Child labour in your context
Dear all,
I believe that the most common form of child labour in Kenya is where the children (read young girls) are "employed" by relatives as househelps but no pay is forthcoming, sometimes it is channeled to the parents and in other times none at all.
Another major form of child labour is in the agricultural industry and especially in the flower sub sector. Child prostitution cannot be downplayed and I agree that this is perhaps the most disgracing form of child labour that robs off the dignity of the child.
There seems to be some pattern in the distribution of child labour with the rural areas leading in agricultural related child labour while the urban areas are notorious for domestic related child labour and child prostitution. Of course there has been a lot of effort by the government to wipe off this vice, especially child prostitution, but there have been major obstacles especially surrounding tourism.
By definition, youths are not subject to child labour but there is a new challenge at this age........underemployment. This is where the employer simply takes advantage of the high unemployment rates to pay "peanuts" to the workers, especially the new workers in teh market who happen to be the youth.--Marcosmburu 15:05, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Dear Marcosmburu,
These are indeed serious challenges that communities and countries at large are grappling with. Please also refer to my comment to Leah yesterday on the worst forms of child labour. Do you know of any policies in place in Kenya to tackle child labour? On the aspect of the youth, if the national definition covers any ages below 18 years, then one would look out for hazardous working conditions which would place them in the category of child labourers.
Lungowe,
There is a very clear policy on children in Kenya and of course it is meant to protect the Kenyan children from exploitation. Please have a look at the Children Act 2001
Lungowe, I do not know whether if the countries where this thing is going on as has been mentioned by the other participants have no policy on the right of the child nor are not signatories certain UN convention on the right of the child. the issue is about its implementation and who supervises the implementation process. I think of it as more of educating and persuading people to change such attitude than go strictly according to laws.
