TEOFILO KISANJI UNIVERSITY
“A PROJECT ABOUT CHILD LABOUR BY LOOKING
ON AGE, GENDER FACTORS, FACTORS FOR ITS INVOLVEMENT, EFFECTS AND MEASURES TO BE
TAKEN AGAINST THE PROBLEM”
A CASE STUDY OF MBEYA CITY
Researched by Aman Makoye
TABLE OF CONTENTS
2.0. Historical
Background of the Child Labor Law and the objective of the survey………………………………………………………………………………………1
2.1.Scope
and coverage…………………………………………………………….2
CHAPTER ONE
3.0.
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..3
3.1. Types of
child labour existing in Tanzania……………………………………3
CHAPTER TWO
4.0.
Age and Gender factor………………………………………………………………5
4.1. Gender
and Age distribution child laborers in the study……………………..5
4.2. Works
performed by Child laborers in the Field……………………………..6
CHAPTER THREE
5.0. The
factors for the Child Labour in Mbeya City…………………………………7
CHAPTER
FOUR
6.0. Effects of the Child
Labour……………………………………………………….11
CHAPTER FIVE
7.0.
Recommendations and Solution to the problem………...................................13
7.1.
Conclusion…………………………………………………………..15
2.0. Historical Background of the Child Labor Law and the objective
of the survey.
In
Tanzania, the Child Labor Legal Law was established in 1955 under the
employment ordinance Cap 366. According to this law, the minimum working age
was 12 years. Children between the ages
of 12-14 were paid every day after work. In order to be employed, children were
supposed to get permission from their parents. This law prohibits children from
working in industries where they use running machines (Child Labor Law in Tanzania
act 21). During 1969 there was another amendment that raised the minimum
working age to 15, instead of 12-14.
In 2004,
the Employment and
Labor Relations Act introduced
another law in
order to protect children. It was
argued that children between 14 and 17 years of age were supposed to engage
only in easy or light duties and work that would not interfere with school and
their studies. In addition, they were not allowed to work in mines, factories
or agriculture. Any employers who broke this law were supposed to pay a fine of
$2.5 to $5.00, and spend up a year in prison according to the policy (ILO
Report 2010).
The
Tanzanian law of 2009 prohibits any child who is under 18 years old to be
recruited into the military,
be employed in mines, factory,
ships or other work which seems
to be a hazardous engaging in sexual
activities (Tanzania child soldier’s global report, 2004; GT, Sexual offences
July, 1998; Hindman 2009).
This
report is based on the child labour survey that was conducted by the Third
year, 2014/2015 graduate from Teofilo Kisanji University in Mbeya Tanzania.
The
broad objective of the survey was to provide data on the nature and extent of child
labour in Mbeya city. This data will serve as a basis for policy making and programme
of intervention against child labour, besides establishing a child labour
database. The survey provides not only the statistical count of the number of economically
active children but also information on children engaged in economic and non-economic
activities, schooling status and health problems facing the working children.
2.1. Scope and Coverage.
The
survey targeted all children in 5-17 ages working in domestic activities and
other works seemed to be child labour in Mbeya city.
CHAPTER ONE
3.0. Introduction.
Child labor
as any work
that is harmful
to person (Edmonds
2007) .Also the Tanzania department of labor define child labor as “any
economic activities performed by a person who as under 15 years and which
prohibit him or her From attending school” (p 7).
Child
labor involves children being enslaved by being separated from their families,
being kept out of school and exposed to serious hazardous work such as too much
sitting, standing, carrying of too heavy weights and loss of sleep (Fuller,
1974). Child labor concerns all activities, which are done by children for the
purpose of economic gain. Many children are engaged in economic activities for
low payment or no payment that are dangerous to their health. Children are
normally hired as household servants. This is especially true for girls and
sometimes for boys. When a child performs the normal work or domestic work at
home, it is not called child labor (Bhukuth 2008). Child labor is any work or
employment that engages a child to
work more in
order to attain
basic needs for
his or her
family. The employment ordinance
defines child labor as any child below the age of fifteen years who is working.
These children are working for long hours with low wages under harmful
conditions which destroy their physical and mental development (Kihwelo 2006).
Therefore this
study defines child
labor as any
economic activity which
is done by a
person under the age of 18 which prevents child from attending school.
3.1. Types of child labor existing in
Tanzania
Commercial agriculture: The hardship
which faces rural
areas in Tanzania
forces many children
to work in agriculture sectors. These people need
money to support themselves in their daily lives. Most of children work on cash
crops plantations known as tea, sugar, coffee, cotton, tobacco, sisal and
pyrethrum. These people are paid half of the adult wages (Hindman 2009).
