, with the support of the trade unions.
A total of 200 very poor households were identified by the
village governments and child labor committees in the respective
villages, and are benefitting from a revolving fund that enables
them to undertake small-scale income generating activities.
The parents from these households have been provided with
entrepreneurial skills training, organized by the trade
union. Skills provided have included: business planning,
business management skills, marketing, record keeping and cost
analysis.
To date, a total of 100 poor parents have started small
businesses. These include the operation of food stalls,
general merchandise kiosks, gardening and horticulture services,
tea and snack rooms, local brewing and secondhand clothes
businesses. These families' living conditions have
subsequently improved, and children from these households are
attending school instead of working.
The revolving fund operates as follows: the trade union
has opened a bank account in the Iringa region, and after the
beneficiaries are identified and recommended by the village
government and the child labor committee, funds are released to a
cooperative group of five parents. After successfully
operating their businesses for three months, the groups start
repaying the loans into the bank account in installments, through
the village government and under supervision and monitoring by the
trade union. It is planned that, from the loan recoveries,
a savings and credit union for poor households will
eventually be established in each village.
It was also anticipated that such community-grown, grass-roots
institutional structures would take the role of formulating
community bylaws to regulate and restrict recruitment of children
into work, including the monitoring of primary school enrollment
and retention of school-age children. It was also expected
that community awareness-raising on domestic labor would result in
the identification and eventual withdrawal of 800 children from
work and the provision of appropriate alternatives, including
reintegration into primary schools and vocational skills
training.
Challenges & Achievements
To date, the following achievements have been noted:
-
512 children withdrawn from work and
provided with either vocational skills or reintegration into
primary school. The target of 800 children withdrawn is well
within reach.
-
Establishment of community child labor
committees in the five villages, comprised of school teachers,
parents, and community and religious leaders.
-
A total of 250 community leaders made
aware of the negative effects of child labor and the need to take
immediate measures to prevent domestic child labor.
-
Identification by the child labor
committees in each village, in collaboration with the village
government, of 200 very poor households to undertake
income-generating activities through the revolving fund. A
total of 100 poor parents to date have started small income
generating activities. Their living conditions have improved
and children from these families are attending school instead of
working in domestic service.
-
Withdrawal and repatriation of working
children from urban centers and their reintegration into families
and schools in rural areas. A total of 192 female domestic
workers have benefitted.
-
Direct support provided, including
uniforms and payment of school fees, to enable children from poor
families to attend school. To date, 271 girls have
benefitted.
-
Monitoring of the child labor
committees carried out to determine the extent to which they are
formulating interventions, including bylaws on child labor.
-
The incidence of recruitment of girls
from the five villages for domestic work in urban centers dropped
from 454 to 262 after eight months of activities. As a result
of the bylaws which restrict the employment of children, parents
are now more responsible for their children, making sure that they
enroll in and attend school.
-
Parents are learning how their
children are treated by their employers and about the exploitation
and abuse they endure.
Lessons learned
-
The best practice of this project has
been to bring about a community-based program by strengthening
capacity and establishing networks of various agents or partners at
the grassroots level.
-
The program is replicable because it
makes the grassroots community more responsible and is not
costly. It also addresses the main cause of child
labor: poverty.
-
Promotional and awareness-raising
materials are most effective when printed and distributed in the
local language.
-
More strategies are required for
capacity building, starting with intensive awareness-raising.
The Plight of Young Girls in Domestic Work
by Rose Haji
Monica Aloyce (not her real name) says, "It's better to earn a
little and be spared the rigors and miseries of domestic
work." She is now a member of a self employment project
called "Kibamku Group."
Monica is one of ten girls aged 10 to 16 in July 1998, who were
identified and registered for withdrawal and reintegration from
stone-crushing sites, commonly known as "Machimbo," on the
outskirts of Dar-es-Salaam, by the Dogodogo Center for Street
Children.
Born in Ilula village in Iringa region, Monica joined her uncle
in the Kilimanjaro region. He supported her primary education
up to age 12, after which she was not selected to join a government
secondary school. She was therefore obliged to go back to her
home village. There too, her dreams of continuing with
schooling proved futile. "I really wanted to proceed with
secondary school, but the fact that both my parents were and are
still financially incapable let me down."
Monica's home, the Iringa region, leads in the recruitment of
girl child domestic workers, who are normally sent to big towns by
their parents to supplement family income. Abject rural
poverty is the predominant factor pushing girls like Monica into
domestic servitude, commercial sex and other extreme forms of child
labor. Large family sizes and limited access to education are
also contributory factors. According to a survey by the
Tanzania Media Women's Association (TAMWA), girls come also from
several other regions.
The girls are normally poorly paid, between Tshs.2,000 (US$3.50)
to 12,000 (US$ 15) a month. Most of the children come from
poor families who cannot afford to pay school fees. The
average family size is six to 12 children.
Monica was forced into employment as a domestic servant in
Dar-es-Salaam after her parents moved there in search of income
earning opportunities. While her father ran a fruit and
vegetable stall, her mother decided to join a group of women in the
neighborhood in the stone-crushing business.
"Domestic work was not worth it," Monica says. "I could
go the whole month without a salary. I had a very heavy
workload but often I was not given food or sufficient
clothing. I sometimes fell sick but my employer never cared
about my health. After three months I decided to run away
from my employer to join my mother at the stone-crushing
sites."
"I have a sister and a young brother, but neither of them has
proceeded with studies, and unfortunately, they didn't even
complete standard seven. They are at 'Machimbo,' helping our
mother," Monica says.
The health of more than 200 children helping their parents at
"Machimbo is at great risk," observes Ms. Amina Mtunguja,
coordinator of the Kibamku project. "There is a health risk
currently looming here of which the government is not aware," she
says.
If the government does not act immediately, many children will
die of tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases resulting from
fatigue. "To be honest, the children here face terrible
health and social threats," Ms. Mtunguja remarks.
The plight of Monica and nine other young girls at the
stone-crushing site, all former domestic child workers aged ten to
16, came to a happy ending when the Dogodogo Center, an IPEC
implementing agency targeting children working under hazardous
conditions in the urban informal sector in Dar-es-Salaam, visited
Mtongani. The young girls were removed from the site,
provided with rehabilitation and various types of training
(depending on their ages), and were subsequently organized into a
cooperative-self-help group in November 1998.
"We 'tie and dye' clothes and produce batik," says Monica,
now 15. "Presently we are facing market problems for our
products as we are not selling much. However, I believe,
sooner or later we will start earning more, as the number of our
customers is gradually increasing."
"It's better that we can finally do a job like anybody else for
ourselves. The previous one (domestic work) was terrible and
you certainly would have not found us in this state."
"It was, terrible, terrible," another girl in the group chips
in.
Monica's story represents the plight of girl-child domestic
workers, children trapped in one of the worst forms of child
labor. Life as domestic servants is often so tough that they
opt for other forms of employment, possibly more hazardous,
elsewhere.
Monica and some of her colleagues now running the Kibamku
project were lucky. But what of the many others who are still
at the hands of the so-called domestic lords, suffering
silently, struggling for their daily bread?
Talking about the Kibamku group, Ms. Mtunguja says, at least,
with these few, I can say they have been rescued, thanks to the
Almighty God. But what is the fate of the others who are
currently working in domestic service and elsewhere?
Kenya: Utilizing the Grassroots Structure of Local Trade
Unions in the Movement Against Child Labor
Presented by Francis Atwoli
Francis Atwoli is a lifelong trade union activist. In
1997, he was elected Executive Board Member of the Central
Organization of Trade Unions in Kenya, having also served as the
Director of Organization. Mr. Atwoli was elected General
Secretary of the Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers' Union
in 1994, a position he continues to hold. He has attended
numerous courses and seminars on labor and industrial relations and
has traveled extensively throughout his career.
Background
An estimated three million children between the ages of six and
14 work in Kenya, a large percentage of them in the potentially
hazardous agricultural sector. Many do not go to school, or
do not attend full-time. In addition, many parents cannot
afford the cost of school fees or supplies. Furthermore, many
families living in and around the project target areas felt that
sending their children to work was of greater benefit than
schooling.
During the past 18 months, the Nairobi Regional Office of the
AFL-CIO American Center for International Labor Solidarity
(Solidarity Center) has been collaborating with trade union
organizations to assist in the IPEC-led effort to eliminate the
worst forms of child labor in Kenya.
The child labor programs of the Solidarity Center in East Africa
are action-oriented and focussed at the grassroots level. In
addition to reducing the number of working children, the programs
are designed to assist in returning working children to school,
increasing and making better use of family incomes, and reducing
poverty in the rural areas. An advocacy aspect encourages
trade union and civil society organizations to address poverty and
good governance issues.
On March 31, 2000, the Solidarity Center completed a one-year
pilot project which assisted the Central Organization of Trade
Unions (COTU-Kenya), the Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers'
Union (KPAWU) and the Kenya Union of Domestic, Hotel, Educational
Institutions, Health and Allied Workers (KUDHEIHA) in implementing
a program in commercial agriculture. The project aimed to
raise awareness about child labor, remove children from work and
enroll them in school. Using the unique grassroots structure
of the trade unions, the program took a bottom-up approach,
concentrating on ten target areas in the coffee and tea growing
regions of Kenya. Families and working children in and around
commercial agriculture, including domestic workers, were
targeted.
Objectives
The project was intended to enlighten all individuals and groups
in the target areas about the short and long term hazards of child
labor, and the resulting vicious circle of underdevelopment and
child labor. The objective was to use the existing local
trade union structure to create awareness among workers about child
labor, focus on returning children to school by empowering
communities, and create sustainable local partnerships with
managers, teachers, parents, community leaders, health
professionals, and other community members to take ownership for
improving workers' economic conditions and encouraging them to send
their children to school.
The program is based on the belief that awareness, motivation
and empowerment through strategic planning methodologies, rather
than direct cash payments for school expenses, lead to
self-sustaining child labor programs.
Process
Addressing child labor in Africa is most efficiently done by
mobilizing a broad alliance of partners and by giving emphasis to
community-based interventions. The project uses the
grass-roots trade union structure in the plantation sector to
create a community-based approach to monitoring, awareness-raising
and withdrawal. The project reaches families at the local
level and trains and empowers them to create partnerships and
strategies to combat child labor on and around the
plantations. This approach also engenders local ownership and
sustainability.
Twenty grassroots workshops of three days each trained over 550
trade union members, as well as managers, teachers, local chiefs,
parents, religious leaders and other opinion makers. The
grassroots workshops make use of strategic planning methodologies,
and result in groups of participants returning to their coffee and
tea estates with one year and ninety day plans of action.
Over 30 formal follow-up sessions followed the grassroots
workshops, and over 20,000 workers, managers, family members and
guardians, teachers and community leaders have been reached. The
project conducted over 50 monitoring visits which resulted in
efforts to establish more than 100 "Community Child Labor
Committees" (CCLCs). The committees are in various stages of
development at the district and estate levels.
Challenges & Achievements
In addition to returning 340 children to school, the project was
intended to create awareness about child labor. In order to
do this, families had to be made aware about practical ways to
reduce poverty and increase family well-being. Many of these
efforts dealt with making the best use of family incomes, the
establishment of micro-finance groups, self-help groups, income
generating activities and bursary schemes. Forty
micro-finance groups, called Amerry-go-rounds, were formed, along
with 132 self-help groups which had a combined membership of over
6,000 members. A newsletter in both English and Swahili is
being produced to share successes and failures, and to motivate
child labor activists.
A key to the success of the project has been awareness-raising
at all levels, but primarily at the family, village and workplace
level. Almost every aspect of the COTU/KPAWU/ Solidarity
Center Project at the plantation, estate and village level is based
on awareness-raising before finding means of returning children to
school. It is believed that direct financial interventions to
return children to school should be used only as a last
resort. Rather, child labor committees at the district,
village and estate level should be empowered to assist parents and
guardians to form groups to mobilize resources to return children
to school.
A summary of awareness-raising in the various target groups
reached by the project follows:
Parents and Guardians
-
BEFORE the project, the largely illiterate parents and guardians
believed that it was acceptable for children from poor families to
work in order to increase family income. Parents were not
interested in sending children to school for many reasons,
including the lack of employment opportunities for educated
children.
-
AFTER the project, parents in the ten target areas are aware
that children have little chance for success in modern day Kenya
unless they have a basic education. Parents are proud of the
fact that their children are in school and will be able to compete
for more rewarding jobs. With the assistance of the program,
several groups of parents decided to establish literacy classes at
the estate level.
Working Children
-
BEFORE the project, with an estimated four million primary aged
children in Kenya not attending school, it seemed normal to boys
and girls in the ten target areas that they too were not going to
school. It was normal to work, and nice to have some money
for the family or for a few things that money could buy.
Their highest aspiration was to get a permanent job on the local
coffee estate, perhaps even become a driver.
-
AFTER the project, children are aware that they can become a
teacher, a pilot, an accountant or even a medical doctor.
Children are aware that community-based efforts can lead to an
education and a bright future. Former child laborers have
formed support groups, and have joined the campaign against child
labor. Some older youth have decided to follow in the
footsteps of their parents, and have also begun literacy
classes.
The Community
-
BEFORE the project, the communities accepted child labor as a
necessary evil due to poverty.
-
AFTER the project, as a result of awareness-raising by CCLCs,
attitudes have changed, and many efforts are made to enroll
children in schools or to keep them from dropping out.
Teachers
-
BEFORE the project, overworked and underpaid teachers had little
time or energy for hungry children who didn't come to school.
The problem was overwhelming.
-
AFTER the project, teachers are aware that community-based
efforts can effectively put many children into schools.
Teachers have taken up leadership positions in the CCLCs, and are
active in promoting self-help groups to generate income. In
Limuru town, a teacher helped a group of AIDS orphans and others
begin a rabbit project to help meet school expenses.
Union Leaders
-
BEFORE the project, union leaders did not bother dealing with
the Anecessary evil. Clear information on child labor issues
was not available. In any case, it was felt that child labor
had little or nothing to do with the union except that those under
18 years of age could not join the union.
-
AFTER the project, all union leaders are aware of the project
and are talking about it, says the General Secretary of
KPAWU. It is now very clear that child labor is not wanted
and can be dealt with through a union-led program. Leaders
have become aware that activists, particularly women, can recruit
workers into the union while eliminating child labor. During
the one-year project, over 10,000 workers joined the union.
Negotiators in a stronger KPAWU are now aware that child labor
issues can be put on the bargaining table along with wages, hours
and working conditions. Union leaders and workers are now
more aware of the health hazards from pesticides, particularly for
children.
Participants
-
BEFORE the project, participants in the grassroots workshops
were concerned but gave little thought to the Aunsolvable
problem.
-
AFTER the project, most participants are aware that community
groups can become forces in the fight against child labor and in
the improvement of family life.
Estate Managers
-
BEFORE the project, members of management saw child labor as
traditional and resulting from poverty. Some saw it as a form
of cheap, non-union labor. Others believed they were doing
the families a favor by allowing their children to work.
-
AFTER the project, many management personnel are aware of the
destructive nature of child labor, and know that coordinated
efforts can go a long way to eliminate it. Management is
aware that unions can play a significant role in solving problems
such as child labor. Management is aware of their tremendous
influence for good when they help bridge the gap between management
and workers.
Others
-
BEFORE the project, an attitude of acceptance toward child labor
was held by numerous persons, including government officials,
politicians, opinion makers, religious leaders, workers in the
informal sector and others.
-
AFTER the project, the attitudes of all have not changed, but
significant improvements have been made in raising awareness about
the disadvantages of child labor and the importance of
education.
One of the most significant results of the program was the
involvement of communities in child labor issues. The CCLCs,
in their various stages of development, continue to display a high
degree of commitment and enthusiasm.
No changes were made to the basic bottom-up approach but a
greater emphasis is presently being placed on the proper use of
family income, and joining groups whose purpose is to mobilize
funds to meet school expenses.
The program has received limited funding to increase the number
of estate level CCLCs in the ten target areas in Kenya, and to
expand to a few new areas. The KPAWU has agreed in principle
to provide direct financial assistance to the CCLCs in the ten
target areas of the project. The Solidarity Center is
exploring more formal collaboration with ILO-IPEC, particularly to
coordinate the program with the new IPEC education program.
With the cooperation of the East African Trade Union Council
(EATUC), an international effort will be made to harmonize child
labor efforts at the East African Community level. The
Grassroots Newsletter will become a regional publication.
Coalitions with the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) and
others will be formed to promote economic growth and good
governance, both necessary to achieve free and compulsory primary
education.
