Bolivia
price for a shine, but his shoes needed dusting. Isaac cleaned the shoes and collected his pay: 14 cents.
Isaac said he wears a mask to hide his face because people look down on the poor. He wants to work in a bank one day and doesn’t want people to know he shines shoes.
Opponents of child labor said some children are exploited or sexually abused, and others wind up living on the streets, which are plagued with crime, violence and addiction. Legalizing child labor “was terrible, a mistake,” said Amparo Carvajal, president of the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights in La Paz, Bolivia’s capital.
Marcos Gandarillas, a sociologist in Cochabamba, said Americans should care, because many of Bolivia’s natural resources, including silver for jewelry, are exported to the USA. He said some children work in “semi-slavery.”
Supporters of the law said legalizing child labor empowers children. Child workers helped write the law, sociologist Manfred Liebel said.
Bolivian lawmakers planned to set the minimum working age at 14, but that idea led to riots as shoeshiners and other child workers — some as young as 10 — clashed with police in 2013. The law passed with support from Bolivian President Evo Morales, who said jobs help children develop “social awareness.”
“The work of children and adolescents should not be eliminated, but we should not exploit or force them to work, either,” said Morales, who herded llamas at age 6 with his father.
Simon Mamani continues such traditions on the high plains near Lake Titicaca. “We’re not afraid to work,” said Mamani, 46, whose three children help on the family’s dairy farm. “They started to work at 5 years of age.” Even with his children’s help, Mamani said, he struggles to feed his cattle.
“If we didn’t work, we wouldn’t live,” he said. “We don’t have days off. We don’t go out for fun on Saturdays and Sundays like in the city. I’ve been doing this since I was 5 years old.”
Poverty and tradition lead many children to work. “Bolivia is protecting the rights of these boys, girls and adolescents as part of their cultural development,” said Hernan Rico of the Delegation on Children and Adolescents in the government’s Ombudsman’s Office.
The 2014 law gives children a voice and helped boost young workers’ selfesteem, said Peter Strack, a sociologist in Cochabamba, southeast of La Paz.
“We’re not afraid to work. They started to work at 5 years of age. ... If we didn’t work, we wouldn’t live.”
Authorities don’t punish child workers, so “at least they are not hindered and deprived of some rights.”
Juan Enrique Basilio, who started shining shoes in Cochabamba at age 12, said people used to treat him “like almost nothing.”
“Things have changed,” said Basilio, 19. “They don’t treat you like an animal. You start to feel like a human being.”
Parents are required to sign permits allowing children to work. Strack estimates that no more than 10 permits have been issued in Cochabamba, where child workers in December complained about low wages.
Most children earn $4 to $8 a day at the city’s sprawling La Cancha market. Vendors exploit some children, especially those ages 8 and 9, paying them
$1.50 to $3 a day. Some children receive only meals for their labor, said Sandra Caiguara, director of the Brother Manolo Center, a Christian group.
Children begin streaming into the market at 6 a.m. to wash dishes and sell produce, and many don’t leave until
4 p.m. or later. Said Caiguara, “I don’t think anyone agrees a child should work or should be on the street all day.”
This report was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center.