Child Labour in Agriculture

Teachers' and agricultural workers' unions join forces to demand rural education for all

2008-06-11T23:09:06Z

For millions of rural children quality education remains just a distant dream. Figures from Education For All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report 2007 show that the children most likely not in school or to drop out of school live in rural areas and come from the poorest households. Data from a number of African countries looking at 10 -19 year olds suggest that poor or rural children are ten times more likely to drop out than urban or richer children.

This backs up earlier findings of the 2006 Millenium Development Goal (MDGs) Report which stated that whilst progress is being made in improving access to primary education, there are disparities in progress, and that the poorest, often those in rural areas, were being left behind. The report stated that “High rates of poverty in rural areas limit educational opportunities because of demands for children’s labour, low levels of parental education and lack of access to good quality schooling”.

]]> The lack of educational opportunities has to be seen against the background of widespread child labour in rural areas, agriculture being the biggest single user, accounting for 70% of the world's child labour. Agriculture is one of the most dangerous industries to work in terms of deaths, injuries and work-related ill health, and many of these children work in hazardous child labour that puts their health and safety at risk, including work-related health problems that can carry on into adulthood. Withdrawing children from hazardous work and getting them into schools is not a straightforward or easy process. Children have often fallen behind educationally and require special education services. A period of rehabilitation before they can be fully integrated into the educational system may also be required. All this places extra burdens on teachers and schools, and of course resources must be available.

Working in rural schools is more difficult than teaching in urban areas, mainly because of poor living and working conditions. This can be de-motivating. Consequently rural schools have fewer qualified and experienced teachers, and teacher turnover is high. (24 countries of 176 countries with data have more than 40 pupils per teacher, 20 of which are in sub-Saharan Africa (2008). Pupil/teacher ratios (PTR) above 40:1 usually mean that countries have too few teachers, that teachers are overstretched, and that the quality of teaching and learning suffers. The 2007 report says that consideration should be given to incentives that attract teachers to rural areas.

The needs of girl children have to be addressed. Their brothers often get priority for attending school and girls are expected to help in the fields or go into domestic service. In 2005, a UNESCO/UNICEF survey found that in Africa about 50% of urban boys complete grade 7, but only 7% of rural girls. Again, too few female teachers, who are important role models for girls to stay in school, is a problem especially for rural education.

To mark WDACL 2008, EI and IUF have agreed to a plan of work which will focus on:

• Awareness raising about child labor in rural communities, including with teachers;

• Building local level links between teachers' unions and agricultural workers unions;

• Campaigning and lobbying governments to improve rural education.

Some work has already been done. In Kyrgyzstan, the Agricultural Workers Union works together with the Teachers Union on the elimination of child labour in agriculture. Teachers monitor the school attendance during harvest and organise meetings with parents, where they inform them about the negative effects of labour on children’s health and schooling.

EI and IUF welcome the conclusions of this year's ILC discussion on rural employment for poverty reduction which state that public policy should provide access to quality, compulsory, free basic public education. Further, the report recognises that quality education is the key tool in eliminating child labour.

Kenya: Children cutting cane

2007-10-03T15:58:56Z

On 24 September, Jorge Chullen, the coordinator of the IUF global sugar program has visited the South Nyanza Sugar Company accompanied by a delegation of the Kenya Union of Sugar, Plantation and Allied Workers (KUSPAW), as part of a 4-day program supported by the Social Justice Fund of the Canadian Auto Workers (SJF-CAW).

]]> The sugar company is located near the Kisii area, south of Kisumu, in the western region on the country; a two-and-a-half hour ride, dotted with about ten police check-points, and roads with limited capacity to handle all the transit that rides on them.

The union delegation was able to observe some agricultural operations in the cane fields of independent farmers who supply the mill. At a farm in Kelowe, four children, aged 10-12, have been seen cutting cane; and several others, even younger, hanging around in the fields.

One main reason given by the workers for the children's presence was that some of them have finished elementary school and their families have no money to pay for high school; therefore they have no other option than to work in the cane fields. Some other said that they help their families, and one of them was an orphan of father and mother who looks after his younger siblings. One of the boys said he gives some of the money he earns (about USD 60 per month) to his parents.

The cane-cutting operations have been outsourced by the South Nyanza Sugar Company, which by legislation is prevented from doing anything else than milling cane. The outsourcing practices have worsened working conditions considerably, and, even when the cutters cut cane green and the work is heavier than with burned cane, they receive nothing in terms of protective equipment or tools for the job. Workers talk about "before" and "now". "Now," with the outsourced operations, they get no clothing, no cane-knife, no boots, no hats… nothing. Not even drinking water is distributed to them, they said. They bring water from home, and when it's gone… it's gone.

Workers complain that the agreement between the contractor and the sugar company gives the former a certain amount of money to pay them, from which he takes a cut. When asked if first aid is, one cutter said: "there is nothing of that sort." They even have to buy their own cane-knife. And, the one which they can afford is not the best tool for cutting cane!

