International Rescue Committee Releases Names of Victims of Ambush in Afghanistan
New York, NY 13 Aug 2008 - The International Rescue Committee has released the names of its four staff members who were tragically killed in an ambush Wednesday morning in Logar Province, Afghanistan. They are:
Mohammad Aimal, 25, of Kabul, Afghanistan. He had worked as a driver for the International Rescue Committee since 2002.
Shirley Case, 30, of Williams Lake, British Columbia. She joined the IRC on June 8 in Afghanistan to manage education programs designed to meet the needs of children with disabilities.
Nicole Dial, 30, a dual citizen of Trinidad and the United States. Her permanent residence was in Trincity, Trinidad and Tobago, W.I. She joined the IRC May 21 in Afghanistan as a coordinator in the agency’s programs for children.
Jacqueline (Jackie) Kirk, Ph.D., 40, of Outremont, Quebec, a dual citizen of Canada and the United Kingdom. An education-programs technical advisor, she had worked for the IRC since 2004. She provided support for the agency’s children’s education programs worldwide.
A second Afghan driver employed by the IRC was seriously wounded in the attack and has been hospitalized.
The victims were en route to Kabul and traveling in a clearly marked International Rescue Committee vehicle when they came under fire at mid-morning.
“We are stunned and profoundly saddened by this tragic loss,” said George Rupp, president of the International Rescue Committee. “These extraordinary individuals were deeply committed to aiding the people of Afghanistan, especially the children who have seen so much strife. Words are inadequate to express our sympathy for the families and loved ones of the victims and our devoted team of humanitarian aid workers in Afghanistan.”
The IRC has been working in Afghanistan for 20 years, providing lifesaving aid and recovery assistance to the Afghan people. As of July, the staff comprised 531 Afghans and 11 expatriates.
The IRC has suspended operations in Afghanistan indefinitely.
The agency carries out humanitarian relief and development programs in 42 countries and operates a network of refugee resettlement offices in 24 cities in the United States. It has headquarters in New York, London, Brussels and Geneva.
Obama, Mc Cain speaking at Saddleback Civil Forum hosted by Rick Warren
August 16, 2008 Obama on dealing with the issue of 148 million orphans around the world:
I think it's a great idea. I think it's something that we should sit down and figure out working between nongovernmental organizations, international institutions, the United States Government; try to figure out what can we do. I think that part of our plan though has to be how do we prevent more orphans in the first place and that means that we're helping to build the public health infrastructure around the world, that we are you know building on the great work that you and, by the way, this president has done when it comes to aids funding around the world. I think you know. I'm often a critic of President Bush but I think the PEPFAR program has saved lives and has done very good work and he deserves enormous credit for that.
Obama on human trafficking and slavery
Photo AP Alex Brandon
This has to be a top priority. This is an area where we’ve already bipartisan agreement on this issue. What we have to do is to create better, more effective tools for prosecuting those who are engaging in human trafficking and we have to do that within our country. Sadly, there are thousands who are trapped in various forms of enslavement here in our country, oftentimes young women who are caught up in prostitution. So we’ve got to give prosecutors the tools to crack down on these human trafficking networks. Internationally we’ve got to speak out and we’ve got to forge alliances with other countries to share intelligence to roll up the financing networks that are involved in them. It is a debasement of our common humanity whenever we see something like that taking.
Mc Cain on emergency plan for adopting Orphans
I think we have to make adoption a lot easier in this country. That’s why so many people go to other countries to get—to be able to adopt children. My great hero and role model Teddy Roosevelt was the first modern American president to talk about adoption and how important it was and promise you this is my last story 17 years ago Cindy was in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She went to Mother Teresa’s orphanage. The nuns brought her two little babies that were not going to live. Cindy came home. I met her at the air plane. She showed me this 5 week old baby and said, ‘meet your new daughter’. She is 17 and our life is blessed and that's what adoption is all about.
‘Exploitation of child labor was behind every morsel of food eaten’
By Bilal Sarwary
BBC News, Kabul
Bibi Roagoal is busy preparing her children for school.
She is one of more than 50,000 Afghan widows struggling against the effects of war. The mother-of-four, who is 28, lives in a house on the outskirts of the capital, Kabul. She recently had a special visitor to extend a helping hand - and not just your average foreign aid worker.
He was Farhad Darya, one of Afghanistan's most popular singers and a household name. Mr Darya, who had been living in exile, was one of the first singers to return to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taleban in 2001. Now, the 46-year-old celebrity runs a charity named Kochah, meaning street in Dari, to supplement the incomes of Kabul widows and their children.
Change for better
Kochah provides widows with $50 a month to keep their children off the street and help them receive education. "My daughter used to collect bread from other families and my son gathered rubbish from a nearby American base for firewood," says Bibi Roagoal, who lost her first husband to a suicide attack four years ago.
How one Afghan star is helping children get back to school
Her second marriage - to her late husband's brother - ended in tragedy when he died in a car crash. But now the monthly donation from Kochah has changed Bibi Roagoal's life for the better. Her children attend school and the family has money for food. "Only a few months ago, this would not have been possible," says the widow. Her smile and excitement refuse to leave her face. "My children go to school now so they won't be illiterate like me."
Thousands of widows and orphans are a legacy of Afghanistan's many wars which have claimed countless lives, among them many husbands and fathers.
Bread-winners
According to the United Nations, there are 37,000 street children in Afghanistan's capital. Nearly all are fatherless. In an almost exclusively male-dominated society with little opportunity for women to find employment, many fatherless children are the main bread-winners for their families. They work year-round - under burning sun or in freezing snow - instead of going to school. And most of them are engaged in odd jobs.
Ajmal - a witty 13-year-old who enthusiastically sells gum on the outskirts of Kabul - says his biggest wish is that he could attend school.
"My family relies on my work," he says. "So I try to sell as much as I can. I wish I could focus more on my school, but I can't afford to."
Hussain is one of thousands of children eking out a living on Kabul's streets
There are also many who do not work and provide for their mothers and siblings by begging. Like Hussain, 14, for whom begging is an accepted fact of life. He would attend school if he could, but instead spends 10 hours a day begging on the streets of Kabul.
"I tried to work," he says "so my family could live an honorable life, but my boss at the shop paid me very little. I tried a few other jobs, but finally I decided to beg.
"I have always wanted to be a teacher. I still have hopes that our government will help the poor like us.''
Problem of funding
The monetary help Kochah is able to provide comes from Darya's concerts and private donations. Darya says Kochah is a non-profit organisation, and that he absorbs the administrative costs himself. However, he says, funding is not easy to come by. ''There are thousands of Afghan traders around the world and they spend thousands of dollars everyday without thinking, but when we approach them about Kochah, they don't give," he says. "A lot of Afghans in the West promise help, but few follow through.'' Kochah aims to assist 2,000 widows. So far, it has managed to help somewhere between 250 and 300. Says Bibi Roagoal: "I pray for peace in my country all the time, because war took everything away from me. "I don't want another mother to be widowed, or their kids orphaned."
The four biggest groups representing the US retail and clothing industry are calling on Uzbekistan to end the widespread use of child labor in the harvesting of the country's cotton crop.
The coalition is urging President Islam Karimov to take "decisive and immediate actions to end the use of forced child labor in the cotton fields" in the world's second largest cotton exporter.
The most recent US state department human rights report on Uzbekistan, published in March last year, noted that there was "large-scale compulsory mobilisation of youth and students to help in the fall cotton harvest . . . in most rural areas".
Retailers and clothing companies in the US and the UK - including Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Target and Gap - have already taken measures to exclude Uzbek cotton from their merchandise following repeated reports of Uzbek children picking cotton for minimal payments.
In a letter to be delivered today to the Uzbek ambassador in Washington, the National Retail Federation, the Retail Industry Leaders Association, the American Apparel and Footwear Association and the Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel, say that use of child labor is "totally unacceptable", and note that retailers have told their suppliers to avoid Uzbek cotton.
