World Day Against Child Labor:A call for ending child labor in agriculture [Archives:2007/1059/Last Page]
June 14 2007
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For the first time in her life, 12-year-old Qaeithah hears the words “play” and “education” without knowing their meaning because she has worked as a shepherd for the past six years.
Qaeithah is from Marib governorate. Poverty and her tribe men's` retaliation were the main reasons she and her family left their countryside and moved from one city to another without an identity.
She now lives with her family in a mountain cave near the Bani Hushaish region east of Sana'a. Early every morning, she takes the sheep to the far valley and spends all day with her them, carrying her food and clothing on her back.
When asked if she has friends to play with or if she studies, she wonderingly shakes her head “no” without understanding the meaning of the questions. All she knows is that she must tend the sheep and return home by the end of the day.
June 12 was World Day Against Child Labor and this year, the world focused on child labor in agriculture, calling for an end to such child labor.
According to a report by the International Initiative to End Child Labor organization, of the more than 350 million economically active children worldwide, 70 percent are engaged in agricultural work. In today's farming, even in developing countries, agricultural work entails exposure to dangerous tools and machinery and extremely hazardous chemicals that place a child's health and safety at risk.
Children working in dangerous conditions are everywhere, but many work unseen, toiling as domestic servants in homes, laboring behind the walls of workshops or hidden from view on agricultural estates.
Qaeithah faces risks daily from being alone in the mountains; for example, wild animals attack her without her receiving any help from others, especially as she works in a desert place.
The IIECL estimates that approximately 218 million children ages 5-17 are engaged in child labor, excluding child domestic labor. Some 126 million of these are believed to be engaged in dangerous situations or conditions, such as working in mines, working with chemicals and pesticides in agriculture or working with dangerous machinery.
Child laborers are defined as those below age 18 who are involved in the worst forms of child labor; however, some communities in Yemen don't consider such a definition as a standard for themselves.
The Child Rights Law prohibits child labor; however, the law hasn't been implemented and children as young as age 4 work in workshops, agriculture or as street vendors, according to the United States' 2004 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.
Some families think that educating children or allowing them to play is useless, believing it better for a child to train for and learn a career during his or her childhood. Some believe that if a child is able to work on a farm – and regardless of age, children must work – he or she likewise will be responsible as an adult.
“As farmers, we never care about whether a son or a daughter is a child or not. All of us must work on the farm, so we don't have children waste their time playing,” comments Saedah Qaied, a mother of two living in a village.
However, those children desiring to continue their studies must balance school and farm work. “After school, I go to the farm to help my parents. I also have to wake up early to start the farm work until time for school, when my father comes,” 11-year-old villager Osama Saleh explains.
While IIECL recognizes a difference between child work and child labor and advocates that education should be the first priority for all children, some families may force their children to leave school and work on the farm, thus ignoring the importance of children's education.
Taraq Reazig was 14 when he was forced to leave school and take over all of the farm responsibilities after his father divided the inheritance between all of his sons so every one has to follow his own business. as the youngest son, Taraq although became the owner of vast fields of qat and grapes in Bani Hushaish, he has to be free to follow his business alone without supports from his brothers. All of them are busy especially after they received equally large portions of the same types of fields.
Protecting children from working in hazardous jobs is weakest when dealing with agricultural work because a society's culture and traditions play a role in allowing children to work in such a field. For example, in many Yemeni villages, a child must work with his father on the farm as part of his duties to his family.
Every day at sunset when it's time to return home, Qaeithah makes a strange sound and at that moment, all of the sheep gather in front of her, responding to her call in that special communicative language that only she and her sheep understand. This particular day, she disappears into the huge mountains, carrying in her mind the sound of the new words “education” and “playing.”
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