Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
In the tea plantations of Western Uganda, some 40,000 children work hard picking tea.
They earn just 30 cents a day.
Africa has the highest proportion of working children in the world. Eliminating child labour
here is not straightforward. Poverty and communities weakened by ***/AIDS leave families with few
options.
According to a new Global Report on child labour from the International Labour Organization,
while 47 million African children are still out of school, enrolment in Uganda doubled
between 1995 and 2000. The new challenge is to stay in school until graduation.
With the support of the ILO and its International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour,
the National Union of Plantation and Agricultural Workers are pushing to eliminate child labour
on tea estates, removing children from work and enrolling them in educational programmes.
At the Mabale tea factory the general manager has stopped hiring children.
(Kenneth Kyamulesire, General Manager, Mabale Grower’s Tea Factory)
The unions have been very active to try to sensitize the employers that it is wrong to
employ children. You deny them a lot of opportunities and I think it has made an impact. A lot of
kids have been taken out of this regular employment.
Today we have come to tell you that the number has gone up to 365. These children have been
taken out from the tea shambas, from the outgrowers and are now in school studying.
At the Voice of Tooro and other radio stations across Uganda, presenters have also been raising
awareness on efforts to end child labour.
(Paddy Twesigomwe, Regional Secretary for the National Union of Plantation & Agricultural
workers of Uganda) It was so difficult for us as workers to convince
parents to allow the children back to go back to school because most of these children were
earning some money that would assist in their homes. But ILO helped a lot when it put the
program on the radio. Everybody listened, the parents, the guardians and the children
themselves.
The challenge now is for communities to find alternatives to child labour and to make education
more affordable.
Unemployed parents of child labourers and other adults may the slots left behind by
children returning to school.
Some tea plantations have also started contributing school books and other educational materials
to local schools.
(Aituhe Annet, 15 years) Now that I am in school sometimes I go to
pluck tea on Saturdays but sometimes I can’t manage.
A lot has changed for 15 year old Aituhe Annet. Having spent so much time on the tea estate
she has a lot of catching up to do.
Life is still a challenge for Aituhe and her family. But for her and millions of other
children, education now comes first.