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The International Labour Organisation’s report for the year 2000 on the worst form of child labour in Cameroon revealed that some 430 000 children between the ages of 10 and 14 (about 23% of this age group) where economically active. 60% of them were primary school drop-out. The report further showed that child slavery was still going on in part of the northern provinces, including the Lamidat of Rey Bouba, where parents were reported to be of the habit of given their children for services to the Lamido and as a form of gift. In the UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) conducted with the Government of Cameroon’s Ministry of Economics and Finance. It was estimated that 58.1% children age 5 to 14 were working in Cameroon in the year 2000. Only 5% worked for wages. Of those children who performed domestic work, 11% worked more than four hours a day. According to another study conducted in 2000 by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Ministry of Labour and NGOs, children in Cameroon work in the agricultural sector, in informal activities such as street vending and car washing, as domestic servants, in prostitution, and in other illicit activities. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has found that 7% of working children in the cities of Yaoundé, Douala, and Bamenda were less than twelve years of age and 60% of these had dropped out of primary school.
During school vacation, street children reportedly work to earn money for school. However, reports from the Cameroon government shows that certain forms of child labour are reported to be culturally accepted traditions in the North and South West. Children are usually employed in Cocoa farms and engage in certain hazardous task such as the application of pesticides and the used of machetes. The ministry of social affaires also reported that children of some large rural families are tend to work as domestic servants, vendors, prostitutes and baby sitters in urban towns in exchange for monetary compensation.
The factors that boost the child labour venom in Cameroon are the high level of semi-literacy and illiteracy rates in many parts of the country. Although the constitution guarantees the rights to education, some parents must bribe school authorities for their children to be enrolled besides making provisions for uniforms, books and fees. Tuition and fees at the secondary school level remain unaffordable for many families, and school enrolment varies widely by region with less than 50% of the children attending school in the Far North Province. In 2000, 87% of children who started primary school were likely to reach class six in the North West and south west whereas only 39% of children will likely get there in the central, south and East Provinces. Fewer girls enrolled in primary schools than boys (but the situation is improving). In 2001, the UN committee on the right of the child indicated a number of problems with the educational system in Cameroon including rural/urban and regional disparities in school attendants. It reveals that there is limited access to formal and vocational education for children with disabilities, children falling behind in their primary education, a high drop out rates, lack of primary school teachers and violence and sexual abuse against children in schools.
It should also be noted that early marriage, unwanted pregnancy, domestic chores and certain socio-cultural prejudices also contribute to low rate of education. In such a deplorable educational dispensation, children who cannot go to school end up doing odd jobs around, which often result in child labour. Also, in an economic arena marked by abject poverty among the masses, many parents who cannot afford to sponsor their children in school, are forced to use them on the farms, at the markets and in other petty businesses. Other parents caught in this plight, succumbs to their fate by giving their children as domestic servants or vendors to some wealthy individuals and relatives in exchange of money, or upon promises of subsequent sponsorship of the child in one vocational school or the other.
In must cases, the children acknowledging their state of poverty and apparent helplessness go out to fend for themselves and their families by deliberately and voluntarily under-taking such tasks. Another factor is the apparent silence of the mass media toward child labour. If the mass media could put as much emphasis on this issue as they have been doing on HIV/AIDS then the trauma would not have gone this far.
Also, the advent of diseases like AIDS and Malaria, in a set up characterised by poverty, has left many children parentless. These orphans are in turn being exposed to the caprices of unscrupulous, hypocritical individual who feign philanthropy with the latent motive of enslaving the child. They are just the true disciples of the French adage “Le Malheur des un fait le bonheur des autres”. Finally, child trafficking is the obvious component of child labour that needs not to be emphasized. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) reviled in 2000 that child trafficking accounted for 84% of child labour in Yaoundé, Douala and Bamenda. Intermediaries present themselves as business men approaching parents with families or custodians of orphans and promising to assist the child with education or professional training. Child trafficking is so akin to child labour that one cannot be mentioned without the other.
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Akwalla Johanness
I am a young development activist who believes that for youths to be successful, we need to come together and share ideas that are beneficial to the whole of humanity.
I strongly believe that for Africa to come out of the political hostage its finds itself, our leaders must stop to consider themselves as traditional rulers. We all know that traditional rulers rule for life, and power is passed on to their descendant. And I think that once our leaders stop to think of themselves as such and concentrate on development by investing into the education and basic health care and social services, then can we say we are on the right path to human development.
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