-
More emphasis will be placed on the sustainability of CCLCs and
microfinance efforts. An internal evaluation of the program,
conducted in April, showed that participants in the program
recommend:
-
More counseling for children and their parents;
-
Better communication and transportation arrangements at the
estate level;
-
The inclusion of more religious leaders in the program;
-
Improved monitoring at the estate level;
-
The provision of written child labor materials in Kiswahili;
-
The provision of information on HIV/AIDS to members of the
CCLCs;
-
The provision of ILO Conventions and detailed child labor
material to teachers;
-
The provision of identity cards for child labor facilitators on
the estates; and
-
Provisions for direct intervention to get extremely needy
children into school, particularly AIDS orphans.
Lessons learned
-
Programs must put emphasize on using existing local trade union
structures as an effective means of mobilizing grassroots
community involvement in taking children out of work and putting
them in school.
-
By using a multi-union approach, the strengths of different
types of unions can be brought together to provide maximum
results. The unions being used have as their members
agricultural workers, teachers, domestic workers, local government
workers, university staff and others.
-
Solidarity Center coordination teaches local unions how to
create community-based child labor programs, work in partnership
with NGOs, employers and other relevant community leaders, and
build local union capacity to effectively sustain existing
community-based structures.
This approach is transferrable to other countries where there is
a local agricultural union. The newly trained union activists
in Kenya are now in a position to assist other unions in Africa to
establish similar programs.
Bangladesh: A Multilateral Collaboration to Eliminate Child
Labor in the Export-Oriented Garment Industry
Presented by Anisur Rahman Sinha
Mr. Anisur Rahman Sinha, the chairman of the Opex Group, is
currently serving a two-year term as the President of the
Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers' and Exporters' Association
(BGMEA), a mandatory organization for exporting garment manufacture
employers. For the last three years, the Opex Group has won
the Bangladeshi Government gold trophy for export
performance. Exports of the Opex Group total well over $100
million a year, and the Group employs more than 25,000 people.
Background
The garment industry in Bangladesh has enjoyed meteoric growth,
from less than 50 factories in 1983 to over 2,800 in 1999.
During the same period, employment rose from 10,000 to 1.5
million, of which 80 percent are female workers. At the same
time, garment exports increased in value of US$31 million to
US$4.02 billion. This represents approximately 66 percent of
the country's exports, 43 percent of which go to the United
States.
Concern about the number of children employed in the
industry led to the introduction of the Harkin Bill in the United
States government in early 1993. The bill called for an
immediate ban on the import of goods manufactured wholly, or in
part, by child labor. The bill sent shock waves through the
Bangladeshi garment industry. Factory owners, in an effort to
avoid jeopardizing their positions, began dismissing child workers
en masse.
Objectives
In October 1994, the ILO and UNICEF received a written appeal
from 53 Bangladeshi children. In response, the ILO, UNICEF
and several NGOs urged BGMEA not to dismiss child workers until a
school system and other social protection measures were in
place. Intense negotiations between the parties concerned led
to an MoU, which was signed in July 1995 by BGMEA, ILO and
UNICEF. The Government of Bangladesh, as well as the United
States Embassy, was actively involved in the process, and continue
to support its aims and objectives.
The MoU, known as "The Placement of Child Workers in
School Programs and the Elimination of Child Labor," covers the
following key elements:
-
an initial fact-finding survey;
-
a special education program for former working children;
-
monitoring and verification in the garment factories;
-
income compensation for children attending school classes;
and
-
skills training.
-
Micro credit and entrepreneurship training
Process
The fact-finding survey was conducted in 1995 and revealed a
total of 9,546 child workers in the garment industry. Child
labor in this sector is negligible compared with the vast numbers
of children working in the informal and agricultural sectors in
Bangladesh, but as garment exports are vital to the economy,
success in reducing or eliminating child labor will clearly have
major implications elsewhere and provide leverage for IPEC and
other players to implement child labor elimination projects in the
country.
UNICEF took on the three-year Non-Formal Educational component
in association with two national NGOs, and financial commitments
were made by all partner agencies.
Through the BGMEA/ILO/UNICEF Child Labour Project, a
verification system was designed and set up and ILO monitors were
specially trained to carry out continuous unannounced visits in all
BGMEA member factories and verify school attendance.
To provide partial compensation for income loss, a stipend
of Tk. 300 (approximately 6 US$) per month was agreed upon for each
child withdrawn and placed into the informal education program. [7]
To oversee and coordinate implementation of the MoU, a local
Steering Committee was set up with members from BGMEA,UNICEF and
ILO. Representatives from the Ministry of Labor and the
United States Embassy became regular observers. The
committee's objective was to ensure tight coordination and deal
decisively with non-compliance and punitive measures.
In order to continue the work and achievements of the project,
BGMEA, ILO and UNICEF signed MoU2 on July 16,2000 with the main
objectives of continuing provision of the social protection program
and transferring the monitoring and evaluation system to a local
entity to ensure sustainability. The project proposal is in
the process of being finalized.
Challenges & Achievements
Since the project's initiation in late 1995, the following
achievements were made:
-
More than 8,200 former child workers have received non-formal
education.
-
2,000 children continue formal education.
-
Since 1995, the percentage of garment factories using child
labor was reduced as follows: 43 percent of all factories in
1995; 34 percent in 1996; 11 percent in 1997; five percent in 1998;
and three percent at the end of 1999. As of September 2000,
the percentage of children as workers in garment factories
increased to 5.4 percent.
-
680 former child workers received vocational training.
-
A further 148 former child workers will receive vocational
training.
-
A database developed by IPEC provides a system for the random
selection of factories to be visited each day by project
managers.
-
Close cooperation between the three signatories and the support
of the government and the United States Embassy.
A key to success was BGMEA's role in convincing the majority of
its members to cooperate with the monitoring teams. The
composition of the monitoring teams and the social communication
skills of the 50 monitors was also instrumental: each team
consists of one government inspector, one BGMEA and two IPEC
monitors. Their aim has been to win confidence, not to act as
policemen, verifying compliance with the provisions of the
MoU, while advising on ways and means to do so and informing
manufacturers of the benefits of the program. The number of
visits to factories in Dhaka and Chittagong increased from 1,609 in
1996, to 4,542 in 1997, to 6,104 in 1998, to 7,373 in 1999.
Monitoring is daily and sites are randomly selected.
Awareness-raising has been an essential part of the
project. Publicity campaigns have informed not only the
Bangladeshi public but have also attracted international interest
in the new program model.
In two major 1997 conferences on child labor, held in Amsterdam
and Oslo, the program's importance as a replicable model was
emphasized. The signing of an agreement between the Sialkot
Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI), the ILO and UNICEF in
Atlanta in 1997, to phase out child labor in the soccer ball
industry in Pakistan, is considered to be a replication of the
BGMEA model. Inspired by this project, a large European-based
fashion company is now running a skills training center for former
garment industry working children and has placed them at factories
after completion of the program. The project has also served
as a model for projects in Pakistan, Thailand, the Philippines,
Indonesia, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Honduras.
Lessons learned
The main lessons are that:
-
With the commitment of the involved partners, a considerable
reduction in the number of employed children can be achieved in the
industrial sector within a few years.
-
Success lies in an independent, credible, transparent monitoring
and verification system.
-
To ensure the sustainability of the monitoring and verification
system, efforts need to be made to build up a private sector-based
quality assurance system, as well as provide capacity building for
law enforcement bodies.
-
Although income compensation options are limited, a viable
income loss alternative is crucial for the acceptance of the former
child worker to participate in the rehabilitation program.
-
Funding for all segments of a project must be obtained
up-front.
-
Implementing partners need to exchange and process the
child-related data on a common electronic platform.
-
To minimize the number of non-compliance cases and at the same
time sustain the rehabilitation opportunities for a former child
worker, the defaulting factory should be obliged to cover the
rehabilitation cost for the identified child.
Reaching for Bigger Dreams
by Aasha Amin Mehreen
Salma is a lively 15-year-old former garment worker who wants to
study at least until the tenth grade so that she can get a
reasonably well-paid job. Only a few years ago such
aspirations were beyond her wildest dreams. At age 11,
poverty forced her to take on the job of an adult, working from
eight in the morning to ten at night, seven days a week, at a
crowded garment factory. Her monthly salary was only TK400
(US$8).
Then Salma's life took a different turn. The 1993, in
reaction to a bill proposed by US Senator Harkin that called
for an immediate ban on the import of garments made with child
labor, garment manufacturers panicked and dismissed thousands
of child workers in Bangladesh. Children like Salma
were faced with destitution and the prospect of working in
hazardous occupations in order to make a living.
However, the combined effects of the Bangladeshi government's 1994
commitment to the eventual elimination of child labor, and a 1995
MoU between the BGMEA, the ILO and UNICEF, meant that in the long
term, Salma and her family's lives would positively change.
All child garment workers in the rehabilitation program are
entitled to basic primary education at various non-formal schools
set up by two partner NGOs: Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee
(BRAC), and Gono Shastha Shangstha (GSS) or Popular Health
Organization. In addition, children aged 14 and above are
able to attend school as well as work under the 'Earn and Learn'
program, or receive skills training. At present there are about 196
MoU schools, 122 run by BRAC and 74 by GSS. A stipend of TK
300 (US$8) per month is paid to those who regularly attend school. [8]
At the Probhatibagh school run by BRAC, pupils are given lessons
in basic reading, writing, mathematics and science. Salma can
now read story books on her own, write letters for her parents and
neighbors and be sure to get the correct change from
shopkeepers. She learns about the environment, her rights as
a child and about basic health and hygiene. She also can take
part in informal singing and dancing lessons. All this has
had a remarkable effect on her. She is more self-assured,
assertive and independent. Salma's sister Rabeya, a former
garment worker who entered the program with Salma, goes to the same
non-formal school.
Financially, the consolidated income of the entire family has
increased, improving their standard of living. Salma and
Rabeya both get almost double their previous salaries. Now of
the legal working age, Salma has a job through the "Earn and Learn"
scheme at a garment factory, where she works from 11 in the morning
to eight at night after her lessons at school. She gets one
Friday off every month.
Salma's mother, Zubaida, has been working at a garment factory
ever since her two daughters started going to school. "I
don't have to worry about them so much now," says Zubaida.
"Thanks to the program my daughters will now be educated and be
able to stand on their own two feet." Personally, she too has
benefitted. Apart from the added income, Salma reads and
writes letters for her mother and helps to keep the accounts.
"She tells us about all the things that she learns in school such
as the importance of good hygiene, Zubaida remarks proudly.
Recently, to the delight of the family, the two sisters' used some
of their savings to buy a color TV.
Skills training for those aged 14 and above is another important
component of the program. Tarek is a 15-year-old who wants,
more than anything, to learn everything there is to know about
cars. He entered the garment industry when he was only 12
because his widowed mother could not earn enough to support herself
and her two children. Tarek enrolled in the Prabhatibagh
school in 1996. Now that he is over 14, Tarek is qualified
for skills training under the UNICEF funded program, run by two
NGOs. After school, from one p.m. to 4:30 p.m., Tarek
goes to a training center in Mirpur to be trained in car
maintenance.
Thanks to the education scheme, Tarek can read and write as well
as make practical plans for the future. "As soon as I finish
fifth grade I will start working in a garage. I would have
liked to study more but I must start earning to help my
mother."
Pakistan: Eliminating Child Labor in the Soccer Ball
Industry
Presented by Aseema Zahoor
Aseema Zahoor has been working with the IPEC soccer ball project
in Sialkot since its implementation in 1997. She acts as a
monitor for the project in soccer ball stitching centers to ensure
that abusive child labor is not being used in the soccer ball
industry. She also works with area stitchers to raise
awareness of the problems associated with child labor and to
encourage them to get involved in sending children to school.
She holds a master's degree in economics from Punjab University in
Lahore.
Background
Sialkot is situated in the extreme northeast corner of the
province of Punjab. With a population of more than 2.6
million, the average Sialkot family has seven persons. It has
thriving industries involving the manufacture of sporting goods,
surgical instruments and leather. All three industries employ
child workers. In 1996 to 1997 Sialkot exported Rs. 3,882.17
million worth of soccer balls, the figure rising to Rs. 5,057.42
million (some US$100 million) in 1997 to 1998.
A child labor survey carried out in 1996 by IPEC found that, of
the 40 million Pakistani children aged five to 14, 8.3 percent (3.3
million) were economically active on a nearly full-time
basis. Of these, some 70 percent worked as unpaid family
helpers in order to assist in household enterprises. Nearly
half the child labor force in Pakistan works more than 35 hours per
week. A sizeable number work 56 hours or more. Of
these, nearly 7,000 lived and worked in Sialkot in 1997, and nearly
two-thirds of them were illiterate. Parents often believe
that it is best for their children to work, to supplement family
income.
Until the early 1970s, soccer ball stitching was carried out in
factories in and around the city by regular paid employees.
Then, manufacturers started decentralizing production.
Workers began to take some of their work home, where they were
assisted by the rest of the family, including children.
Home-based family stitching units were born and quickly
mushroomed. In 1995, news reports about sporting goods
manufacturing involving child labor began to appear.
On 14 February 1997, the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and
Industry (SCCI), the ILO and UNICEF signed a Partners' Agreement in
Atlanta to develop and implement a Plan of Action to diminish child
labor in the soccer ball industry in Sialkot. Save the
Children-UK was also invited by the Atlanta signatories to join the
partnership for the cause.
Objectives
The objectives were to:
-
Prevent and progressively eliminate child labor in the
manufacture or assembly of soccer balls in Sialkot and its
environs;
-
Identify and remove children under the age of 14 from work and
provide them with education and other opportunities;
-
Facilitate changes in community and family attitudes toward
child labor.
Process
The project has two main components: Prevention and
Monitoring, and Social Protection.
Manufacturers are invited to voluntarily join the program and
incorporate the children in a Social Protection Program.
Participating manufacturers register their contractors or
subcontractors and complete an Internal Monitoring process to
record information about their stitching centers and the stitchers
working there. This information is passed on to IPEC for
independent or External Monitoring. Participating
manufacturers are required to shift 100 percent of their production
within 18 months to stitching centers that can be conspicuously
monitored.
Seven ILO teams, of two members each, carry out the external
monitoring. Presently, there are 15 monitors, seven of whom
are female. Female monitors are required, as male and females
stitchers work either in separate facilities or separate rooms.
The Social Protection and Rehabilitation Program consists of
prevention, rehabilitation, and awareness-raising and is run by the
Bunyad Literacy Community Council (BLCC), which has expertise and
experience in non-formal education. The priority target group
is those children and their families who are affected by the
Prevention and Monitoring program. The program also focuses
on the younger siblings of the target group of working
children.
Challenges & Achievements
The first phase was completed on 31 March 1999.
Thirty-nine manufacturers had joined the program. The SCCI
and IPEC agreed to extend the monitoring component until 31 October
1999, in order to be in sync with the social protection
component. In September 1999, an external independent
evaluation was undertaken and recommended extension of the project
for a second phase of two years. This phase will be one of
consolidation and of making the initiative sustainable.
In the extended period, as an incentive to attract all soccer
ball manufacturers, the SCCI has reduced the joining fee for the
new manufacturers to Rs. 15,000 (from Rs. 100,000). The
response from smaller manufacturers has been very positive.
By the middle of February 2000, 65 manufacturers had joined
voluntarily. IPEC is now monitoring 100 percent of production
in more than 1,799 stitching centers, which include around 1,058
stitching centers for females. In addition there are 25
combined centers where males and females work on the same premises
but in different rooms. In order to bring all stitching
activities into the monitoring net, the IPEC team has also started
area-based monitoring and has issued individual identification
codes to all participating manufacturers. These codes are
printed inside the ball on a specific panel and help identify any
leakage of stitching work to unregistered work places, and allow
IPEC to gather information on manufacturers who have not yet joined
the program.
By mid-February 2000, monitors had carried out 12,670 random
visits to 24,956 stitching centers. IPEC also monitors the
stitching activities of participating manufacturers in neighboring
districts.
BLCC has set up 185 non-formal education centers, known as Umang
Taleemi Centers (UTCs), which provide opportunities for working
children to receive primary education. A total of 6,019
children have been enrolled at these UTCs. In addition, 185
teachers engaged by BLCC for UTCs have been provided with first-aid
training. Teams of doctors also visit the UTCs for medical
examination of the children enrolled and provide medical treatment
as necessary.
