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COUNTRY REPORT – ZIMBABWE
Chapters:
1. Introduction
2. Field trips:
I. Uswaushava - Engaging with the community
II. Tanganda Tea Estates – dubious private sector initiative
III. Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe and its strike
IV. Meetings in Harare
V. Closing workshop in Harare
3. Conclusion - highlights and recommendations/challenges
***************************************************************************
1. INTRODUCTION
The economic turmoil Zimbabwe has been lately experiencing seems to influence all aspects of life in the country, including the education system, which collapsed about a year ago when Zimbabwean teachers decided to go on strike.
It is important to note that any meeting the Africa Tour 2008 delegation attended was started by the local organizations pointing out the abnormal situation the country happens to be in. A major part of all discussions was dedicated to the hardship the local teachers are going through. It is rather impossible for them at the moment to focus on child rights when they have hardly anything to eat and cannot feed their families. Thus emergency food aid has been provided to the poorest teachers who have been literally starving.
Eighty percent of the population is unemployed and most of Zimbabweans are involved in non-formal economy with only 600,000 employed formally.
Among the estimated three million who have left the country in search of job, are teachers and young people between 18 – 30 years old.
Education under normal circumstances has always been valued in Zimbabwe but the relatively high literacy rate – 90.7 percent – is soon likely to be affected by the drastic brain drain and economic collapse.
At the moment there is practically no school with 70 percent of teachers on strike. This has a grave impact on the existence of child labour. In a UNICEF survey conducted in 2004, it was found that26 percent of children were involved in child labour. Child labour is now estimated to be much higher, with the economic hardship Zimbabweans are undergoing.
The Zimbabwean part of the Stop Child Labour campaign’s Africa Tour 2008 was organized by Hivos and CACLAZ (Coalition Against Child Labour Zimbabwe) which unites three organizations: Progressive Teachers´ Union (PTUZ), General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ) and African Network for the Prevention and Protection Against Child Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN).
Upon its arrival to Harare, the Africa Tour 2008 delegation was briefed by Overson Chiyaka from the Hivos office and CACLAZ´s coordinator Pascal Masocha.
The closing workshop in Harare concluded the successful Africa Tour delegation’s visit, which culminated by CACLAZ announcement of adopting the “child labour free zone” scheme and declaring its commitment to create two such zones in Zimbabwe – urban and rural - in the following years.
At the same time CACLAZ representatives readily admitted know-how assistance and material support will have to be secured in order to be able to replicate the child labour free zone model.
The CACLAZ delegates also openly expressed their interest to stay in touch with the Africa Tour 2008 delegation in order to gain more experience from all the countries – Morocco’s SNE, India’s MVF and Nepal’s Asamaan.
The workshop was attended by local media representatives and Zimbabwe’s Congress of Trade Union
2. FIELD TRIPS TO USWUASHAVA, TANGANDA TEA ESTATES, MUTARE AND HARARE
Venkat Reddy listening attentively in a non-formal school in the village of Uswaushava in southern Zimbabwe
I. Uswaushava - Engaging with the community
Due to some problems with transportation (substantial delay caused by a tire puncture on the road), the program of the Africa Tour 2008 delegation - as prepared by local partners from CACLAZ - only started in real on the third day after the arrival in the country.
Despite delays, the visit of Uswaushava village school in the province of Masvingo in the southern part of the country, proved to be very fruitful as it gave the delegation a great opportunity to engage with the locals on the ground level.
The local community leader together with the headmaster of the school and several members of the community including a member of the local School Development Committee sat in for an extended session with the Africa Tour delegation plus representatives of CACLAZ during which all the important issues concerning the topics of child labour and education were thoroughly discussed.
Headmaster Mr. Mafuma briefed the delegation on the history of the school, which came to existence in 2002, just two years after the founding of the settlement, and has transformed itself from the humble beginnings when he himself was the only teacher for 200 pupils into a proud, if simple, institution of basic learning for 500 students, served by 13 teachers.
The ANPPCAN was instrumental in setting up the school together with the Ministry of Public Services, Labour and Social Welfare which had pre-selected the area, as there was a high incidence of child abuse.
