Child Labor or Povery?

Originally post on the "339 Hardline.com"
Child Labor or Poverty?


Child Labor or Poverty? We don't ever ask that question. Education is a luxury that many families can't afford. In Zambia, for example, in Southern Africa, 80% of the population live in abysmal despair and abject poverty. Most parents cannot afford to educate their children, and consequently, they put them to work to have one fewer mouth to feed. The International Labor Organisation (ILO) puts the number of children working in the world at 350 million. Some are exploited by unscrupulous bosses, while others help their parents in the fields. Even though child labor is illegal, it is common in Zambia.

According to a German NGO (nongovernmental organization) that defends children, "Many children are working in the fields. All the major farms are fenced and guarded and behind those fences there live families with children working in the fields. The entrance is more like an to a prison than a farm-the prison of poverty. The children working there will never get out. Getting no education, they'll be condemned to a life of non-qualified work." Those farms are sort of work camps, but the families aren't separated. They can spend the little tiny time they have together, however, all the children work in the fields and don't go to school. They won't get in there.

In a depot of cotton, among the workers are lots of teenagers. Instead of being in class, they're carrying on their back 50 pound sacks. Schools complain about truancy (students who don't go to school) but parents need the money. Farmers even come to pick the kids up. They're happy to be fed, and don't realize that missing school means a change of one day having a qualified job. 8 out of 10 Zambians live or survive because of the land (ILO).

In a farm, a group of chidren of 5 to 10 years old are heading for a spot where clay bricks are drying in the sun. Their job is to transport the bricks, which are being used to build a storehouse. On a weekday which kids should be in school, they are providing cheap labor. For pay they are given a little food.


On TV5.org, a French website, a teacher names Emmanuel Kapichila said, "It's obvious. Whenever a pupil is absent, I know that he or she is working somewhere. Even if they tell me some story when they came back, I know that he or she was working on a farm." However he knows why they're working rather than coming to school. Three quarters of his students don't get enough to eat. One quarter are more or less getting enough to eat, but the other three quarters really don't get enough. Poverty forces the parents to put their children to work. Kilida, a 13 years old girl, said, "I work so I can buy soap." She has to work days for a bar of soap. Two days laboring in a field for soap. The kids work 6 or 7 days a week, and, in the harvest time 10 to 14 hours a day.


All children have his dream job - taxi driver, teacher, doctor, pilot... - serious dream and they are also intelligent. However, without education, they will remain poor.