In addition to education and health facilities, BLCC has
developed programs for vocational and skills training, and
has initiated a program for credit and savings schemes. This
will help those families affected by the Prevention and Monitoring
Program to enhance their income.
UNICEF aims to achieve 100 percent enrollment of all children in
the Afour to seven years age group in primary schools.
Through an NGO, Save the Children-UK has introduced micro credit
schemes to the male and female adults of families whose children
were withdrawn from work. Save the Children, through another
partner NGO, is also enhancing the social and physical
infrastructure of the government primary schools with active
community involvement.
In the next phase, IPEC will consolidate the internal and
external monitoring system and work with partners to set up an
independent and credible local monitoring agency that will continue
after the program has been phased out in 2001.
Lessons Learned
-
Partnership between international agencies, national and local
NGOs and the business community is essential.
-
Voluntary partnership makes stakeholders responsible, which is a
key to sustainability.
-
The program must be an agent for change.
-
On-site regular and area-based monitoring by IPEC monitoring
teams is worthwhile and replicable.
-
Helping the industry organize itself leads to reduced instances
of child labor.
-
Families and communities want greater educational
opportunities.
Light in Bhagwal Awan
by Salman Rashid
Bhagwal Awan, just outside Sialkot, had a large concentration of
football stitching families living near the poverty line.
Typically, every able-bodied man, woman and child in these families
worked. Children's education was not a priority. Riffat Tahira a
teacher at a Umang Taleemi Center (UTC) or informal school
encouraging children to pursue an education is a major part of the
job.
One of her students was the bright-eyed and intelligent Farzana, a
live wire of a girl, about 11 years old. From a football stitching
family, she had never been to school, and acquiring mastery over
the printed word gave her an immense sense of achievement. This was
something to be shared with friends. So, she says, she took her
friend Samina Aby the hand as she sat there stitching footballs,
and led her to school. Samina, shy, withdrawn and quiet, was the
exact opposite of the energetic Farzana. Also from a family of
football stitchers, Samina had attended school earlier, but dropped
out because of the unimaginative system of exams and abuse in which
she had failed and lost heart.
Shortly after she joined the informal school in early 1998,
Samina's father fell terminally ill. The family's stitching
enterprise also came to an end with the establishment of formal
stitching centers that took away all the work. As far as Samina was
concerned this spelled doom for her family.
They say misfortunes never come in ones or twos but in droves, and
within months Samina's ailing father passed away. With the head of
the family gone and no stitching work to be had, Samina's elder
brother, who works in a factory for surgical goods for a meager Rs.
1200 per month, became the only breadwinner for this family of eight.[9]
In these bleak circumstances, in May 1999 Samina's teacher told her
mother, Khadija, about the loan scheme that was a part of the
informal education program for families in financial need. Khadija
was averse to the idea of a loan, for she well knew the cumbersome
paperwork and the back breaking interest that kept poor borrowers
in perpetual bondage. It took a while for her to be convinced that
things were slightly different in this program.
Only after four months of saving and scrimping could Khadija raise
the requisite Rs. 800 (about US$16) to provide the collateral and
get a loan of Rs. 6,000 to set up her younger son[10] in his hair
cutting and hamam (hot baths) business. Within days his daily
take-home income was hovering at about Rs. 200. For the family in
the depths of abject poverty only weeks ago, this was a monumental
changeBand it was to get better. "With the advent of winter the hot
baths become even busier and," says Khadija with visible pride,
"the income jumped threefold." The initial worry of paying the
monthly installment of Rs. 580 receded. Today she does not even
mind the fact that she has to pay Rs. 960 as interest against the
loan.
And what of the two little girls, diametrically opposed in
temperament yet bonded by the covenant of friendship? "We used to
take turns at playing teacher and student," says Farzana brightly.
In their game the teacher was a stick wielding monster. But now
they are students for real, and the stereotype of the wicked
teacher has been overhauled. In two years Samina has raced through
five grades of normal school and will be taking the primary level
examination in the third week of March to join a mainstream
school.
The highschool exam is the target for the girls right now. "But if
we get the chance, we'll both do sixteen grades," declares Farzana.
The master's degree is a long way off, and the girls don't yet know
the name for it. But their hankering for knowledge has been kindled
and there is little doubt that, given half a chance, these two
bright sparks will get into college.
Khadija now has all her younger children in school and she values
literacy. "Two years of government school could not even teach my
Samina the Urdu alphabet. But two years in Riffat's school, and she
can read letters from relatives."
Had it not been for this intervention, Khadija has no doubt that
her family would have been forced into unimaginable misery.
Central America: Cooperative Effort to End Child Labor in the
Coffee Industry
Presented by Rijk van Haarlem
Rijk van Haarlem is the IPEC Chief Technical Adviser for the
Sub-regional Projects in the Coffee Industry and Commercial
Agriculture in Central America. He has considerable experience in
the field with IPEC and was instrumental in setting up major IPEC
projects in Bangladesh and Pakistan, upon which the Central America
coffee project is based. He is an engineer by training and a former
Dutch government employee.
Background
Child labor is a growing phenomenon in Central America. It is
estimated that more than two million children between the ages of
five and 15 work. Many Central American economies are predominantly
based on agriculture and are dependent on agricultural exports.
Consequently, a high percentage of the labor force in the region is
found in the agricultural sector. It is estimated that in the six
countries (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua,
and the Dominican Republic) participating in the project, a total
of 800,000 children and adolescents work in the agricultural
sector.
Due to the high demand for labor during the harvesting season, the
coffee sector traditionally employs many migrant workers. Large
plantations usually employ workers hired from within the
coffee-growing region, but in peak harvesting season, they also use
national or foreign migrant workers. Small producers often involve
all family members in the production of coffee as well as migrant
workers. In this context, child labor is often perceived as an
important contribution to family income because income is based on
production.
Children who work on coffee plantations face many safety and health
risks. Fatigue is a big problem. Children carry heavy or oversized
loads of coffee beans. In addition to injuries, they may suffer
from respiratory, dermatological, and other illnesses, as they
often work without protective clothing or adequate working tools
and may be regularly exposed to toxic chemicals, pesticides, and
disease-carrying insects.
The long working hours and seasonal nature of coffee production
frequently interfere with children's enrollment and school
attendance. Academic performance is generally poor. Some coffee
plantations in Guatemala and El Salvador have established schools
for children of their workers. In most cases, however, the lack of
available schools or education centers near plantations and farms
makes school attendance impossible. In addition, a number of
parents do not value education.
Prior to the IPEC program, projects to raise awareness about the
problem of child labor were implemented to mobilize governmental
institutions and the community at large. Various action programs
providing direct assistance to working children and their families
were developed and implemented. Coffee associations or councils in
some countries have established social programs, including rural
education programs benefitting children and families living in the
coffee-growing regions.
Some progress toward the effective elimination of child labor is
being made in Central America. However, specific actions to
prevent, withdraw, and rehabilitate working children from hazardous
or full-time work on coffee plantations are needed. Projects that
tackle child labor with concerted actions involving coffee
producers, government institutions, NGOs, communities and parents
are the only answer.
With this in mind, IPEC and USDoL developed a sub-regional project
to address the problem. The initial steps to develop such a unique
project, which covers a large geographical area, were made by the
regional IPEC office in Costa Rica in consultation with IPEC Geneva
and DoL. In early 1999, associations of coffee growers and leading
NGOs in six countries of the region were approached and consulted
about the feasibility and the strategy of a sub-regional project,
aimed at the progressive elimination of child labor in the coffee
sector in their respective countries. The response was very
positive. The project, which will have a duration of two years,
started on November 15, 1999. To date, the project has secured a
manager, identified its implementing agencies and intends to begin
its social protection components during the last quarter of
calendar year 2000.
Objectives
The project aims at the withdrawal of 20,000 children from
full-time work in two years.
Process
The project will follow the same strategies as in other IPEC child
labor projects focused on a particular sector, i.e., social
rehabilitation, placement of children in schools, and protection of
working children and their families combined with a monitoring and
verification system.
The actions are:
- During the first three months, a baseline survey conducted to
assess the extent of child labor, to identify the target groups and
to produce information upon which a monitoring and verification
system can be based.
- At the conclusion of the survey, a planning meeting held with all
actors to fine-tune their respective activities in implementing the
project using the outcome of the survey.
- At the conclusion of the survey, social protection measures for
(ex)working children, their siblings, and their families included
education programs, health and nutrition programs and recreation
programs.
- Awareness-raising programs implemented to change attitudes and
perceptions about child labor and to mobilize society to take
action against it.
- Concrete action by, and support of, coffee producers and
plantation owners mobilized in the prevention of child labor and
withdrawal of children from full-time and hazardous work.
- Viable income replacement mechanisms provided, which will include
training of parents in income-generating activities for selected
families.
- An independent workplace monitoring system established to verify
that identified working children are phased out of the coffee
industry and provided with viable alternatives, and that they do
not return to work. The monitoring system is in operation not
earlier than three months after the start of the social protection
program, to make sure that the children can enroll in the schools
or education centers established under the project.
- The monitoring system operates as follows:
- Monitors operate in teams of two;
- The area of operation should be divided into zones;
- Each team is assigned to a zone;
- The teams are rotated over the zones on a regular basis;
- Monitoring visits are unannounced;
- Each monitoring site, plantation, family or school will be
visited with reasonable frequency;
- Information gathered during the monitoring visits will be
stored in a database on a day-to-day basis; and
- Addresses of locations to be visited should be generated by a
database in such a way that no addresses are left out.
Reliable and transparent monitoring is considered vital to ensure a
measurable impact on the target children and their families. The
system will use the same strategies applied in the IPEC projects in
the garment industry in Bangladesh and the soccer ball and carpet
projects in Pakistan. IPEC monitors will ensure a gradual and
systematic phasing out of identified children from full-time and
hazardous work and prevent new children from entering. The system
will involve labor inspectors and officials from other governmental
institutions, as well as the facilitation of access by
representatives of the coffee associations.
However, in this project, monitoring visits will be conducted not
only to coffee factories and big plantations, but also to small
(and often family-owned) plantations and to families working in the
coffee industry. Therefore, the monitors in this project will
interact more with the community and families, than with their
colleagues in Bangladesh. This will require specific skills.
The ILO/IPEC monitoring teams will be composed of people with a
bachelor's degree in one of the social sciences and with experience
in fieldwork, preferably surveys. The team members will receive
training in monitoring on child labor and will preferably be gender
balanced.
The coffee association representatives are cooperating and involved
in the implementation of the project. They will facilitate access
to the monitoring sites (plantations and families). However, they
are not directly involved in the monitoring system, as is the case
in the BGMEA project in Bangladesh, where BGMEA monitors are
members of the joint ILO/BGMEA/GOB monitoring teams.
The monitoring system will also promote the participation of
community organizations, whose representatives will be trained to
follow up on the status of ex-working children or those at risk, as
well as on the situation of their families. They will provide
reports to ILO/IPEC on a regular basis.
The community monitors will also participate in regular meetings
with the chief monitor and/or the ILO monitors. In these
"coordinating" meetings, the findings and observations of the
community monitors will be discussed. The information obtained from
the community monitors will be verified by the ILO monitors during
visits to the families and plantations and processed in the
system.
To ensure sustainability, it is essential that the Labor
Inspectorates participate. The respective Ministries have been
requested to make labor inspectors available to accompany the
monitoring teams during their visits one day per week. At the same
time labor inspectors will be trained for "on the job" inspections
of child labor and working conditions. The response of the
respective Ministries of Labor in the participating countries has
been positive.
Labor inspectors and other government officials, who are part of
the monitoring system, will also be requested to attend the
training sessions. The course will be refreshed once or twice
during the project, or when deemed necessary. In addition, each
national chief monitor will be trained to train representatives of
the community groups in the use of monitoring formats, and in
sensitization on child labor issues.
The monitoring teams in the participating countries work under the
guidance of a chief monitor and will report on a weekly basis to
that person. Their computerized reports will contain information
including the number of visits conducted, locations, number of
children identified, progress of their phasing out from work, and
school attendance.
Coffee's Children
by Maite Puertes
Turrialba is one of the main coffee-growing regions in Costa Rica.
The town is only 40 miles from the capital, but the climate and the
landscape are typically Acoffee.
In Turrialba, coffee is more than just a product, it's a way of
life. Even school vacations are arranged to coincide with the
harvest. Juan Carlos Camacho, Director of the Agriculture Ministry
Office and Coordinator of Turrialba's Agricultural Sector, explains
that Athe harvesting season lasts more or less from November
through February, though this period changes depending on the
rains, the altitude of the cultivated area or the variety of the
beans. This is why the harvesting season is usually longer than
school vacation. It is estimated that during the harvest there are
over 10,000 children and teenagers who work with their parents or
combine school and coffee-harvesting.
Some 40 percent of Costa Rica's coffee comes from a mix of big
plantations and small holdings. Turrialba is no exception. On the
one hand are the plantations, which operate like feudal domains Bon
the other, there are small and medium-sized holdings, a result of
recent agrarian reform that gave land to the workers. Child labor
exists in both environments.
Aquiares, with 700 hectares, is one of Turrialba's biggest
plantations. Its 1,200 inhabitants make up 300 families, many of
whom work on the plantation. Aquiares, though similar to other
plantations in the area, is somewhat better off. The inhabitants
own their houses, sold to them by the coffee grower eight years
ago. The harvesters work in the fields five months a year.
Celia Barquero is a teacher in Aquiares Public School, where 180
children are enrolled. Primary school pupils are experienced in
harvesting coffee. Adrián, six years old, comments, "I pick
coffee with my mama and my papa. I wake up at five and go with
them. I pick a little, I don't work much, I'd rather go to school,
because I learn there." This opinion is shared by his companions.
Alba, also six, says: "I'd rather come to school because I learn;
picking coffee is rather boring . . . and I get tired and snakes
can bite me."
"I think that if the families had more resources they wouldn't use
children's labor," the teacher tells us, "but if the children want
Christmas they have to go for the coffee to earn their toys,
Christmas clothes, and school supplies." But school depends on the
harvest too. "Every year we take the children coffee picking for
three days, and with what we earn we can buy a television and a
video player for the school," the teacher explains.
The immigrants' story is of a different kind. The fact that coffee
is a seasonal product implies the need for casual labor, with
Nicaraguans being the largest group. These immigrants often travel
with their families. The big plantations provide accommodation in
baches, small barracks of 36 square feet, in which two families of
six share a kitchen and a bathroom in inhuman conditions. Lack of
hygiene spreads disease and the way of life causes tensions, which
is a source of social unrest in the area. Joaquín Aguilar,
psychologist of the National Foundation for Childhood in Turrialba,
explains that Athere are some people who make huge profits out of
the miserable conditions of national and foreign families. The
baches are a violation of the human rights for both adults and
children. Public bodies cannot cope.
The majority of immigrants are illegal. This situation forces them
to accept the hard conditions that employers impose on them. Marta
Avilés and Sebastián Rivera live in a bache at
Hacienda La Isabel with their five children, between two and 14
years old. The family has recently arrived in Costa Rica. They came
in search of work and with the aim of settling down if they get
their legal papers. While the father looks for a job, the children
stay at home. Esther, ten years old, attended school in Nicaragua,
but is not yet enrolled in Costa Rica. Her sister, who is eight
years old, has not yet attended any school. "She can't see well,"
says the father, "she needs glasses." The mother says, "The house
is just a small room and we don't fit in. The children? There's no
money, so they can't study.
In Turrialba's Yama settlement a group of families own small plots,
thanks to a recent land reappropriation. The facilities in this
settlement are basic, and families live from coffee-growing.
Martín Pérez and Lorena Céspedes have four
sons, between two and nine years old. The father, who owns a plot
of 1.5 hectares, comments, "Children don't go picking coffee. Why?
Because it's too far, an hour's walk." Toni, Martín's son,
talks to us about how hard it is working in the coffee fields. He
rises at five a.m., walks for an hour with his father to the
plantation, works until one p.m. and then returns home on foot. The
other children in Yama work too. Faced with the question about what
they prefer, coffee bean picking or school, the answer is
unanimous. They'd rather study.
Turrialba`s major, Edgar Mata, points out that Achild labor has a
positive effect on family economics, but in the long term it's
harmful, because children leave school and they'll become citizens
without studies. It's not true that family ties are tightened.[11]
Guatemala: Finding a Long-Term Solution to Child Labor in the
Coffee Sector
Presented by William Hempstead Smith
William Hempstead Smith is the Vice-President of Funrural, the
Guatemalan Foundation for Rural Development.
