Do you ever buy fruits, vegetables, or other foodstuffs from children at your car or bus window or by the roadside on your way to work or school? Are you a subsistent or part-time farmer who gives ‘small jobs’, ‘piece work’ as it is called in Zambia or ‘ganyu’ as they call it in Malawi to persons aged between 10 and 16 years to help weed, clear fields or drainages, to harvest, or to herd animals? Are you a working mother being assisted with housework or babysitting by a young girl from the village aged between 12 and 16 years? This is not a quiz but, if your answer to any of these questions is yes, you might want to check if you are unwittingly facilitating child labour. One can easily say child labour is a part of our daily lives in Africa.
The ILO and UNICEF 2020 child labour global estimates and trends report reveals that on the African continent, children the ages of 5 – 17 years are engaged in child labour in small-scale mining, on plantations, as child soldiers, military porters, messengers, cooks, or sex slaves including in commercial sexual exploitation.[1] The report further reveals, that despite the number of legislative and programmatic interventions that have been put in place to deal with the vice at international, regional and national levels by most African countries the progress against child labour being seen in Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean seems elusive for sub-Saharan Africa. Africa has seen an increase in both the number and percentage of children in child labour since 2012[2]. Where are we missing it?
Child labour is driven by extreme poverty, discrimination, marginalisation, lack of access to quality education, poor access to decent work, limited understanding of child labour, conflicts & mass migration, and vices like trafficking and modern-day slavery.[3] Some reports indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic which negatively affected economies and household incomes has had adverse effects on child labour and so has climate change and its effects on poor or rural communities. Other key factors relating to child labour are, that child labour is more common in rural areas with most of it occurring in agriculture, the involvement of boys in child labour is higher than that of girls at all ages, the largest share of child labour takes place within families and child labour is frequently associated with children being out of school.[4]
What are the possible solutions to this dodging vice?
Africa has been cited as being one of the continents with the highest number of people living in extreme poverty. Therefore, tackling extreme poverty should be a priority for African countries. The key strategies identified to tackle extreme poverty and in turn, the causes of child labour are sustainable and inclusive pro-poor economic growth that not only grows a country’s economy but also improves the income-generating opportunities for the poor or that results in better and decent jobs, gender equality and strengthening education systems.[5]
Gender equality should be coupled with a novel approach to the interpretation and application of human rights norms and provisions. For example, the application of the provisions that protect children from harmful cultural practices needs to go beyond the girl child and early marriage or female genital mutilation and address the expectation of the boy child to work and contribute to the home or the family business; specific interventions aimed at removing the boy child from the fields, the mines, armed conflict, from selling in the family shops should be put in place; to think beyond the equality fight as being among others, to facilitate women’s opportunities and choices of work or school in male-dominated sectors but to extend the benefits of equality to women and the benefits of women working because this increases household incomes and in turn reduces the chances of (their) children having to work.
Another strategy is putting in place effective social safety nets. The social protection systems African countries have in place should be revised to target change in behaviour towards children and labour and investment in children such as ensuring school attendance or skills development; they should also acknowledge the role of parents/guardians and governments.[6]
Pro-poor, gender and child-sensitive legislation, policies, development plans, programmes and strategies tailored to address local needs and priorities should be developed by African countries themselves with the participation of local communities to ensure ownership and implementation. Governments should be obligated and should strive to mobilise resources from developed countries and cooperating agencies to implement these policies, development plans, programmes and strategies without ceding their authority to be in the driver’s seat of implementation.
Climate change is making the poor poorer.[7] Approaches to tackle climate change should therefore take a similar approach.
Increased and concerted information and education campaigns on child labour should be undertaken coupled with community involvement to increase understanding of child labour and facilitate change in everyday social and cultural perceptions and attitudes that perpetual the vice.
Good governance frameworks should be put in place or should be strengthened at the national and continental level to ensure the rule of law, hold leaders accountable and minimise conflicts that are contributing to child labour and its associated violations.
Action by governments alone is not enough: to tackle the issue each of us should be involved. So, the next time you buy wares from a child on the streets of your city, or you ‘help a child’ and hire them to weed your garden, herd your cattle or goats, help you cook, clean or babysit, don’t just ask for the price of the wares, the cost of the cheap labour or worse still shoo the child away from your window, consider whether that child might be a victim of child labour; ask, how you can contribute to helping that child spend less time on the street on your smallholding or in your home and more time in school and just be a child.
Hope Ndlhovu-Chanda is Lawyer specialised in human rights law and law reform. She is the Director and Commission Secretary of the Zambia Law Development Commission (ZLDC).
[1] International Labour Office and United Nations Children’s Fund, Child Labour: Global estimates 2020, trends and the road forward, ILO and UNICEF, New York, 2021. License: CC BY 4.0.
[2] International Labour Office and United Nations Children’s Fund, Child Labour: Global estimates 2020, trends and the road forward, ILO and UNICEF, New York, 2021. License: CC BY 4.0.
[3] <www.eclt.org/en/news/child-labour-causes accessed 15 December 2023
[4] International Labour Office and United Nations Children’s Fund, Child Labour: Global estimates 2020, trends and the road forward, ILO and UNICEF, New York, 2021. License: CC BY 4.0. and
Action Aid, ‘Climate Change and Poverty’ <www.actionaid.org.uk/our-work/emergencies-disasters-humanitarian-response/climate-change-and-poverty> accessed 9 January 2023
[5] Amy Frykholm, ‘Ending Extreme Poverty’ (Christian Century, June 08, 2016) <www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2016/06/08/ending-extreme-poverty>, accessed 9 January 2023
[6] Spain has one such successful system; Amy Frykholm, ‘Ending Extreme Poverty’ (Christian Century, June 08, 2016) <www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2016/06/08/ending-extreme-poverty>, accessed 9 January 2023
[7] Action Aid, ‘Climate Change and Poverty’ <www.actionaid.org.uk/our-work/emergencies-disasters-humanitarian-response/climate-change-and-poverty> accessed 9 January 2023
