Child labor a necessity... and a tragedy
Child labor is alive and despite United Nations efforts through their International Labor Organization and the African Network for the Prevention of and Protection Against Child Abuse and Neglect. This sad state of affairs is a necessity in Ethiopia, where the standard of living requires younger and younger kids to be employed in farm labor or factory work in order to stay alive.
From today's Washington Post:
Across sub-Saharan Africa, according to U.N. research, one-third of all children younger than 14 go to work each day, making a stark jump past childhood and into responsibilities that their peers in the West don't have to think about for years.
There are so many children on the continent working that education ministries list labor as the primary reason children quit primary school, followed by the loss of their parents to HIV/AIDS and the inability to pay school fees. Many are employed informally, in neighbors' houses or fields, and paid with food or supplies; only those who work in large factories earn cash wages.
"Unfortunately, child labor is the reality in Africa," said Afewerk Ketema, coordinator of Focus on Children at Risk, an Ethiopian aid group. He has recruited 30 working children, including Himnat, for a program in this northern town in which they can attend evening or afternoon classes.
"The real truth is that child labor is not seen as wrong in rural Africa. In fact, it's a source of survival," Ketema said. "Children live the poverty and the poor crops more than anyone. And now with AIDS, too, parents are often sick, die or are overtaxed raising other people's orphans. . . . There were so many cases of children being taken into homes as servants."