Patricia Jurewicz, of the As You Sow Foundation, which co-ordinated the NGO and investor coalition, said the groups' letter "sends a clear message that forcing children to pick cotton must end immediately".
Child labor is banned under Uzbekistan's constitution, and the government has in the past argued that child workers volunteer to help with the harvest.
Uzbekistan produces more than 800,000 tonnes of cotton annually, worth more than £500m. About a third is used in Europe, after being processed elsewhere in Asia.
Three state-owned conglomerates buy harvested cotton at prices fixed by the state, allowing the government to net the difference with the global price for the commodity.
President Karimov's autocratic regime has suppressed political dissent in the country. In 2005, security forces opened fire on protesters in the eastern city of Andijan, killing hundreds of people.
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI AND BRADLEY S. KLAPPER, Associated Press Writers
August 10, 2008
A reef of gold buried beneath this vast, parched grassland arcs across some of the world's poorest countries. Where the ore is rich, industrial mines carve it out. Where it's not, the poor sift the earth.
These hardscrabble miners include many thousands of children. They work long hours at often dangerous jobs in hundreds of primitive mines scattered through the West African bush. Some are as young as 4 years old.
In a yearlong investigation, The Associated Press visited six of these bush mines in three West African countries and interviewed more than 150 child miners. AP journalists watched as child-mined gold was bought by itinerant traders. And, through interviews and customs documents, The AP tracked gold from these mines on a 3,000-mile journey to Mali's capital city and then on to Switzerland, where it enters the world market.
Most bush mines are little more than holes in the ground, but there are thousands of them in Africa, South America and Asia. Together, they produce a fifth of the world's gold, according to United Nations reports. And wherever you find bush mines, these reports and mine experts say, you also find child labor.
If you wear a gold ring on your finger, write with a gold-tipped fountain pen or have gold in your investment portfolio, chances are good your life is connected to these children.
One of them is Saliou Diallo. He's 12 years old and less than 4 feet tall.
Saliou and his friends, Hassane Diallo, 12 (no relation), and Momodou Ba, 13, dropped out of school about three years ago when the village's only teacher left. They were living in mud huts with their families in Guinea, and went to work in their fathers' fields.
Last year, as the price of gold hit a 26-year high, a thin stranger approached. The boys say he offered to take them to a place across the border in Senegal, where money hid inside the ground.
The spike in gold prices over the past seven years has lured increasing numbers of poor people, including child recruits, to bush mines. The United Nations labor agency estimates there are now 100,000 to 250,000 child gold miners in West Africa alone.
Saliou and his friends say the recruiter promised them $2 a day. It sounded like a lot of money to children who had none.
In a region where 4-year-olds haul water and tend goats, boys of Saliou's age are expected to earn money for their families. Senegal prohibits anyone under 18 from doing hazardous work, and mining is among the most hazardous of jobs. However, the laws are seldom enforced.
Saliou packed his clothes, hoisted the bundle on top of his head and slipped away before daybreak. The recruiter led the three boys on a weeklong walk of over 100 miles. The straps of their plastic sandals dug into their heels until their feet swelled.
The boys heard the mine before they saw it, the sound of hammers pounding rocks into dust. The tall grass had been cut away. In its place rose hundreds of cone-shaped huts with roofs of brown grass. Tenkoto, once a pinprick on the landscape, had swelled into a mining village of 10,000. The AP found the boys there, living in huts where they slept squeezed between adults on bare mattresses.
Each night before falling asleep, Saliou struggles to remember a verse from the Quran. He doesn't know what the words mean, but he had been told they would protect him.
Six miles from the village, men and teenage boys, some as young as 14, clamber down mine shafts 30 to 50 meters deep. The shafts are as narrow as manholes. Younger teens yank the rocks up with a pulley.
Saliou's boss buys bags of dirt from these men. The men have already combed it for gold, but usually a few crumbs remain. Boys like Saliou and his friends take turns at different jobs to coax the crumbs out.
They steer wheelbarrows of dirt over rutted paths. They pound the dirt with wooden posts for hours until it is as fine as flour. They wash the dirt in a large sieve-like box. Then they squat next to a plastic tub, pour mercury into their bare hands, and rub it into the mud like a woman scrubbing laundry on rocks.
Mercury attracts gold like a magnet. But it also attacks the brain and can cause tremors, speech impediments, retardation, kidney damage and blindness.
Saliou's tub of dirt yields a silvery ball the size of an M&M. He hands it to his boss, who lifts up his shades to eye it. The man heats the ball over a charcoal fire to make the mercury evaporate, leaving behind a fleck of gold.
Just handling mercury is treacherous; breathing its fumes is worse. The children don't know that. They crowd for a glimpse of the gold as its silvery husk slowly vaporizes.
At mealtime, Saliou rinses his hands in water from a muddy pool where the mercury run-off was dumped. He scoops a mouthful of rice and licks his hand clean.
Evenings, Saliou's boss weaves his way between huts where women boil cabbage and nurse sweaty babies. The speck of gold the boys squeezed from the dirt is in the pocket of his jeans.
A gold merchant waits in a dark shack, his metal scales propped on a wooden table.
The buyers of bush gold are distinguishable from the miners by their tidy clothes and scales. Each one offers the same price for 1 gram of gold — roughly $19. (There are 31 grams in a troy ounce, the standard weight used to measure gold.)
The buyers lend the miners money to purchase tools and bags of untreated dirt. In return, they get first crack at the gold. Saliou's boss says he is loyal to a merchant named Yacouba Doumbia, who gave him his startup capital.
Doumbia says it takes him more than a month to collect nearly 1 kilogram (about 32 ounces) of gold. He hides it in pockets sewn into his clothes.
The gold leaves at dawn on the back of a motorcycle. It travels four days through the grasslands to Bamako, the capital of Mali. Couriers say the journey is dangerous. Some carry guns. They take back roads, never the highway.
The motorcycles pour into the city from hundreds of bush mines along the crooked spine of the gold reef. There the gold funnels into five squalid offices near a central square.
Bush buyers like Doumbia say they are nearly all loyal to one of five Bamako gold barons: Fantamadi Traore, Fabou Traore, Sadou Diallo, Boubacar Camara and El Haj Moussa Diaby, whose business is now handled by his son, Fode Diaby.
Doumbia gets his buying money and his motorcycle from Fantamadi Traore. They come from the same dusty Malian village, which means they are as good as family.
Traore says he has recruited over 70 buyers, most from his village. They have blanketed Tenkoto.
"All the gold that leaves our village is headed to Mali to this one man," says Bambo Cissokho, the village chief of Tenkoto.
Traore's buyers pull into his muddy alleyway in Bamako and hand over the gold, sealed like spices in Ziploc bags. The weight of the gold and the name of each buyer is marked on a Post-It note. Then gold from various buyers is melted together in an outdoor furnace and poured into a mold to form an uneven bar.
The AP watched buyers take the Post-It notes upstairs to Traore's office, where dirty curtains cover the windows. There the 50-year-old bearded man chews kola nuts while a TV flashes the price of gold on the world market.
Traore's men pay the buyers from a safe stacked with West African francs and U.S. dollars. The price for gold from Tenkoto is $22.40 a gram — about $3.40 more than the buyers paid the miners. A courier making a typical delivery of one kilogram receives $22,400, of which $3,400 is profit.
The buyers head back to the mine with their hidden pockets full of cash to buy more gold. The pattern is repeated over and over at bush mines where children work all over West Africa.
Children travel from mine to mine, moving with the gold. Six months after Saliou and his friends arrived in Tenkoto, their boss decided the mine was nearly played out. So he and the boys walked for more than a week, crossed the Senegal border, and arrived at another mine in Hamdalaye, Mali. There, the gold the boys mine is sold to a different buyer. The gold then makes the same journey by motorcycle to Bamako, this time to another of the five main traders, Sadou Diallo.
