Children run away from home to work
FIVE barefoot young boys were walking to town to look for work when they were apprehended by the police, in a cat-and-mouse battle to stamp out child labour among traditional weavers who produce Ethiopia’s famous white “shamma” shawls.
The Gamo and Dorze people of southern Ethiopia have woven the soft, cotton cloth with its delicately embroidered edges for decades, proud of their heritage and of a valuable source of income in the impoverished nation.
“My family will not be hurt (that I left),” said one of the rescued boys, sitting in a government-run children’s shelter in Chencha, some 450km south-west of the capital, Addis Ababa.
“They will only regret that I will no longer be working for them as a shepherd,” he said, as officials tried to trace the parents of the five runaways, all aged between eight and 10.
The persistence of exploitation in the weaving industry illustrates the challenges in meeting a UN goal of
ending child labour by 2025 in Africa, where 87 million children work, usually on family farms or in small businesses. Interviews with about a dozen child weavers, as well as parents, activists and officials in and around Addis Ababa and Chencha found child labour is thriving because of poverty, culture, family pressure and clandestine trafficking networks.
Education is not a priority for many families. Only 54% of children complete primary school, according to the UN Children’s Fund, and Ethiopia’s literacy rate of 52% is below the average of 65% in sub-Saharan Africa, World Bank data shows.
“Education can change the community,” said Zematch Chamo, primary
school director in Zozo village, a few kilometres from Chencha, the jumping off point for most child weavers heading to Addis Ababa. “But poor people will not see this bigger picture.”
Although the Ministry of Women, Children and Youth drew up a 10-year development plan last year, which involves hiring social workers, hotlines to report abuse and a universal child benefit, it is short of funding and staff to implement it.
The government has established committees to reunite rescued children with their families, but campaigners said most of those children were likely to migrate again because of poverty, hope for a better life and community expectations.