Leaders denounce child labour, early marriages

Child labour and early marriages are still rampant in Tanzania, putting hundreds of thousands of children at risk, government officials have said. "As we mark the African Child Day today [Thursday], we have to find out how much we have achieved in improving children's rights in Africa," Samia Suluhu Hassan, the minister for labour, children and women's development in Tanzania's semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar, said. In a report to parliament as part of activities marking the Day of the African Child, she said that apart from early marriage many children were still living under difficult conditions. "In Zanzibar, we have been doing well, but let us educate the society to do away with early marriages, specifically those involving school children," she said. During the 2001-2002 financial year, she said, 49 cases of early marriages were recorded in Zanzibar, compared with 44 in 2004-2005. "This shows that there is little improvement and we need to work hard to solve the problem," Hassan said. She added that early pregnancies had decreased from 59 cases recorded 2001-2002 to 26 cases in 2004-2005. Hassan also told parliament that her ministry was working hard to see that the issues of child labour, malnutrition and lack of safe water for Zanzibari children were resolved. In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's commercial capital, the regional commissioner, Yusuf Makamba, said child labour and early marriage deprived millions of children an opportunity to develop their full potential. He told a rally marking the Day of the African Child that there were hundreds of thousands of children still engaged in worst mining industries, in plantations and as domestic servants. Makamba attributed child labour to poverty, saying this was causing some children to roam the streets while others are engage in commercial sex. He said as a result, such children risked getting infected with HIV/Aids. "They cannot attend school either, thus deepening the level of poverty in the country," he added.