The traders, in turn, send the uneven gold bars by courier across Bamako's clogged roads to a wretched orange building. Inside, the couriers head for Room 207.
The walls are stained with handprints, the hallway smells faintly of urine, and drapes dark with dirt block out the light. The filth obscures the fact that millions of dollars course through the office of Abou Ba.
In Mali and Senegal, there are hundreds of itinerant gold buyers and five major gold traders. But there is only one man with the paperwork, money and connections to make a business of exporting bush gold to Europe. An AP review of five years of Malian customs documents confirms that only Ba regularly takes bush gold out of the country.
All five traders said they sell all their gold to Ba, also known as Bah.
"He has the means to take it out. We don't," said Fabou Traore, who sells roughly 80 kilograms (about 2,570 ounces) of gold to Ba per month.
"For a long time, he's worked with the white people," said Sadou Diallo, who showed a recent receipt from Ba for $194,000 worth of gold.
"There is no choice," said Fantamadi Traore.
Taking gold out of Mali is expensive. Government monitors assay the gold and charge $11 per kilogram, and a 6 percent tax is added at the airport. From the bush to the world market, an ounce of pure gold increases in price by about $380, a margin that strains each middleman along the route.
In an interview, Ba acknowledged that all his gold comes from bush mines, including from the Tenkoto and Hamdalaye mines where The AP saw Saliou and many other children working.
Asked about child labor, Ba got testy. "We don't live in the bush, so we have nothing to do with child labor," the 50-year-old trader said, the comment translated from his native French. He has never visited the mines, he added. "We just buy gold."
Ba told the AP that nearly all of the gold he buys is exported to Switzerland. Later, one of his Swiss customers presented a written statement from Ba saying he sells 90 percent of his gold to buyers in other West African countries. Mali customs logs, however, have no record of such exports. When the AP sought clarification, Ba, stood by his original statement.
"We do not work with any African country," he wrote. "All of our merchandise is sold in Switzerland."
Since at least 2003, Ba and his associates have carried bush gold in suitcases and packages to Geneva on commercial flights from the Bamako airport, usually making the trip several times a month.
Mali customs logs show he normally takes three to five kilograms at a time — worth as much as $86,000 to $143,000 at today's prices.
"I can assure you that what he declares is only a fraction of what is going out," said inspector Bassirou Keita at the Mali Department of Deeds and Surveying, which oversees tax revenue from mining. "If I am wrong, you can cut off my head and put it on a platter."
In response, Ba wrote: "I make my declarations. I pay my taxes."
The Mali customs records say that between January 2003 and March 2008, Ba exported over 800 kilograms of gold (more than 2,140 troy pounds) to Switzerland. That's roughly the weight of a Volkswagen bug and worth up to $22 million at today's prices, depending on purity.
In Geneva, Ba said, he drops off the gold bars at a Swiss customs counter inside the international airport.
Once in Switzerland, Ba's gold enters the nebulous world of Swiss banking and precious metals trading, where secrecy is enshrined in both tradition and law. Swiss customs records, like its banking transactions, are confidential.
But customs records in Mali show that since 2003, 96 percent of Ba's exports have been purchased by two small Geneva companies. Decafin SA bought nearly one-fifth of it, worth up to $4 million at today's prices. The rest, worth up to $18 million, was bought by Monetary Institute, run by former Decafin executive Judah Leon Morali.
"I am just a little guy," Morali said. "I buy some grams, some kilos, from here and there." Everyone buys from Ba, he said, and if other company names don't appear it's because some transactions are unrecorded.
Morali said he visited Ba's office in Bamako and "never saw a child working." However, he acknowledged, "I've never been to these mines."
If they employ children, he asked, where are the written work contracts? Primitive bush mines, of course, do not have work contracts.
"There's no work contract with any children? Voila!" Morali said, dismissing the matter.
Decafin, the second importer, is a family business located on Geneva's exclusive rue du Rhone. Marc Arazi, its principal officer, first denied buying from Ba. But later, one of the company's attorneys, Marc Oederlin, said Decafin's business relationship with Ba is undeniable and that Arazi acknowledges it.
The lawyer said Decafin is concerned about child labor but has no legal responsibility to investigate how the gold it imports is mined. He added that Decafin trusts Ba and is certain his gold is not the product of child labor.
Earlier this year, Decafin unsuccessfully sued The AP in Switzerland to prevent its name from being published in this story, claiming it would unfairly damage the company's reputation. In court papers, Decafin claimed its gold could not be mined by children in Senegal and Mali, where the AP had observed child gold miners, because Ba gets it from northern Guinea. Arazi visited the area in 2005, Decafin said, and if he had seen underage workers he would not have done business with Ba.
The reef of gold stretches 70 miles through northern Guinea. There, hundreds of bush mines cluster around the towns of Siguiri and Kankan.
A United Nations mining expert who inspected the region a few months after Arazi's visit estimated that 10 percent to 20 percent of its thousands of mine workers were children. The report also documented fatal collapses of poorly constructed mine shafts, nonexistent sanitation and extreme poverty. On Saturday in nearby Burkina Faso, an illegal bush mine collapsed following heavy rain, killing at least 31 miners, the government said.
An AP reporter who visited Guinea in April saw hundreds of child miners. The ore is richer here, so the children do not extract the gold with mercury. Instead, they stand in muddy pits under a blistering sun and pan it from the mud.
Many are girls who begin as apprentice panners as young as 4 and become full-time workers by age 10. Teenage boys work the shafts, descending with flashlights tied around their necks to hack ore from the rock. Lancei Conde, the regional administrator of Kankan, said children work at all the bush mines in Guinea.
An army of gold buyers stalk the Guinea mines. Most are loyal to one of three major traders — Abdoulaye Nabe, El Haj Oumar Berete, and the Kante brothers (Sakia and Sekouba) who operate out of the towns of Siguiri, Kankan and Kouroussa.
The traders told The AP that they sell some of their gold to a dealer in the Guinea capital of Conakry, but pack most of it into cars or motorcycles bound for Ba's office in Bamako. They prefer to deal with Ba, the traders said, because he pays promptly in U.S. dollars.
Sakia Kante displayed a receipt from Ba, dated April 5, for 7,544 grams (241 ounces) of gold, for which Ba paid nearly $200,000.
The Swiss importers, Monetary and Decafin, said they turn the gold they buy from Ba over to Swiss smelters.
According to industry experts, smelters melt gold from all over the world together in large vats to mold standard bars or strips. So the gold mined by children is mixed in with the rest of the batch.
The smelters credit Decafin and Monetary with the quantity of gold they supply. The two importers are paid when the bars and strips are sold through Swiss banks.
Decafin's gold goes to one of the world's largest smelters, Valcambi SA, according to Olivia Berger, a lawyer for the importer. The gold is then sold through the Swiss banking giant, UBS AG, she said.
Valcambi chief executive Michael Mesaric said his company would not want to "service or even accept gold from a mine where children work." UBS spokeswoman Rebeca Garcia declined to say much about Decafin, citing Swiss banking secrecy laws. However, in its lawsuit against The AP, Decafin said its metal account was closed by UBS as a result of The AP's inquiries.
The smelter for the other importer, Monetary, is unclear. Morali, Monetary's founder, said he used to send his gold to Metalor Technologies SA, a large refiner and precious metals dealer, but switched last year to another smelter that he declined to identify.
"You want to understand the gold trail?" Morali asked. "It comes from Africa and it arrives in the Swiss banks. That's all you need to know."
Metalor denied it had done any business with Monetary. But Metalor acknowledged it did import bush gold directly from Ba in 1999 and 2000, according to Nawal Ait-Hocine, head of Metalor's legal and compliance division. She did not say why it stopped. Mali customs records show Ba also supplied gold to Metalor in 2003, but Ait-Hocine said she could find no record of it.
