by Tendai Madinah, Zimbabwe, November 1999
THEME = CHILDREN
Zimbabwe, for years criticised
by local and
foreign labour unions and human rights organisations
for its
reluctance in stopping child labour,
has decided to do something
about this situation
On 20 September 1999, government departments, the Central Statistics Office (CSO), the Ministry of Labour in conjunction with the National Employment Council of Zimbabwe, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the General Agricultural and Plantations Workers Union of Zimbabwe launched the National Child Labour Survey Project, to determine the extent of child labour nationwide.
John Mugari of the National Employment Council of Zimbabwe, said the survey was conducted in 395 centres country-wide, and targeted children between the ages of five to seventeen. Among these 395 centres, were resettlement areas, communal areas, large and small- scale commercial farms, urban areas and tea estates.
Florence Chitauro, Zimbabwe's Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, says depending on the results of the survey, the government is to request assistance from the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour, to implement programmes aimed at preventing child labour. Under the exercise, says Chitauro, victims will be rehabilitated and protected from further exploitation.
Agriculture Minister, Kumbirai Kangai, says he has received numerous reports of cases involving children working on farms for meagre or no wages. "It is sad to note that some elderly people in communal areas and on commercial farms can be heartless to the extent of employing innocent children, who should be concentrating on their education," says Kangai.
Zimbabwe is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights Of The Child. And under Zimbabwe's Labour Relations Act, the minimum age for employment is 16. Yet children as young as eight have been, and still are, picking tea, coffee, and cotton on farms and plantations. The estates are accused of trying to take advantage of the government's policy of "education with production". In the mid-l98Os, the government declared that from Form II upwards (usually the 13 and 14 year olds), each student must do at least one practical subject as a way of promoting "education with production".
The estates pay most of the children's requirements. They also provide transport when the children have to travel to other schools for sporting activities.
Most of the children who work on large commercial farms and estates are exposed to hazardous working conditions with no protective clothing or sickness benefits and holiday leave. The hours of work are usually unspecified.
The GAPWUZ says what is happening on the estates and farms, implies child abuse. It argues that although the estate schools might be underfunded and the pupils, poverty-stricken, this does not give licence to abuse the children through child labour.
GAPWUZ believes maintaining the system will perpetuate the poverty cycle on farm workers. Zimbabwe is estimated to have more than 300,000 children under the age of 16 who are employed as cheap labour in various sectors of society. About 100,000 children are believed to be employed in large-scale farming, small-scale mining and the informal sector. Over 40,000 of these children are unpaid family workers selling anything from sweets and cigarettes to hardware. The children of immigrant workers, mostly from regional countries such as Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique who work on farms and mines, are a captive labour group. Hundreds more are suffering silently as domestic workers, especially girls who are some times raped.
Domestic workers don't receive much in the way of salary - the reason given is because they receive free accommodation and food. And sometimes they are not even paid on time.
The fact is, the government has been very slow and non-committal in trying to stop child labour - so rampant that a leading buyer of Zimbabwe's tobacco crop, threatened to stop buying the crop because of the incidence of child labour.
It's common knowledge that in primary schools surrounding tea and coffee estates and government-owned large-scale commercial farms, pupils are forced to pick cotton, tea and coffee. School heads were not allowed to make this public. Those who dared to do so were either suspended or dismissed outright.
Let's hope the results of the National Child Labour survey will help to end the on-going practice of child labour in our country.
END