International labour organisation
Download 304.23 Kb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- The Prevalence and the nature of child labour among Kenyan PHGs communities is not clearly documented and articulated in existing government policy documents.
1.0 Executive summarySummary of key issues, observations and lessons learned on child labour interventions among selected Kenyan ITPs. Recent studies have shown that indigenous peoples1, the world over, stand a special risk in relation to child labour, including the worst forms of child labour. This is, to a large extent, linked to extreme levels of poverty among indigenous peoples, derived from previous and ongoing dispossession of land and natural resources dispossessions, leading to social disruptions of their livelihood and low levels of education. These, among other factors, add up as key “drivers” that ensure that these communities continue to become a source of child labour within and beyond indigenous peoples’ territories2. The livelihoods of indigenous peoples3 in Kenya (mainly pastoralists and hunter-gatherers) are by and large, precarious and the survival options are increasingly becoming limited. To a large extent, the national policy and legal frameworks are insensitive to the needs of these communities and only add up to exclude and marginalize them further. The indigenous children fall in this vicious trap and for sure, stand a high risk of becoming child labourers in one way or another. It is against this background that the ILO Project on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples (PRO 169) in 2005 decided to commission three studies on the situation of child labour among indigenous peoples in three different countries namely, Kenya, the Philippines and Guatemala. All the studies were designed and undertaken by three experienced indigenous resource persons. The overall aim and purpose was to establish whether and to what extent child labour and, in particular, worst forms of child labour exist among these communities, and to capture and document the indigenous peoples’ own notion and understanding of child labour as well as its causes and interventions. A specific objective of these study was to document challenges related to access to basic education as a consequence of child labour and what innovative approaches, if any, are being undertaken by the Government, indigenous peoples and other key players such as ILO/IPEC to address these challenges and what experiences and lessons have been generated over time. i) There is a weak data formation, generation and dissemination concerning communities claiming indigenous identity in Kenya. The existing data and information is inconsistent, disparate and in most instances lacking. The 1998/99 Child Labour Report estimates that there are about 1.9 million child labourers in Kenya of whom 34% are in commercial agriculture and fisheries, and 23.6% in subsistence agriculture and 17.9% in the domestic sector4. The traditional forms of livelihood and traditional occupations are not well defined and documented - implying that means that child labour among Kenyan pastoralists and hunter-gatherers is not still remains “invisible” in national records. This study acknowledges the fact that child labour, including its worst forms, do exist and, is on the increase among the Kenyan indigenous communities5. The qualitative and quantitative data formation and information necessary and important for informed decision making, planning purposes and understanding of these communities is either completely lacking or, where it exists, it is sketchy or unreliable. The lack of data coupled with lack of appropriate culturally sensitive data and information collection procedures has to a large extent, contributed to and perpetuated the limited knowledge, misinformation and stereotypes attached to these communities and their livelihood systems at different levels of government and society. To a large extent, government agencies and institutions are planning and acting based on stereotypes that are not relevant to the cultures, livelihood and aspirations of pastoralists and hunter-gatherer communities. The child labourers in these communities continue to be “missing in action” or “hidden and suffering faces and souls” as they are not clearly and adequately reflected in national statistics, giving a false image that child labour and its worst forms does not exist or is negligible amongst these communities. ii) There is weak legal and policy framework/environment that defines and guides child labour initiatives. To a large extent, the policy makers and bureaucrats do not see any logic or reason to have special policy orientation for pastoralists or hunter gatherers and as such, the same approach is being advocated and practiced as that being applied in urban centres or among mainstream/settled communities. Generally, the legal and policy environment for enabling children to access and advance their rights has been improved by a number of high-level policies and actions by the Government. These include the recent enactment of the Children Act (2001). The Act dictates compulsory education for all children. This has been strengthened by the pronouncement for free primary education in 2003. However, there is no comprehensive strategy to address the question of relevance of the curriculum and the entire education system to pastoralists and hunter-gatherers livelihood systems. This has to a large extent contributed to low level of participation by indigenous children in the formal education and will continue to hinder their participation and retention in the formal education system. The study also confirms that indigenous child labourers are not, necessarily, benefiting from the free education policy, as the mainstream thinking and policy makers at the national level otherwise assume. The Kenyan government has ratified a number of international instruments such as the ILO Convention on the Elimination of Worst Forms of Child Labour (No. 182) and The Minimum Age Convention of Entry into Employment (No. 138).
