WATANI International
27 June 2010
Children in the work force
It is a pitiable situation that robs a child of his childhood and thrusts him into the world of adults struggling to attain a decent life—and not succeeding. Gone is the warmth and security of family love; the very persons assigned by nature to protect the child become the ones who force him to give up his childhood rights and take on an adult yoke which adults themselves groan under. A child who is thrust upon the labour market is not only robbed of childhood innocence, but is also deprived of the basic rights of education, play, and life in a safe and secure environment. Worse, children are more often than not oppressed and abused, even though they act as the family bread winners.
Back in the 7th century, Ali Bin Abu Talib said: “Were poverty a man, I would kill him”. The quote comes strongly to mind as one sees that, apart from the children who run away from home to escape exceptionally difficult family conditions and who form the bulk of street children, it is the destitute parents who drive their children to work. In exchange for a petty sum of money Egyptian children are, according to official statistics, employed in the agricultural sector, mechanic workshops, and quarries where strenuous physical labour, dangerous working conditions and slave wages are the order of the day.
It is illegitimate and illegal, yet child labour is rampant practice.
What exactly is it?
The trouble with child labour is that it is not precisely defined. Some consider that the term may be applied to the work children perform in exchange for money, others see that it should include unpaid work within the family environment. Within this context, should agricultural work during harvest time be considered “child labour”?
In Egyptian rural culture it is no more than a wholesome, beneficial, communal activity in which all the village children share. Cotton picking is a particularly joyful season for children in Egyptian villages, when they all join in hand-picking the cotton worm pest then, later, the cotton itself. A common sight in summer is the children in their colourful clothes wearing wide hats to protect them from the sun and moving in regular lines along the fields. First-hand stories from these children indicate they await this season; school hours are adapted to the cotton season. Yet an international call to boycott Egyptian cotton was based on the grounds that the industry employs child labourers.
Sorting the garbage is another activity children take part in. Garbage collecting and recycling is a unique family industry in Egypt. The men collect the garbage and bring it over to the women and children of the family to sort it for recycling. But it is one thing for a child to sort the garbage under the watchful eye of a mother or older sibling, and quite another for him to navigate the busy town streets in a dilapidated cart drawn by a sickly donkey to collect the garbage. Yet in both cases the work is unpaid since it is ‘family work’.
It comes as no surprise that it is the family itself—at once poor and of large number—that drives the children into the workforce. A study by social worker Azza Karim found that, among the poorer families in rural Egypt, the income of a seven-member family is a puny EGP194. This makes a EGP44 monthly contribution by a working child a significant addition.
Hazardous
The number of children employed as street vendors and in agriculture, construction, factories or workshops is officially estimated at somewhere between two and 2.5 million in Egypt. But figures are scarce for children who leave home to work as domestic workers or nannies.
Working children almost invariably drop out of school. The study found that the dropout rate among Egyptian children in the basic education stage amounted to an appalling 25 per cent. The illiteracy rate among fathers of working children, according to the same study, was found to be 88.7 per cent and that of mothers 90.0 per cent.
It does not help at all that legal liability against parents who send their children to work and employers who employ children is weak. Furthermore, the law which stipulates that children within working age—from 12 to 18—should be given a cup of milk daily, granted medical care, and spend no more than six hours a day at work, is almost never enforced. An employer is not held liable if a child suffers health problems owing to the nature of the work he or she performs.
Another study conducted by Adel Azer and Tharwat Ishaq revealed that working children are especially threatened by the hazards of the Egyptian roads. Their study cites two cases of collective deaths on the road. In 2004, 45 children aged between 10 and 20 lost their lives in a road accident while boarding a vehicle that was transporting them to the potato fields in a neighbouring village. And last August, another vehicle carrying a group of children to vineyards near by was crushed by a train; all the children died.
Quarry children
Of all the jobs taken on by children, quarry work is among the worst. In addition to the laborious work, the environmental hazards of dust and smoke fumes carry a high risk of the children contracting lung diseases.
Journalist and cartoonist Nabil Sadeq, winner of the 1991 Suzanne Mubarak prize for children’s literature, tackled the problem through his art. His small book Miscellaneous Pieces about the Crusher contains richly ironical drawings expressing the dilemma of quarry children and the difficult and hazardous conditions they are exposed to. Drawing on parents who are emotionally inconsequential and lacking in initiative, Sadeq makes skilful reference to life’s contradictions.
The child in the booklet poses incessant enquiries about his right to a rest and meal break at work. He is fully aware of the dangerous work. “Work in a quarry is filled with bitterness”, he says. “Our work is against the law”.
The crusher steals away those childhood dreams of an education and of finding a respectable job. Father is busy working in the quarry, and the crusher robs him also of his health. Mother appears to spend most of her time giving birth. As for the employer, he is the usual fat cat, a harsh man who has no time for the needs of children.
Speaking for the children
Realising that it may not be possible to eradicate the practice altogether, various NGOs have for the last couple of years attempted to tackle the problems of child labour through working with the employers. The aim was to improve the working conditions of the children, secure their safety, and offer them literacy classes.
To help children working in mechanic workshops, the Coptic Evangelical Orgaisation for Social Services (CEOSS) ran a programme called “The spokespersons of working children” in which a group of working children, workshop owners and family members were assigned to speak on behalf of the children to claim their rights. The group, whose members are educated on children’s rights as stipulated in Egyptian legislation and international treaties of which Egypt is signatory, revealed a true picture of the physical violence and degradation they frequently undergo at work.
The focus is upon the right of working children to health services, and the demand to implement the regulation 118 of 2003 which concerns banning the worst forms of child labour. Businessmen and workshop owners are offered incentives, in the form of the right to use facilities or funds supplied by CEOSS, to better the work and safety conditions of their workshops.
In May 2003, Ahmed al-Amawy, the then minister of employment, declared that the work of children under 18 in quarries, the asphalt industry, fertilizer stores, petrochemicals labs, the dyeing and plastic industries, was outlawed.