89th Session, 5 - 21 June 2001
Special High-level Session on the Launch of the Time Bound Programme on the Worst Forms of Child Labour in the Republic of El Salvador, the Kingdom of Nepal and the United Republic of Tanzania
12 June 2001
Address
by His Excellency Mr. Benjamin Mkapa, |
Let me first congratulate Ms. A. Sto. Tomas for the honour and trust placed in her to preside over this important Conference and I assure her of the full support and cooperation of the Tanzanian delegation.
I had occasion in my own country to visit with parents of children we have rescued from employment, and I have welcomed the opportunity to see the faces of parents on film of children who have been rescued from child employment as part of the study of our implementation of IPEC.
Watching the faces of those parents reminds me of the wise counsel of the ancient philosopher, Confucius, who said, “If your plan is for a year, plant rice; if your plan is for a decade, plant trees; if your plan is for a lifetime, educate children.”
As nations, we must plan for more than a lifetime, and we must better educate more of our children. Yet I wonder what the parents of the children I have seen think they could do about this? Perhaps they are too poor to plan or too poor to care. For them any child is a source of income. For them, tomorrow is too far away. They have to live today. For them returns on investment in the education of their children’s physical and psychological growth are too distant in the future, so distant they can hardly focus on them.
That is why I am so grateful for the invitation and the opportunity to speak to this Conference about children and about the worst forms of child labour. I do feel confident that, with political will in poor countries and with requisite support and partnerships between rich and poor countries, we can now address the scourge of the worst forms of child labour.
Child labour deprives children of opportunities for schooling and, at the very least, it puts on their frail shoulders the burdens of both schooling and work. Child labour can also enslave them, separating them from the security of their families.
We are gathered here because we share the recognition that child labour is detestable and a major challenge of our time. Cruelty to children aside, child labour is a negation of our common humanity. It is an insult to the dignity of the human person and a veritable waste of human capital.
Poverty is the major factor in child labour, but child labour has other dimensions, other causes and other drivers as well. Sometimes child labour is ingrained in the social, cultural and economic structures of societies. For this reason, the best way to address it is through comprehensive and holistic approaches geared towards a clear national policy and plan of action and anchored in the nation’s social and economic development. Today’s launch of the Time-Bound Programme on the Worst Forms of Child Labour should inspire us to do so. It is gratifying that the new Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182), enjoys the extensive support of governments and other stakeholders.
It was approved unanimously by governments, workers and employers, reflecting a solid political consensus for urgent and immediate action. The time to act therefore is now.
Clearly civilized society should not countenance things like child slavery, forced child labour, child trafficking, debt bondage, serfdom, child prostitution, child pornography, child soldiers, and all other forms of hazardous and exploitative work by children.
I am here to reaffirm my own political will and commitment, as well as that of my Government, to do all that is in our power to fight all such worst forms of child labour.
Let me briefly describe the child labour situation in the United Republic of Tanzania, in the hope that it may well substantially reflect the situation in many least developed countries.
Preliminary data from the first round of the 2000-01 child labour survey suggests that 4.1 million, out of an estimated 10.2 million children aged between five and 14 years in my country, are not attending school. Instead, most of them are to be found in different types of work situations. There are several factors that contribute to this situation in the United Republic of Tanzania. The first, and perhaps the most significant one, is poverty.
Low incomes have made it difficult for poor parents to meet the basic needs of their children, including the basic need for education. African societies used to pride themselves in the social security offered by the extended family in the village. We even have a proverb which states “it takes a whole village to raise a child”. Yet the extended family is currently under severe strain. Economic hardships are forcing parents to focus on the nuclear family only. As a result there is a rapid increase in the number of abandoned and neglected children, including HIV/AIDS orphans, who eventually run away from their homes in search of work.
Secondly, the primary school syllabus does not impart necessary functional skills for those that complete a basic education. Not surprisingly, therefore, some parents and children consider education useless, and prefer instead to make an early entrance into the unskilled labour market.
Thirdly, African societies find themselves somewhere between traditionalism and modernity and this compounds the stresses that economic reforms impose on families. As a result dysfunctional families are emerging, characterized by higher rates of divorce, teenage pregnancies, children born out of wedlock, irresponsible parents, and large families all contributing to sending more children out on the streets, or prematurely to the labour market.
