The National Child Labour Action Programme for South Africa

5.8Commercial agriculture

Legal provisions on child work have covered commercial agriculture only since the early 1990s. However, most farm workers live isolated from inspectors and police, making it difficult to discover or enforce child work provisions. Unions complain about lack of enforcement due to lack of human and other resources.

It was hoped that labour inspection on farms would be facilitated through a protocol agreed upon between AgriSA and the Department of Labour. To some extent, it has done so. However, it also raises its own difficulties. In terms of the protocol inspectors must give notice to the farmer before an inspection is carried out. The result is that a farmer can hide signs of child labour before inspectors arrive. Inspectors indicated that they are also often fearful to enter farms to do an inspection without following such protocol, despite their legal right to do so, because a farmer may deal with them as they would with any intruder. Where inspectors believe their safety is at risk during an inspection they can ask for SAPS protection. However, while this is a function that SAPS should provide, inspectors report that SAPS officers sometimes refuse to do this.

In some cases children are directly employed by farmers (regularly or seasonally) and in others they work for the farmer as a part of family teams doing piecework. The situation is aggravated by the fact that farm workers’ children still do not have easy access to education, especially at the secondary level.

One of the worst forms of child labour is where children are forced to work as a condition of their family having access to housing on the farm. There are no reliable figures on how often this practice still occurs at present. While the incidence of farm workers living on farms is decreasing, a significant number of families still depend on farmers for their homes, so it is possible that it happens.

Related to this is the practice whereby an agreement is reached between a land owner and a tenant in terms of which the tenant will supply labour to the landlord by supplying workers for the landlord. The practice may encourage the supply of children and workers to a landlord, and the withdrawal of such children as workers could lead to the eviction of the tenant. This potential form of bonded labour is discussed under par 5.1, and action step (36) is recommended in that regard.

International studies on occupational health and safety consistently find that agriculture is one of the most hazardous industrial sectors. The sector is also associated with long and atypical hours of work, and seasonal demand for intensive labour. Particular hazards found in agriculture include farm machinery; ergonomic stress; dangerous chemicals; climatic hazards such as cold, rain and heat; long hours; work before sunrise and after sunset; electrical hazards, and biological hazards arising from farm animals.

Many of these factors may interact with each other, increasing vulnerability. Other socio-economic factors aggravate the hazards of these exposures. Poor nutritional status among children may reduce their resistance to infection or their ability to cope with heavy loads. Poor sanitation and water facilities reduce their ability to wash and prevent pesticide exposure. In addition, in rural farming areas facilities such as health care are usually thinly distributed.

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  Children are often employees in commercial agriculture, while this is uncommon in subsistence agriculture.
  
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  Dangerous tools and powered machinery are used to a much greater extent.
  
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  More processing and preservation of agricultural produce occurs, involving higher degree of hazardous work.
  
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  Dangerous chemicals are used to a much greater extent.
  
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  In some cases, bonded labour is found.