Background
Guatemala is roughly the size of Ohio, has a population of 11
million, and has coffee as its principal export to major markets
such as the USA, Europe and Japan.
There are 60,000 coffee growers, 55,000 of whom are small
producers. During harvesting time in October, November and
December, families forsake their farms in the highlands and migrate
to pick coffee. Though it is school vacation time, the whole family
works.
Children do not add value to the work with any special dexterity,
nor do they add value to the coffee itself. They simply supplement
family income. There are no contractual arrangements with the
children, only with the father. The children also assist with
harvesting the crops of corn and black beans on the family
farm.
Process
In April 1999, AMACA, the coffee association, teamed up with IPEC
to provide a long-term solution to child labor. The coffee project
is multi-sectoral, covering health, education and alternative
income, and will also carry out awareness-raising in the coffee
sector. Funding is in place. A pilot project will be run by the
Department of San Marcos in northwest Guatemala and will look at
where the migrants come from and where they go to pick the coffee.
The study will be carried out by a local university and the
monitoring will last for two years.
Funrural was established in 1994 to implement projects in health
and education in rural areas, specifically, though not exclusively,
in the coffee sector. It works with its own funds and cooperates
with NGOs and the government. Funrural will implement the education
segment of the project and demonstrate how it can be carried
out.
Ideally, Funrural would like only the father in the family to
migrate during the harvesting season, leaving mother and children
at home. The Catholic Church will be responsible for implementing
alternative income projects for families. Funrural itself would
prefer to see the focus entirely on education and not just see
children shifting from work in the coffee plantations to weaving
baskets for tourists. Funrural is promoting the objectives of the
project to the coffee sector to show that the solution is not
contrary to the sector's needs.
As regards awareness-raising, IPEC has selected the media in San
Marcos as its target. Health issues will be undertaken by the NGO
Project Hope and will focus on mothers and children.
The Guatemalan coffee sector is looking for a comprehensive and
long-term solution, which is why education has such a key role,
offering children the chance to aspire to greater things and break
the cycle of poverty and labor.
Turkey: Using Training to Promote Local Ownership of Interventions
to Eliminate Child Labor
Presented by Dr. Irfan Yazman
A lawyer by profession, Dr. Yazman is the Advisor to the President
of the Confederation of Turkish Tradesman and Handicrafts (TESK)
and the Foundation of Small Industries and Vocational Training
(MEKSA) and the President of Credit Guarantee Funds. In 1998 and
1999, he was an advisory member of the government delegation to the
ILO Conference and worked on the Committee on the Worst Forms of
Child Labor. Dr. Yazman has extensive experience in vocational
training, and designing and managing European Union and IPEC
projects on child labor. He is the founder of the Work Place
Inspection and Consultation Groups (IDDGs) system and has conducted
needs analysis and training of the IDDGs.
Background
Child laborers in Turkey are predominantly employed in small-size
enterprises. Typical employment conditions for children (90 percent
of whom are boys) include long hours and low rates of pay in jobs
that are not suitable for their physical and mental development or
skill levels. The majority of production techniques used in these
enterprises are traditional, and acquisition of vocational skills
occurs in an environment where planned industrial development is
almost nonexistent. Children can register with a Ministry of
National Education Apprenticeship Training Center (ATC) for
training and enroll in the social security system. But ATCs are
only attended by 24 percent of Turkey's child laborers. The
remaining 76 percent of the working children are not protected by
any social security system.
The Confederation of Turkish Tradesmen and Handicrafts (TESK) is
Turkey's professional association for small and medium-sized
enterprises (SME). It represents four million employers, a number
that reflects the fragmentation of the industrial sector within
Turkey. Recognizing the need to improve both the quality of
vocational training received by children and working conditions in
SMEs, TESK established Work Place Inspection and Consultation
Groups (IDDGs) and an accompanying fund.
There are now 3,000 IDDGs nation-wide, each having at least five
members. Their establishment was an important milestone that gave
TESK members, on their own initiative, the opportunity to take
ownership of the process of monitoring the quality of vocational
training. This is the first non-governmental inspection unit in
Turkey.
IDDGs provide an excellent opportunity for cooperation between IPEC
and TESK to achieve common goals in combating the problems
associated with child labor in Turkey. TESK first approached the
ILO in 1994 to ask for support in the training of IDDGs. The
question, therefore, was "How can TESK best gear its IDDG
activities to meet the needs of working children in SMEs?" With
IPEC support, an Action Program was implemented in 1995. As a
follow up, in 1996 through 1997, a further program was designed to
prepare a manual for IDDGs, to equip them with the necessary skills
and materials for promoting the improvement of conditions of
working youth.
This groundwork led to the "Training of IDDGs" program.
Objectives
The main objective of the "Training of IDDGs" program was to
support the creation of a core group of trainers to give the
subsequent training to 230 IDDGs. The rationale behind the training
program was to maximize the impact on the situation of working
youth including improving working conditions for youth 15 and
older, and referring children under 15 to the primary education
system. It was designed to provide systematic and uniform training
in order to utilize existing experience and competencies and enable
IDDGs to develop the cooperation and support necessary among all
those with input to the situation of youth working in
SMEs.
The key strategies adopted were capacity building, youth's
participation, and a multi-sectoral approach. Expected outcomes of
the program included, in the short term, an increase in the
capacity of the IDDGs and, in the long term, improvement of
conditions for all working youth nation-wide.
Process
The program had a number of interdependent components. In the first
phase, a "Training of Trainers" course was provided to a core group
of 30 TESK staff to strengthen IDDG structure after the phasing out
of IPEC support. An integrated training module was prepared in
cooperation with the Ministry of Labor and Social Security and
ATCs, with materials adapted to the needs and conditions of
prospective trainees.
The second phase targeted 230 IDDGs, who received training from the
TESK staff who had completed the first phase with support from the
Ministry of Labor Inspectorate, whose cooperation had been
incorporated into the program from its initial stages.
Challenges & Achievements
Since the phasing out of IPEC support, an additional 1,170 IDDGs
have been trained by the original core group. The presence of this
training force has dramatically increased the reach of the initial
program and therefore directly affected a significantly greater
number of youth. Since field implementation started in 1999, 5,000
working youth between the ages of 15 to 18 have been directed into
the Ministry of National Education ATC system, leading to reduced
working hours for children.
The program also had a major impact on working conditions. As a
result of IDDG fieldwork, the periodic medical screening of working
youth was ensured. Both children and employers increased their
knowledge on work health and safety issues, and employers began to
establish health centers in industrials areas.
One of the crucial roles of IDDGs is in the area of compulsory
primary education. In cooperation with the Ministry of National
Education, effective mechanisms will be devised to identify and
direct working children under the age of 15 into the primary
education system.
The additional 1,500 IDDGs within Turkey are scheduled to receive
training in a program planned to start in September 2000. The
successful completion of this program will mean that the initial
training initiative has become mainstreamed within Turkey's most
influential body of employers.
In addition to these easily quantifiable results, the project has
contributed to the strength of the IDDG concept in the national
context and helped establish a culture of pro-action which has the
potential to significantly alter the dynamic of the child labor
concerns within Turkey. The parallel development of the knowledge
base, attitude and skills of IDDGs has significantly increased the
demand for further training. An analysis of the evaluation reports
submitted by IDDGs shows a progressively more thorough
understanding of the issues and challenges related to child labor
and a demonstrably clearer perspective of the IDDG's own role in
improving the working conditions of youth workers.
Throughout the period of the program, IDDG members repeatedly
expressed that their participation had given them a new perspective
on the issue of child labor and on the effectiveness of the
consultative role that it emphasized. Requests from IDDGs for
further seminars and training initiatives have been a strong
indication of their appreciation of the program.
Lessons learned
It should be emphasized that the initiating body for this program
was an existing national body. This pre-existing will to act
eliminated many of the issues normally associated with program
implementation, and as such was an important contributory factor to
the long-term success of the program. This same will has manifested
itself in the sustainability of the program. Far more has been
accomplished after the phasing out of IPEC support, and this is
indicative of the commitment to change that exists within the
national agencies.
The issues associated with child labor are relevant to many
industrial sectors within Turkey and to many SMEs within those
sectors. The advantages of applying solutions at local and national
levels were clear from the initial program brief and this, combined
with the quality of the training delivered, meant that immediate
benefits could be observed, adding to the momentum of the program
and helping to ensure its continued success.
Many of the more important initiatives within the program relied on
inter-agency cooperation at the local and national level. This was
encouraged and fostered throughout the program, and the potential
difficulties of coordinating with several partners were considered
from the project's outset. This, combined with the willingness of
the involved agencies to participate cooperatively, was essential
to the program's success.
The ease with which this program can be applied in other situations
is heavily dependent on the conditions outlined above. If the will
to combat child labor issues exists in an environment where the
actors are recognized to be part of the industrial and commercial
structure, then the lessons derived from this program could be
profitably applied.
If applied in other situations the following additional
recommendations are made:
-
The training package should be broadened to further integrate
more supervised fieldwork.
-
Monitoring and evaluation mechanisms should be in place in
greater strength.
-
Budgetary planning needs to reflect the above.
-
Concrete cooperation at a local government level needs to be
established from the onset.
-
Training schedules should include an allocation for refresher
courses.
UNICEF has already expressed an interest in this program and has
proposed cooperation with the IDDGs to provide a child
developmental focus to their future work.
TESK has not fully attained its goals, but has the political
commitment, strategy and structure in place to continue toward this
end.
Nepal: The Rugmark Way of Restoring Childhood
Presented by Saroj Rai
Saroj Rai has been with Rugmark since 1998. He worked as a
consultant to IPEC before joining Rugmark. He has extensive
experience in project management and in the manufacturing sector.
He is a chemical engineer and also holds an MBA.
Background
The modern carpet industry in Nepal started as a resettlement
program for Tibetan refugees in the Kathmandu Valley in the early
1960s. The industry became important when Europe began importing
carpets woven in European designs. As exports grew rapidly during
the mid-1980s, the industry attracted thousands of rural workers,
both children and adults alike.
By the 1990s, the industry was the country's leading exporter. But
in 1994 to 1995, it was hard hit by plummeting demand in its only
major market, Germany. The use of child labor was seen as the
reason behind the slump. Surveys indicated that 12 percent of the
workforce were children. Hundreds of children were threatened with
being thrown out onto the streets in the "cleaning up" process. The
Nepalese carpet industry, government and NGOs felt an urgent need
to address the issue.
Nepal Rugmark Foundation (NRF) was established in December 1995 as
a member organization of Rugmark International, the parent Rugmark
body. Rugmark has unique features:
-
Two-dimensional collaboration (the NorthCSouth, and
industryCNGO);
-
An independent inspection and monitoring program;
-
Labeling of individual carpets; and
-
Long term and meaningful rehabilitation of displaced
children.
Objectives
The major objective is to create a child labor free environment in
the Nepalese carpet industry with a meaningful rehabilitation
program. The broader objective is to work for socially and
environmentally acceptable business practices, including minimum
wages for carpet workers. No time frame has been determined for
meeting the objectives.
Process
Nepal Rugmark Foundation commenced licensing the Rugmark label to
carpet manufacturers and exporters in November 1996. At that time,
children were rescued from the factories of licensees and their
suppliers. These children were initially kept in a Transit Home and
were gradually transferred to four Rugmark Rehabilitation Centers,
established in collaboration with four NGOs. Within a year, all
four Centers were operating with about 50 children each. Two NGOs
that have their own private schools received older children in
higher grades while the other two received younger ones. UNICEF,
GTZ (German Agency for Technical Cooperation) and AAFLI (Asian
American Free Labor Institute) helped NRF, financially and
otherwise.
In mid-1998, the two Centers with private schools were made
exclusive to children in grades four and above. The other two
continue to receive newly rescued children and conduct non-formal
classes for lower grades. The idea is to transfer children from the
Centers running non-formal classes to Centers with formal schools
as children approach grade four and above.
The Rugmark approach is non-imposing. Both licensing and
certification are voluntary. Furthermore, NRF takes a consultative
and friendly approach in inspecting carpet factories and rescuing
children. A comprehensive database is in place for verification and
reporting to the licensees and other Rugmark organizations. In case
of non-compliance, licensees and their suppliers are given three
chances. A verbal reprimand is followed by a written reprimand,
and, as a last chance, a special written commitment.
Verification of the actual age of a child is always a problem.
Under pressure from employers or adult family members, children
tend not to give their real age. In case of a contradiction between
the inspector's judgement and what is claimed, children are taken
to a medical doctor for an age check. In case of a child actually
being over 14, a certificate is issued allowing the child to work.
School-going children are not allowed to help their parents in
carpet manufacturing.
NRF launched a Community-based Rehabilitation Program in April
1999. NRF carries out detailed feasibility studies, including
counseling, to encourage reunions of former working children with
their families. NRF signs an agreement with the parents/guardian
whereby both parties agree to support the child's education while
living with the family. NRF personnel continue visiting the
children and families periodically, after the family reunion, for
monitoring and support.
Challenges & Achievements
By end-March 2000, NRF had signed License Agreements with 104
exporters and manufacturers, with only one agreement revoked. There
are 362 factories involved, about 50 percent of the total carpet
factories. At present, some 8 to 10 percent of the total export of
carpets are Rugmark labeled.
Since 1997, NRF has rescued 365 child laborers. Of these, 153 are
already reunited with their families, and 32 have long term Rugmark
support. NRF will continue supporting the children until they are
18 or complete their education to grade ten. Currently, 203
children live in the four Centers, studying in grades as high as
eight. Twenty-nine children are also enrolled in vocational
training.
Currently, UNICEFCthe major donorCis gradually phasing out and NRF
is increasingly using its own funds. NRF's Rehabilitation Program
staff monitor the overall program and give technical or other
backup support.
Lessons learned
-
Rugmark has already been proven to be a pragmatic and
self-sustainable concept.
-
Rugmark is instrumental in overall socioeconomic development.
-
The major prerequisite for implementation is that the product is
an export item.
-
Another precondition is that the producing country is a
democratic society.
Some key success factors are:
- A capable and credible implementing organization.
- A supportive, or at least non-interfering, government.
- Financial support (at least for the start-up period) and
institutional backing (for credibility) by international
organizations.
- Awareness on the part of the employers is a key to success;
hence, their trust and cooperation are vital.
The road ahead could be bumpier. NRF must expand its license
coverage. At the same time, it has to expand its criteria, making
the minimum wage a necessity for certification. Unless a minimum
wage is ensured, there is always a possibility that workers'
children will become child laborers or will not really go to
school. Despite several attempts, NRF has not yet been successful
in making the minimum wage a criterion for certification.
A challenge in expanding Rugmark's license base is other similar
and competing initiatives. NRF must find ways to increase its level
of certification to at least 25 percent of the total carpet
exports.
Another immediate challenge for NRF is financial
self-sustainability. Currently, NRF's own resources are only enough
to cover about 50 percent of total expenses.
The Children Who Made Carpets
by Naresh Newar
For the first time, 13-year-old Meena Shrestha has the chance of a
normal childhood, not possible when she had to weave night and day
at a carpet factory.
Two years ago, her parents sent their 11-year-old daughter to the
Potala Carpet Factory in BoudhaC an area housing most of the carpet
factories in Kathmandu. Her monthly salary of Rs. 500 (US$7) helped
to supplement the family income. But all Meena got during her two
years working at the factory was free meals and uncomfortable
shelter.
"We could not afford to send her to school. I never wanted her to
work at the factory, but we had no other choice," says Meena's sick
father, who also has to depend on his wife, a daily-wage laborer.
They live in an impoverished state in a one-room stuffy apartment
in a worn-out building in Maligaun, one of the city's unsanitary
slum areas.
Fortunately, Meena is now free from the shackles of exploitative
child labor and family poverty. She is among the lucky few in the
care of the RUGMARK-EPHC Rehabilitation Center, on the outskirts of
Kathmandu. To make her parents proud, Meena, dressed in her school
uniform, frequently visits them. Besides formal education, she also
receives vocational training, to equip herself with income
generation skills that will be useful once she rejoins her
family.
However, there are also several children in the Rehabilitation
Center who are unsure whether their parents are alive or not. They
joined the carpet factories at ages as young as eight, and have had
no contact with their families or have lost their home addresses.
"One can say that they are abandoned by their parents and
relatives," says the RUGMARK Nepal fieldworker.
Gyan Bahadur Shrestha, a native of the Kavre district, barely two
hours from Kathmandu, was brought by his uncle to work at Mahakali
Carpet Factory when he was only seven years old. He spent six years
working there. Now the 13-year-old boy does not know where his
mother, who remarried after his father died, is living.
