Focus on child labour

Despite the frowns of onlookers, 13-year-old Murat and his companions earn their keep in the quiet village of Aravan, not far from the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh, making bricks. "Making bricks is a job for adults," Jalil Dadaev, an elderly resident told IRIN disapprovingly. "One needs good health, nutrition and proper rest, to carry out such tasks." But young Murat and his friends disagree. After completion of his daily consignment, he along with his friends, share a frugal lunch of dried bread and a couple of tomatoes each. The oldest in their families, each of the boys emphasised the need factor to why they had to work. Moreover, each has big plans for the money they will earn. One dreams of buying a cow, the second wants to buy new clothes for his sisters, while the third plans to buy much needed medicine for his ailing mother. According to the regional authorities, such 'dreams' are not without a price though. In villages throughout southern Kyrgyzstan, a newly independent nation where poverty hangs over it like a dark cloud, mud-brick making has become the primary source of employment for area minors. Estimates maintain up to two thirds of brick production in the Aravan and Kara-Suu districts of southern Osh province is by children and adolescents, while in Aravan district alone, every summer boys are moulding up to a million mud-bricks. Such numbers are worrisome, increasingly resulting in concern among local health workers, over potential back, belly and cardiovascular problems the children might suffer. Ruptures, rheumatism, along with various catarrhal diseases remain the professional diseases for the young mud brick workers. Tolon Shainazarov, chief doctor at the Osh provincial child hospital believes children are vulnerable to a variety of diseases, including dystrophy, ulcers, gastric diseases and anemia - an ailment which had seen a marked rise among girls. He cited toilsome work on the tobacco, cotton and rice fields as the root cause of the problem. "Such hard labour badly impacts the physical and psychological development of the growing individual," Shainazarov told IRIN. But despite the warnings, the reality of poverty overrules and the children continue to toil away. "Who will feed my family, but me?" asked Murat. Another concern being raised is what impact a lack of child labour would have on specific economic sectors. "The whole [local] tobacco industry rests on women and children," Zakhidjan Abijanov, the deputy head of the Nookat local administration, one of the leading areas for tobacco planting in the country told IRIN. "The job is very labour consuming and thereby farms tend to employ child labour," he said, noting that hiring workers from outside was costly. Nookat was renowned as being one of the 'leading' communities for TB and iron deficiency in the country, largely due to the harmful effects of tobacco planting, Abijanov claimed. Urging the local population to limit child labour usage and telling them about its complications was not providing the necessary results, he admitted. According to the Kyrgyzstan Federation of Unions, poverty, low socio-economic conditions and a lack of any real sense of child protection, were the main factors fueling the problem. In short, employers remain interested in cheap child labour.

Poverty fuels the problem of child labour thoughout the country

Abdumalik Sharipov of the Jalal-Abad children's advocacy NGO 'Justice' told IRIN that many children from poor families faced intense economic pressure to work, with many of them literally working as slaves, with little to no rights. "A shepherd boy died recently in one of the mountain villages. He was given by his parents living in the lowlands to a rich stock-breeder. The incident was smoothed over by the stock-breeder by paying the boy's family two or three sheep," Sharipov said. Meanwhile, Adinahan Kadyrova, an assistant to the Osh provincial prosecutor, told IRIN in Osh that in addition to agriculture, children and adolescents were also involved in catering, services, retail trade and transport spheres. The office of the provincial prosecutor discerned that due to poverty, parents would reluctantly often encourage their children to work under harmful and dangerous conditions - for example, alcohol, tobacco products and oil trade on the streets. Moreover, instead of a short working day, as is required by law, minors at cafés, diners and bakeries often worked up to 12 hours a day alongside adults - despite being paid less. "It is a clear exploitation of child labour," Kadyrova said. A grown up worker received approximately US $35 a month, while a minor working in the same capacity received a little more than US $10, she claimed, noting that more and more children were not attending school given the need to provide for their families' livelihoods. Some officials at the Osh provincial education department told IRIN that at least 180 children were absent from school, while another one of them estimated that number to be close to 500. Whatever the truth, it is clearly just the tip of the iceberg as education officials said many children were going with their parents - labour migrants - to neighbouring Kazakhstan or further to Russia, where they weren't attending school either. Valeri Saliev of the Osh provincial union council expressed concern over the rise in juvenile delinquency. "Lack of experience, immaturity, coupled with a lack of social protection make adolescents an easy target for dishonest employers along with some criminal elements, including drug dealers, profiteers and gangs," he warned. The union activist advocated the development of a programme to restrict child labour in the country, adding such a programme, should first of all prioritise alleviating poverty in the area, coupled with effective legislation to counter the use of child labour. "There is a need in regular meetings of employers, unions and state bodies," Nigora Ismailova of "Mehr -Shavkat", a local NGO, added in Osh. "Our media, somehow, neglects the opportunity to draw the community's attention to the problem." Local NGO activists concede that there were no special programmes or projects to monitor and reduce child labour utilisation, however, some NGOs were working to establish more favourable conditions for the working minors. For example, "Meridian -AtBakht", a local NGO comprising of some 600 wooden cart pushers, has developed a training programme for its members, of whom half were minors. The programme deals with the education of young cart pushers, sending them to evening schools, with further education at vocational schools and colleges. However, such initiatives are undoubtedly more of an exception than a rule. And despite reports that more than 100 state organisations and NGOs were dealing with the problems of children and adolescents, little improvement in the situation can be cited. One staff member of an international organisation working on children's issues in the country, declining to be identified, remarked that none of the local offices of international organisations were addressing the issues of child labour and exploitation. "We give priority to the issues of education and social protection of children and youth," he told IRIN. Meanwhile, the United Nations Children's Fund [UNICEF] is implementing a cooperation programme with the Kyrgyz government for the years 2000-2004 on child development and the welfare of adolescents, for which the UN agency has already allocated more than US $6.5 million. The programme focuses on the education and training of social services staff for expanding family counselling help with regard to children without parental supervision, along with training health personnel and teachers on how to evaluate incidences of child abuse and methods of preventing it. Moreover, justice bodies' staff members are also being trained to provide counseling support to children. Additionally, UNICEF is also cooperating with some youth NGOs on the issue.

Two boys taking a rest from their jobs outside the Osh bazaar

The office of the state's "New Generation" programme, has also been opened with the support of UNICEF at the Kyrgyz Ministry of Labour and Social Protection. According to ministry officials the main goal of the project, which is expected to last until 2010, was to create conditions that guaranteed survival, growth and comprehensive development of young citizens. The programme also envisages Kyrgyzstan's fulfillment of the signed international convention on child rights. "Over the past two years alone the International Labour Organisation (ILO), together with international and domestic unions has conducted several extensive seminars on eradicating the worst forms of child labour in Kyrgyzstan," Bolot Mazayev, responsible for agriculture industry monitoring at the Osh provincial council of unions, told IRIN. "No doubt, these actions uncover the problem, accentuate the attention and have a huge cognitive interest. But then it stops, the rest is the work of our government and the society, however, there is more talk than real action in our country," he claimed. "The civilised world fights against abuse of child labour. Kyrgyzstan, claiming to become a democratic state, should go beyond declarations," added Vahab Umarov, an education expert and children's writer from Osh.