ENEWS: Tea, tobacco, cotton growers main culprits on child labour

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

Tea, tobacco, cotton growers main culprits on child labour
by Staff Reporter/Financial Gazette
Source: Panafrican News Agency, Thursday, 11/11/99

Harare - Zimbabwean tea, tobacco and cotton growers are the main
perpetrators of child labour in the country and were found to account for
more than 80 percent of all under-age workers in the country, says a
survey released this week.

The results of the survey, conducted by the Employers' Confederation of
Zimbabwe (EMCOZ) at the beginning of this year, showed that more than 84
percent of under-age workers were employed in the commercial agriculture
sector.

The large-scale commercial tea sector employed the largest number of
children, accounting for about 52,1 percent of all working children,
followed by commercial tobacco farmers who employed 32 percent of the
child labourforce.

The EMCOZ survey also found that "family labour", which is mainly used on
cotton farms, accounted for another 16 percent of the under-age workers.

The survey, in which a sample comprising 700 children between the ages of
five and 16 who are employed at farms was interviewed, said more than 56
percent of the children were engaged as contract labour compared to eight
percent who worked fulltime on the large-scale commercial farms.

EMCOZ president Joshua Nyoka said the government and other stakeholders
should come up with strategies to address the problems that drive children
into child labour.

It is estimated that, due to deepening poverty among Zimbabweans, the
country has more than 300 000 children under the age of 16 who are
employed as cheap labour in various sectors of the economy.

Most of the children are employed on commercial farms where their parents
are also labourers.

Nyoka said: "I am pleased to say that our government has taken steps to
ratify the convention on the worst forms of child labour and its
recommendation to effect this is before Parliament."

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that about 250
million children in the world between the ages of five and 14 provide
cheap labour in factories and on farms, and about half of them work
fulltime and in hazardous conditions.

The ILO conventions seek to outlaw the employment of children under the
age of 18 and various measures have over the years been suggested to stop
the practice, including the introduction of penal sanctions against the
perpetrators.

Zimbabwe has not been spared from criticism by some human rights groups
because of its record of abusing international child labour conventions.

The United States, one of Zimbabwe's main trading partners, has in the
past even considered slapping sanctions against Zimbabwe, particularly
targeting the flagship tobacco industry.

EMCOZ this week said Zimbabwe could only ignore world trends against child
labour at its own peril.

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