Malawi: Gold poisoning rescue operation starts
- Posted on Friday 21 October 2011 - 10:00Frazer Potani, AfricaNews reporter in in Lilongwe, MalawiWhen 11-year-old Jack Mwanapwa lost his mother to HIV and AIDS at a tobacco estate in Kasungu, 120 Km away from Malawi's capital, Lilongwe, he still had hope to lean on his father's shoulder. Jack's father, Adrian left his home in Zomba in the south in the company of his late wife, Address 20 years ago to work at one of Kasungu's 22,000 registered tobacco estates in the centre in search for a better life.
But Jack, who was himself born HIV positive had his hope of leaning on his father evaporating into thin air because soon after his mother’s death his father remarried Eniffa and she ill-treated him and his father did nothing.
“Every time I fell sick, Aunt Eniffa mocked me: “When are you a moving corpse actually going to die of your AIDS to follow your mother to the grave?” said Jack while wiping tear drops from his eyes.
He added that he most of the times slept on empty stomach as his step mother could not provide him with food.
The relationship between Jack and his step mother turned sourer after Adrian died within 8 months after marrying Eniffa.
As this feature appears on Africanews.com Jack is living with Gogo Esnart an 82-year-old woman in the neighbourhood.
The woman knew Jack’s late mother and takes care of eight grandchildren whose parents died of HIV and AIDS.
“Before leaving my step mother’s home I reached a point of stopping going to school and trying to commit suicide,” said Jack.
Until some months ago Jack was, like most children whose parents had left south Malawi for Kasungu in the centre to work in nearby tobacco estates with a hope of transforming their lives for the better, doing some piece work of handling tobacco leaves before they are sent to Auction Floors at Chimkhoma tobacco market in Kasungu.
Jack was working with other children in the tobacco estates to solicit money for food for his new family of 10 people.
But now the orphaned child is no longer doing such jobs and is back to school and would like to be a policeman after completing his education! Thanks to Malawi Government with support from donor agencies such as UNICEF empowering his new family with Social Cash Transfer Programme (SCTP).
“Government designated the Ministry of Gender Child and Community Development as a machinery to champion the attainment of children's welfare and protect their rights in the country,” said Principal Secretary (PS) for Gender Child and Community Development Ministry Eric Ning'ang'a.
He said appreciating that rampant problems including acts of child labour are violating rights of children in the country Malawi Government set aside over K50 million [over $300,000] for SCTP targeting vulnerable children and orphans.
“Under the SCTP with support from agencies such as UNICEF some child headed households in the country have been economically empowered to be self-reliant in soliciting their daily basic needs especially food,” said Ning’ang’a.
Malawi’s First Lady Callista Mutharika said it was encouraging that in the face of many problems such as child labour Malawi Government has come up with some strategies to rescue children from acts of violations of their rights.
“Over 35,000 households with orphans and vulnerable children are receiving social support while over 240,000 have benefitted from direct cash transfer, 150,000 from agriculture input subsidy, 100,000 Malawi Rural Development Fund (MARDEF) loans and 500,000 nutrition supports,” said Callista.
Added Mrs. Mutharika who has witnessed handing over of SCTP resources to child headed households including vulnerable groups in Malawi: “Over 4.5 million young people have received life skills education.”
Malawi is a signatory to the UN and International Labour Organisation (ILO) child labour conventions including Conventions on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and has even its own legislative framework barring the employment of children under 14 but it is common to see children stuck in acts of child labour.
Some economic commentators however, say the government obviously turns a blind eye on child labour in tobacco estates because Malawi's economy is heavily dependent on tobacco, which makes up 70 percent of its export earnings, according to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Therefore, child rights violations from labour perspective are rampant in Malawi with an estimated over 80,000 child workers in the country’s tobacco estates alone.
Worse still many of Malawian child tobacco workers ignorantly suffer from a disease called Green Tobacco Sickness, (GTS) or nicotine poisoning.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) GTS symptoms include severe headaches, abdominal cramps, muscle weakness, breathing difficulties, diarrhoea and vomiting, high blood pressure and fluctuations in heart rate.
A 2005 study by Robert McKnight, of the College of Public Health at the University of Kentucky, Lexington in the United States (US) revealed that handling of the leaves is done largely without protective clothing, workers absorb up to 54 milligrams of dissolved nicotine daily through their skin, equal to the amount of 50 cigarettes.
To rescue children from child labour in Malawi apart from government laying strategies such as SCTP, MARDEF and Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF) meant to economically empower the youth, Plan-Malawi and its partners are campaigning against the practice and sensitizing the general public to promote and respect rights of every child.
“A campaign against child labour in Malawi has resulted in over 2,000 children being removed from the country’s hazardous tobacco farms – but more needs to be done,” said Plan-Malawi Child Rights Advisor McDonald Mumba.
He said Malawi, which is still ranked amongst the world’s 20 poorest, with a Human Development Index (HDI) of 0.337, which is even lower than the average for under developed countries, has some factors creating a conducive environment for acts of child labour.