Metalor conducts "extensive due diligence" to make sure its gold comes from legitimate sources, Ait-Hocine said, but "a company can never be 100 percent sure."
The trail of gold that begins in Saliou's mercury-tainted hands ends with bullion in bank vaults and with necklaces, rings and bracelets sold by jewelry retailers all over the world.
Precisely which products contain child-mined gold, no one can say for sure. Unlike a diamond, gold does not keep its identity on its tortuous journey from mine to market. It passes through 10 or more hands. And when it is melted, usually several times, and mixed with gold from other sources, its address is effectively erased.
Jewelers and retailers that buy gold through UBS include Compagnie Financiere Richemont SA, the firm that makes Montblanc pens, Piaget's luxury watches and the jewelry of Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels. Gold processed by Metalor has been used by these brands as well as in discount jewelry sold at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and luxury jewelry sold by Tiffany & Co.
These companies expressed concern about child labor and frustration that they can't certify their products are free of it. Because bush mines, where child labor is ubiquitous, supply a fifth of the world's gold, the companies realize their supply lines may well be compromised.
"I can't overemphasize how complex this problem is," said Michael Kowalski, Tiffany's chairman. "There is a desire to deal with this. But the question is how?"
Tiffany joined with other jewelers and mining companies in 2005 to create the Council for Responsible Jewellery Practices, which forbids child mining. Major refiners, including Metalor, have signed on, as has Cartier. But to date, the council has found no way to enforce compliance.
"Home Depot can track every 2-by-4 to its forest of origin," said economist Michael Conroy, who has written a book on industry supply chains. "You can track every bag of coffee, every diamond to a specific diamond field. But for gold there's nothing."
After six months of work, Saliou is paid $40. He was promised $2 a day, which would come to $360. But his boss deducts money for tea, rice and rent, and Saliou doesn't know how much these things cost.
"If I have one wish, it's that I might someday have a little bit of money," he says. "Sometimes I dream that one day I'll own something made of gold."
He and the other children scour the ground for mud spilled by the adults. It has already been processed for gold once, but they wash it and pour mercury over it again, hoping to find some gold they don't have to give their boss.
They find a flake. It weighs 0.2 grams. They will get $1.95 each.
The boys spend their money on packets of paracetamol, a painkiller sold at the village market. They pop the drug after 10-hour work days to ease the ache in their backs and chests.
The dirt floors of their huts are littered with pill wrappers.
EDITOR'S NOTE — This story is based on interviews with the children, their employers, the merchants who buy their gold and numerous experts, conducted over 11 months in Senegal, Mali, Guinea and Switzerland.
The AP first met Saliou at the Tenkoto mine in Senegal in September, where a reporter spent a week watching him and other 12- and 13-year-old boys use mercury to treat gold. Details of his journey to the mine were culled from multiple interviews with Saliou, his friends and the adults who accompanied them. Scenes and quotes were observed by the reporter.
The AP returned to the mine in October and followed Saliou's boss and the children on a three-day journey, first by bus and then by foot, to another mine across the Malian border. In Mali, the AP spent several days watching Saliou and his 13-year-old friend work at the new mine. At both mines, the reporter observed as the children's boss sold the gold to a local merchant. On several occasions, she was also present when the children sold the gold to the merchants themselves.
Sun Aug 10, 12:08 PM ET
Abou Keita, approximately 5 years old, pans for gold at the Djikouloumba mine, near the Kankan region, in Guinea, April 27, 2008.
(AP Photo/Rukmini Callimachi
In April, the reporter visited five remote mines in northern Guinea and interviewed dozens of children working there, as well as their parents and employers. Through interviews with the merchants, the AP tracked the sale of the gold from the mines in Senegal, Mali and Guinea to Abou Ba in Bamako. The reporter interviewed Ba by telephone, by questions sent via fax and in a sit-down interview at his office in Bamako. Customs records supported his statements that nearly all his gold is exported to two Swiss import firms. Officials at the firms answered questions by phone, by e-mail and in person.
The AP also conducted interviews with refineries, banks, jewelers and retailers that may be receiving the gold. From Africa and Europe, it spoke with gold experts, industry watchdogs, government authorities and United Nations officials.
North Queensland Register
29/07/2008 3:10:00 PM
Liberal Senator Ian Macdonald claims Cocoa Australia's new plantation and processing centre at Mossman Central Mill will help to reduce the use of child labor to produce cocoa in the Third World.
Australia currently imports $200 million worth of cocoa products per year for use in confectionary products.
"Currently around 70pc of the world's cocoa is produced using child slave labor," Sen Macdonald said.
"This innovative business right here in North Queensland – found to be the best cocoa growing area in Australia – will reduce the need to import cocoa from countries where these sort of abuses occur."
Sen Macdonald said it was also pleasing to see the traditional sugar mills of North Queensland diversifying into new industries.
"The organic chocolate produced by Cocoa Australia not only provides more jobs for locals at the Mossman Mill, but local cane farmers can also grow cocoa plants in un-used corners of their farms that would otherwise would lay fallow," he said.
"This will be of particular help to cane farmers in times of low world sugar prices as a source of extra income."
He is one of 67 000 people in Katanga who earn a living collecting rocks infused with two metals that are in high demand around the world: copper and cobalt.
Copper is used to make the electrical wires needed to light cities. Cobalt is used to make jet engines, ink and cellphone batteries.
Katanga is home to 5.5 million people and contains 4 percent of the world's copper and a third of its cobalt reserves, according to the US Geological Survey.
The minerals Adon wrests from the earth go to smoky smelters on the edge of impoverished towns near the mines. Most of these rusting, hand-fed furnaces are owned by companies based in a faraway country founded on an ideology that exalts the rights of workers: China.
Adon toils in the Kamatanda mine near the town of Likasi. On paper, the mine is owned by the DRC's state mining company, Gecamines.
In reality, Adon and his peers practise a chaotic form of capitalism, with little supervision from company or state. The hand diggers are not staff, but freelancers who sell what they dig and clean to brokers.
The middleman pays Adon to wash the copper ore, which he sells to a smelter in the provincial capital of Lubumbashi, run by a unit of China's Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt.
With wads of Congolese francs on hand, Zhejiang Huayou's representatives buy copper and cobalt ore straight from the brokers.
Child labor
"This is one of the worst forms of child labor," says Joost Kooijmans, a legal officer at the International Labor Organisation (ILO), a UN agency. "If they buy ore processed by children, they're involved in violating the rights of the children."
Patricia Feeney, who campaigns for the rights of the DRC's miners, says Chinese smelters buy cobalt and copper from mines across Katanga that use child labor.
"The Chinese smelters have no regard for the health and safety of their workers or the children who dig the ore," says Feeney, the executive director of UK-based Rights and Accountability in Development.
In Tongxiang, Zhejiang Huayou's home base near Shanghai, marketing manager Zhai Yang says his company sells processed cobalt via intermediaries, who he declines to name, to companies such as Sony, Nokia and Samsung Electronics.
Nokia spokesperson Susan Allsopp says the Finnish cellphone giant is researching whether Zhejiang Huayou is an indirect supplier.
"We have no evidence to suggest they are supplying any of our suppliers," she says. "We take any accusations of this nature seriously and do not accept the use of child labor or abuses of human rights. We will continue to monitor this, and if we find any breaches of our standards, we will take swift action."
Samsung spokesperson Hae Won Choi says the South Korean firm is investigating and so far, 70 percent of its suppliers say they don't buy cobalt from Zhejiang Huayou.
George Boyd of Tokyo-based Sony declined to comment.
Zhai says he doesn't know if Zhejiang Huayou buys minerals that originated with child labor.
"I've never been to the DRC, so I don't know the mines," he says. Zhai says his firm has a policy against child labor and will investigate. It will stop purchasing ore if it was dug by children, he says.
