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REPORTS: RIGHTS - COLOMBIA |
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Domestics
- The 'Invisible' Young Girls
Yadira
Ferrer
BOGOTA, (IPS) - Twelve-year-old
Carmen began to work as a domestic at
the age of 10, in exchange for room and
board -- just one of an estimated
323,000 minors under 18 in a similar
situation in Colombia, according to the
International Labour Organisation (ILO).
Colombia's laws make it illegal for
children under 14 to work. Experts
describe child domestic labour, which
mainly involves girls, as an
''invisible'' problem, because it is
widely tolerated by society and by law
enforcement agencies, and it occurs in a
private setting, where abuses are hard
to detect.
Carmen lives and works in downtown
Kenedy, a town south of Bogota, in the
home of her mother's former employer.
Her workday begins ''at five in the
morning, when I help the señora [the
lady of the house] fix breakfast, and
accompany the children to the bus stop
where they catch the bus that takes them
to school,'' she said in an interview
with IPS.
When she returns to her employer's home,
she cleans the kitchen and gets ready to
go to school, as she is struggling
through the fifth and last grade of
primary school. ''I come home from
school tired, and in class I get really
sleepy because I go to bed late, after
doing the household chores,'' she
explained.
Carmen said she does not want to work
and would prefer to be home with her
siblings, but that she is at least
allowed to study, and will continue to
do so in order to get a different job
when she grows up, perhaps as a teacher
or a nurse.
Her mother, Marina, told IPS that she
decided to send her daughter to work for
her former employer because that was the
only way to enable Carmen to continue
her schooling. She has two other
children, ages nine and 11, who she
supports on an income of three dollars a
day. The children's father abandoned the
family.
The ILO report was produced by the
agency's International Programme for the
Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), in
coordination with the United Nations
children's fund (UNICEF) and the global
child advocacy group Save The Children.
The study, which was carried out in two
Bogota districts and three
neighbourhoods in the northeastern
Colombian city of Bucaramanga, found a
strong correlation between the number of
hours worked by children under the age
of 18 and how many years behind they
were in their education.
According to the report, part-time work
(20 to 24 hours a week) tended to be
associated with a three to four-year lag
in schooling.
Other studies have found that at least
87 percent of children under 18 who work
in domestic labour are girls, and that
they work up to 17 hours a day.
Most minors who work earn less than the
minimum monthly wage of 130 dollars a
month, and without a formal contract or
social security, and they frequently
miss school.
''We cannot say that work is bad in and
of itself, but it ends up being very
harmful when it takes priority over
education, and when it transforms or
distorts essential aspects of
childhood,'' like play, the need to
explore, education, and training,
Consuelo Aponte, IPEC coordinator in
Colombia, commented to IPS.
Research has shown that child labour is
''a complex problem with a number of
causes, with which poverty is obviously
directly related,'' although it is not
the only factor in the equation, she
said.
''We see very poor families who do not
send their children out to work,'' said
Aponte, who added that child labour is
also associated with a deeply-rooted
culture ''that values work as a way of
educating and preparing someone for
life.''
Another factor is the shortcomings of
the educational system, not only in
terms of coverage but also in terms of
the ability of educators to motivate
students and keep them in school.
In addition, the school system faces
severe difficulties in this civil
war-torn South American country, where
teachers are often the targets of human
rights violations. Children in many
rural communities are left without
classes when their teachers are murdered
by the armed groups involved in the
conflict or flee to escape death
threats.
Precise figures on the number of child
workers in Latin America and the
Caribbean are impossible to obtain, but
the total number is estimated at between
15 and 20 million.
There are approximately 11.5 million
minors under 18 in Colombia, a country
of 42 million. The first survey on child
labour conducted by the National
Department of Statistics, the results of
which were released in November, found
that 1.5 million children, or 14.5
percent of minors aged five to 17, were
economically active.
In geographic terms, the highest rate of
child labour was 18.5 percent, found in
the western part of the country, and the
lowest 5.7 percent, in Bogota. Of the
total number of child workers, 52
percent were not remunerated, and only
one percent earned more than the minimum
monthly wage.
The situation is especially alarming in
rural areas, where 22.5 percent of
children between the ages of five and 17
work, compared to 11 percent in urban
areas.
On Jun. 5, IPEC, UNICEF and Save The
Children representatives signed a
declaration at a meeting in the resort
city of Cartagena in northern Colombia,
urging the governments of Latin America
and the Caribbean to invest more in
education, in order to offset the
factors that give rise to child labour.
Under an IPEC programme in Bogota and
Bucaramanga, 550 minors will be able to
study and work in adequate conditions,
and a media campaign is being launched
to raise public awareness and promote
and develop policies aimed at
eradicating child labour.
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