Fourthly, there is the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which tends to affect young parents the most.
The death of breadwinners or the inability to work due to illness creates severe hardships for children. In the United Republic of Tanzania, we are approaching the one million mark in terms of HIV/AIDS orphans. No traditional extended family safety net can take care of such a huge burden and this increases the incidence of child labour — including its worst forms such as commercial sex.
Fifthly, in the early stages, structural adjustment and economic reforms tend to benefit urban centres at the expense of rural areas. The deterioration of living conditions in rural areas in relation to urban areas pushes many children and youth to urban areas in search of elusive jobs and a better life.
Sixthly, lingering and outdated cultural practices such as early or arranged marriages force girls to drop out of school. Sexual abuse and early pregnancies all contribute to causing severe and lasting psychological, mental, social and physical damage — all of which are detrimental to children’s development into responsible adults.
Close to 50 per cent of households in the United Republic of Tanzania live below the poverty line; and, as usual, poverty is more prevalent and pronounced in rural areas, making rural development and transformation a key element in the war on poverty and child labour. The relationship has also been established between family size and poverty and hence child labour. There is much work to be done in promoting planned parenthood. And part of the difficulty in doing so is poverty itself because in a poor family the chances of children dying from malnutrition or disease are very high. For that reason parents take out an insurance by producing more children. Poor parents also generally have less access to family planning services. There are also cultural and religious factors. I am often reminded of Indira Gandhi’s remarks, the late Prime Minister of India, when she said that to bear children was considered not only a religious blessing but also an investment. The greater their number, some Indians reasoned, the more alms they could beg. Relating or translating this observation to the situation in the United Republic of Tanzania, we can say: “The greater the number of children, some Tanzanians reason, the more child labour and income they can bring”.
Understanding the links between fertility, poverty and child labour are important for the elimination of poverty in the long term. Not only do younger children from large families die more but also those that survive are more likely to start working earlier and less likely to attend school. This also puts them at the risk of starting to bear children of their own at a young age — and sending these children out to work rather than to school. And so the vicious circle of poverty turns around and around. I am here to plead earnestly for the political will for concerted efforts and for cooperation between rich and poor countries to break this vicious circle.
We, in the United Republic of Tanzania, have learned from experience that questions of poverty and of child labour cannot be addressed without a strong economic base. In the late 1960s and 1970s, we had made impressive gains in social service delivery, attaining almost universal primary education by the early 1980s; but they were gains that were increasingly dependent on external aid for their sustainability rather than on a strong and growing domestic economy. As a result, the combination of declining aid flows, on the one hand, and long periods of economic stagnation, on the other, caused deep erosions in our social service delivery system. We could neither maintain the infrastructure not fully fund the necessary supplies. In the face of rapid increases in the size of the domestic labour market, a stagnating economy could also not generate productive employment. For the last 15 years we have embarked on a painful but necessary process of economic reform and structural adjustment. Lean budgets have left little room for investments in social service delivery. In addition, there has been retrenchment in both the public and private sectors, as well as the introduction of cost-recovery measures in education, health and water, with prices we had to pay before we could begin to reverse the economic decline and create the foundations for a sustainably growing economy — an economy that can reduce poverty and child labour.
The Tanzanian Government joined the global campaign against child labour in 1994 when it signed the Memorandum of Understanding with the ILO and started implementing a national programme of action of child labour with the support of the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC). Political will for the implementation of the programme of action has been strong and firm. Together with other social partner institutions and NGOs, we have registered strong public awareness about and support for the fight against child labour in the United Republic of Tanzania. In November 1998, we ratified the Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138), that sets the minimum age for non-hazardous work at 14 years and the minimum age for hazardous work at 18 years. A draft national policy on child labour is being prepared and is in its final stages.
The United Republic of Tanzania is one of three countries that have made a commitment to implementing a Time-Bound Programme to achieve the effective and sustainable elimination of the worst forms of child labour. We are deeply grateful by this selection and honour and we are very grateful to the founders of this programme.
