Children make up 70 percent of workforce in some sectors

The Kenyan government said on Wednesday that there were an estimated three to four million child labourers in the country. In its report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Kenya said many of the children were working under hardship conditions which negatively affected their health, education and development. In some sectors of the Kenyan economy, children comprised 70 percent of the labour force, many working in violation of national and international laws, the report added. Fifty-two percent of Kenyans were under 17 years of age, it said.

Assistant Minister for Home Affairs, Heritage and Sports Wycliffe Osundwa said that although the government had given priority to critical areas of child care, Kenya's severe economic and social difficulties had prevented the full realisation of children's rights in the country. Osundwa said, however, that a draft children's bill was now before the Kenyan parliament. The Children Bill 2001 would be the first comprehensive child-law statute in the country and would strengthen the rights of children in Kenya if passed, he added.

As one of the 191 signatories to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Kenya is obliged to submit a report to the Committee, a component of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, on progress in the implementation of the provisions of the Convention.

Representatives of the Committee recommended that Kenya raise the age of criminal responsibility from children, which currently stands at eight years, to bring it into line with the provisions of the Convention. In preliminary remarks on the Kenyan report, the Committee expressed concerns over reports that children living on the streets were arbitrarily arrested by police. There were also allegations that the children were held in police stations and mistreated before being released, a child rights expert said.