About 0.5 cents from a pair of quality, hand sewn leather shoes bought in Dubai airport, (or wherever) went to the 6 year old boy on my right. He is one of the (about) 10 links in the chain from flat leather sheet to shiny black leather shoe and for 10 hours a day he paints glue on the sole. Along with 10 other 6-8 year old boys he is an apprentice in one of about 350 small shoe factories in the city.
Just down the road another boy, 8 years old has been kneeling beside a bright red stretched cloth, stitching sequins and beads into a design that will become part of a wealthy woman's wedding dress, or perhaps sold in a high end material shop in Melbourne. Each stitch hand sewn, each bead picked up at an amazing pace by one of maybe 40 young boys in a concrete room. These boys too, will work for 10 hours, the 18 year old will make about $20 a week, the younger boys less. They will be able to do this work for about 15-20 years before their eyesight fails and/or they have spinal problems from the crouching.
The city I visited is known to be one of the two worst cities for child labour in the country. But for many families there is no choice, if their son doesn't work, they don't eat. Dad is often working as a labourer, in a tannery or perhaps driving a donkey cart; Mum wasn't educated and so cannot earn, daughters are protected at home because abuse is a very real issue - that leaves the son/s, who can earn enough to help a family survive. But it means that they too will never go to school.One mother we spoke to said: "I can't afford to feed my (4) children properly, how can I justify spending money to send them to school?"
So what do we do? At the moment two 'small' things:
- we are going to educate, train and empower Mums. If we can help them make an income, probably home based, then they will not have to send their kids out to work. (No Mum wants to!)
- we have set up a drop-in centre for working kids. Parents can register their child, and with the permission of their employers, we are educating children (boys and girls) up to a minimum standard after which they can be main-streamed into local public schools.
Is it enough? Will it stop child labour? No. But its a start. And hopefully within the next 3 years we will have redirected 1,200 children from factories to school, and we will have assisted Mums to believe in themselves, to learn a new skill and set-up a home enterprise.
