International labour organisation
Social, Cultural and Gender dimension of child labour
Download 304.23 Kb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- Chapter Two
- 4.1.1 Customary herding
- 4.1.2 Domestic herding
- 4.1.3 Herding in commercial beef ranching
3.2 Social, Cultural and Gender dimension of child labourThe pastoralist communities have strong and deep-seated cultural beliefs, orientations and practices that do form active and vibrant institutions of decision-making and governance. Unfortunately, these systems and institutions tend, in most instances, to discriminate against women and further advances to deny them certain rights. The notion of social – cultural practices among the indigenous peoples is broad and complex as it includes a whole body of knowledge, skills, traditional and human creativity and interaction with nature, arts of descriptions and expressions, among many other attributes. Culture is not static despite being a strong source of identity, medium of communications and representations22. In most indigenous communities, culture gives insurmountable power to the male gender. The woman is in practice powerless and voiceless. Indigenous women are challenging this, however, they need more support, diverse skills, technical capacity and space to be able to articulate and advance their needs and aspirations. The number of organisations led by indigenous women is negligible and their participation in the development and decision-making processes is equally weak. However, some remarkable efforts are coming up but have lacked adequate resources to achieve more significant gains. The broad human rights agenda among these groups/communities has not taken into account key issues, such as child labour. The IPOs need to include child labour and other common vices in their advocacy and awareness creation programs. The leaders of these IPOs are mainly male-led and decision-making processes are male–dominated and controlled. The non-inclusion of child labour in their agenda maybe a true reflection of self-denial that indigenous communities attach to this issue. These communities still want to be seen and understood as “untouched” by the globalisation processes and that their cultural values and norms are still fully operational and they perceive that accepting that child labour exist brings shame to the whole community. Chapter Two4. Major Forms of child Labour faced by Indigenous children4.1. HerdingThree forms of herding can be distinguished, customary, domestic and commercial herding. Here below, these are presented and discussed in further detail. 4.1.1 Customary herdingPastoralism is a labour intensive production and also a cultural way of life as well as an identity.Indigenous children contribute to the management of family assets and resources and also gain survival and life skills. Children (Boys and Girls) as young as 7-10 years look after calves and kids. Children between 10-18 age brackets look after mature livestock. However, this is also a critical age in terms of participating in the formal education systems. Almost all the households with livestock have some of their children retained at home (who do not go to school) to help in livestock management and domestic chores at home. It is only the elite pastoralists in gainful employment that can manage to send all of their children to school. Girls have to double up both of these functions; apart from looking after livestock, they are also supposed to fetch water and firewood – while looking after livestock. In the evening, the girls are supposed to bring in the livestock and firewood or water and, at home, they still have to give their mothers back up in terms of taking care of their siblings. In the consultations, the participants estimated that in most of the indigenous communities up to 60% of children are engaged in customary herding, which is part of community socialising.
These children are denied education, work in stressful conditions and have at time to go long day without food as only one meal is provided for in the day. They are exposed to physical danger (wildlife), psychological stress and deprived of a right as child as these children have to assume adult roles. It is difficult to get the exact number of children employed as herds boys, but the poor enrollment rates in pastoralists areas give glaring evidence that more children are out of school. These are the pastoralists “innocent hidden faces” that the outside world knows very little about. In most cases, it is the children of single parents, particularly women that are trapped in this form of labour as, during the drought, they cannot move their livestock to far areas in search of pasture. As their livestock ends up being decimated by droughts, they have to look for means of survival by hiring their children out. The families displaced by conflicts and droughts are also highly susceptible of making their children work, as a strategy of re-building their livelihood. 4.1.3 Herding in commercial beef ranchingIn Laikipia where beef ranching is predominant, more pastoralists (adults) are being employed in the ranches as herdsmen and they move in the ranches to live with their children. Due to the heavy workload and in order to increase their income, some parents engage their children to help them and at the end of the year, the ranch owner pays some bonus to children. To evade the legal hurdles, ranchers do not reflect the children in their employment record (only the parents’ name) but they are aware and do know that the children are working and do not attend school. These ranches are exclusive and access to them is restricted and it is therfore difficult to estimate the number of affected children. Due to poverty, pastoralists children, for instance the Maasai and Samburu, are initiated at a tender age say, 12-15 years and once circumcised, they obtain National identification cards and end up being employed. The issuance of ID cards is authorized by local chiefs – who themselves are pastoralists and use circumcision as a basis of defining adulthood. 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:
|