المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

Family farming and Child labour

Thanks FAO for giving us an opportunity to contribute to this segment. EAFF has not directly worked on this issue on child labour. But we have worked in the family farming agenda where our main focus is on land issues and one of the things we have found out is the high poverty leading to all members of the family contributing to work on the land. In East Africa, 15 million children go to work instead of school - one in every four children. Poverty is the main cause of child labour in agriculture, together with limited access to quality education, inadequate agricultural technology and access to adult labour, high hazards and risks, and traditional attitudes towards children’s participation in agricultural activities. Parents regard their children as additional sources of income. Especially in the context of family farming, small-scale fisheries and livestock husbandry, some participation of children in non-hazardous activities can be positive as it contributes to the inter-generational transfer of skills and children’s food security. It is important to distinguish between light duties that do no harm to the child and child labour, which is work that interferes with compulsory schooling and damages health and personal development, based on hours and conditions of work, child’s age, activities performed and hazards involved. In many countries child labour is mainly an agricultural issue. Worldwide 60 percent of all child laborers in the age group 5-17 years work in agriculture, including farming, fishing, aquaculture, forestry, and livestock. This amounts to over 98 million girls and boys. The majority (67.5%) of child laborers are unpaid family members. In agriculture this percentage is higher, and is combined with very early entry into work, sometimes between 5 and 7 years of age. Agriculture is one of the three most dangerous sectors in terms of work-related fatalities, non-fatal accidents and occupational diseases. About 59 percent of all children in hazardous work aged 5–17 are in agriculture. Even though legal frameworks outlawing child labour do exist in all East African countries, enactment and enforcement remains inadequate due to insufficient budgets, limited technical capacity and low awareness.

In Kenya where I live, child labour is still very high due to increased poverty levels especially in the rural areas. As the costs of labour increases and low mechanization of agriculture, most family farms use their children to fill in the gap. Even though the country introduced free primary school education many families are still yet to take their children to school. Most children are used in tilling, fetching water for irrigation as well as household use. Being a highly patriarchal society, most young children (girls) often don’t go to school to leverage the boy child. Though many efforts have been put place by the governments to see all children access free primary school education. This is mostly through community policing and also the law. In this time of COVID-19, I believe that child labour is high on family farms as schools were closed to reduce the infection curve. With a very high digital divide, most children in rural areas who live in areas with no electricity, flood prone areas are not able to access the online learning facility offered by the governments. Therefore, the result is to “earn their keep” through working on the farms to increase the family chances of improved income. There are policies in place in Kenya and most East Africa countries on child labour I haven’t heard a policy specifically focusing on family farms.