Over 30,500 rescued from child labour

Officials have rescued or prevented 30,530 children from being employed in the worst forms of labour over the last three years, an official of the Tanzanian Ministry of Labour and Youth Development, said on Wednesday. "The trend in the withdrawal of children from worst forms of child labour, which is widespread in Tanzania, is encouraging," Abubakar Rajabu, the permanent secretary in the ministry, told IRIN in the commercial capital of Dar es Salaam. He was commenting on the Time Bound Programme (TBP), being implemented in the country since 2002, with the support of the International Labour Organization (ILO). The project is aimed at reducing the number of children employed in hazardous jobs such as mining, fishing, commercial sex, and includes those working in plantations and as domestic servants. The number of Tanzanian children aged between five and 17 years engaged in different forms of labour was estimated at 717,677, according to an ILO study conducted in the country in 2003. "Such work in plantations, mining and commercial sex effect children physically and psychologically, because of fatigue and sense of despair," Rajabu said. He called on NGOs involved in the implementation of the TBP programme to intensify their efforts at changing the lives of the affected children. Under TBP, NGO officials, in collaboration with government social workers, religious institutions and parents, monitor children working in difficult conditions and motivate them to rejoin their families or join institutions where they could be assisted to return to school. Rajabu said the government would continue to work out strategies to eliminate child labour by meting out harsh penalties on those found employing children. He added that the government would periodically review its child development policy. However, he said child labour was a symptom of other serious concerns in the society, such as poverty and HIV/AIDS. "Some parents look at children as part of the breadwinning team in the family, while some [children] run away from hardships in their homes," he said. He added, "HIV/AIDS is also responsible for child labour because it has generated orphans, now estimated to be more than one million." Government statistics put the number of people infected with HIV in the country at between 8 percent and 10 percent of the population. Tanzania has a population of 36 million. Rajabu said a sustainable solution to the child labour problem should include efforts to reduce poverty and curb the spread of HIV/AIDS.