Child labour eradication soon? By Claude Mills, Staff Reporter Donald is 17. He is a self-described hustler who earns money doing odd jobs or begging on the streets of the Corporate Area. For a teen who has been working since he was old enough to shave at age 12, two-dollar terms such as "eradication of child labour" do not mean anything to him. "My parents never give me a chance, I don't know where my mother is...and I don't care what the Government waan fi seh with this 'no child labour' thing," he told Generation Today while he took a break from "work" in Half Way Tree. "Is just fight dem a fight me, whatever dem a do too late to help me now...Is five years now mi a work fi support myself." He makes about $800 per day on the street. From time to time, the question of child labour rears its head in the polite parlour conversations in civil society. But nothing has been done to implement measures to eradicate the phenomenon. That may be about to change. Recently, a US$500,000 project was announced by the Ministry of Labour which will review the state of child labour in Jamaica and develop a programme to progressively reduce and ultimately eliminate incidents of child labour across the island. Audrey Budhi, head of the Child Support Unit of the Ministry of Health, explained: "A unit has been set up under the Ministry of Labour with the ILO (International Labour Office) and the IPEC (International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour) here to work to eliminate child labour. Jamaica has signed the protocol already. Baseline studies have been set up in Flankers with kids in the agricultural belt, in Rocky Point with South Coast fishing and in the Spanish Town area to study child labour here." In 1993, a United Nation Children's Fund study found that there were 23,000 children in Jamaica who could be classified as working children. Some were as young as six years old. And in 1995 a subsequent study found that there were 13,000 adolescents between the ages of six and 17 who were reportedly out of school. "We need to understand the over-riding situation first, right now we only have guestimates as to what the real situation is in terms of street children and child labour," Ms. Budhi said. "We need to clarify child labour, is it in the classic sense of the word, or is it in the Jamaican sense with our cultural norms and mores? After that, we can look at the legislation and how child labour eradication can be a significant part of the new Child Care and Protection Act." Developmental rights Under the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, a child is entitled to "development rights" which include needs that a child requires in order to achieve the fullest potential in terms of education, play and leisure, cultural activities, access to information and freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The ILO/IPEC unit will also be lobbying the Government to sign Convention 138 which deals with the elimination of child labour. But while children of a poorer economic background may have to contend with the phenomenon of child labour, those in the upper and middle class, especially in the First World, are caught in a relentless crunch of activities: piano lessons, swimming lessons, basketball, football, sports, soccer, remedial classes. However, some psychologists worry that these children are not given a chance to enjoy their childhood because of the suffocating influence and ambitions of their parents. "Parents want to live their lives through their kids and they push them in athletics, and other sports to be the stars of the future and they push them to be successful, and sometimes this exacts a psychological and emotional toll on young children," Janet Reynolds, a guidance counsellor at a Government clinic, said. Other health workers are less worried about the leisure time of middle and upper class kids. "Those are the ones who are doing well. They may have a limited time to just play and enjoy things for the fun of it, but it is the ones who have too much time, sitting on the corner, unemployed, parentless and moral-less, these are the ones that cause concern," said one woman who works in the Adolescent and Reproductive Health Department of the Ministry of Health. Marginalization According to the United Nation Children's Fund publication, Changing the Future of Jamaica's Children, "the economic marginalization of women is a key factor in determining which children are most at risk, with the children of poor women more likely to be the worst affected. Working children and street children are largely the results. While there are no reliable estimates on the proportion of working children, in 1993, it was estimated that there were about 2,500 street children. In fact, given the deterioration of the economic situation between 1993 and 1998, it is suspected that this number has tripled." The street-smart Donald believes that child labour cannot be eradicated without first eliminating poverty. "Look here, dem caan stop child labour unless dem get rid of poverty. How dem fi tell a youth seh him caan work when him live pon the street and him parents no business with him?," he asked. "Tell dem fi deal wid poverty first!"
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