Eradicating child labour is crucial for education

Makumi Matano* is a 10- year-old, Standard Three pupil at Amani Primary School in the Mwanza Region of Tanzania. Her academic performance dropped as a result of her parents overworking her thus denying her time to study.

I spend much time doing household chores and performing small businesses. I don’t have any time to concentrate on my studies. I wake up early in the morning and fetch water and fill barrels and pots inside then wash the utensils and prepare snacks for sale in the evening. And this is how her schedule runs every day.

“My results for Standard Two were not good because I don’t have any time to put more effort into studying because of the small business I run for my family and household chores,” she said.

According to International Labour Organization (ILO) child labour globally at the beginning of 2020, accounted for almost 1 in 10 of all children worldwide. Seventy-nine million children nearly half of all those in child labour were in hazardous work that directly endangers their health safety and moral development.

The ILO said children make up a quarter of the world’s modern-day slaves. Some 5 million children live in slavery-like conditions.

The report also showed child labourers were more likely to settle later in life for unpaid work in family businesses or low-paying jobs

But the decline has been less rapid among older children, many of whom leave school early to work and earn money for their impoverished families, especially in rural areas, the report said.

“My parent can’t understand me when I told her that I must have time to study, my grades are going down due to a lot of activities,” she spoke

However, her mother has another point of view.

“The work I gave to Theresia is her level and suitable, she just studies well and does her daily activities as it is without missing any,” she said.

The latest global estimate indicates that  160 million children 63 million girls and 97 million boys are affected by child labour.

Nearly 170 million young people are deprived of education, according to UN’S ILO World Report on child labour. In Tanzania, children aged between five to 17 are engaged in labour occasioned by increasing levels of poverty. The report further points out that 4.2 million Tanzanian children remain trapped in child labour. ILO also hinted that poverty and violence drive children to labour.

Child labour and other forms of exploitation are preventable through integrated approaches that strengthen child protection systems as well as simultaneously address poverty and inequity, improve access to and quality of education and mobilize public support for respecting children’s rights.

United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) works with government and for-profit agencies to put in place the necessary policy frame to end. It works with businesses to assess the supply chains and to find sustainable options to address business practices that lead to child labour.

It works with families to support the ending of labour that is a result of bonded or debt labour. that supports state governments to integrate programmes that would end child labour and also support communities in changing their cultural acceptance of child labour while ensuring alternative income to families, access to preschools, quality education and protection services.          

Fatuma Kimwaga who is an advocate for Tanzania Women Lawyers Association (TAWLA) says the organization is working hard by cooperating to defend the rights of children and women in general.

Addresses that parents and society at large are the main sources whose contribute their children to drop out their school due to the home activities conducted by their children, commit these acts children cut short their dreams and make them suffer from the effects of poverty and the drop out school leading to child labour.

“Parents, guardians and relatives are the main culprits behind child labour that contribute to cutting short their dreams due to being beaten by their parents for not performing household chores as a result leading to psychological health effects,” she said.

Teachers and others in the education system can be frontline supporters to protect children and can alert other stakeholders such as social workers to situations where children display signs of distress or indicate they work long hours. Getting children out of work and into school also requires broader changes in public policy to empower families to choose education over exploitative labour.

A teacher from Amani primary school Celicia Mgunda explains that parents are contributing to high child dropout rates.

“Parents are making their children drop out of school due to heavy workload at home,” she said.

She advised the parents to help them drive, love and protect their children’s success by taking care of them.

The consequences are staggering. Child labour can result in extreme bodily and mental harm, and even death. It can lead to slavery and sexual or economic exploitation. And in nearly every case, it cuts children off from schooling and health care, restricting their fundamental rights and threatening their futures.

A psychologist from the Tumaini University of Iringa, Robert Rwiza explains how a girl child is psychologically affected due to the accumulation of responsibilities beyond her age.

“A young girl might run away from home if beaten by parents for not doing household chores,” he said.

The parents are the main source of a child’s psychological and mental deterioration at home in the family due to a bad upbringing from the parents. The important thing to a girl child from a parent is giving a child enough time for studying

“I ask parents and guardians to be the frontline in caring for their children and encouraging them to invest a lot of time in education. Parents should have a tendency and time to ask their children what they have done for the whole day purpose and goal are to explain to each other the easiness and difficulty of the day’s activities. This means that they might drop out of school and end up on the streets,” he said.

The ILO called on world leaders to develop a coherent policy to tackle child labour

“Children who drop out of school and join the labour force early are more disadvantaged later in life because of a lack of education and basic skills,” according to ILO advisor Patrick Quinn.

Education is a crucial component of any effective effort to eliminate child labour

A key message in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is that children have a right to voice their views on matters affecting them and to have these taken into account. Children have the power to play a significant role in preventing and responding to child labour. They are key actors in child protection and can give valuable insights into how they perceive their involvement and what they expect from the government and other stakeholders.

*Names changed to protect the identity of the minor

This article is part of African Women in Media (AWiM) Graduate Trainee Programme in collaboration with FOJO Media Institute