October 14, 2003, 06:30
Regional experts say millions of African children working on commercial farms are at high risk of death and injury and governments must act to reduce the number of child labourers.
About 70% of the world's 250 million child labourers work on farms and it is common to find children employed on coffee, tea, tobacco, sugar cane, cotton and other plantations in Africa, a child labour conference in Ethiopia heard yesterday.
"Child labour in commercial agriculture is full of potential risks...associated with machinery, pesticide and chemical exposure and injuries related to heavy lifting and fatigue," said George Ruigu, the deputy director of the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) East Africa office. "The long-term goal is the withdrawal of all children carrying out hazardous work in commercial plantations," he told the Addis Ababa meeting.
Poverty is the culprit
Sammy Nyambari, the director of African Regional Labour Administration Centre, said poverty was fuelling child labour. "Many countries in Africa have witnessed stagnated economic growth in the last decade, which has pushed a lot of families into poverty creating a propensity for child labour," he said. "I call on African governments to devise a holistic child labour policy, which is not only necessary but a prerequisite. It has to be child labour specific and child friendly."
The ILO said it had launched a three-year programme to withdraw and rehabilitate child labourers in farms in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia by the end of 2003.
The rehabilitated children are given access to education and their families receive an alternative income where necessary. The ILO, the UN labour agency, also hopes to prevent 15 000 children from becoming labourers by the end of the year.
The conference is expected to draw up a policy framework to combat child labour in agriculture. Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe are represented. - Reuters
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