Child labour nightmare haunts SA

An estimated three million children in South Africa are involved in exploitative labour, a conference on the matter heard on Thursday.

The government of South Africa estimated that 32,5 percent of children aged five to 14 years were working in 1999. Between 248 000 and three million children are engaged in exploitative child labour in South Africa, Helene Aiello of Khulisa Management Services told the Reducing Exploitative Child Labour in South Africa conference in Boksburg.

Her findings are based on a case study done in Mpumalangas Nkomazi region.

The most common types of work done by South African children are: fetching wood or water, followed by farm work - which can be classified as exploitative work if it prevents the children from attending school.

To make the problem even worse, children are being used by hardened criminals to commit violent crimes.

This was the shock finding of a study carried out in Pretoria and Cape Town by the Community Law Centre (CLC) of the University of the Western Cape.

Jacqui Gallinett, co-ordinator of the Childrens Rights Project at the CLC, said children used by adults to commit offences (the so-called Cubac phenomenon) represented the worst form of child labour.

Cubac cuts across two child rights issues; child labour and children in conflict with the law.

To aggravate the situation, using children to commit crimes is not a statutory offence. You can be prosecuted under common law for being an accomplice or for incitement, but there is no full recognition of the occurrence. It is merely regarded as an aggravating circumstance.

Pilot projects to address Cubac involved rapid assessment, baseline study and selected pilot sites in Mitchells Plain and Mamelodi.

Cheryl Fran, senior researcher at the Institute of Security Studies, conducted a separate child research consultation to determine childrens views about Cubac. Of the 541 children consulted, 16.91 percent were male and nine percent female. Children from secure care centres in the Western Cape and Gauteng and from a secondary school in Gauteng took part in the survey.

Discussion session revealed that children became involved in crime due to factors at home, influence of friends, use of drugs and alcohol, influence of gangs and influence of adults.

According to children, adults engage them in crime by offering rewards or through violence or threats of violence.

William Mosehla, outreach worker at Itumeleng Shelter in Sunnyside, Pretoria, said the number of children being used by adults to commit crimes was increasing.

The main reason why adults use children is because they are the least likely suspects. They use children to break into houses and to mug people on the streets. The only way to stop the children from committing these crimes would be to reinstate the law of forcibly removing children from the streets. We have to get them off the streets if we want to see this type of abuse stopped, said Mosehla.

In rural areas many children had to work to ensure their own and their families survival. This, Aiello said, was made worse by the HIV/Aids pandemic which resulted in child-headed households.

Children between the ages of 15 and 17 may, according to legislation, be employed for light work if it does not stop them from attending school.

In the research done by Aiello in Mpumalanga, 2 600 children between the ages of 12 and 17 provided information about life in their villages, at home and in school.

Ninety-five percent of the children who filled out the questionnaire indicated that they did some kind of work at different times of the day. This ranged from domestic chores like cooking, cleaning and doing the washing, to fetching water, wood and looking after livestock.

Sixty percent of these children were paid for the work they did.

She said child labour was often hidden or denied due to a variety of reasons. These included fear of losing income or payment-in-kind benefits. Parents also often put pressure on their children to continue working.

Aiello recommended that free and quality basic education for the most disadvantaged children should be implemented with urgency.

The law states that if an employer is found to be employing a child below the age of 15 years in work that is detrimental to their growth, that person will be guilty of a crime.

South Africa has several pieces of legislation which govern the age at which a child may be employed, according to Lawyers for Human Rights.

The cut-off date for child labour, however, is 15, as stated in the Child Care Act no 74 of 1983.

This act states that nobody may employ a child younger than 15 years old.

It further states that the child should complete his or her compulsory schooling.

In terms of the South African Schools Act, the compulsory school-going age is from seven to 15 years. Parents or caregivers were committing a criminal offence if they did not allow their children to attend