The delegation has visited also the living conditions of cane cutters in Owiro camp that showed to be extremely poor. A member of the company management staff, who guided the visit, explained that the company has no responsibility to ensure some decent living conditions as the cutting operations are outsourced.
The camp has also a poor-equipped room which functions as a pre- elementary school for kids.

Consultative meeting on elimination of child labour in tobacco growing of Kazakhstan

2007-08-08T07:38:08Z

Consultative meeting on elimination of child labour in tobacco growing of Kazakhstan took place in Almaty on July 19, 2007. Representatives of Agro-Industrial Workers’ Unions of Almaty region and Kyrgyz Republic, ILO/IPEC programme on the elimination of child labour and Philip Morris Kazakhstan (PMK) - the main buyer of tobacco leaves in the country – have considered their experience in implementation of programmes aimed against involving children in tobacco growing.

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Considerable efforts are taken by all the parties: PMK agronomists work with farmers controlling situation in the fields; the company in co-operation with the state bodies and NGOs develops social programmes for farmers’ children both from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. For example, this year the company has financed three country camps for 600 children in Chylik region, the main tobacco-growing area in the country.

Mainly, the unions attempted to influence the situation in Kyrgyzstan, where tobacco is the main agricultural crop. Having gained positive results in Osh and Dzhalalabad regions, unions and tobacco companies of the region noticed the trend of migration of Kyrgyz farmers with their families to Kazakhstan. Their children migrate with them and start working there. The situation was considered by ILO/IPEC experts, and it was recognized that it was a migration of child labour that demanded new forms of international and social partnership of all parties interested in comprehensive decision of the problem.

The participants in the meeting noted that child labour is intolerable at all the stages of tobacco growing and processing. It was outlined that further discussions are necessary to develop co-operation between unions and the company; to consider the experience of tripartite Working group on llimination of child labour in tobacco growing in Kyrgyz Republic; to create, with the assistance of ECLT expertise and ILO, an economic and social mechanism providing that tobacco sector is completely child labour-free.

Pictures. WDACL in Ghana

2007-07-17T15:17:31Z

Nicaragua. Tripartite agreement for eradication of child labour and improving rural life and education

2007-06-29T07:57:45Z

The agricultural workers union in Nicaragua, ATC, has signed a Tripartite agreement with the government (Ministry of Labour)and the organisations of agricultural employers with the objective of combining efforts for the eradication of child labour in agriculture. The agreement was signed on June 12 as part of the World Day Against Child Labour in Agriculture.

]]> According to data from the Ministry of Labour, there are 238,827 working children between 5 and 17 years old. The legal minimum age is 14 years old.

The signatories are committed to eliminate worst forms of child labour by 2015 and total eradication of child labour by 2020. They also agreed to promote strategies and programmes to improve the living conditions in the countryside, to eliminate the gap between urban and rural education and promote opportunities for young people to work in agriculture.

Declaration of Intent on Cooperation on Child Labour in Agriculture

2007-06-21T14:06:17Z

Download Declaration

Pictures. WDACL in Kyrgyzstan

2007-06-20T11:08:29Z

Pictures. Signing Ceremony - WDACL in Geneva

2007-06-20T10:43:48Z

SIREL gives Latin American overview

2007-06-20T10:21:23Z

To highlight the extent of child labout in the region, the IUF Latin America office issued a special edition of the regional information sheet, SIREL. Using information from the ILO, the bulletin gives a short analysis of agricultural child labour in Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay and Bolivia plus information on Central America and the Caribbean.

]]> To see this issue of SIREL Download file

SPAIN: CC.OO. call on Nestle to check its supply chain

2007-06-19T10:59:32Z

CC.OO. Food and Agriculture Union representatives in the Works Council at Nestle Spain head office have called on Nestle to commit to work with the unions at national and international level to eliminate child labour along the supply chain.

]]> In a letter addressed to human resources management, the CC.OO. representatives call on Nestle to confirm that its food products do not involve child labour.

They also circulated the letter to all CC.OO. unions throughout Nestle Spain urging them to take similar actions.

Download the letter

ARGENTINA. UATRE joins forces to eliminate child labour in agriculture

2007-06-18T13:25:35Z

UATRE within the National Registry of Rural Workers and Employers (RENATRE) together with the ILO, IUF, the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security have signed a Protocol of Intention for the Eradication of Child Labour in Agriculture" on June 12 in Buenos Aires.

]]> Others in the partnership include the National Commission for the Eradication of Child Labour (CONAETI), the National Secretariat of Agriculture, Cattle, Fishing and Foods and the General Confederation of Labour (CGT).

The partner organisations commit to combine efforts and work on joint plans and projects that would discourage the use of child labour in the rural area and would guarantee children a happy life.

Download file

GHANA. “Take us to School for Better Future” said one of the children’s placards

2007-06-15T17:34:32Z

The General Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU) in collaboration with the Ministry of Power and Employment, Employers’ Association and the ILO/IPEC marked the event on 12 June by launching a national campaign against Child Labour from 8 to 12 June. Children withdrawn from work were among speakers during the event.