The Mining sector. In
Tanzania, Children are working in stone quarries, gold and gemstone mining
without any protection with low payment. These children do different work such
as breaking rocks with a hammer, scavenging materials, washing, and sifting,
filling sacks and running errands for adults. These children are paid low wages
compare to adult wage. Due to this work, most children are not attending to
school, and even drop out of school (Nesi, 2008; Hindman, 2009).
Child traffic and rape. Girls and
a few boys
between seven years
old have been
reported to be
the victim of commercial
sexual exploitation. The
ILO reported that,
in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda,
and Rwanda, children have been involved in the pornographic film
production (U.S. Department of State, Country
Reports- 2003) In
Tanzania children are
trafficked from rural areas for exploitation in the big
cities, working as domestic workers with low compensation.
Child Domestic Workers. Domestic
Child workers are people who are under 18 years old, and who are working in
other households by doing domestic work such as child care, keeping the garden,
running shops and helping their employers to run small businesses. These
children are living within the house as part of the family. In this situation,
the child works but is not considered as a worker, living as part of a family,
but not treated as a family member (Hugh, 2009; Wiener, 2009)
CHAPTER TWO
4.0. Gender factor and Age
According
to our visit, data the largest group of child labour children is those between
9-17 years of age. 75% of children
who were interviewed
were boys and
25 were girls
who are engaged
on domestic working. Several factors were attributed to this particular
phenomenon. In Mbeya, domestic child
labor is considered
an activity when
woman and girls are largest involved. However
boys involved in
the domestic work
mainly do yard
work such as maintaining flower gardens. However,
mostly in the field of Data, Boys are seemed to be many as they perfume
energetic works like Repairing motor vehicles in the garages, also loading on
sand to the Truck and Road constructions.
4.1. Gender and Age distribution child
laborers in the study.
|
AGE
|
FEMALE
|
MALE
|
TOTAL
|
|
9-14
|
1
|
5
|
6
|
|
15-17
|
4
|
7
|
11
|
|
17
|
4.2. Works performed by Child
laborers in the Field.
|
BOYS
|
Garages’
work
|
Cleaning
houses
|
Bus
conductors
|
Loading
loads
|
Peeling
potatoes and cooking Chips
|
|
GIRLS
|
Cooking
and washing dishes in the restaurant
or canteen
|
Caring
children at homes
|
Buying
glossaries
|
Selling
Fruits and vegetables in the street
|
Taking
food to field works like in Garage
|
CHAPTER THREE
5.0. The factors for the Child Labour in Mbeya
City.
Poverty
is the main reason for children to work. Nearly by 48 percent of the youth interviewed at the field are
considered to be basically poor and about 27 percent live in horrible
poverty and in
households without sufficient
income to meet basic
nutritional requirements. Rural poverty
is more explicit compared to urban areas. It has been estimated that large
percent of rural populations live in poverty compared to urban.
The deterioration
of living conditions
in rural areas
has also encouraged
people to migrate from rural
to urban. Environment includes
children and youth who are migrating to urban areas in order to search jobs and
end up as child laborers. Child workers come from poor families.
Barriers
to education, it seems that the absence of Education opportunities lead to the
child labour in Mbeya city. In the visited
centre which are involved in child labour it was observed that
children who aged 10 years old up to 17 years old claimed that their parents failed to send
them to school. This situation forced the children to be
employed on the centre visited.
Family
conflicts. This also has been reported that many children do engage in child
labour because of the family conflicts, whereby they lack support on fulfilling
their basic needs. The best solution over this is to engage on child labour so
that they can have something to accomplish their desires.
Family
separation. The separation of the family has became the great influence on
child labour whereby the parents when become separated, the remained parent
fail to fulfill the needs of his or her children hence ignoring the
responsibilities on their children. Due to these children, decide to find their
own opportunities that can boost up their lives hence engaging on child labour
like selling groundnuts and fruits.
Employers
see child laborers to be cheap in payments. One of the factors for child labour
in Mbeya is the cheapest of some children whereby they see child is simple to
pay him or her because of being unskilled and has no Education compared to the
payments of the Adult.
Orphanage.
Being orphan, these children have lacked the direction in their lives. Due to this
situation of lacking special treatments
from their parents like caring and access to basic needs like clothes have made
them to engage in child labour at least
to get something from their lives.
Ignorance
of the parents about the consequences of the child labour. Most of the child
labour in Mbeya city has shown that their some children who come from their
homes as they have permitted with their parents to engage in the child labour
as from the parents have a perception that Child labour is likely to be the
work like other works. Due to this perception children experience so many
consequences from their works including being raped, engaging in drug abuse and
lack to access of education.
