Business News

Checking child labour in tobacco sector

When stakeholders descended on Silver Stadium in Lilongwe on June 19, 2015 to commemorate the World Day Against Child Labour with education as the overriding theme on their mind, 16-year-old Gift Chimphonda was one of those celebrating.

Once a peasant labourer, who despite being underage lifted the same heavy bales of tobacco as did his parents who are in their 40s, Gift understands all too well the toils of the farm.

There are also child labour scattered policies and laws create challenges when it comes to law enforcement in the elimination of child labour in the country
There are also child labour scattered policies and laws create challenges when it comes to law enforcement in the elimination of child labour in the country

“I dropped out of school not out of choice. Every child does it to help generate income in the family at one point or another,” recalled Gift.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that as many as 168 million are into child labour conditions, 85 percent of them doing hazardous labour.

In Malawi, according to the World Bank, at least 23 percent of children aged five to 14 years are considered economically active, and majority of them (89 percent) are working in agriculture.

Back in Chitekwe Village in Traditional Authority (T/A) Chimutu in Lilongwe where Gift comes from, stories of children working in tobacco estates and other hazardous farming conditions, were once common. Five years ago, Gift himself skipped school and worked in tobacco alongside his nicotine-hardened parents. He was told there was no choice. His peasant family desperately needed the cash to put food on the table for the Chimphonda siblings.

But luckily for Gift, he will live to tell a different story. He is one of the thousands of children trekking back to school and abandoning a life of hardship in the tobacco fields, thanks to a special programme that one of the country’s tobacco companies, Japan Tobacco International (JTI) is running.

The programme, Achieving Reduction of Child Labour Support of Education (Arise), was specifically designed for JTI by Winrock International and is implemented alongside the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in tobacco-groweing communities of Malawi, Zambia and Brazil where JTI has operations.

Arise aims to fight child labour by addressing factors that drive parents and their communities to subject children to hazardous labour conditions in tobacco- growing communities.

Through it, JTI is contributing to improvements in education, facilitating economic empowerment through access to training and micro-finance to parents, promoting an improved regulatory framework for the reduction of child labour and community action through peer groups on education.

The first phase of Arise started in 2012 and has benefitted grower communities of Lilongwe and Ntcheu. The second phase takes off on June 19, 2015 and will expand to Dowa while scaling up interventions in the two districts initially targeted.

“At JTI, we seek to understand the complex and interconnected reasons that child labor exists, and engage and collaborate with those who can contribute to tackling the issues. We believe that education provides children and communities with the chance of a future that is free from child labour,” said LimbaniKakhome, JTI corporate affairs and communications director.

During the first phase of Arise, JTI built additional classroom blocks and supporting sanitation infrastructure such as toilets at 12 schools in Lilongwe and Ntcheu.

In addition, JTI is also providing solar power and boreholes to ease lighting and water stresses. To ensure smooth learning, JTI also provides learning materials such as desks and textbooks. In some of the schools, JTI has built and fully furnished teacher offices.

“Since 2012, Arise has been instrumental in providing a conducive learning environment for children through school blocks and modern sanitary equipment we have built in Lilongwe and Ntcheu,” said Kakhome.

Arise has three key pillars aimed at addressing the needs of communities and other stakeholders in the fight against child labour. These pillars are social-cultural, economic and regulatory and with them come a set of specific -tailored interventions.

During its first three years, Arise reached out to 12 380 children in 12 designated schools. An additional 40 schools in Arise communities have also been supported with Arise guidelines.

“Over and above this, 10 884 community members have been trained against child labour and in turn the communities organised 204 events to highlight the evils of child labour over the same period,” said Kakhome.

Under the social-cultural pillar of Arise, JTI works with communities to remove children from inappropriate or potentially harmful labour activities and re-drafting them into schools.

John Thondolo, the head teacher of Mlezi Primary School, one of the beneficiary schools said additional classrooms and toilets have helped ease congestion and motivated many parents to send their children back to school.

“Many pupils and parents are motivated by the improved facilities we have received from JTI and are keen on schooling, unlike before when the facilities were poor,” said Thondolo.

To ensure that parents are able to fend for the school needs of their children, Arise provides for capacity building of grower communities to enable them to start small-and-medium scale businesses. Village grocery shops, butcheries and agro-processing activities have sprouted in the targeted areas and are providing a steady income to parents.

The World Day Against Child Labour falls on June 12 of every year, but in Malawi it was commemorated on June 19.  The theme of this year is No to Child Labour–Yes to Education.—JTI Inside Malawi Magazine

Related Articles

Back to top button