By Lillian Kiarie
Kenya joined the rest of African countries on Sunday to mark the Day of the African Child.
This came amid calls on leaders and the police to help stop retrogressive cultural practices endangering the lives and health of thousands of children each year.
Child Labour, forced female circumcision and failure to get education dominated the day marked by low-key ceremonies across the country.
In Busia, for instance, the county’s Labour office revealed that over 29,000 children are engaged in child labour, with the highest number of cases targeting schoolchildren.
apartheid system
County Labour officer Kephas Odhiambo said that children who abandoned school were employed as porters at the border points to smuggle goods at a small fee. He said the children were constantly harassed and arrested by police from Kenya and Uganda.
Celebration of the Day of the African Child, done annually on June 16, is an occasion to recall the 1976 uprising in Soweto, South Africa, against the apartheid system.
During the protest, Police killed at least two hundred children. However, more importantly, the day presents an opportunity to reflect on the realities of children in Africa today.
The Day of the African Child 2013 theme was: “Eliminating Harmful Social and Cultural Practices Affecting Children: Our Collective Responsibility”
The day coincided with release of a report by International Labour Organisation (ILO), where the United Nations agency raise child labour concerns.
The report says about 10.5 million children worldwide; most of them under age are working as domestic workers in people’s homes, in hazardous and sometimes slavery-like conditions.
The report, “Ending Child labour in domestic work”, adds that Sh6.5million of these child labourers are aged between five and 14 years old and over 71 per cent are girls.
Constance Thomas, Director of the ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) says a robust legal framework needs to be formulated to clearly identify, prevent and eliminate child labour in domestic work.
child rights
The legal charter should also provide decent working conditions to adolescents when they can legally work.
“The situation of many child domestic workers not only constitutes a serious violation of child rights, but remains an obstacle to the achievement of many national and international development objectives,” said Thomas. Additionally, migrant working children are worse off than local working children in that they work longer hours, are paid less, denied food more, had greater exposure to hazards, are more prone to violence and are more unable to leave their employer’s household.
Susan Bissell, UNICEF’s global head of child protection called out for the practice to come to a halt during the ‘World Day Against Child Labour’ celebrations held on June 12. She said situation where children are forced into the most dangerous forms of labour, miss school and their health and well being is impaired is unacceptable.