The Chinese government says the DRC's law must be respected.
"Chinese companies need to observe local labor laws and regulations and fulfil their social commitments," says Chen Rongkai, a spokesperson for the ministry of commerce in Beijing.
The DRC, like China, has ratified an ILO convention against hazardous child labor.
Katanga governor Moise Katumbi says since 2005 the Chinese have become the primary owners of furnaces that rely on ore from hand diggers. He says more than 60 of Katanga's 75 processing plants are owned by Chinese companies and adds that 90 percent of the region's minerals go to China.
Juggernaut China
From the deserts of Sudan to the savannahs of Zimbabwe and South Africa, a juggernaut of Chinese companies is moving across Africa.
The goal is to secure natural resources to supply factories, build cities and fuel an economy that has expanded more than 9 percent a year on average since the late 1970s, when Chinese Communist Party vice-chairman Deng Xiaoping pushed his country towards free enterprise. Deng is associated with the phrase "to get rich is glorious" - although he denied saying it.
Because China is not self-sufficient in natural resources, the government has made the hunt for minerals and food around the world a foreign policy priority.
In its global quest for commodities, China relies on laborers - from hand diggers in Katanga to iron ore miners in Peru - who work in unsafe, unsanitary and sometimes lethal conditions.
In mines, smelters and ports, hundreds of workers have been injured or killed since 2005 working for Chinese companies in Africa, Asia and Latin America, according to government administrators, workers, doctors and official documents.
In Laos, Chinese rubber plantation owners took rice paddies from villagers against their consent and unknowingly removed soil from a burial ground to build a road, according to study for German aid agency GTZ in February.
In Peru, regulators fined a unit of Shougang, which is owned by Beijing's municipal government. Peruvian officials found that the firm violated regulations by allowing 110 workers with lung disease to work in an iron ore mine. Two have died since 2006. The company disputes those findings.
Africa's weak law enforcement makes it vulnerable to Chinese companies with lax practices. In the past five years, the continent has become China's new frontier for oil, copper, cobalt and iron ore.
Chinese diplomats are paving the way for its companies, courting governments in places such as the DRC with promises to build roads, railways and ports - and to provide jobs. In exchange, China has received access to mines and oil fields and the rights to buy minerals for years to come.
The Chinese don't tie African aid and investment to requirements that governments respect human rights and labor standards, says Ana Maria Gomes, a European Parliament member from Portugal.
Yang Jiechi, China's foreign minister, said at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs in December that countries should be allowed to set their own standards for development and choose their own social systems.
"This is an African problem," says Liu Zhenmin, a Chinese deputy ambassador to the UN.
Wu Zexian, China's ambassador to the DRC, says: "We will work economically in countries without interfering at all in their internal affairs."
Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan environmentalist who won the Nobel peace prize in 2004 for opposing political repression, says China has an obligation to ensure it and its companies act in a civil and humane manner.
Bangladesh: Jamdani Industry: Govt to take action against child labor
Daily Star
Acting secretary to ministry of labor and employment Dr Mahfuzul Haque yesterday ordered concerned officials to take punitive actions against Jamdani weavers, who employ child laborers, under the existing laws of the country.
The directive came after a government team found a number of children working in an unhygienic environment at different Jamdani pallis in Narayanganj during a surprise visit to yesterday.
Almost all the children working in the village were found to be suffering from malnutrition, a government handout said.
The secretary also called on officials to launch a campaign to deter the weavers from hiring child labor.
The actions come as The Daily Star correspondent Mahtabi Zaman carried out a report headlined “Jamdani industry thrives on child labor” in the July 28 issue of the newspaper depicting the ordeals of the children working in the Jamdani industry.
The government handout said that the government team did not find any arrangement of treatment, education and entertainment for the child workers in the pallis.
Children are employed at very young ages and are put to work in exchange for very low wages or mere food. Also there are no fixed working hours for them, it said, adding that the ministry will soon take necessary steps in this regard.
The team comprising of a deputy secretary of labor and employment ministry and other officials concerned visited different Jamdani production villages in Rupganj upazila.
PESHAWAR: Representatives of non-government organisations, media, and child protection network have stressed on effective implementation of child protection laws on the part of the government.
In a consultative meeting organised by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) here on Monday, they discussed the issue of child labour, bonded labour, Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000 and state of children in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
Briefing the participants about the state of child labour, SPARC Protection Manager Ijaz Muhammad Khan said that according to 1996 official survey, there are 3.3 million child labourers in the country while in 2008, the figure reached 9 to 10 million.
“In Pakistan, the major law that deals with children’s employment is the Employment of Children Act (ECA) 1991 that prohibits the employment of children under the age of 14 in certain occupations and processes.
In addition, the ECA regulates working children’s terms and conditions of work in establishments that includes shops, commercial establishments, workshops, factories, farms, hotels and restaurants,” Khan said.
He demanded extension of JJSO and Borstal law to FATA, establishment of borstal institute there and enactment of child protection bill.
13 camps for displaced people: The government has established 13 camps to house the internally displaced people from Bajaur and Mohmand agencies.
A statement from FATA secretariat here on Monday said that a total of 248,000 individuals [39,100 families] were displaced from Bajaur Agency due to the ongoing military operation against militants there.
Another 5,000 civilians were displaced from Mohmand and arrived in Peshawar fearing a military operation in their areas.
According to the statement, nine camps were established in Upper Dir district while three camps were established in Lower Dir and Malakand district, accommodating about 30,000 people from Bajaur.
Gujarat, India: Mission emancipation: Collectors asked to galvanize task force on child labor
BASHIR PATHAN
Indian Express: Sunday, July 27, 2008, Gandhinagar,
Spotlight on rehabilitation of such children to meet 2010 deadline for total eradication
The Modi government has resolved to eradicate child labor from the state by 2010 — the year Gujarat celebrates its golden jubilee of statehood. But, the task force set up by the government in each of the districts across the state to curb child labor practice has virtually failed to yield any desired results. The state Labor and Employment department has now taken a serious note of this and directed all collectors heading the task force in their respective districts to "activate" it. It has shot off letters to the collectors and asked them to launch concerted efforts to search, rescue and rehabilitate child laborers being employed in different sectors across the state.
"Immediately after the Centre had amended the Child Labor (Prevention and Regulation) Act in 2006, the state Labor and Employment department had issued a seven-page Government Resolution (GR) setting up a Task Force headed by the Collector in each district to rescue and rehabilitate child laborers. As we found that the Task Force is lying dormant in each district, the department has decided to activate it," added a senior official.
The official told Newsline that the department has instructed all district collectors to ensure that the Task Force functions effectively and that the anti-child labor laws are enforced strictly in their respective areas.
The collectors have also been asked to hold a day-long training camp to sensitize members of the Task Force on the Constitutional provisions for child laborers, the rights of children and the action plan chalked out by the government to curb the incidents of child labor in the state.
The district-level Task Force is headed by the Collector. There are 17 members on it, which includes the DSP, DDO, municipal commissioner/chief officer, district education officer, civil surgeon, district social welfare and employment officers, chief district health officer, district primary education officer, deputy assistant labor commissioner, district programme officer (ICDS) and local NGOs working in the child labor area.
Each of the members in the Task Force has been assigned a specific task to identify, rescue and rehabilitate child laborers in their respective districts. Under the GR dated October 19, 2006, it was mandatory for the Task Force to meet once in a month to review the work progress and send a monthly report on this to the state Labor Department.
Under this district-level mechanism, the Collector and officers under him have been entrusted with the task of freeing child laborers from the work places, taking their custody and rehabilitating them. They would ensure that each of the child laborers rescued is admitted to primary school, and also initiate legal action against those employing children below 14.
The police under the DSP will have to provide adequate protection to the Task Force teams whenever they raid the places where children are found employed in contravention of child labor laws. While the district primary education officer has to ensure that rescued children are enrolled in schools without any restriction on availability of age certificates, the deputy labor commissioner is mandated to conduct a survey in places where children are suspected to be employed.