The Government, on the whole has continued to show commitment to address child labour issues. There is a Child Labour Division within the Ministry of Labour and Human Resource Development and a top-level Inter-ministerial Coordination Committee has been established and is chaired by the Office of the Vice President and Ministry of Home affairs and National Heritage with the Ministry of Labour as the secretariat. This opens up opportunities for the PHGs communities to lobby their child labour issues and concerns at a high level.
The pastoralists and hunter gatherers communities (PHGCs) have continued their struggle to advance their rights and recognition at all levels of Kenyan society and to ensure that their profile, human rights and development issues are integrated in the existing and new policy and programme intervention frameworks. There are few organisations addressing the issue of child labour among the indigenous peoples and as such, there are in deed very few experiences to be shared. Most organisations are working in urban centres, urban slums and commercial areas. This study strongly evidences that previous studies and research initiatives on child labour have largely ignored indigenous communities. This may be one reason why child labour interventions are few among in indigenous peoples’ areas. It is, however, astonishing that child labour among the indigenous peoples is not the subject of a research favourite. It could be part of the vicious cycle of social and policy exclusion that continues to be persistent among the indigenous peoples the world over. The UN agencies such as UNICEF and ILO have, of late, made some attempts to address child labour among pastoralists’ communities. The ILO, through IPEC is implementing a Programme known as the Time Bound Programme on the elimination of Child Labour in 15 Kenyan Districts6. The districts are said to be experiencing high incidences of worst forms of child labour. Unfortunately, of the 15 districts, only one district (Samburu) is occupied by pastoralists. This scenario reinforces the false image that there are minimal or low incidences of child labour or its worst forms among pastoralists. UNICEF has been active in a number of pastoralists districts, that have been hit by severe drought and it has been implementing child survival and education initiatives in the north-eastern and eastern parts of the country. The pastoralists led and managed NGOs/CBOs have taken a deliberate lead to address broader human rights advocacy issues of engaging the Government for policy change. The media coverage of child labour and other issues among indigenous peoples has also been weak and this confirms that the Kenyan media is still suffering from stereotypes and biases against these communities. In most circumstances, the worst and emotional experiences; such as conflicts, famine, tribal wars and massacres are among the issues that eventually make the headlines in relation to these communities. The media has not critically examined the underlying issues and factors that have led to minimal or decreasing school enrolment rates in the pastoralists Districts, despite, the introduction of free primary education.
The 1998/99 child labour survey (later published in 2001) remains the most comprehensive and consolidated data on nature and extent of child labour in Kenya. It gives the national picture on the extent and distribution but it is still lacking in terms of disaggregated data on the number of pastoralists children affected by child labour. Pastoralism is lumped up together with subsistence agriculture. According to the draft National Policy on Child Labour, there are four main economic sectors that are known to engage children in worst forms of child labour. These are domestic service, commercial sex, agriculture (commercial, subsistence and pastoralism) and street working children in informal sectors. According to the child labour survey, the majority of working children (43.6%) belong to 10-14 age bracket and 30.1% in the age group of 15 to 17 years. The survey also informs that 79% of children who acknowledge to have worked were engaged in family farms or enterprises in which they didn’t earn any pay. Agriculture and related occupations account for the highest incidences of working children and the traditional occupations of Kenyan indigenous peoples, which is mainly pastoralism and which is labour intensive, is categorised under subsistence agriculture. The pastoralists’ children are engaged in domestic or commercialised forms of herding and it denies them the opportunity to fully participate in the current education system as it conflicts with the traditional roles. The increase in natural resource based conflicts and/or armed conflicts between different pastoralists communities or clans o and/or between settled communities and pastoralists are leading to an increased number of internally displaced peoples which, in turn, has led to an increased number of working children. The children are also engaged in armed conflicts. The ongoing armed conflicts between the Samburus and the Pokots has led to over 40 deaths of children7 and the displacement of families in their traditional lands leading to social stress, denial of livelihood means and abuse of human rights. This has forced households to give away their children as child labourers in hotels or to wealthy families and, even worse; adolescent girls have been forced to engage in commercial sex work as means of making ends meet and to support their families in rebuilding stable livelihoods.