Lack
of school materials. When I was interviewing Janeth, Monica and Hollo both
comes from Chunya district, they told me that the reasons why they dropped out
of school and came in Mbeya city to work, were lack of school supplies such as
uniforms and stationeries such as book, pens and exercise books. One of these
children told me that;
“I was not comfortable to go to
school without shoes. Our school was far from the place where
I was living, I
have to walk
about one hour
going and one
hour Coming back. In addition, I was sitting on the floor, because my parents
could not afford to pay for my desk. That is why I decided to quit school and
come here to work”.
Lack
of alternative for children after they have finished formal education .I n the
visited centre, it was observed that there were children under 18 years old, most of them aged between
13 up 16 years old, Most of them claimed
that they were because they were not
capable to continue to the level of
education such as Secondary Education and Vocational Training Education.
The
desire of the children to be financially independent from their parents, this
is because thechildren claimed that they wanted to own their own properties and
moneys because they can work and get little salaries they get from their
employers.
Irresponsibility
of the parent, this is the factor observed during the visit to the centre,
where it was observed that some of the parents do not take the appropriate
measure on to rescue their children out of this work which is against the human
right.
Lack
of support from family members and clan. Some of the children were interviewed
started working during the parent’s sickness.
The duration of illness took between one and fifteen years from infection
to death. This study also found that the majority of child labor occurs due to
the parent’s sudden death: “My parents did it themselves. They
told me to concentrate with
school work but
after their death
there was nobody to help or even
support us therefore I had start to doing it personally” (a respondent from Mbeya)
Juma Makitoile a responded that; “During
my mother’s sickness
relatives used to
come and visit
us and sometime help
us. Soon after
she died no
body behind us,
I found myself responsible as a leader for my
siblings, Therefore I left
the village and
my siblings with
my grandparents and grandmother and come here to work, so
that I can support them. I send the money every month, to help them buying food
and small things”.
Inadequate
poor enforcement of legislation and policies to protect children
child labour persists when national laws and policies to protect
children are lacking or are not effectively implemented.
CHAPTER FOUR
6.0. Effects of the Child Labour
It
has led to the overworking of the children. It has been reported that children
are overdosed in their working especially those who are working in domestic
activities, The respondents explained
that, “They were working
between 14 up
to 17 hours
per day. They woke up at 5.00 am and went to bed at
12.00 am, when all the people at the house had already gone to sleep. They were
the last ones to go to bed and they were the first ones to wake up in the
morning ready to work. When I was interviewing all my respondents, they said
that they woke up early in the morning and went to bed late after finishing all
the work at night”. (Elizaberth said).
Exploitation
of children at work. Based on the
interviews of the
domestic child laborers, it found that, they are paid
20,000 Tanzanian shillings per month. Their employers argue that because
they provide food and shelter for the children, they do not have to pay high
salaries. Since they are young, unskilled and limited in education, it is
common for them to fall victim to cheap labor. The other ten children whom they
were interviewed told us that they receive 25,000 Tanzanian shillings per
month. In addition, the employer also told us that they do not hire the adults
because it is too expensive for them. They have to pay large amounts of money
compared hiring children. Interview with Amina, who is 14
years old and is working as a domestic worker, told us; “One day my boss’s husband assaulted me. It was a real struggle. I did
not say anything to the wife. I just kept quiet. I did not go anywhere because
he told me he would kill me, if I talked about this issue. After one week, my
boss was on her leave, so I asked her if I could go home for one week, and then
I will be back. She gave me the permission, but I did not go back. This was my
bad experience”
Children
who work also experience isolation and depression, which often prevents them
from continuing to develop healthy emotions as they grow, and can lead to many
physical effects. They are at higher risk for developmental delays because of
the high health risks both from dangerous working conditions and from taking on
physical tasks that are too advanced for them. Children who labor intensely are
often smaller than those who are allowed to play and grown naturally. They are
also at a higher risk for illnesses such as respiratory illnesses and are
exposed to harmful chemicals that can also affect their physical development.
Often, these children also suffer from malnutrition that leads to other serious
health and mental conditions later in life.
Working
can affect a child’s social development because the child spends time doing
labor instead of with peers in social play, learning how to interact properly.
Even adolescents who work are impacted negatively. Teenagers, who spend
more than 20 hours per week working, are at a higher risk to develop
problematic social behaviors like drug abuse and aggression. The risks also
affect their educational development, as they are more likely to perform poorly
in school and drop out of the little education they are privy.