“So it’s no surprise that family poverty is rampant and forces young children into labour in various sectors, such as the tobacco industry. A comprehensive child labour survey in Malawi revealed that 37 percent of children aged between 5 and 15 were involved in labour. Of these, 53.5 percent worked in agriculture - including fishing, forestry and hunting - but most were working in tobacco production,” said Mumba.
He further explained that in Malawi researches have revealed that there are two major underlying causes of child labour in the tobacco sector - family poverty and the quest for minimizing costs on the part of the grower.
“Tobacco growers obviously like to reap high profits and find it easier to hire children as they are paid less for the same work done by an adult,” said Mumba.
He was however, quick to disclose that children working in tobacco estates in Malawi are exposed to multiple problems.
“The problems include physical abuse, in the form of beatings from supervisors for not completing work, sexual abuse being perpetrated particularly against girls in exchange for more money, food or because they are late for work; being subjected to health hazards and working for long hours (an average of 12 hours a day) with very little pay,” he said.
Mumba also explained that above all, most children that are involved in child labour some just as young as five years old in Malawi are generally deprived of their right to education.
“This inevitably maintains the cycle of poverty. A young boy working on a tobacco estate explains, “Some of us dropped out of school because of child labour as we had to fend for ourselves and also to give a hand to our parents,” he said.
To deal with the severity of the problem, Malawi Government in partnership with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) including Plan-Malawi decided to collaborate their efforts in addressing child labour in the country through introduction of a national campaign against child labour on tobacco farms.
“The advocacy campaign’s purpose was to achieve the withdrawal, recovery, rehabilitation and re-integration of children involved in child labour,” said Mumba adding that in 2010, Malawi Government and its partners including CSOs started implementing the national plan of action against child labour.
He further expounded that so far most tobacco farms have been declared child labour free, since generally, the major estates have responded very well to the campaign.
“The problem, however, still remains with small holder farmers where a lot more campaigning has to be done to address the problem,” he said.
Mumba disclosed that an ex-child labourer who is currently learning at Kamuzu Academy - the best high school in Malawi saluted Government and CSOs for launching the campaign against child labour.
“He had this to say in January 2011 when our chief executive officer met him: “I commend the campaign drive against child labour as it has helped some of us to resume school and be where we are. I could have missed this rare opportunity of being here if I was not pulled out from child labour; so this noble campaign drive should be intensified."
Mumba said Plan-Malawi has vowed to continue its anti-trafficking work and liaise with government to ensure that the objective outlined in the ‘Malawi National Action Plan Against Child Labour’ of zero tolerance against child labour by 2015 is achieved.
The US Labour Department says that up to the 1980s, most of tobacco flooding the global market was produced in the US, however, of late about 85 per every 100 Kg of tobacco produced worldwide is coming from the southern hemisphere including countries such as Malawi where tobacco child labour is a big problem.
A researcher at University of California’s Tobacco Control Research Education Centre Marty Otaņez agreed by saying in any developing country where tobacco is grown, “You find child labour starting at the age of five."
The Center for Social Concern (CSC) of the Catholic Church at Kanengo in Lilongwe in Malawi also says it conducted a research in tobacco estates in Malawi which reveals that declining tobacco prices in recent years is contributing to tobacco workers including children in estates live in extreme poverty and are subjected to high exploitation.
“The situation has become more serious since the advent of market liberalization,” CSC Executive Director Jos Kuppens.
He disclosed that over 500, 000 Malawians live under dehumanising conditions in tobacco estates and cited tobacco growers and their families in estates of Lilongwe, Mchinji and Mzimba as some of the tenants experiencing such poor living conditions despite Ministries of Justice and Labour including Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) calling to create better working conditions for the tobacco workers.
“As a signatory to various human rights treaties and conventions, like the Convention of the Rights of Children (CRC), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) Malawi is obliged to enforce conditions that ensure that all its citizens, including tobacco workers and their families, enjoy their rights and entitlements,” said Kuppens.
Estimated statistics from the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) indicate that over 132 million girls and boys aged between 5 and 14 years old work on farms and plantations, sowing and harvesting crops, spraying pesticides and tending livestock worldwide.
Girls according to IPEC are particularly disadvantaged as they often undertake household chores either before or after working in the fields.
Malawi has the highest number of child labourers in Africa as a Child Labour Survey in the country had revealed that 1.4 million children [representing a prevalence of 37 percent ] are involved in hazardous forms of child labour.
However, Ning’ang’a said in a Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) done in recent years has revealed a significant drop in child labour prevalence to 29 percent from 37 at national level in Malawi.
“This is due to the interventions that government and stakeholders have been implementing since 1997. Because of the Government commitment and observable achievements at national and grass root level, the country has witnessed a significant change in the level of child labour in the tea and tobacco estates,” he said.
But Grace Masanya, a Plan-Malawi Child Protection Coordinator said the fact that a green gold child poisoning rescue operation is working in Malawi to the extent that some children have been withdrawn from tobacco estates and returned to school the war against child labour is not over.
“The child-labour situation is still very bad,” she said adding that children continue to handle the tobacco with their bare hands and inhale the dust from the dried leaves.
“They also work until late at night. They even apply pesticides. All these activities are hazardous to their health and violations of child rights," she said.
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