Combating exploitation and starvation wages: offering education over child labour

Ranging from extreme poverty and rapid population growth to low literacy levels and high levels of youth unemployment, the causes of child labour are many and varied. 150 million child labourers aged between five and 14 are still being employed in conditions that are extremely damaging to their health and development. While working hard for a starvation wage in agriculture, as street vendors or in factories, they often do not attend school or receive a proper education. This is the situation in Burkina Faso, where only around 30 percent of all children complete primary school, despite school attendance being compulsory throughout the country. Many families do not send their children to school because of the high costs it incurs, the large distances to the schools, and because they require extra labour at home. This all increases the risk of child labour.

With the aim of reducing child labour and the child trafficking that so often occurs, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is working in Burkina Faso on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) to protect children and promote their rights. Günther Taube, GIZ expert on education, explains, ‘as education is the best way of breaking the vicious circle of exploitative child labour and eliminating it sustainably, our work focuses on increasing the school enrolment rate and reducing the number of dropouts’. Targeted awareness-raising campaigns in the east and southwest of the country are informing families about children’s rights, and showing them how detrimental a lack of schooling and exploitative child labour are for their children. Initial success has already been achieved, as Günther Taube is pleased to report, ‘GIZ’s work has meant that around 30,000 children have stayed in school instead of dropping out, and the school enrolment rate has increased overall, with the number of girls in particular doubling”.

Advisory services to the cotton and transport sector, where many children work, are also leading to major improvements, as the companies are committing to codes prohibiting the employment of children and banning lorry drivers from picking them up as hitchhikers if they are obviously travelling as migrant workers. Over the last few years the percentage of emigrating children has been reduced to below two percent.