As per the 2001 Census, Gujarat accounts for a total number of 4,85,530 child laborers in the 5-14 years age-group, of which over 3.13 lakh are living in the rural areas. Incidence of child labor has been reported from all the districts, with Surat, Vadodara, Banaskantha, Ahmedabad and Rajkot having more number of such children.
Sources in the department say that children from other states like Bihar, Orissa and neighboring Rajasthan and Maharashtra also migrate to Gujarat in search of livelihood. Child labor in hazardous occupation in the state, though, is reported negligible. It is more prevalent in zari and zardozi works, processing houses, goldsmith shops, cloth markets, domestic work, eateries, road-side dhabas and restaurants.
Middle East: Child labor: Another symptom of failed governance in the region
By The Daily Star
They are the shame of an entire species, a shocking but somehow largely ignored reminder of humankind's capacity for inhumanity: Around the world, tens and possibly hundreds of millions of children are put to work each day. Robbed of the innocence of youth, paid a pittance and prevented from gaining the education that might pull them out of poverty, the profound powerlessness of their status also makes them uniquely vulnerable to hazardous working conditions that expose them to deadly injuries and/or sicknesses. Governments have signed treaties and passed laws prohibiting or least regulating such toil by every society's most precious assets, but the exploitation continues.
The problem is particularly acute in some parts of the Middle East, a bitter irony considering the reputation Arabs have developed for doting on children. Poor parenting is obviously a contributing factor, but that itself is just another symptom of the real culprit: failed governance.
Across the region, the consistently poor implementation of ill-considered policies by dysfunctional states creates unbalanced economies characterized by large numbers of families that cannot make ends meet. In Yemen, for example, where one expects to find poor people in abundance, there are even more than there should be. In Saudi Arabia, whose oil wealth should have made economic deprivation obsolete, entire sections of the population wallow in misery. Sudan, which meets all the physical requirements to serve as a breadbasket for the Middle East, cannot feed its own population, let alone anyone else's. Right here in Lebanon, supposedly at the vanguard of Arab progressivism, gaps between rich are poor are broad and broadening.
Wherever such inequities exist, some families will inevitably feel that they have no choice but to put their children to work, frequently in appalling conditions which they are too ignorant to recognize and/or too powerless to change. Mounting inflation has exacerbated the problem in the past couple of years, and since many commodity costs lag behind oil prices that are near all-time highs, the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. More youngsters will no doubt be maimed in auto-mechanic shops, poisoned at paint factories, and forced to pay - in cash or by subjecting themselves to sexual abuse - for the "privilege" of begging in certain neighborhoods.
Such travesties are not unique to the Middle East. Indeed, many other parts of the developing world face similar challenges, often with even more disastrous results. But there is no pride to be taken in being able to point out that one's country is outperforming Bangladesh or that one's region is better off than sub-Saharan Africa.
Some factors are largely beyond the ability of governments to control, but most leaderships in this part of the world have not even begun to try, choosing instead to allow the resources at their disposal to be apportioned by the basest of means for the crassest of ends. Their time is coming, and few will miss them, especially not the children they have betrayed.
Ghana: GES intensifies the fight against child labor
Forty-three child labor clubs with membership of 1,500 have so far been formed in schools throughout the country by the Ghana Education Service (GES), to promote and involve children in creating awareness of worst forms of child labor.
Mrs Josephine Kufour-Duah, a Director at the Basic Education Division of the GES in Accra, who disclosed this, said some drop-out children have been enrolled in school, while those above school-going age were placed in apprenticeships.
She was speaking at a three-day “Supporting Children’s Rights through the Arts and the Media (SCREAM)” training of trainers workshops for forty-five participants selected from Volta, Eastern and Greater Accra Regions, in Kumasi on Monday.
Under the theme,” Strengthening Children’s Participation to Fight against Child Labor through SCREAM Methodology and Tools”, the workshop was organized by the GES in collaboration with the International Labor Organization (ILO) and International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC).
Mrs Kufour-Duah, who is the National Co-ordinator of the SCREAM methodology programme, explained that it was a social mobilization initiative to assist teachers, educators, social partners and other key players, by equipping them with awareness and sensitization programmes, to raise their skills to enable them play a major role in activities to fight against child labor.
She noted that, children were very forceful and powerful advocates to their peers, parents and their communities, and that their involvement in the child labor campaign was crucial to achieve the desired objectives.
Mrs Kufour-Duah said adequate awareness would be created in children, using specific modules to provoke their mental and emotional level to the child labor menace.
The recognition of children’s efforts, she indicated, was considered very appropriate, adding that, “it is in conformity with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child”.
The National Co-ordinator stated that, children have the right to participate in decisions that affected them and must therefore be encourage and empowered to play meaningful roles in the crusade against the worst form of child labor.
Mr Joseph Clement Amoah, Deputy Ashanti Regional Director of Education lauded the programme but indicated, however that, greater success would only be achieved if the participants who worked directly with the children imparted the knowledge acquired to them.
Ghana: Presidential Candidate Nduom Impresses Students
28 July 2008, By Frederick Asiamah
Accra
Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, presidential candidate for the Convention People's Party
(CPP), appears to have the confidence of students in the country as the only man with the desired policy on education. This follows the endorsement of his educational policy by a cross-section of students who attended the Educational Conference 2008, held recently in Accra by the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS).
Dr Nduom promised he would establish standardized educational institutions whereby well-equipped complexes comprising kindergarten, primary, junior high and senior high schools would be all housed on one compound. He also promised free education for all pupils from KG to SHS. "We'll make it not just free but also compulsory," he stated.
That, coupled with an assurance to emphasise technical-skill-based training appeared to impress many of the students. Mr Paul Nkrumah, a Level 400 student of the Institute of Professional Studies (IPS), Legon, was of the opinion that the CPP policy was what the country needed. He said there was the need for the expansion of facilities, standardization of training and less expensive education.
Sammy Obeng, a former student of St. Aquinas Senior High, Accra, saw it more from a point of personal commitment. He said Dr Nduom "did not only present a party policy but demonstrated much personal belief and commitment in what he put forward."
The conference dubbed "An Encounter with the Presidential Candidates," was supposed to bring together flag bearers for the four political parties with representation in Parliament namely the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the People's National Convention (PNC) and the CPP. However, only Dr Nduom and Dr Edward Mahama of the PNC made personal appearances. Nana Akufo-Addo (NPP) and Prof John Atta-Mills (NDC) were represented by respective members of their campaign teams.
Demonstrating his "confidence in the youth of Ghana," Dr Mahama asked Mr Atik Mohammed to present the party's policy to the students. Mr Mohammed said, "Education by all accounts, is the most direct way out of individual and national poverty" and the PNC has spelt out in its manifesto a number of interventions for education.
He seemingly agreed with Dr Nduom of the CPP on the need for free second cycle education when he said, "The PNC still maintains the fact that the Senior Secondary School or Senior High School as it is now called shall be added to the basic category of our educational strata and accordingly be made free."
Apart from that, he said the PNC will introduce a new subject called "Thinking" or "Elementary Logic" at the basic level. "The motive is to make our children more creative and be able to invent or originate ideas about things in their immediate environment which ultimately will set the foundation for the 'self-reliance' revolution we intend to wage."
At the tertiary level, Mr Mohammed said the PNC will establish "within five years" at least one university in each region with specific areas of specialty. As part of this, some polytechnics will be upgraded to Universities.
On behalf of the NDC, Ms Hannah Tetteh said in a 22-page presentation that "The NDC has a firm commitment to social democratic principles. At the heart of this is quality and affordable education for all."
She said an NDC government would ensure that no child walked for more than three
kilometers to school, by establishing more basic schools in under- served communities. Also, "The shift system and the multi-grade teaching will be abolished in all public schools including at the level of JSS."