"But there are also children who don't even want to see their
parents," says the RUGMARK staff member who travels around to trace
parents and reunite children in far-off villages.
Community-based rehabilitation is a significant aspect of the
RUGMARK rehabilitation program that, in Sunita Shrestha's case, is
clearly a successful one. Sunita's parents sent their daughter to
the Potala Carpet Factory when she was just eight. She was rescued
after two years. Now 12, Sunita studies in grade five. She was
recently reunited with her parents, after staying at one of the
RUGMARK Nepal-supported shelters for two years.
However, there are also cases when some parents are not eager for
their children to be sheltered and rehabilitated in homes. They
want their children to either work at the factories or at home.
When a 12-year-old named Som Maya Bal was rescued, her father came
to the shelter from his far-off village to take his daughter back.
Initially, the Center refused to hand her over, fearing that her
father would send her back to the carpet factory. They persuaded
him to wait for three months and let her attend non-formal
education and acquire some vocational skills. Now, he has returned
to claim her. "I'm old and sick, so I need my daughter to help on
my farm," he told RUGMARK Nepal staff, who in return asked him to
admit his daughter in the village school. "We will come to check,"
they told him.
Thailand: Developing the Quality of Life -- "Sema Pattana Chivit" --
for Girls at Risk of Being Lured into Prostitution
Presented by Savitri Suwansathit
Savitri Suwansathit is an Inspector-General for the Ministry of
Education in Thailand. Prior to this position, she served as Deputy
Permanent Secretary of Education, coordinating international
cooperation and policy issues. She was also the Secretary-General
of the Thailand National Commission for UNESCO from 1996 to 1998.
Ms. Suwansathit also served as Secretary-General for the National
Commission for Teachers' Civil Service, and for three years was the
Deputy Secretary-General for the National Culture Commission. She
was the head of the Thai delegation to the all ASEAN COCI meetings
from 1990 to 1993 and has attended nearly all UNESCO, UNICEF and
SEMEO meetings since 1965.
Background
The principles behind the Sema Pattana Chivit project are:
-
The right to basic education for all, inspired by the World
Conference held in 1990 in Thailand (now enshrined in the
Constitution), and
-
The protection of children's rights, advocated by the Convention
on the Rights of the Child, to which Thailand became a signatory in
1992, particularly the rights to education, protection and
development.
This project was the first major intervention by the Ministry of
Education to combat child labor and child prostitution, targeting
girls at risk in specific areas. It was supported by various
sectors, including international organizations and NGOs. IPEC, in
particular, funded evaluation research in 1998 to review the
project strategy and analyze its impact on beneficiaries and
families, as well as on communities.
Thailand is surrounded by countries, some of which have experienced
difficult circumstances in recent years. Thailand can be roughly
divided into six regions:
-
Upper North (bordering Burma and Laos, with easy access to China
by road);
-
Lower North;
-
North East (bordering Laos and Cambodia, and accessible to
Vietnam and China);
-
East and Eastern Seaboard (bordering Cambodia, and accessible by
sea to Vietnam, the South China Sea and the Pacific); and
-
South (the long peninsula bordering Burma and Malaysia, but
easily accessible to Indonesia, Singapore, Australia and the
Pacific).
From 1990 to 1994, in the wake of the World Conference on Education
for All, Thailand adopted a National Plan of Education for All and
launched a nationwide campaign to promote it. During this period,
the economy was growing at a sustainable pace, export growth was
rapid and the industrial sector increased its GDP share to 15.8
percent, while tourism and the service sector also grew rapidly.
Naturally, the growth affected the labor market structure
significantly.
In 1994, primary school enrollment was 94 percent, but 6 percent of
children between the ages of six and 11 were still outside the
education system and risked becoming child laborers or disappearing
into the Ainvisible non-formal economic sector. Before 1990,
transition from primary to secondary school had always been slow,
and never exceeded 41 percent. The nationwide campaign brought the
rate of transition in Bangkok to 100 percent, and in the South and
North East to 75 percent and 78 percent respectively. The national
budget allocation to education also increased about 16 percent per
annum.
In 1994, an educational survey showed that 10,000 children in the
Upper NorthChalf of them girlsCcould not be persuaded to continue
at secondary level. The reason given was the prepaid commitment by
parents to agents that the girls were to Ago south and work in
sex-related operations, as their mothers and grandmothers had
done.
The Ministry of Education requested an emergency fund for special
scholarships for 4,453 girls in 94 districts in the Upper North.
Out of this number, 500 were placed in special boarding schools to
ensure their safety. The initial scholarship scheme, later known as
the Selma Life Development Project (SLDP) was approved, and funding
was committed for another two years to allow girls to complete
three years of lower secondary education. The SLDP initially
targeted child-trafficking in the Upper North, but was later
expanded to cover the whole country.
Objectives:
-
Stop child trafficking and protect children's educational and
development rights.
-
Promote positive values of self, education, good citizenship and
honest work.
-
Provide life skills education and vocational training, to ensure
sustained quality of life after schooling.
-
Promote income generating activities as part of the curriculum,
to help compensate the family and to teach the positive values of
work and earning.
-
Develop and validate a model educational approach for prevention
of trafficking of young girls.
The main strategy was to:
-
Provide government scholarships to ensure continuous attendance
for three years in lower secondary school.
-
Provide special services in boarding schools to girls at extreme
risk.
-
Develop a separate module of education and reintegrate SLDP girls
into mainstream schools.
-
Coordinate and monitor 94 SLDP centers, set up with teachers,
monks and community leaders.
-
Provide counseling and guidance to girls and their mothers.
Process
Implemented in three phases during the past three years, the
project was expanded in terms of the number of scholarships
provided, to include: children from broken families or with
imprisoned parents; children with drug or AIDS problems in the
family; AIDS orphans; and those with histories of sex-related
employment in the family.
Short-term Quantitative Achievements:
-
Total of 145,000 scholarships awarded from 1994 to present.
-
Government budget allocations in seven years total some $10
million.
-
First batch of students completed three years of secondary
education in 1996.
-
Completion rate is now 95.3 percent.
-
Continuation to higher secondary plus vocational education is now
75.5 percent.
-
Employment rates for those not continuing education is higher
than mainstream students.
Lessons learned:
-
Moral and political will makes project sustainable.
-
Scholarships directly benefit girls who otherwise would become
Ainvisible.
-
Project works within the formal education system.
-
Targeted girls must be clearly identified and confirmed, and
assistance must reach them quickly and effectively.
-
Relevance of a curriculum is vital.
-
Girls must be prepared for life after school.
-
Career opportunities must be expanded and improved.
Challenges
-
An economic downturn will affect equal opportunity for
education.
-
Economic crisis will affect child labor and child
prostitution.
-
New labor laws and the anti-prostitution law must be vigorously
enforced.
-
By 2004, when the new National Education Act will be full in
force, SLDP will be securely integrated in the Education Reform
Plan of Action to provide 12 years basic education for all.
Life before Death: Making the Choice
by Chitraporn Vanaspong
After a one-hour journey from her boarding school, a pickup truck
pulls up at a child care center in Suan Pa village. Meechu (not her
real name), 16, jumps off and runs toward a group of children
playing in the yard. She quickly spots her four-year-old brother
among the other kids.
It has been months since Meechu has been able to visit her family.
However, she is quite happy to be away from home, as it is the only
way she can further her studies. Meechu is one of the first
children in her Akha tribal village to go to secondary school. She
is the pride of her family.
In fact, Meechu has every reason to leave school as early as
possible. Her father has tuberculosis, leaving her mother as the
only breadwinner.
In 1996, a teacher at Baan Pa Kluay School, where Meechu began her
primary education, spotted her among the other pupils and helped
her apply for a scholarship under the Sema Pattana Chivit Project.
The scholarship helped Meechu to further her studies in the Suksa
Songkroh Mae Jan School, a boarding school operated by the Ministry
of Education.
"I'm happy that Meechu got the scholarship," said her mother. "We
don't have enough money to send her to school. I understand how
important education is. It will help her get a good job, so she
doesn't have to struggle to make ends meet like me."
"I'd never seen a sewing machine in my life," Meechu said with a
smile. "The first time I saw one, I knew right away that I would
love to learn how to make a dress. Now I can sew, and I know how to
fix a sewing machine."
Meechu feels that the project not only allows her to have an
opportunity to study, but that the vocational training scheme also
widens her alternatives of income generation.
"We have seen many vocational training projects fail before," said
Ms. Yenjit Charoenporn, advisory teacher to the school's sewing
group. "Usually, the vocational training doesn't work because of
insufficient training time and an absence of marketing skills
training."
At our school, we tried to fill those gaps. We made the vocational
training program last for three years to ensure that our children
will have enough skills to perform the job. Also, children learn
marketing skills. They have to look for customers by themselves.
They go to the neighboring villages, provincial governmental
offices and housewives' groups to survey their needs. The school's
sewing company ends up getting orders.
Last year, Meechu made approximately 4,000 to 5,000 baht (about
$120 to $130) from her sewing work at school. She was able to buy
food for her family and clothes for her brother and sister. Apart
from that, she paid for medical treatment for her father. She still
remembers how her father's eyes filled with tears of pride.
As a stateless Akha, who has no Thai ID card, Meechu can name many
unequal opportunities when comparing herself with a Thai citizen.
She has no right to vote. She cannot take out a government loan.
And she cannot travel independently without prior permission from
the provincial office. However, she considers herself lucky
compared to some of her friends.
"Some of the girls who participated in this project have already
dropped out, during the first or second year of schooling," Meechu
said. "They all have the same reason, that their families are so
poor, and they need to leave school to make money. I know many of
them ended up in inappropriate work. I understand them perfectly. I
would do the same if my parents asked me to help."
"From all the skills I learn from school, I am sure that I can earn
money from sewing. For my future, I would like to further my
studies in Chiangrai's teacher college. I can work to pay for my
tuition fee. I hope one day I can become a teacher, and help girls
in difficult circumstances as I have been helped."
There have been so many stories of girls in northern Thailand who
left their hometowns and who were sold to the sex market. They
built their parents a new house, and bought them a new TV and a
pickup truck, as well as paying for the education of their young
siblings. And when they came home, died of AIDS . . .
Meechu wants to tell her story differently.
Kenya: Capacity Building for School Dropouts
Presented by Paschal Wambiya
Paschal Wambiya is an education specialist with degrees from
universities in Kenya, Ghana and England. He has been the Education
and Training Project coordinator for IPEC-Kenya since 1999.
Background
The Education and Training Project was the result of a 13-country
study on education interventions to combat child labor, carried out
in 1996 by IPEC and sponsored by the Norwegian government. It was
implemented by IPEC-Kenya against the backdrop of existing
education interventions.
There was a marked increase in the dropout rates in Kenyan primary
schools between 1988 and 1996. While the enrollment rate stood at
95 percent in 1988, it dropped to 79 percent by 1996 as children
joined the labor market in various sectors such as the soapstone
industry, quarries, commercial agriculture, fishing and domestic
labor. In addition, education officials were unaware of the child
labor problem.
Objectives
Three action programs were launched between 1996 and
1999:
-
The Ministry of Education program;
-
The Kisii District Children's Advisory Committee program; and
-
The ANPPCAN (African Network for the Prevention and Protection of
Child Abuse and Neglect) program.
The overall project aimed to:
-
Mobilize education services;
-
Train stakeholders, particularly teachers' unions, to institute
interventions aimed at creating awareness by sensitizing parents
and teachers, communities and society to the rights of the child,
especially the right to basic education and protection from
economic exploitation; and
-
Strengthen formal and transitional education/training
systems.
The broad objective was to make education accessible to working
children as an alternative to exploitative work.
The main strategies that have been used are prevention, withdrawal,
rehabilitation and reintegration. Awareness-raising was also part
of the strategy through sensitization of community leaders and
administrators, school children and teachers on the dangers of
child labor and the importance of education and training as an
alternative to child labor.
Process
Ministry of Education Project
The Ministry of Education implemented a program in five schools in
five districts of Kenya, starting in 1996. The following primary
schools were identified through a needs assessment/baseline
survey:
-
Tamu Primary school in Kisumu Rural District. The project aimed
to help children that were dropping out of school to work in sugar
cane plantations. The school grows horticultural crops like
tomatoes and onions, which it sells to communities neighboring the
school.
-
PandPieri Primary School in Kisumu municipality. The project
targeted children from slum areas (and others) whose parents had
died as a result of AIDS-related ailments and who faced the risk of
dropping out. The school project involved raising poultry,
horticulture and keeping a tree nursery.
-
Bukwamba Primary school in Busia district. The project targeted
children engaging in illicit trade across the border between Kenya
and Uganda. The school project involved rearing pigs.
-
Kamsinga AC Primary school in Bungoma district. The project
targeted children working in maize plantations and doing petty
trade in Kimilili town. It involved raising sheep and goats. The
school also grows maize, beans, and a variety of vegetables, and
has planted coffee trees.
-
Mumboha Primary school in Vihiga district. The project targeted
children working in domestic service. It involved the rearing of
pigs and agriculture.
Kisii Project
The Kisii project aimed to:
-
Mobilize the local community and other stakeholders;
-
Train the volunteer community workers in guidance and
counseling;
-
Eliminate child labor in the soapstone industry by rehabilitating
100 child workers;
-
Strengthen guidance and counseling in designated primary
schools;
-
Strengthen community committees in order to intensify preventive
action against child labor at the grassroots level; and
-
Carry out quality participatory action research on sexual
exploitation of female child workers.
Baseline surveys on child labor and Participatory Action Research
on sexual exploitation of girl-child workers in the soapstone
industry were conducted, and reports were produced and
disseminated.
ANPPCAN
ANPPCAN used popular participation to identify schools, formed
child labor committees and started income generating projects for
schools to assist child workers with various school levies to
enable them to stay in school.
The ANPPCAN program currently supports schools in four districts.
Communities which donated land, building materials, labor and
security as their contribution to the project have welcomed
income-generating activities since 1997. School children have
actively participated in the fund-raising projects, which in some
cases are directly linked to their studies. The project's
sustainability has been a main concern, and child labor committees,
set up in the districts, are expected to fully take over the
project after the present consolidation phase. The basis and
capacity for replication is strong.
Challenges & Achievements
Ministry of Education Project
The Ministry of Education project directly supported 200 children
with books and uniforms. More than 1,000 children benefitted
indirectly by having access to the books given to schools and the
project activities taking place in the school. Communities that
have formed child labor committees in schools have largely
sustained these projects, and their role is significant in
preventing and monitoring the spread of child labor.
As a result of the formation of child labor committees in
schools:
-
Child labor awareness-raising is being infused into the school
curriculum as a result of the groundwork and sensitization work
implemented, since 1996, through the Action Program with the
Ministry of Education.
-
Primary school enrollment rose to 89 percent in 1999 from 79
percent in 1996.
-
Income generating activities in schools helped cover school
levies.
-
School attendance has improved and disciplinary problems have
been eradicated in pilot schools.
-
Performance in district and national examinations has improved.
Hummwedu primary school in Siaya District, which utilized money
from the income generating projects to buy reference books for
targeted children, topped the district in the 1999 Kenya
Certificate of Primary Education.
-
More classrooms have been constructed, desks provided and hygiene
improved.
-
Children not in the program have benefitted from additional
textbooks and extra classrooms.
-
Parents have replicated some of the income
generating-activities.
-
Children have learned new skills, which they have passed on to
their parents, and have enhanced their knowledge of practical
skills such as agriculture.
Kisii
-
A training center was established and provided with staff,
renovated premises and equipment. 131 child workers were returned
to the formal educational system, 12 child workers were restored to
village schools and five self-help groups of parents of child
workers were supported in an income-generating scheme.
-
Training and advocacy materials were produced and utilized, and a
video documentary on child labor was produced. Training on business
management was conducted for 16 leaders of four self-help
groups.
-
A total of 20 community social workers, 15 primary school
teachers and 26 peer counselors were trained in counseling skills;
the community was sensitized to the dangers of child sexual
exploitation and mobilized to combat child abuse.
ANPPCAN
Lessons learned
Key lessons learned relate to the integrated approach of the
intervention.
-
Collaboration and networking between different stakeholders and
target beneficiaries is vital.
-
Ownership by the community is critical.
-
Create support systems for the poor and orphaned so that they do
not drop out.
-
Improve the learning environment by involving children and
teachers in activities that bridge the gap between them.
-
Community committees are useful in minimizing child labor
issues.
-
The concept of using people in key positions in the community as
Acommunity catalysts has enhanced the goal of the program.