In 1999, the National Poverty Eradication Plan (NPEP) was formulated backed by a number of sectoral papers- based on the premise that over 56% of Kenyan population is struggling under the yoke of poverty. This has been further worsened and complicated by the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS pandemic and the ever-growing insecurity of both the human person and their livelihood in the pastoralists’ areas8. The characteristics of poverty are dynamic, multi dimensional and context specific. Poverty is widespread in Kenya but the pastoralists and hunter –gatherer communities form a bulk of the poor.. Poverty among the pastoralists is as a result of inefficient policies and prevalent resource-based conflicts among and between these communities. Poverty is not just lack of productive resources and assets, but also a state of powerlessness, lack of choices, lack of freedom, and non-recognition of traditional and culturally-based livelihoods. Poverty manifests itself in different ways such as hunger, ill health, denial of dignity, vulnerability, social and physical risks, season- based (droughts or disaster) lack of opportunities of decision-making and insecurity of person as well as that of their livelihoods. In Kenya, it is also imperative to note that poverty, as in other parts of the world, takes an ethnic and cultural identity. Certain communities are excluded from decision-making powers because of their political affiliations and ideologies, or are further marginalized due to their means of livelihood and further driven beyond the threshold of survival by policies and laws that criminalize their source and means of livelihoods. For example, pastoralists are not allowed to graze their livestock in the forests during the dry seasons, however, the agricultural communities are allowed to cultivate crops in the same forests on arrangement with the forest department. This is against the principle of non-discrimination based on religion, culture, ethnicity, and disability among others. The growing levels of poverty has led to increased number of working children as a household coping strategy to enable them to increase their income. However, child labour has led to perpetual increase in children and households leading undignified lives. The manifestations of poverty among the pastoralists and hunter-gatherers communities has not been fully analysed and understood at the policy level. This had lead to several project aimed at converting them into agricultural communities by making them settle. The process of in-depth socio-cultural poverty analysis among these communities has been left mainly to the civil society, although this responsibility lies mainly with the central government. In Kenya, politics is a game of disempowering the poor and the weaker. This is where the women and the marginalized communities, occasionally, find themselves in the loosing end and the solutions proposed has been giving handouts. There is a serious and never –ending tendency to manipulate institutions and government agencies for political purposes, which tends to perpetuate ignorance and dependency by the poor on the powerful. This is equally true when it comes to national resource allocation. In conclusion, the Kenyan Government still has not formulated a national policy on pastoralism and other traditional occupations, yet it directly supports over 6 millions persons. v) Culture and cultural identity forms a strong foundation for child development, community development and value-based development of the society. Unfortunately, the pastoralists and hunter-gatherers communities continue to perceive the formal education and development emanating from it as a sure way to loose their culture and identity - a tool for dispossession of inherent cultural resources and life-skills. However, there are certain cultural practices that are detrimental to the pastoralists’ women and the girl child. In view of the ongoing initiatives and practices the women and girls continue to occupy a lower ladder in decision-making and benefits sharing and in determining how the benefits are distributed. It is worth noting that pastoralist and hunter-gatherers are patriarchal/patrilineal communities and women are undermined and excluded from the traditional decision making and leadership structures. The role of women in perpetuating culture and sustaining communal identity is, however, recognized but when it comes to access and control over resources they remain a subjugated segment of the community. Certain cultural practices like female genital mutilation and early marriages further affect the welfare, rights and well-being of the indigenous women. It is now a documented and accepted fact that certain cultural practices are harmful to the health and rights of women. It is evident that certain communities attach certain cultural believes to counting human beings i.e. the Maasai of east Africa believe it is bad omen and can lead to death and when you ask a Maasai woman how many children she has; she will casually put it “I have what God has given me”. There are other categories of pastoralists that are subjugated, despised and do menial jobs for the “pastoralists proper”- the peripatetic social groups such as the “Il kunono” (Blacksmiths) – who live within and among the Samburu and the Rendile. The Rendile or Samburu proper cannot marry from these social groups. They are despised and treated as a low caste. They provide services such as cleansing ceremony for murderers, circumcision; and they produce spears etc. that they sell to the pastoralists proper. This implies that indigneous or pastoralists communities themselves are not homogenous as otherwise assumed by the civil society and Government.
Directory: res res -> General text for tender (recommendations) for Pilkington Profilit™ Contents Page res -> North Carolina Inclusion Initiative Mapping Where Children with ieps are Being Served Purpose res -> Make Me a Superhero – Resilient People Sir Chris Hoy born 23 March 1976 res -> Occupational health and safety res -> Practice learning res -> Principal’s Report 2013-2014 res -> Charter School Enrollment Data Annual Report res -> The Rise of Video Games Section “Word” Matt Spencer Download 304.23 Kb. Share with your friends:
|