Besides, an NDC administration shall make conscious effort to ensure gender parity at all levels of education especially at the basic level. And all school buildings to be put up would be disability compliant with teachers quarters attached.
According to Mrs Tetteh-Kpodah, the number of secondary schools would be increased by at least 300 in order to guarantee universal access to secondary education. "The previous NDC Government emphasised the provision of 'non-boarding facilities', under which attending SSS (or SHS) did not necessarily mean boarding school, and therefore established a large number of Senior Secondary day-schools. This policy will be continued in order to increase the access to secondary education."
She also said the NDC shall establish at least two more public universities to increase access to tertiary education: a University of Health and Allied Sciences at Ho, with a campus at Hohoe, and a University of Energy and Natural Resources at Sunyani.
"We shall not pursue a policy of full cost recovery Government will continue to absorb the greater percentage of the cost of tertiary education and institute scholarships and bursaries for high performing and needy students."
Dr Arthur Kennedy of the NPP said the school feeding programme shall be expanded to cover all schools under a Nana Addo administration. He also promised a free and compulsory secondary education. Also, an NPP government led by Nana Addo will provide public universities in each region "as soon as possible."
Of child trafficking and child labor in Malawi: Tobacco estates biggest culprits of child labor in Malawi
David Mkwambisi, PhD 28 July, 2008
Over the last few months, we have been involved in several studies on child labor, child trafficking and other issues affecting orphans and vulnerable children in Malawi. Covering almost three quarters of the country, we have a larger picture of what child labor is at national level. The stories we have uncovered are so pathetic, the conditions pitiable and wretched, the work involved is abject.
I stand on this forum to share with the reader the stories as per the studies, the strategies and programmes undertaken by individuals and organizations. I will then bring to the attention of policy makers what is lacking on our agenda before suggesting some strategies that we need to embark on to assuage these sufferings.
Children as young as 10 years are engaged as child laborers mostly in tobacco estates in Mzimba, Rumphi, Mangochi, Kasungu and Mchinji. These future leaders of Malawi are trafficked from Mulanje, Thyolo, Lilongwe, Dedza, Salima and Ntcheu. While both girls and boys are trafficked for child labor, boys are preferred for agricultural work, while girls are engaged for prostitution and domestic work. Boys are mostly preferred.
While there is both internal and external trafficking, internal trafficking is more prominent than external. Externally, children are trafficked to other countries particularly Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique.
Almost in all studies, we have noted that poverty is the main push factor leading to child labor followed by cheap labor. Most of the children are Chewas, Yaos and Lomwes. The children are trafficked mainly though public transport and they use both formal and informal routes.
The sad thing is that there is no proper recording of children trafficked for child labor due to several factors including a deficient in technical and financial capacity. The other weakness at national scale is that there is no clear policy on child labor or child trafficking and those promoting this modern slavery have not been punished enough.
In actual fact 69% of responses indicated that culprits have not been punished. In Mangochi, we found young girls working as tobacco graders, while at one estate a young boy was herding goats during the day and worked as a security officer at night. During estates visits, it was even pathetic to find children hiding under tobacco heaps, failing to breathe as they did not want to return to their homes because of poverty.
In Mchinji, children told us of miseries they went through by herding cattle for three farmers without a single pay in nine months. A girl as young as 12 was pregnant at one tobacco estate at the same time taking care of other three orphaned siblings.
Stories from Mzimba district labor office are even worse with children and parents dumped in forests without pay after working at an estate. Children are walking long distances without food or proper accommodation.
The worse thing is that those trafficked to these remote estates do not have the opportunity to access primary education or even formal education. In actual fact, in these remote areas, there is no civilized life that can promote education rather than the slavery promoted by these selfish farmers.
On the lighter note, several organizations are working on child labor and child trafficking. For example, the programme funded by ILO/IPEC could be the largest at national level. In addition, projects funded by UNICEF, Malawi Red Cross, United Nation High Commission for Refugees and other donors are also doing a commendable job to reduce child labor. In general the projects are withdrawing child laborers who are in turn rehabilitated to return to school.
Some are promoting income generating activities among children who are older to return to schools. Several community based programmes are supporting vulnerable households with IGAs. Children are receiving scholastic materials. Others are provided with vocational training in carpentry, brick laying, tailoring, and home economics among others.
However, there is no commitment from the policy makers in particular members of Parliament, local leaders and chiefs. In actual fact in Mangochi districts, withdrawn children are taken to schools that are understaffed. In one case, a primary school of standard 1 to 8 had only one teacher or two if the wife is involved. The wife had to do her normal household chores, farming and teach. In many cases children were given assignments that took three months to be marked. This is promoting school drop outs. It should also be pointed out here that several cultural practices are promoting child labor as young people after initiation are regarded as adults and encouraged to get married. In Malawi as long as parent have consented on marriage, that is accepted.
These are affecting the positive outcome of the programmes aiming to reduce child labor. It is even pathetic to note that the Tenancy Bill that was developed to reduce such evils has not received the required attention from our parliamentarians. May be because they are estate owners themselves.
It is pitiable to note that such issues have failed to be discussed with sober minds at cabinet as well as national scale. While I do appreciate that there is now a budget allocation on child labor activities at national level, the money is not enough. Today District Social Welfare Officers who are poorly paid are using the same resources to repatriate, accommodate and even feed the victims.
Police officers are walking long distances or cycle to assist the communities on these issues. Communities are very supportive, but they lack several materials to meet their targets. What is the problem with our parliament when you consider the sort of debates at national level?
Today, we want to sign an MOU to make sure that the already fragile economy does not collapse. As a country we think SADC will guide us into development and solving our social and yet dim-witted issues.
Politicians that we entrusted to develop our rural areas are busy driving in cities and partying all the time. Leaders who could help communities reduce poverty spend the whole day debating on section 65 for years and years. Parliamentarians who have been in the house for over three decade should now consider the pride of the country rather than their own personal benefits.
Do we really understand that it take a second to destroy a country? Is there something we can show on development in our constituencies? Is promoting football, the only strategy to reduce child labor? Who will provide school materials? Who will build schools and health centers? Who will promote good agricultural programmes at community level, who will write proposal to secure funding on education? Is there any chance that we can solve this futility next year during general elections? Let those who want to develop this country do so without any disturbance from imbecile leaders. MPs should work with their people to address some of these problems.
Let the government work with the opposition to reduce poverty.. Failing to educate children is breeding killers.
Failing to protect our girls is promoting HIV and Aids. This will increase unwanted pregnancies, early marriages, prostitution and even affect the future of the whole nation. I can not understand that our children should be contributing to the economies of other countries through slavery. I can not understand that today one teacher should be teaching classes 1 to 8. It is even to no purpose that a primary school can finish a term without supervision from district officials.
In conclusion, Malawi is full of child laborers. These children are supposed to be in school and be protected by the constitution. They are working in very bad conditions and this will require a multi-stakeholder approach. This approach will require the leadership of our MPs who are currently on a political break of selfishness. The country has no strategy or logical framework to combat child trafficking and child labor. There is no collaboration or networking despite several great works done by individuals and organizations. The country has a weak data and recording management systems and even guiding principles are not developed.
The government could express more commitment by approving some of the bills and policies aimed at reducing this problem. Bold and new anti trafficking legislation is required and consider the introduction of child registration as a priority for child protection. Capacity building for law enforcers is required including those in immigration and courts. Let the communities be involved including the children themselves in programme planning and policy formulation. Referral networks by stakeholders could be enhanced at national and community level.
Finally, the President, cabinet, heads of department could take a reading role in raising awareness on this social problem. Otherwise, we will have 6,500,000 child laborers rather than Section 65. See my tears.
Zambia: ILO: Child labor, HIV/AIDS form vicious cycle
LUSAKA, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The International Labor Organization (ILO) has said that child labor and HIV/AIDS were creating a vicious cycle in sub-Saharan Africa.