-
Working with existing groups, such as self-help groups, is an
effective mode of responding to the perceived basic needs of the
community. It is possible to keep children at school if their
parents engage in meaningful income generating activities and are
sensitized to the importance of education.
In addition, the Ministry of Education has the capacity to
replicate the project in more districts, while Kisii's and
ANPPCAN's basis for sustainability and replication is very strong.
All three projects are firmly rooted in the community and therefore
have a very strong chance of being sustainable. However, these
programs could be more effective if integrated packages of basic
education, life skills and practical skills training were developed
that aimed at mainstreaming children into formal education and
vocational training institutions. Options need to be considered for
children not able to continue formal education so that they do not
re-enter the labor market as unskilled workers. Further work and
research is necessary to study the options of vocational skills and
job creation. There is a need to consider linking up with an
initiative for job creation to ensure that children and youth being
trained in the skills programs are also provided with an
opportunity to earn income.
No more than 20 primary schools participated in the project
activities, out of a total of 17,200 primary schools in the
republic. Most of the project activities have succeeded as a result
of sacrifices from parents. More resources need to be given to the
schools to make the projects sustainable. In addition, the HIV/AIDS
problem, which is killing an estimated 500 Kenyans daily, has
created a new army of orphans who are being forced into child
labor; this poses a threat to gains already made.
India: Bridging the Gap Between Home and School
Presented by Shantha Sinha
Shantha Sinha is the Secretary for the MV Foundation, which was
awarded the Rotary India Award in 1999 in recognition of its
contributions to eliminate child labor. She is committed to ending
child labor through the implementation of universal schooling for
children. In recognition of her efforts, Ms. Shantha was awarded
the highest civilian award, the Padmasri, by the Indian government
in 1998. She also received the Albert Shanker International Award
from Education International in 1998 for her contribution to
strengthening education for poor children. Shantha Sinha is a
professor of Political Science at the University of Hyderabad in
India, and she has published articles on the rural labor force,
child labor and education.
Background
The Ranga Reddy district of Andhra Pradesh in Southern India
adjoins the state capital of Hyderabad. It is a semi-arid, highly
rural and backward district. Agriculture, the economic mainstay,
depends on a sparse and erratic monsoon. There is high unemployment
in the district, especially among women. Though the total literacy
rate in the area is 49 percent, female literacy is only 36 percent.
In some pockets, only 11 percent of women have ever been to
school.
It is not uncommon to see whole families in bondage to a landowner.
Frequently, children are individually bonded to landowners for
small loans taken by their parents.
Although schools exist in most of the villages, there are often no
teachers or adequate accommodations. The district has 540,000
school-age children, while there are only 5,272 teachers, averaging
up to 100 students per teacher. The poor availability and quality
of education ensure that many children drop out at an early age and
start work. Work is seen as an obligation of the child to the
family, as well as a social and economic necessity and an early
training and apprentice program that ensures work.
Objectives
The M. Venkatarangaiah Foundation began a project in the district
in the early 1990s which aimed at the total elimination of child
and bonded child labor in the target villages and areas.
Additionally, the Foundation's aim was that the poor no longer
remain passive observers regarding the future of their children,
and that they begin to assert their rights.
The strategy relied heavily on motivating parents, easing problems
of enrollment, and bridging the gap between home and school. The
MVF does not view non-formal education as viable either for
universalizing education or for eliminating child labor. Its
programs revolve entirely around the formal school system.
The Foundation recognized that for a strategy to be successful, it
must be replicable. It therefore utilized existing institutions
instead of setting up parallel structures. It used funds available
under normal government programs, government schools and other
institutions. The involvement of government teacher groups has been
particularly successful in establishing a Government Teachers'
Forum Against Child Labor. The involvement of the local community
elders and local body representatives was also a conscious
strategy.
The target group consisted of all children from five to 14 years in
a village or area, with different approaches for different age
groups.
Process
The Foundation set about bridging the physical and psychological
gap between home and school through two different, but
interrelated, processes.
The Camp-Based Bridge Course
Usually when a child is rehabilitated from work, s/he is admitted
to the lowest grade in school. For an older child, this is a
traumatic experience, as s/he has to sit with much younger
children. The child soon opts to drop out.
At the Camp-based Bridge Course, children are taught reading and
writing in a manner and at a pace that ensures that in three to
four months they are able to join others of the same age group
already in schools. The course increases both children's and
parents' confidence in their children's ability to join school and
compete on equal terms. For children in the 12 to 14-year age
group, there is a special one-year coaching camp to enable them to
take the middle school leaving examination of the 7th grade.
The Community-Driven Home to School Process
A larger community-backed Home to School process, encompassing
children of all ages in all sectors of work in a village (or area),
and deriving support from all sections of the community (including
the employer-landlords), was also set in motion.
Systematic extension work was the key factor in this process. In
the initial years of work, activists were trained to respond to all
the normal queries that a community unfamiliar with universal
schooling might ask. Only villages that commit to sending all
children to school are considered.
The problems at these schools usually centered on lack of an
adequate infrastructure, including manpower. The involvement of the
teacher and the local body representative at this stage was
crucial. The community also gained a greater understanding of the
overall processes related to sending every child to school. The
community was required to give commitments for improvements in the
infrastructure and for providing more teachers.
Challenges & Achievements
The Camp-based Bridge Course accomplishments include:
-
85 villages have been made child labor free.
-
In more than 400 villages, all children below the age of 11 are
in formal schools.
-
Nearly 5,000 adolescent girls have accessed schools through the
program.
-
More than 4,000 bonded laborers have been released.
-
Over 8,000 trained youth volunteers contribute to the program
today.
-
Over 1,600 education activists participate in the program.
-
MVF's area of operation has expanded from three villages in 1991
to 500 villages in 1999.
-
A forum of 1,000 government teachers has been formed to carry on
the campaign.
-
15,000 working children have been sent to mainstream school
through the Bridge Courses.
In the community-driven Home to School Process communities began
to:
-
Partially finance the work of motivators and part-time
teachers.
-
Provide furniture and other items for use in the classroom.
-
Provide labor and donations in-kind for construction of
additional classrooms.
-
Bargain with the government for release of funds for additional
infrastructure.
-
Challenge the schoolteachers when their performance was not
satisfactory.
Lessons learned
The MVF program is applicable:
-
Both in rural areas and in urban pockets;
-
Where there is formal school infrastructure, however poor or
run-down;
-
Where there is a strong local organization, preferably an NGO,
capable of local action in the community and
-
Where key mangers of the program can closely monitor the process
and innovate on the job.
The following conditions are keys to success:
-
Existence of an effective community-based organization,
preferably an NGO.
-
Highly trained and motivated staff.
-
Good community-based training capability.
-
Good organizational capacity, particularly for the conduct of the
camps.
The following are some of the key initiatives for adapting the
program in a new area:
-
Strike up a strong rapport with the community. The program will
succeed only where the implementing agency has the full confidence
of the community.
-
Demonstrate one successful camp in the area for the idea to catch
on.
-
Demonstrate in one village that full enrollment of all children
is possible through community support.
The MVF model has been replicated in large scale models such as
back-to-school programs run by the Government of Andhra Pradesh. It
has also inspired similar ventures in other Indian states like
Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan, and
in the city of Calcutta.
Torch-Bearers of Tomorrow
by Geetha Raghuraman
"I want to study. Study as much as I want. Study very fast so that
I can become a doctor and treat the sick [for] free."
This is not a pipe dream, but a plausible reality for
twelve-year-old Devi. Only two years ago her desire to become a
doctor was dismissed as wishful thinking by her parents and had
drawn the derisive scorn of her playmates. As she grazed cattle in
the parched countryside of rural Andhra Pradesh in Southern India,
she hoped that a miracle would happen. She hoped that her father,
who had borrowed Rs. 5,000 (US$120) to conduct the marriage of her
elder sister, pledging Devi's free labor as surety for the loan,
would find enough money to pay back that debt and send her back to
the local school.
Today, she is studying hard to be admitted into class eight at the
local school.
Devi's story is one of more than 15,000 similar stories thanks to
the efforts of the Hyderabad-based M. Venkatarangaiya Foundation,
MVF for short. Another hundred thousand non-bonded, but uneducated,
children have also entered school through the MVF's bridge course
camps.
"We began in a small way and it surprised many of us that these
children were so enthused by the prospect of going to school that
they would study hard to make up for lost time," said Ms Shantha
Sinha, the Secretary-Trustee of MVF. "We realized that most
children worked as farm laborers simply because they were not
studying, and not the other way around. The parents too were
willing to put in extra hours to see their children through school.
So we organized bridge courses in a camp atmosphere for the
children, who would be trained intensively for a period of time
(generally four months) and then admitted in a regular school."
But, the Foundation's euphoria was short-lived. As the first few
batches of bonded child laborers began to enter mainstream life, a
fresh set of children (never in short supply in a populous country
where over 40 percent of the population is below the poverty line)
took the place of released children. "It was then that we realized
that we had to move beyond tackling bonded labor. We had to talk
about the universality of child education and also foster a healthy
society to cater to the child's needs. To us, every child out of
school is a child laborer," Ms. Sinha added.
Today, the MVF can draw out a list of over a hundred villages where
the six to 14 year-old population is 100 percent literate between 6
to 14 years of age, it is Abecause we have gradually won over the
people and made them responsible for the future of the children of
the village. But all this has taken time, energy and a lot of
patience. We could have read out from the rule book and used force
to get the children to school, but there would have been no joy but
fear, stated Ms. Sinha.
The total change in societal thinking about education is revealed
by the atmosphere at the Girls' Camp at Allur, where bridge courses
are conducted by the Foundation to prepare the children to enter
regular schools. Classes at the camp are conducted in former
poultry sheds. The slightly larger sheds serve as dormitories. But
the teachers and children are not bothered about the lack of
cemented floors and benches. They sit under the shade of a tree,
learning mathematics, science and English. Song, dance, and
storytelling are all an integral part of learning as some 300 girls
in the nine to 14 age group reside here before they are admitted to
the local school and the social welfare hostel run by the state
government.
Mr. Rao, the middle-school headmaster in Parveda village, has been
a great support to the activities of the Foundation in his teaching
career, which spans two decades. "Initially, we teachers posted to
the rural areas used to while away the time, as no children would
turn up in our schools. We would have parents sauntering in and
pulling out their wards when work came by. But now the rush of
students is so high. The school I head has 550 [pupils] and the two
government-appointed teachers can hardly cope. So we are helped by
volunteers supported by the government and the MVF. I have become
so involved with the future of these children that now I liaison
with the Foundation to find admission [for the children] in the
high schools and keep track of their progress."
Dhananjay, a bio-engineering graduate who gave up a lucrative
career in New Delhi to work with the Foundation, said, "We have in
these ten years realized ways and means of getting the community
involved. This system can be and must be emulated elsewhere in
Andhra and the country. It might take a little long initially, but
when it becomes a people's movement there will be no stopping it.
The target for us is not having sent 0.2 or 0.3 million children to
school, but to see the day when all children are educated."
Dominican Republic: Program for the Elimination of Child Labor in
Commercial Agriculture
Presented by Karen Ovalles
Karen Ovalles is a clinical psychologist with degrees in family
therapy and integral health for teenagers. She has worked for
Provojen for five years, and is currently the coordinator of the
United States DoL-funded program in Constanza. Prior to this, she
coordinated a program focusing on mental health, pregnancy
prevention and HIV/AIDS in teenagers.
Background
Agriculture is the principal economic activity in the municipality
of Constanza, which is an hour from the capital city of Santo
Domingo. Production is characterized by the extensive use of
chemicals (pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers) on produce such
as flowers and vegetables. The municipality produces approximately
75 percent of the vegetables consumed nationally. The use of child
labor in agriculture has grown, leading to very serious health
problems due to the pesticides. Children drop out of school or
never enter the formal educational system.
Objectives
The program for the elimination of child labor in Costanza, funded
by United States DoL, aims to:
-
Raise awareness and mobilize local organizations;
-
Develop concrete initiatives to remove children from work;
and
-
Develop income compensation projects.
The strategy has education as its fundamental thrust. Other
components are legal action, monitoring of children at risk to
incorporate them into the program, and social sensitizing and
mobilization directed at community groups, families and
governmental bodies.
The specific objectives of the project are to:
-
Withdraw at least 250 children involved in high risk
activities;
-
Integrate the children into school;
-
Improve the income of 150 families; and
-
Make the program replicable.
Process
The program was launched in 1999 and has completed its first phase
of mainstreaming children into school. For the purposes of the
program, a control group of 374 child agricultural workers,
distributed in 17 rural communities of Constanza, was created.
The principal initiatives and activities have been:
-
Completion of the assessment study;
-
Evaluation of each child's situation regarding family, education,
psychology and health;
-
Provision of a 3-month educational bridge course, during which
children also receive food supplements and medical attention;
-
Granting of school assistance, such as uniforms, shoes and school
supplies;
-
Establishment of the monitoring system, both on the land plots
and in the schools, with active community participation through
Local Help Committees;
-
Establishment of study halls to reinforce learning and study
discipline;
-
Organization of awareness-raising workshops for teachers,
community leaders, associations of parents and friends of the
schools, and farmers; and
-
Workshops for children, both to listen to them and to strengthen
their resistance to child labor
Challenges & Achievements
To date, 157 children have been removed from commercial
agricultural work and incorporated into the formal education
system, and a total of 350 children have taken part in three
workshops. One hundred and ten teachers, representing all the
teaching personnel of the target communities and 64 percent of the
whole municipality, have attended workshops.
Workshops have also been held for farmers and farm managers, and
for 62 community leaders who provide follow-up and monitor school
attendance. The Network for the Prevention and Elimination of Child
Labor was formed and has brought together more than 27 community
organizations, far more than the ten initially envisaged.
The awareness-raising campaign consists of a weekly radio program,
local radio ads, and distribution of program promotional materials.
Medical attention received by the children has included complete
medical check-ups, treatment of skin and respiratory problems,
treatment for parasites, vaccination and medication, as well as
friendly conversation and advice on bathroom cleanliness and
personal hygiene.
With regard to income compensation, 18 individual loans have been
recorded, resulting in three collective projects (a motorbike taxi
business, a farm production business and a grocery store) that
benefit participating families.
Community leaders and their associations have adopted the theme of
child labor in their agendas and provide concrete support for
activities.
Families have taken a more responsible attitude, as evidenced by
the signing of a written agreement that gives priority to the
integration of the children into school. The children themselves,
illustrating a change of mentality, talk of technical and
professional careers. School retention is around 95 percent and the
academic performance of some children places them above others
outside the program.
An indispensable initiative was the bridge course, for which
education specialists designed a teaching guide. The educational
program was divided into four academic areas: practical life,
sensory material, mathematics and language.
Another key element was establishing the monitoring system.
Monitors report on school absences, health problems, family
violence, conduct, student performance, homework and cleanliness.
As a follow-up, the local promotion and coordination team visits
the family in the event of unjustifiable absences, and seeks help
as necessary for problems that arise. Individual attention is given
to each child. The same promoter always monitors the same assigned
boy or girl. This facilitates follow-up and sometimes develops into
a parental relationship for the boy or girl, establishing an
effective compensatory bond in violent or broken families.
Lessons Learned
Changes were made in strategy to adapt to situations and results.
More promoters than originally planned were included in the
project, which favored monitoring. Those selected were final year
education students with proven civic leadership.
The original vision, which included loans to families to compensate
for income loss when deprived of the children's earnings, also
changed. Experience showed that awareness-raising in the family was
more effective and that children's income is easily compensated by
greater responsibility toward family expenditures. Furthermore,
given the market limitations in the communities and lack of
education among the beneficiaries, loan policies were modified.
Individual loans were turned into association loans, in which the
benefits ensure the acquisition of school uniforms and
supplies.
The program encountered an unforeseen obstacle: missing birth
certificates required for school enrollment for more than 49 of the
157 children involved. The Educational District made a temporary
waiver for this requirement until the situation was resolved.
Activities centered on seven communities, instead of the original
17 planned. This provided better focus. The other communities have
been deferred to the second phase of the project.
The three-month bridge course has been a positive experience. It
has facilitated adaptation, socialization and preparation for
school entry. The model is based on collaboration between local
Ministry of Education authorities, the school parents'
associations, the Local Network for the Elimination of Child Labor,
and local leaders in the communities.