We have created in the United Republic of Tanzania a conducive environment for this purpose with the following aspirations. Firstly, we have shown and continue to uphold a strong political will and commitment for policy reforms. Secondly, we have developed linkages between child labour actions and efforts to provide universal quality basic education and to alleviate poverty in the context of our poverty reduction strategy. Thirdly, we have developed innovative partnerships with the international organizations, multilateral financial institutions and civil society, with the aim of fostering economic growth and improving income distribution. Fourthly, we are building capacity to put in motion rapid response measures for prevention, withdrawal and rehabilitation of the victims of the worst forms of child labour. Fifthly, we are undertaking social mobilization and public campaigns for addressing the root causes of the problem. And sixthly, we are developing frameworks and processes for public accountability.
The United Republic of Tanzania is strongly committed to the elimination of child labour in general and its worst forms in particular. We have participated in the IPEC Programme since 1995 and registered significant achievements. This political commitment is underpinned by a reinvigorated endeavour to improve basic education and to fight poverty.
We are also mobilizing support to make sure our programme is truly comprehensive in its coverage and scope, with the aim of eradicating the worst forms of child labour by the year 2010 in line with the targets of our National Development Provision 2025 and our poverty eradication strategy.
The following are our strategic programme aspirations. Firstly, we shall strive to safeguard children’s rights by implementing the Education Act, the minimum age legislation and measures regarding hazardous work in line with the relevant Conventions. We shall also increase public awareness campaigns on the consequences of child labour, particularly the worst kinds, and social mobilization in support of their elimination. Secondly, we shall promote education by addressing access and quality issues, including reforms that increase the relevance of curricular content to the local economy. This will also include vocational training schemes to cater to the needs of child labourers and school drop-outs. In addition, we have decided that beginning with the coming academic year, primary education will be free in our country.
Thirdly, we shall reduce the opportunity cost of education by efficiently targeting poverty reduction interventions for the most vulnerable groups. The elimination of child labour will feature as an important strategy in poverty eradication and be integrated into the programmes indicators.
Fourthly, we shall address the social, demographic and gender dimensions of child labour, including family size issues and the implications of the increasing incidence of orphans due to HIV/AIDS.
Fifthly, we aim to create a specially targeted programme to protect the most vulnerable groups, in particular children at risk of ending up in prostitution, abusive domestic work, mining or commercial agriculture.
Child labour presents a serious challenge to the courage and imagination of nations and the spirit of cooperation of the international community. The victims are not just a few thousand, but several tens of millions of children throughout the world — irrespective of race, colour or creed, who are exploited at work or are employed under conditions that seriously jeopardize their health, safety, education, morals, dignity and self-respect. International cooperation in this matter should not be seen as window dressing to satisfy the curiosity or appease the anxieties of national or international public opinion; rather it should be a means of finding sustainable solutions to this serious problem. International cooperation should also give priority to supporting interventions that protect very young children and girls from economic exploitation because of their greater vulnerability.
An African proverb says “Dogs do not actually prefer bones to meat, it is just that no one ever gives them meat”.
It is not that Africans prefer their children to be exposed to the extreme forms of child labour that I have recounted. We make a call for joint action, an affirmation of the need for external support — for without such support many parents will not have an option to child labour. Working together under the Time-Bound Programme, we can give both parents and their children an option. Yes! It can be done, but only if there is sufficient external support and partnership. If rich industrialized countries want to help Africa effectively and they engage the continent for the long haul, let them heed the words of Confucius and help us by investing in the future of our children through education, nutrition, health and skills development. For Africa’s future belongs to Africa’s children. They must survive, they must be well-nourished, they must get a sound and solid education, they must inherit a growing, broad-based and sustainable economy.
Almost 80 years ago a poet from my then less-developed country echoed what should be our relationship with our children; and I would like to take the liberty to quote him. “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself. They came through you, but not from you, and though they were with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow which you cannot visit not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you, for life goes not backwards nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.”
I am here to plead for the empowerment of countries like mine, as we seek to end child labour and set our children both free and on a firm foundation for the future they deserve. A future they will be equipped mentally and physically to build for themselves.
Updated by HK. Approved by RH. Last update: 13 June 2001.