Zambia Daily Mail quoted country coordinator for the ILO program on the elimination of child labor George Mubita as saying here recently that some boys and girls affected by HIV/AIDS end up in child labor and become vulnerable to HIV/AIDS infection.
He said the ILO program attempts to cut the vicious cycle by promoting development and poverty eradication programs in sub-Saharan Africa. Mubita said the child labor was in part worsened by HIV/AIDS but some policy makers were not aware about this link.
Over the past decade, most African countries had initiated programs to enhance universal education as part of the strategy to achieve education for all and millennium development goals on children and HIV/AIDS.
He said initially, communities did not understand the relationship between child labor and HIV/AIDS.
Awareness was raised through sensitization but some people still had little knowledge about HIV/AIDS and child labor programs, he said. "The rapid assessment report on HIV/AIDS and child labor provides vital information for policy makers, planners and the public whose lack of appreciation of the relationship between HIV/AIDS and child labor was inhibiting their ability to deal with the problem in Zambia," Mubita was quoted as saying.
PENALTIES against child labor are not deterrent enough in fighting the practice in the country, the Minister of Public Service, Labor and Social Welfare, Cde Nicholas Goche has said. In a speech read on his behalf by his Secretary, Cde Lancaster Museka at a
belated occasion to mark the World Day Against Child Labor held in Harare yesterday, Cde Goche called upon all stakeholders involved in fighting for children's rights to come up with effective ways of eliminating child labor. "In the fight against child labor, it is clear that current interventions are not adequate. It is therefore incumbent upon us to find other viable means of complementing the measures as expressed in our legislation and the various international instruments on the rights of the child," Cde Goche said.
Currently, in terms of the Labor Act, it is a criminal offence to employ a person under the age of 15 for any duties. The Act further makes it an offence to employ persons under the age of 18 to perform any work that is likely to affect the person's health, safety or
morals. Violation of these provisions is punishable by a fine or a custodial
sentence. Cde Goche said Government was committed to stopping child labor and
eliminate its worst forms. The commemoration coincided with the official launch of the survey on the worst forms of child labor.
The survey is part of a project involving Government and its partners aimed at finding effective ways to eliminate child labor in the country. The survey, which is expected to start on August 12 to September 17 this year in all provinces, is the first part of the coalition's response to child labor. "The first phase is concerned with investigating the nature and extent of the worst forms of child labor," Cde Goche said.
Action to identify loopholes on worst cases against child labor will form the second phase of the project which is expected to run for three years starting in December this year.
Cde Goche called on Zimbabweans to co-operate with the enumerators who will be conducting the survey, as this will assist Government in formulating programmes to eradicate child labor.
"May I thus appeal to all stakeholders to co-operate with enumerators who are going to visit your homes, workplaces and even shopping centers countrywide, conducting interviews with working children and community leaders."
Speaking at the same occasion, United Nations representative in Zimbabwe, director of the International Labor Organization, Professor Tayo Fashoyin said education is the right response to child labor.
He said most victims of child labor are rural children who have limited access to education.
Other senior officials who attended the occasion were, Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture, Dr Stephen Mahere, Harare Mayor, Mr Muchadeyi Masunda, Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and the Employer's Confederation of Zimbabwe representatives.
South East Asian Education Ministers to address Reaching the Un reached children in EFA by 2015, Bangkok, Thailand
2 – 4 September 2008
In the 43rd SEAMEO Council Conference that was held back-to-back with the 3rd ASEAN Education Ministers Meeting in March 2008 in Kuala Lumpur, issues on access, equity and quality of education were discussed, among other education policies and initiatives in Southeast Asia. An important highlight of the conference was a policy forum on bridging the education gap with a discussion on the progress of Education for All (EFA) in the ASEAN countries. UNESCO presented key policies, strategies and recommendations towards meeting EFA made by Southeast Asian countries and EFA partners at the Southeast Asia EFA Mid-Term Policy Review Conference in February 2008. According to UNESCO, national assessments of EFA progress conducted by countries show significant achievements but also highlighted many issues that must be addressed urgently if Education for All is to be met by 2015.
In a Joint Statement, the 3rd ASEAN Education Ministers Meeting raised the concern in attaining the EFA goals as follows:
“On future cooperation in education, the Ministers agreed that the focus should be on implementing Education For All (EFA) by 2015. In this regard, the Ministers tasked the SEAMEO and the ASEAN Secretariat to organize a workshop on the theme of “reaching the un reached” to share best practices among ASEAN Member States.”
In response to this, the SEAMEO Secretariat is collaborating with the ASEAN Secretariat and UNESCO Bangkok to bring together the 11 Southeast Asian Countries to identify potential mutual activities and projects to reach the un reached and accelerate the attainment of the EFA Goals in Southeast Asia.
The result of this discussion is a proposal for SEAMEO and ASEAN Secretariat to collaborate with UNESCO in developing a programme/project where ASEAN countries could work together to attain the EFA goals by 2015. This initiative should focus on themes such as “Reaching the Un reached” and “Inclusive Education”. Acknowledging the importance of this event Mr. Kailash Satyarthi, President, Global Campaign for Education appealed to the governments in the region to focus in generating more credible data on the children missing out of schools and to address in the national efforts on how to combat the very large scale problem of young girls who are victims of trafficking for commercial and sexual abuse, and domestic work.
Cecilia Flores-Oebanda, President of the Visayan Forum, Philippines and the Regional Coordinator of the Global March Against Child Labor, said that this forum should demonstrate openness to sharing and developing collaborative intent between the government and NGO's. She said that the forum should bring on board the civil society to share concrete successful strategies in addressing the problems of the children that are hardest to reach.
Global March Against Child Labor has been reiterating that the EFA Goals by 2015 cannot be achieved if the Governments fail to account for the children missing out of the classrooms in their national plans and strategies on EFA. It has also argued to the donors of the EFA to seek value addition to their investments in education by insisting the EFA plans and particularly the EFA FTI countries do essentially first do scoping of the children that are missing out of the classrooms and identify their special needs.
Here is a unique opportunity to help rescue, rehabilitate and educate children engaged in the worst forms of child labor, this academic year. Please consider giving a one-time donation of $300 to make possible the raid and rescue of 10 children from forced labor in India! With a 'recurring donation' of $55/month, you can provide 1 child rescued from forced labor with food, shelter, education and vocational training in a rehabilitation center.
Or, send a child from the brick kilns or shoe factories to school in Pakistan. With a 'recurring gift' of only $33/month (or a one-time donation of $396/year), you will provide a child with school supplies, textbooks, a daily meal, and a uniform! Do you know that some Americans spend more than $30/month on dyeing their hair?! With a generous recurring donation of $132/month, you can support 1 teacher of these children.
Please share this letter with friends or family members who might be interested in donating to this very just cause.
Global March remains the most recognisable global alliance against child labour and for universal education, but our profile in Europe has diminished in recent years. The Sofia consultation concluded that we need to adapt to the new legal, constitutional, political and economic realities of Europe; to coordinate more effectively across borders; and, in some cases, to rebuild national networks that have become weak or even inactive. The GM International Council and the ITUC - as the key international and pan-European trade union constituent of the Global March - wish to support a stronger regional alliance between NGOs and trade unions that can deliver a reinvigorated programme of work.
Agenda of the Meeting
To establish a new Pan-European/Euro-Mediterranean structure including all 51 states of the ILO’s European Region (EU and non-EU members; the Commonwealth of Independent States, Georgia and Turkmenistan; and Turkey) plus Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. Nothing prevents us from seeking to enlarge our Euro-Mediterranean reach if we wish. We noted the benefits of continued sub-regional coordination and the need for more effective national coordination among effective and active member organisations.
To establish a permanent office in Brussels (or possibly the Netherlands).