Overall project success was based on:
-
The presence of personnel trained in psychology and education who
coordinate the project;
-
Psycho-pedagogical consultants within the promotional team;
-
The bridge course;
-
The teaching guide used in the bridge course;
-
The monitoring system;
-
The availability of study halls;
-
Awareness-raising about the risks of child labor and the
commitment of the families to keep their children in school;
and
-
The involvement of governmental and non governmental
organizations.
The model can be easily replicated because the components are
simple, flexible, and require minimal resources, and because it is
based on joint efforts. It will appeal to areas with medium or
extreme poverty, because it fills the gap created by the lack of a
formal educational system. At the same time, it grants economically
depressed communities a sense of importance and it sows seeds of
hope.
Two aspects that should be taken into account when planning similar
programs are:
-
The selection of a high profile psycho-pedagogical consultant
from outside the participating community.
-
A proportional number of boys and girls within the promotional
team, where each promoter takes care of less than 50 children from
the point of recruitment to the start of school and beyond. This
guarantees a continuous relationship and greater trust between the
children and the promoters.
It is evident that two years of monitoring do not ensure the future
learning of the beneficiary children, who barely attended the first
two or three years of their basic school. The number of children
involved in high risk agricultural work is double the number of
those recruited to date. The project should be integrated into
national Education, Labor and Public Health policies as a
priority.
The assessment study should provide the design for more coherent
educational programs for older children and the improvement of
teaching methods.
At present, a strategic plan for the prevention and elimination of
child labor is in the works. A resolution was signed by all the
members of the Network to reach the entire school age population
and to make Constanza a region free from child labor.
Sandy Goes to School
by Ruth Herrera
In Constanza, a child farm worker's dreams turn to the future when
he trades his hoe for a pencil
Sandy can't see his hands in the darkness of his shack, made from
palm bark and zinc, but he feels them because of the pain from
abrasions on his left thumb caused by the knife he uses to trim
garlic plants. Far away, roosters herald the dawn. He has to hurry
to get a place in the landowner's truck. In Constanza, the land
belongs to others and is concentrated in a few powerful hands. He
jumps from the worn mattress that he shares with three other
brothers. He doesn't have breakfastCthere's none; nor does he wear
working bootsChe has none.
He manages to climb into the back of the truck before other
journeymenCadults and other children without a childhood like
himself. In the cold and fog, the icy wind cuts his unprotected
face. Sandy doesn't look beyond his hands and forgets his
discomfort. They are his most valuable working asset. They pick
potatoes, extract onions, dig up lettuce, behead beets and cut and
gather garlic bulbs. He knows that he can bring home between 80 and
120 pesos ($5 to $7) a day to contribute to the very limited family
income and to buy a pair of shoes for everyday wear. Each morning,
from dawn to mid-afternoon, even when the temperature drops, rain
or hail falls, or the sun burns, he bends his weak body over the
furrows that feed the cities in the valley.
Going to school is not one of Sandy's habits. Once, some years ago,
when they lived deep in the mountain, he would take a long and
steep road to go to class. "But, we were so far away that he never
learned anything," says Viola Delgado, his mother, who, some 40
years old and with eight children, tanned by the sun and the hard
days, is illiterate just like her husband. "How could he learn if
with the sweating of the trek he forgot what he was taught in
school?"
In her hut with its dirt floor, only a thin sheet separates the
cramped Aliving room from the sleeping cot. A wooden table and
wobbly chairs make up the furnishings. There's no electricity or
running water, nor a nearby faucet, sanitation nor even a latrine.
It is the same in all the others huts in El Chorro.
As soon as they reach a certain height and age, the children go
with their parents to the plantations. There they become a fragile
labor force exposed to the excessive herbicides and pesticides
applied to the fields. Barefoot often and underfed daily, they
drink bottled refreshment to sustain them during the work day, and
their health is assaulted by intestinal parasites, skin bacteria,
stomach disorders and incessant runny noses.
"Yes, I like to study and I want to continue to help my family,"
affirms Sandy. His mother Viola adds, "It's more advantageous for
me if they go to school, even if they don't earn anything, for they
don't make much with a day's work anyway. My husband and I are poor
and don't know anything about reading; if the children turn out as
dumb as we are, we'll never be happy. It's better if they
study."
Nieves Abreu, one of the ladies from Constanza hired to recruit
children into the project and to promote their regular class
attendance, offers this testimony, "When we started, the children
didn't even recognize the letter >O,= nor did they know how to
greet people. The way they smelled prevented others from getting
too close; they seldom bathed or combed their hair. They have
improved a lot."
Both the children's appearance and their concentration have
improved. The neatness of their notebooks speaks a language
different from ignorance. They have recovered their right to be
children and to dream of a life beyond the land owned by others and
their dire family needs. Besides, as José Pichardo, a
diligent community leader in El Chorro, says, Athe children have
put aside the mentality of handling a few pennies, of thinking of
the day they don't have them when they will have to go find them
anywhere now they are only interested in their school.
Guatemala: Child Labor in the Stone Quarries of Retelhuleu
Presented by Maribel Rodríguez
Maribel Rodríguez graduated from the University of Lausanne,
Switzerland, and has a Masters in Social Sciences. She coordinated
fieldwork for sociological research on child labor in Retalhuleu.
She has also acted as a consultant for the Canadian Centre for
Research and International Cooperation, training professional and
technical staff on field data collection and reporting.
Background
Retalhuleu, about 120 miles from Guatemala City, has a population
of 225,985. Retalhuleu has a school drop out rate of 10 percent; an
average of 30 children per teacher; a literacy rate of 33 percent.
About 189 families are involved in crushing rock in quarries on the
banks of the Samalá River. Each rock weighs up to 100 pounds
and requires five days to reduce to gravel. The gravel is sold by
the cubic meter to the construction industry. More than 500
children between the ages of five and 15 work long hours alongside
their parents, producing about one cubic foot of gravel every two
to three days. The sale of the children's work brings in between $5
to $10 per cubic meter, depending on demand. The children and their
parents suffer from respiratory and other ailments as a result of
the dust, heat, physical exertion and injuries.
Objectives
The program was launched in 1998, for a duration of 19 months,
to:
-
Progressively withdraw children from work by offering improved
technology for rock crushing and providing educational
alternatives;
-
Incorporate child labor into the Ministry of Labor's social
development agenda and support activities of other social agents in
the implementation of policies; and
-
Create awareness among the population on child labor as
exploitation.
The implementing agency is Habitat, an NGO specializing in
sustainable development and the environment, supported by IPEC.
Process
A preliminary survey was carried out with the beneficiaries, local
authorities, implementing agencies and local development
organizations. A study involving 40 children was also conducted to
understand their situation. This participatory process resulted in
an integrated plan of action that included the following
components:
-
Health;
-
Education;
-
Provision of economic alternatives;
-
Communications and community participation; and
-
Research and documentation.
Activities have been participatory and community-based. They have
involved the creation of a community development organization in
each of the 13 communities where the families live, a consultative
committee of teachers and another of social workers, three
community pharmacies and one medical clinic. The project also
organized the gravel-making workers into an association, and a
cooperative involving ten families was formed. The project financed
the creation of brochures, a video and street theater production,
and other non-written communications to publicize the
project.
Workshops and seminars were conducted for the families, community
leaders and officials in all of the areas of intervention:
-
700 teachers and principals participated in Ateaching with
tenderness and skill-enhancing workshops.
-
300 children attended and participated in a street theater
production designed to encourage them not to drop out of
school.
-
54 families participated in a nutrition workshop.
-
100 families participated in the microenterprise training
programs.
-
Three community members were trained to become basic health
educators and work in the community pharmacies.
The action program received the support of the Guatemalan
Departments of Health, Education and Labor as well as local and
departmental authorities, which continue to provide support to the
communities.
Challenges & Achievements
The project achieved the following results:
-
121 children withdrawn from the quarries;
-
240 children attending school;
-
30 families in alternative work;
-
10 families formed a cooperative and bought equipment to crush
the rocks;
-
48 adults took part in literacy classes;
-
700 teachers and principals participated in workshops and
training programs; and
-
247 people received medical attention.
Lessons learned
The program highlights the importance of involving the community in
the project's design and the success that can be achieved by using
an integrated process.
The biggest challenge was getting the families to change their view
of the world (from one of resignation and acceptance of their
poverty) to believe that change and improvement in their living
condition was possible and that they were agents in their own
destiny. The project had to overcome the skepticism of the target
population.
The health fairs (days of free medical attention) were a key to
gaining public confidence.
"The Boys at the Beach"
by Carlos Bendfeldt
At sunset, Mario stares out of the window of his house, which
consists of an almost empty room with a bed, a small gas oven, a
table, and a poster of Virgin Mary and last year's calendar on the
wall. As the sun goes down it seems to shatter into pieces against
the horizon, reminding him of the rocks he used to smash into
pebbles with a hammer held in his small hands, at a place the
locals call the Abeach.
The 12-year-old has no idea how the place got such a peculiar name,
as there are no bathers and one can barely walk there. It's a
desolate river shore, a valley of rocks beside the Samalá
river, with huge piles of granite rocks. It looks more like Mars
than Earth. The only people who go there are forced to by economic
necessity.
With his parents, three of his siblings, and his uncles and
cousins, Mario spent five years of his life with a hammer in his
hand. He learned to hold it before pencil or pen, for longer than
any of his few toys.
It takes him around 20 minutes to reduce a rock, the size of both
his hands extended, into gravel the size the construction
contractors require. "But my father can do it in five," he
explains.
Despite his long experience with the hammer, he often hit himself
on the hand while holding the rock steady. First he felt aching
pain, then his hand turned heavy, warm and numb; then he felt weak
palpitations. "It was as if you were holding your heart in your
hand," he says.
Mario admits he didn't like working there, but he knew had to.
"Otherwise we'll have nothing to eat," his parents always told
him.
And they were right. The family worked hard and the days felt long
under an improvised shelter they built to protect them from the
blazing sun. The dry heat could reach 85 degrees in the shade.
Often his parents had to take any price for the pebbles they sold.
They were the equivalent of the smallest fish in the food chain,
because the handmade pebbles that families produce are only worth
two thirds of those made by the five factories nearby that produce
standardized and smaller rocks.
The six-months rainy season was the worst part of it all. The
construction companies halve the normal price, and demand covers
only a few families. This meant that every year Mario's parents
would have to ask for credit at the supply stores in order to get a
small amount of beans, and corn for tortillas. Within a few days,
most families at his village, San Antonio, were living on credit,
and the supply store owners would only sell to those who had money.
"Those were times in which we would eat one day and spend two
without any food."
But, as he switches on the light bulb that was installed in his
house a month ago, he explains that all those sad thoughts seem
distant to him. Today his mother prepared his favorite dish for
lunch: chicken soup. And he noticed an expression of happiness when
he asked for a second bowl.
In three months, a series of small details show the radical
difference in his life. He no longer wears shoes with holes in
them, and he's specially careful not to get muddy when he wears his
favorite clothing, blue jeans that his mother bought for him two
months ago on his birthday. In the mornings he no longer walks with
the boys to the beach - he leads his younger brother, Antonio (10),
and his two little sisters, Maria and Concepción (ages five
and 7) to the school they all attend.
During recess time they eat atole and tortillas with beans. He
likes his teacher, Mr. García, a young man who's taller than
his father and seems to get mad when he and his classmates chat too
much. But when they behave, he responds gladly to any question:
"How do mountains form, what's the sun made out of, where's San
Antonio located on the map . . . ?"
What Mario likes most about school is soccer. Although he's not
very good, his new pals have already accepted him as a
defender.
All these things were introduced in Mario's life when his father,
Vicente, obtained financing in order to buy a chainsaw and dedicate
himself to wood cutting. "I wanted to believe that there was a way
for me and my family to abandon stone smashing," he explains, and
the wrinkles in his face, caused by years of work under the sun,
grow deeper. Now he can produce more logs than the people who cut
trees by hand, and he makes a profit that enables him not to depend
on his children's work and also pay off the loan.
Additionally, his wife can stay at home, taking care of his two
youngest sons who will be able to attend school when they grow up,
just like Mario and their other siblings. These young children will
grow up not knowing what a hard day of hammering feels like.
When Mario grows up, he says, he would like to be an auto mechanic,
"So I don't have to go back to the beach."
Peru: Elimination of Child Labor in the Huachipa Brick
Sector
Presented by Rochelle Beck
Rochelle Beck was formerly Director of Public Affairs of the
Children's Defense Fund, a United States child advocacy
organization. In l982 she founded Culturas del Sol, a corporation
designed to educate the public about and to promote cultural
handmade products from Latin America. She currently teaches an
applied MBA course, and lectures in the United States and
internationally about artisans as entrepreneurs. She recently won
the Development Marketplace Innovation Competition of the World
Bank and was awarded funds to establish an Artisan Enterprise
Network, with strategic partners, to give poor artisans the skills,
information and contacts they need to be successful in a global
economy.
Background
Child labor is utilized in making bricks in almost all Latin
American countries. While there are laws limiting child labor in
general (in most countries, the legal age for employment is l4; in
Paraguay and Peru, it is 12), due to the extreme poverty and the
relative isolation of the areas of production, even these minimum
laws are not enforced.
It is estimated that in the entire area of Huachipa, near Lima,
some 1,000 families are engaged in the manual production of bricks,
including about 3,000 children and teenagers. There are 200
brick-making families in the project's area of influence in the
communities of Paraiso and Nieveria, accounting for a total of
approximately 800 children.
In Huachipa, approximately 70 percent of houses are without water,
less than 6 percent have sewage facilities and only 45 percent
enjoy the benefit of electricity. Most inhabitants have not
completed primary school and 15 percent are illiterate. Health and
educational services are far away and difficult to access. There
are only primary schools in the town and the infrastructure leaves
much to be desired.
Until the 1980s, the only economic activity was agriculture. The
manual production of bricks was introduced at the beginning of the
nineties; it was a low-cost investment and laborCmainly farming
families migrating from the Central HighlandsCwas readily
available.
Several players are involved in the brick production and marketing
process: the parcel owner; the contractor, who rents the land and
hires workers to produce the raw bricks; the worker, who, with the
help of his family, produces the raw bricks and earns his pay from
the contractor; and the kiln owner, who buys the raw bricks from
the contractor at the yard and transports them to his premises,
fires them and sells them as a finished product.
The worker's production process consists of four main stages. In
each of them he must move approximately 3.5 tons of clay to be able
to produce 1,000 raw bricks. The physical effort requires parents
to involve their children. Work normally starts at 4 a.m. and ends
at about 6 or 7 p.m. Boys and girls participate in almost the
entire process from the age of six, in some cases at an even
earlier age. Children work about four to six hours per day. A
worker and his family must produce 1,000 bricks in approximately
two days in order to earn about US$9. This is the equivalent to
average family earnings of US$140 per month.
Objectives
-
To provide educational alternatives and diet and health
improvement, with an additional component consisting of micro loans
for specific economic activities, with the aim of completely
eliminating child labor in the area.
-
To provide a new business model to make child labor
unnecessary.
Process
Phase I
In July l997, IPEC, with the Peruvian NGO ADEVI (Asociacion para la
Defensa de la Vida), began the initial stage of the project, which
involved several activities:
-
Sensitizing the communities, both children and adults, on the
negative aspects of child labor.
-
Raising the issue with policymakers at local, regional and
national levels to involve them in these communities.
-
Establishing a system of micro credits to residents of Paraiso
and Nieveria.
Phase II
Beginning in l998, the second phase of the project included
partnership with the Peruvian NGO, AIDECA (Ibero-American
Association for Development of Marketing and Handicrafts), which
has experience in the field of development, focusing on social and
technological issues and forging strong public -- private alliances.
The plan was to totally revamp the economic model for the families,
the communities, and the brick making industry itself in order to
make child labor unnecessary. The new model has several
components:
-
Economic: increase each beneficiary family's income sufficiently
so that their children can go to school and/or play.
-
Organizational: develop strong community organizations, reinforce
their governance skills, and introduce beneficiary ownership of a
new brick factory.
-
Technological: use innovative and appropriate technologies to
create new kilns and production methods to increase
productivity.
-
Educational: help parents understand the developmental needs of
their children (nutrition, health care, interaction with their
peers and parents); motivate children to stay in school; and inform
policymakers about these children's and families' needs.
-
Sustainability: market production aggressively to generate not
only stable employment but also net profits.
Several parallel steps were undertaken to change the social and
economic patterns in these two communities:
-
AIDECA developed a plan for a new kind of kiln and production
system that would combine high efficiency with ease of machinery
operation, low maintenance costs and low energy consumption.