It
leads to the interruption of child’s education and cognitive development. There
are children working full-time who do not attend school at all, which prevents
them from developing necessary cognitive skills. It has also reported that even
children who work part-time while studying generally perform 12% lower than
those children who can devote themselves fully to their education. The
percentage is even lower for those children who work full-time and study. One
of the respondent said, “Sometimes I went
at school, sometimes not, this is because of selling groundnuts. Due to this
poor attendance at school has made me to achieve negatively in my studies”
CHAPTER
FIVE
7.0. Recommendations and Solution to the problem.
Child
labour should be taken as a serious
problem in each level to make sure that children get all basic needs and
necessities their living, basic services and close parental
care or government care for their survival.
The
following should be taken as measures against child labour,
Priorities
of primary education children should be given or attend primary education to
make sure that every children get basic education which will help a child to be
independent with life skill to live in his or her community and this should be
free and compulsory, a Government should remove all some elements of cost that
are found in the primary school like Examination fees and stationary fees like
Books, also must sustain the change on
everyday life.
Fighting
against poverty, this means that pre adaptive measure should be taken to make
sure that there is reduction of poverty to many members or family level in order
to insure the availability of basic needs and basic services to their children
in the family. This will overcome global poverty thus child labour will be
overcome.
Need
of financial support , this will be meaningful in respect to reorganize third
world debt , the repayment from the poorest and most indebted countries should
be redirected in education and local health as well as other basic services
which will support child development.
Provision
of job to adult relatives give the job to children adult who will support the
children life, thus the family will be
able to be support with the wages because adult wage s are generally greater
than child wages.
Provision
of education and training for women will help to reduce child labour because
when you educate a woman you educate the society and studies shows that when
women are educated, trained and employment child labour drops dramatically.
Increasing
of family income and family standard improvement this will reduce the
possibility of parent to sell their children in slavery because of extremely
poverty along with paying despite parents are promised that children will receive
food; clothing, shelter and proper education on other side parents unwillingly
push their children into a miserable life of slavery.
Formulating
of accessible and implementable policy which will support the stopping of child
labour in respect with the community support, government organization and non government
organization support together the problem of child labour can stop because of
the psychological and material support will be offered to our children for example to have a program to remove
child labour working in occupation.
Provision
of education especial basic and productive education will provide them with
knowledge, skill and experience that can help them to support themselves to
earn a living at an appropriate age and rational decision on the job select as well as having
special school that provide formal, informal
education as well as vocational
training to children. Having a
family planning this will help parent to have a reasonable number of children
at appropriate age interval that can be capable of handling and supporting them
with social services and basic needs, thus the family planning should be
insisted by the health organization institution in order to reduce the family
burden of children to support as well as the government.
Provision
and availability of quality and quantity social services this will help
children and family survive in crisis such as diseases, loss of home and
shelter thus no child labour will be
reported all children must have equal access to social services for example
provision of supplementary nutrition and health care.
7.1. CONCLUSION
Child labor is a serious problem not only in Mbeya,
Tanzania, but also all over the world. In this
project, girls were
found to be
engaged much in
domestic workers , supply and
selling food to the gang compared to boys who are seemed to engage in energetic
works like repairing car, loading loads and Bus conductors.
Large numbers of children who are working as child laborers
outside their homes have been harmed by either the employers or members of the
family for whom they are working.
The major cause of child labor is low income of the parents
and the people who care for these children. Other reasons included family size,
and a lack of recognition of the importance of education. In African culture
and perhaps in many other countries, a child is helpless. It is the parents’
responsibility to raise good citizens. Thus, by empowering the parents, we may
solve the problem of child labor. Moreover, there is the need to educate the
parents on the importance of schooling,
so that they
put more concern and
emphasis on the
academic performance of
their children.
Tanzania claims to have free primary education, but in reality
it is not free. Parents are supposed to contribute to examination fees and to
buy stationeries, such as exercise books, textbooks, pencils, pens, uniforms,
desks and chairs. The families who are poor and have financial problems cannot
afford this, which leads children to drop out of schools and engage in working
activities. Therefore, the government
should provide total free
education without any contribution so that every child is able
to attend school.
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Strauss, eds, Handbook of forum.
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Fuller R, G. (1974).
Child labor and the constitution, Arno press- New York Times Company
Hindman, H. (2009). The
world of child labor,: An historical regional survey. USA Shape Inc.
International Labor
Organization (2010). Accelerating action against child labor, International
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(2006). Harmonization of laws
relating to children Tanzania, African
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Policy
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