Children who become the family caretaker [Archives:2008/1130/Reportage]

Nisreen Shadad
For Yemen Times
Children whose parents either are mentally or physically ill often end up dropping out of school to support their family.

Girls stay at home to look after sick parents while boys are compelled to work to provide the family's basic needs. According to Mona Salem, director of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor's Child Labor Unit, “child laborers” specifically refers to those children between ages 5 and 15 who work.

There are no recent figures regarding the number of children working to support their families. In fact, the only field study on child labor in Yemen was conducted in 1999 and 2000 by the Ministry of the Social Affairs and Labor in cooperation with the International Labor Organization, or ILO, and focused only on child laborers between ages 10 and 15.

“The last study revealed the number of working children as approximately 400, regardless of the reasons leading them to work,” Salem noted, indicating that the unit will announce more current and accurate statistics on child labor in Yemen next month following an updated survey.

The ILO, which monitors labor conditions worldwide, will assist the Social Affairs and Labor Ministry with the new survey, which “will display more information about the reasons these children work,” Salem added.

Eleven-year-old Emad Al-Raimi is just one example of a Yemeni child who dropped out of school to wander the streets collecting money to feed his family, selling tissues and bottled water for two years. He also begged to provide his two little sisters the means to attend school and complete their education.

Mohammed Al-Rawhani, a social worker at the Childhood Safety Center in Sana'a, noted that Al-Raimi's parents were satisfied with the income their son brought home every day, adding, “They neither asked him where he got this money nor why he returned home so late.”

A policeman brought Al-Raimi to the center when he saw him begging on the street.

Al-Rawhani recalled, “I asked him why he was forced to beg and work rather than study and play and he told me his father had a severe chronic disease, so he's unable to support the family.”

One of Al-Raimi's older brothers even traveled to Saudi Arabia to find work, but the family has heard no news him. According to Al-Rawhani, another older brother is earning money, but spending it only on himself.

For these reasons, the young lad found himself in charge of the remainder of his family – his sick father, his mother and two younger sisters – leaving school to provide for them.

“Al-Raimi carried a heavy burden,” Al-Rawhani pointed out, “working from morning to night – sometimes as late as 10 p.m.”

Children in these situations grow up uneducated and lose both their childhood and their hope of a better life later. They lose their childhood because they are subjected to all types of violence and abuse on the streets, whereas they lose their hope because without education, they have limited possibilities for the future.

As Al-Rawhani noted, “What future awaits a child taught on the street, where he neither feels safe, nor finds love or mercy?”

Usually, after visiting a child's family and explaining the abuses and violence children may be subjected to on the streets, their families agree to return them to school. Likewise, Al-Raimi's family also eventually agreed to send him back to school.

Support from the center

Programs like those at the Childhood Safety Center are glimmers of hope for these children. As Al-Rawhani explained, “Many children are brought to the center every day where we seek to build them up. We also visit their families to inform them of the dangers children face on the street.”

Approximately 40 children currently are at the center where there are many programs to help cultivate them. “We contact their families, asking them to allow their children to continue their education. We then return the children to their families, visiting them periodically to ensure that they are good,” he added.

One of the center's projects is to provide the children's families some money, depending on the family's situation and the amount of government subsidy the center receives “However, we haven't received any subsidies,” Al-Rawhani noted.

“When Al-Raimi's older brother learned of the dangers his little brother may face, he began working to support his family by opening a repair shop for electrical equipment,” Al-Rawhani explained.

Now that his older brother is earning income for their family, the younger Al-Raimi has returned to school and helps his brother in the repair shop only in his spare time. However, many Yemeni families like Al-Raimi's still need help making ends meet to get their children off the street.
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