]]> Among the activities, a panel discussion was organised on the negative impact of child labour and the importance of education. The event has also highlighted the risks posed to children engaged in hazardous activities in the agricultural sector and efforts being made by the social partners and the civil society to eliminate the problem.

Ghana ratified the ILO Convention 182, the African Charter of the Rights of the Child and was the first country to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. GAWU is pushing the Government to ratify Convention 184.

Download African Chater of the Rights and Welfare of the Child

UGANDA. World Day March against Child Labour

2007-06-15T17:30:03Z

Celebration of WDACL in Uganda started in Masindi District, about 200 km from Kampala with a 3 km march of school children including those withdrawn from labour, together with workers and guests.

]]> The march ended in front of the Vocational Institute, where children and guests had a tour and watched the debate performance of four children debating for and against child labour in agriculture. The Vocational Institute was build within the framework of ELCT project and it provides training for children who were withdrawn from Child Labour in crop production, animal husbandry, carpentry, brick laying, etc. The local authorities in the District pledged to support the Institute and ensure that child labour is eliminated in the District.

ILO ACTRAV and ILO/IPEC participated in the celebration and provided every support including printing posters, t-shirts, caps and banners with the slogan: “agriculture without child labour”.

The Minister for Labour explained the National Child Labour Policy, acknowledging that Child Labour is one of the main sources of child abuse, exploitation and a potential threat to the health, safety, moral and psychological development of children. At the end of the ceremony, he awarded 7 ex-child labourers with a certificate of completing the two years training programme.

Netherland – Bondgenoten – making rural education a reality

2007-06-14T09:06:46Z

FNV_Bondgenoten shop stewards on the union's International Solidarity Working Group have come up with a very original idea. After meeting with representatives of the Namibian Farmworkers Union (NAFWU) they decided to start an educational project - but not one that involves just papers and pens. They are sending an actual classroom!

]]> The stewards got a 40 ft container free of charge. Then, with the assistance of a technical school, they had the container changed into a complete school classroom, with electrical lights connections, replaceable windows and sanitary facilities. The outside of the container has been painted in the NAFWU colours and the inside kitted out with school furniture.
It is just about to leave the Netherlands for Namibia.

Guest writer. Kaaronda Evalistus, NUNW’s General Secretary

2007-06-13T13:42:40Z

The National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW) is pleased to be associated with an idea as noble as this one. Child labour had grown over the past years and assumed unimagined global proportions estimated in 2005 at about 250 million children between the ages of five (5) and fourteen (14) of whom 120 million are said to have been employed on a full time basis. Whichever way one looks at it, child labour has the effect of depriving children their right to proper and sound physical, moral and intellectual development as they are coerced into taking adult responsibilities prematurely.

]]> Namibia is of course no exception to the above as the rapidly increasing effects of HIV/AIDS take their toll on the many of her citizens, leaving many of the house holds headed by children. This situation is even worse for children in rural Namibia, all of whom are in subsistence agriculture. Child labour in Namibia is compounded by an acute lack of data, particularly on the size of it and its growth trajectories. It is generally clear that where poverty thrives, child labour equally thrives unhindered. A classical example that comes to mind is that of a small, as it were, a minority group called the San community or the Bushmen. Adult members of this Namibian community have for a considerable number of decades worked as cheap farm labourers on both commercial as well as communal agricultural farm lands in Namibia.

Given the meagre or starvation wages paid to them, they had to complement their household incomes by having their children join them as labourers for their bosses. This stark reality in our view is what characterises child labour in all countries where it exists. If at all there is a common denominator conspicuously present in child labour, poverty will take centre stage prominence!

In 1999 the Namibian government undertook a child activity survey with the primary aim of achieving the following amongst others:

• to establish the extent of exploitative labour involving children under the age of 18 years,
• to determine the causes, nature and consequences of such labour wherever it is found,
• to direct action programmes, analyse existing policies and programmes as well as identify policy gaps so as to formulate action programmes.

This survey came immediately after Namibia had ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children as well as the ILO Convention on Worst Forms of Child Labour in 1999. All in all the survey found that child labour was on the increase and that it was largely characterised by activities in which children are used such as theft, housebreaking, selling drugs, prostitution (streets, bars and truck stops), commercial agriculture especially in the production of charcoal in the northern parts of the country.
Despite the above findings and noble aims of the government’s survey, as a union we feel that child labour needs not be worse for it to be considered a problem or priority. It needs to exist and its existence must is and must be reason enough to fight it. It is in view of this and numerous other facts that the NUNW also in 1999 established its national committee on child labour to help add organised labour’s voice to the fight against this scourge. Children’s place is at home and or school and not in any less or more dangerous places of work such as mines, garment factories or agriculture where they could be exposed to hazardous dust and pesticides.

Finally, we wish to thank all involved for their relentless efforts aimed at bringing sanity to all unscrupulous capitalists and have them refrain from using child labour.