End Child labour

In 2000, the International Labor Organization zeroed on 12th June to create awareness about the ills of Child Labor. Alot of convetions and treaties on child Labor and subsequent national legislations have been made to address the ill.

There is a child artist called kapiripiti Some of you probably have not heard of him. Well he came to light after Fresh kid. I was, disturbed when I saw “kapiripiti” at a building site working as a porter. You see covid-19 has been so bad that children without a support system have resorted to manual labor in order to make a living on top of dropping out from school. This is the sad reality and globally, it is worse.

Ugandan legislation prohibits the employment of children under the age 12. National labour law prohibits the involvement of children 12-13 in any employment except for light work carried out under the supervision of an adult aged over 18 that doesn’t affect the child’s education.

The various forms of child labor include;

Those working in the service sector, agriculture sector and the worst forms include human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

Now it would be great to find out why Children drop out of school and resort to manual jobs.

Poverty would rank highest now as much as education would be ideal for a child,most families cannot afford to take their children to school thus forcing them to look for survival. Lack of access to quality education ; most of the children do not access the high quality education and usually drop out thereby dropping out of school. Alot of cultural value is attached to hard work and children are encouraged to work and fend for the family. Family breakdown and issues like divorce also highly affect the children.

Way Forward

We can begin by reviewing the legislation concerning child labor. We need to protect children from being in hazardous work environment and should always check the age of the children we employ.Child labor is an ill.