-
A new community NGO was established in Nieveria and Paraiso,
managed by the beneficiaries, for community governance and
management of the brick factory.
-
In l999, the community NGO and AIDECA developed a "Social
Development Brick Factory," a legally incorporated profit-making
business for all aspects of brick manufacture and sale.
Beneficiaries will no longer be day laborers, but employees (with
salaries and benefits). They will also be shareholders,
participating in all decisions and benefitting directly from its
success. Their jobs will be permanent, and controlled by
themselves. In order to be a beneficiary, families have to agree to
not allow their children to work. They also agreed that 50 percent
of the corporation's profits would be reinvested in the new Brick
Factory itself, and 50 percent would go to social and educational
projects.
-
AIDECA negotiated strategic alliances in Lima. Agreements have
been signed with the major building contractors to buy the full
production of the new brickworks and to continue to market
them.
-
Beneficiaries agreed to enter into a Acivil partnership with
AIDECA to own and manage the new brickworks. During the first year
of this partnership, 95 percent of the shares were owned by AIDECA,
and 5 percent by the community NGO. During this first year, AIDECA
established programs in governance and decision-making to raise
beneficiaries' capacity to run the corporation as well as the
brickworks. AIDECA plans to increase classes in business
management, marketing and other skills. If all goes according to
plan, additional stock will be transferred from AIDECA to the
community NGO. By the end of the third year, AIDECA will legally
cede 95 percent of its share to the community NGO. Its remaining 5
percent will allow it to stay involved.
Challenges & Achievements
Direct Achievements:
-
Today, 300 children between ages five and 14 have been removed
from the work force in Paraiso and Nieveria.
-
100 families of beneficiaries are members of the new community
NGO and participate in all its decisions.
-
350 meals daily are provided through the new school nutrition
programs in the two communities.
-
Seven separate child health campaigns have come to Paraiso and
Nieveria, diagnosing, treating and vaccinating children against
infectious childhood diseases.
-
There has been a total shift in the politics of the community
with respect to child labor, to a total desire to eliminate it.
Indirect Achievements:
-
More members of the communities want to be part of the
beneficiary group, and there is more acceptance of eliminating
child labor in general.
-
Improved health and community service programs are available to
all.
-
Neighboring land owners and farmers have asked for AIDECA's
help.
-
A new public library has been built in Nieveria.
As part of an integrated effort with IPEC and AIDECA, other
institutions are now working in the area to ensure elimination of
child labor. A consortium of Spanish NGOs and a Peruvian NGO are
working in a Spanish-funded project to improve the provision of
social services in the area. They have underwritten the operation
of a Health Center and a Community Services Center.
A coordinated effort including AIDECA, ADEVI and the INABIF Street
Educators Program is continuing its fieldwork directly with the
families and monitoring school attendance, child development
problems, and the incidence of child labor.
The Ministry of Health has recently approved the community's Health
Center as a formal part of its public health network.
The Community Services Center, which now offers tutoring, help with
homework, classes in English and computers, will become a formal
part of INABIF's program.
INABIF has confirmed its ongoing commitment to having its Street
Educators remain in the communities to help with problems, monitor
truancy and report any recurrence of child labor.
Strategic agreements have been secured with the National
Construction Training and Research Service (SENCICO), the official
body that provides the certificate of guarantee for all bricks
produced in the country. Support has also been secured from the
Peruvian Construction Chamber (CAPECO), the body representing the
major construction companies in the country, to provide the
commercial structure to channel the marketing and sale of the new
company's bricks, thus guaranteeing sales.
In addition to the increased income generated by the new brickworks
model, other businesses have begun or are planned.
Lessons learned
-
The model must be community-driven.
-
NGOs have a major role to play.
-
New technologies must be appropriate to the community.
-
Real increases in family income are essential.
-
Moral persuasion or legal threats are not enough to change
behaviors relating to child labor. They need to be tied to economic
gains.
Civil decision-making best practices are an important component.
Basic democratic governance issues are not commonplace in these
communities. Trust, transparency, due process, majority rule, and
so on need to be taught, practiced, and integrated into the new
economic models established.
Making the community legal shareholders in the economic enterprise
increases their self esteem, their sense of civic and economic
responsibility to the success of the project, and their commitment
to ending child labor. Making the transition a gradual one builds
in technical assistance and monitoring in a non-intrusive
manner.
Strategic public-private partnerships are essential. This is true
with regard to the private, economic side of the model (the
marketing and sale of the bricks), as well as to the public, social
side of the project (the permanent provision of education, health
and social services in these communities).
Nepal: Toward the Elimination of Bonded Child Labor
Presented by Uddhav Raj Poudyal
Uddhav Raj Poudyal has been working in the field of Nepalese
development for the past eight years. As an IPEC program manager,
planner and coordinator, he focused on education, children's rights
and children's health. A trained pharmacist, Mr. Poudyal has used
his training to bring a medical focus to child labor, especially
regarding the impact of medicine on children working under extreme
conditions. He has worked with humanitarian agencies such as IPEC
and SCF-UK to identify, develop, implement and evaluate various
programs and program strategies and research projects on this
issue. He has written a number of articles, including two on child
labor, titled "Child to Child: In Relation to Quality Education"
and "Children's Potentialities and Participation."
Background
A system of agricultural bonded labor, called Kamaiya, is prevalent
in western Nepal. A survey has detected 15,152 Kamaiya households,
indebted to landlords, comprising 83,375 persons. Some 46 percent
of Kamaiya families are homeless and live on the landlord's
premises. It is estimated that there are about 13,000 children
working under the Kamaiya system.
Large numbers of children are also found throughout the country in
debt bondage in the service sector, particularly in hotels and
restaurants, as well as in commercial activities such as brick
making, stone quarries and carpet factories. In some instances,
children from rural areas are assigned to work in urban households
or manufacturing units. The estimated total number of bonded
children in Nepal is 33,000.
Objectives
-
Increase the capacity of government, employers, workers, and NGOs
to prevent and combat child labor.
-
Prevent and withdraw children from bonded labor conditions and
provide them and their families with alternatives.
-
Strengthen the capacity of the government to develop national
policies and strategies to deal with the Kamaiya problem, and
provide a mechanism to coordinate with NGOs.
Since the inception of a two-year IPEC program in 1998, efforts
have been made to forge a broad alliance of government, employers,
workers and NGOs. The approaches being adopted are legislative
reforms and enforcement mechanisms, policy development, direct
support to children and families (especially by providing
education, training and alternative economic opportunities),
awareness-raising activities and unionization of bonded
labor.
The project targets 3,200 children in the 6 to 14 age group working
in hotels and restaurants, carpet factories, brick kilns, and stone
quarries; 300 families working in agriculture under the Kamaiya
system; and 40 communities to be sensitized and involved in
vigilance groups.
At the end of the project, the following will be achieved:
- 3,200 children freed from bondage;
- 2,400 working children in the 9-14 age group provided with
Non-Formal Education;
- 300 children in the 13 to 14 age group supported for vocational
education; and
- 300 families provided with economic alternatives through
microfinancing.
The project provides:
Implementing agencies are: The Department of Land Reforms; the
Nepalese Trade Union Congress; the General Federation of Trade
Unions; the Informal Service Center, an NGO; Rural Reconstitution
Nepal, an NGO; and the Child Development Society, an NGO.
The trade unions engaged in the unionization of agricultural
workers will form agriculture workers' organizations. These workers
will be educated on workers' rights, child rights, the effects of
child labor and gender equality.
Process
The critical initiatives are mainstreaming working children into
formal school, providing their families with an economic
alternative through micro financing, and improving working
conditions by unionizing workers.
After the identification of the bonded child laborers and their
families, a sensitization program is launched in the villages for
awareness-raising and building self-confidence. Once the families
decide to remove their children from bondage, the project enrolls
the child in formal school and trains the parents on group
dynamics. The parents are asked to form a credit/savings group
comprised of 15 to 25 members, depending upon the situation of the
village. The financing is made through rural micro credit with a
revolving fund of Rs. 5,000. The group members are encouraged to
start their own savings through village saving and a micro credit
scheme. They are also provided with training on bookkeeping,
accounting and small enterprise management. The groups themselves
analyze and identify potential areas for capital investment based
on their own knowledge and context. To date, the income generating
activities have been based on agriculture and off-farm enterprises.
They include livestock raising, establishing off-season vegetable
production, and establishing small grocery stores and small
enterprises such as bicycle repair, tailoring, production and sale
of traditional handicrafts.
The credit is disbursed by group decision and the group members
take responsibility in both investment and repayment. The criteria
for disbursing loans are developed by the group. For example, the
post-vocational trainee has priority for getting a loan. Credit
assistance is provided to the Kamaiya families whose children or
members work under bondage conditions and are willing to be freed.
The families selected for receiving loans are required to send
their children to formal school. The loan repayment rate is very
encouraging (90 percent) and timely. At present, about 1,200
children of bonded laborers are continuing their
education.
Many families of bonded laborers have started income generation
activities and formed credit saving groups. A broad-based alliance
of 17 organizations, called the Kamaiya Concern Group (KCG), has
been formed.
Due to an advocacy campaign, the government has accepted the need
for new legislation[12]. Many families of bonded laborers are
negotiating annual wages with the employers. Employers are also
being sensitized on the issue and are changing their attitude to
wages. Change is observed through indicators such as the enrollment
rate.
Challenges & Achievements
While some bonded laborers have benefitted from the government's
land distribution program, no comprehensive scheme for the
elimination of the practice, provision of easy credit and the
rehabilitation of the bonded labor is in existence. As the bonded
laborer and family are under the control of the landlord, it is not
possible for them to attend any training program or participate in
any income generating activities without the consent of the
landlord. Under these circumstances, if the programs are to be
successful, they must have a strong component of advocacy on human
rights and child rights. It is necessary not only to sensitize
employers and the community at large on basic issues of human
rights, but also to help the bonded laborers themselves to
understand their legal rights and improve their self-esteem. Action
Programs should also address the entire issues of bondage of the
family. Limiting the scope to the emancipation of the children only
will not be fruitful.[13]
Lessons learned
-
Mainstream working children into formal school and provide
families economic alternatives and the possibility of unionizing
for better working conditions;
-
Promote understanding of the problem by the families, communities
and local government.
-
Expand the capacity of trade unions to unionize workers involved
in informal sectors;
-
Increase employer awareness and commitment to improve the
situation; and
-
Create a collaborative and coordinated approach among
partners.
The practical lessons learned from the project are that if
opportunities of alternative income generation are provided for
families of bonded laborers, they can build their self-esteem and
will not push their children into the worst forms of work. Members
of the micro credit group have sent their children to school and
have not pushed them into hazardous work; thus the project has
contributed to the elimination of child (bonded) labor among
Kamaiya families through the alternative income component. This has
become a best practice, encouraging parents socially and
economically to keep their children away from hazardous work
conditions and to provide them with basic education.
Communities are demanding long-term solutions, especially in terms
of access to land and housing and economic opportunity.
The project is replicable for the immediate elimination of the
worst forms of child labor, especially in the informal sector, and
could also be useful for designing activities that provide
alternatives to child labor in child labor prone communities.
Implementing agencies must determine the attitude of a community
toward education. In addition, they must determine labor standards
on child labor and analyze government policy.
Freedom At Last
by Naresh Newar
Bardiya, a remote district in the mid-western lowlands of Nepal, is
beset with extreme poverty. Here, the Tharus, a migratory ethnic
group from various districts of West Nepal, live with a more harsh
reality: slavery, still practiced in modern Nepal.
Living on the brink of poverty, a large group of the Tharu
community were pushed into the kamaiya system and bound as virtual
slaves to landlords for generations until the debt is paid off.
Husband, wife and children all serve the master in the farm and
household with only two square meals a day and a meager share of
the grain harvest as their reward. The children fare the worst:
exploitation, no schooling and neglected health.
Weary-looking and stunted, nine-year-old Durga Chaudhary doesn't
like to talk about her family. Her parents have to bear the
consequences of debts owed by her great-grandfather to the
landlord. Fortunately, she is no longer a kamaiya.
Durga lives in Kalika Village Development Committee (VDC)C which is
dotted with the make-shift thatched huts that house over 50 kamaiya
families. She is among the 50 bonded child laborers liberated and
rehabilitated. She now spends her time in a non-formal education
(NFE) class and, on completion of this six-month program, will join
a nearby government school.
In this village, the sounds of kamaiya children reciting their
alphabet ring with hope. Although half of the 30 children in the
classroom are still engaged as kamaiyas, their masters (zamindars)
spare them three hours every morning to attend the NFE class.
Sensitization and awareness campaigns have changed the attitudes of
several zamindars. In some VDCs, they have donated plots of land to
build schools. In Dhorhara VDCC a 45-minute-drive from KalikaC
zamindar Mahendra Raj Sharma donated his land to construct a
two-room school where a majority of kamaiya children study. At
least 75 percent of the kamaiya children attend this school, says
Sharma, sounding proud of his contribution.
Another reformed zamindar, Luharay Thakur, also a vice-president of
Dhorhara VDCC is working with politicians to eliminate kamaiya
children's slave-like treatment in many households. "This
exploitation must be an important agenda on all district level
committees. Only then can we make the kamaiya issue a national
one," explains Thakur, "the head of a 40-member household who has
freed all kamaiyas working for him."
Sensitizing zamindars seems like a practical approach to dealing
with the problem. One zamindar, Tara Gyawali, cycled all the way to
the school to look for his two 14 and 16 year-old kamaiyas, Mangala
Devi and Sumitra Chaudhary, who sneaked out of their master's house
to attend the NFE class. Their father, although keen on his
daughters' education, rushed in to warn of their furious master
searching for them. Just as the zamindar was about to enter the
class, the female teacher intervened until the zamindar finally
agreed to let his Aslaves complete at least one NFE session.
Suryapatuwa VDC, a bumpy hour's ride from Kalika, is a small
village with clusters of cosy-looking huts built by the kamaiyas.
The compound, in what was once a dense forest, is the meeting point
for the Tharu women's saving group, who sit under the shady trees
discussing ways to promote activities of the "Child Development
Center."
"We are no longer kamaiyas," says Maghi Chaudhary, 35, who relaxes
in her mini grocery outlet set up with a micro credit loan. With
the income from the shop, she and her husband managed to clear the
family debt of Rs. 4500 (US $68), and repay the micro credit loan
in weekly installments during the first year. Maghi's family also
built their own small cottage on the 0.12 hectares of land provided
by the Department of Land Reforms. Their three children now attend
vocational training in carpentry, sewing and bicycle repair.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1]Editor's Note: As of December 13, 2000, 52 nations had ratified
Convention No. 182, the Convention on the Elimination of the Worst
Forms of Child Labor.
[2] Editor's note: As senior Senator from the state of Iowa, Senator
Harkin has been a leading advocate on the issue of child labor for
many years now. He has spearheaded many of the efforts now underway
to eliminate child labor around the world and has consistently
pushed to increase United States support for child labor efforts.
His persistent advocacy has helped raise awareness about abusive
child labor both in the United States and abroad. Last year,
Senator Harkin, with bipartisan support in the Congress, played a
leading role in successfully moving ILO Convention 182 on the worst
forms of child labor through the US Senate with break-neck speed.
President Clinton completed the process of ratifying that
convention in a signing ceremony that took place in December of
1999.
[3]Editor's Note: Translated literally, Kamaiya means a hardworking
person, a cultivator, income earner, an achiever, or a person who
tills land belonging to a landlord, along with his entire
family.
[4] Editor's note: On 17 July 2000, the Nepali parliament declared
this system of agricultural bonded labor, as well as saunki (bonded
labourers' debts), illegal.
[5] Editor's note: On 17 July 2000, the Nepali parliament declared
this system of agricultural bonded labor, as well as saunki (bonded
labourers' debts), illegal.
[6]Editor's Note: Habitat is the NGO implementing the project.
[7]Editor's note: These stipends will be phased out by December
2000.
[8]Editor's note: These stipends will be phased out by December
2000.
[9] He was about 21 years old at that time.
[10] The younger son was aged 16 or 17 at the time.
[11]Editor's Note: IPEC and USDoL have developed a sub-regional
project in cooperation with associations of coffee growers and
leading NGOs in six countries of the region aimed at the
progressive elimination of child labor in the coffee sector in
their respective countries. Please refer to the section on the
Coffee Industry Project in Central America for further
information.
[12]Editor's Note: Such legislation has since been passed.
[13] Editor's Note: On 17 July 2000, the Nepali
parliament declared this system of agricultural bonded labor, as
well as saunki (bonded labourers' debts), illegal.