All the structures (of semi-permanent nature) have been put in place with the help of the local community which has provided all the necessary labour. Today, 22 village headmen from the area are involved in maintaining the school.
It transpired over the course of the debate that the challenges the school has to put up with do not radically differ from those faced by the country in general, i.e. raising costs of living and basic services including the education, lack of financial support from the government (towards securing the necessary supply of textbooks and stationary) and the fleeing of youngsters, especially boys to neighboring South Africa in search of jobs. The schoolmaster believes as many as 5 to 10 percent from the overall number of students have immigrated to South Africa. .
The School Development Committee (SDC), parents and school representatives have reportedly agreed upon the level of school fees which reflect more the affordability of the education than the actual running costs of its provision. In this respect, the community-serviced schooling and its governance prove to be much more accommodating than the state-run system in general, which tends to be rigid and may arguably rob many children of their right to education simply due to the current economic pressures. On the issue of school admissions, however, there seems to be little flexibility even on the community level, as the schoolmaster for example ruled out a possibility of late registrations – a child simply has to wait for the next school year to be able to join, as this is allegedly dictated by the ministry of education’s policies.
Gender inequality can enter the picture too - it is safe to assume, the schoolmaster and a female teacher agreed, that if parents can only afford to send one child to school, it will be the boy.
As far as child labour is concerned, it has been alleged by those present that parents usually do not expect children to help in the field or around the house and would rather let them focus on their studies - with the notable exception of harvest time (Uswaushava village lies in the cotton growing area) between May and August when children help pick up cotton etc. after the school.
Prompted by Mr. Venkat Reddy’s inquiry, the present SDC member admitted that children tend to overstay in school in the harvest time, as they clearly prefer school and play over the work.
Interestingly, the community seemed to be split over the issue of corporal punishments. It is currently allowed under the Zimbabwean school regulations but it can only be administered in grave cases by a headmaster which is allegedly a major step forward since previous generation’s times when disciplinary beatings in the class were common.
It became clear during the debate that some parents believe corporal punishment has a role to play in the process of bringing up children (it is said to be practiced rather freely at home) while some would not be adverse towards its abolishment.
There has also been notable interest shown among those present to test some of the concepts floated by Mr. Venkat Reddy, like the bridge school for the older illiterate children, and also the child labour free zone. Everybody also agreed on the necessity of holding more workshops in the future on the issue of child rights in general.
II. Tanganda Tea Estates – A dubious private sector initiative?
Next stop of the tour was the Tanganda Tea Company’s plantation near the city of Chipinge. The number one tea producer in Zimbabwe has been of special interest to CACLAZ because of its Earn-and-learn scheme, which has been for more than half a century offering education to the disadvantaged children provided they would pay the school fees back with their labour at the estate.
The delegation was briefed by the company’s representatives as well as by a local education officer on the benefits the scheme purports to provide for poor children. The human resources manager of the company Francis Chingono intimated that the costs of running the primary and secondary level school have been an extra burden lately as the estate struggles with the lack of labour force and other economic hardships, but categorically insisted that the company is not illegally exploiting child labour. He did admit there had been cases in the past of underage kids “trying to slip through the system” but the company, he said, was doing its utmost to prevent this from happening again.
Mr. Caiphas Chihlajo, the former ‘recipient’ of the company’s Earn-and-learn scheme and today’s administrator at the school, shared his own personal story with the delegation, admitting it was extremely hard at times to combine both the work and school load and that some children were unable to cope with this.
After touring the premises briefly and visiting the secondary school in Ratselshoek with the adjoining eating hall where young workers/students were just having their lunch, the delegation departed. The visit has by and large failed to dispel the doubts over the entire scheme which - the members of CACLAZ concluded - needs to be rectified to give children more time to play at the expense of the required workload. Strict screening is also desired to make sure no under-age children are working in the field as it seems to be fairly easy to trick the system with forged birth certificate or a declaration in lieu of the same.
III. Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe and its strike
Due to the time constraints it was not possible to thoroughly discuss the current ills of the education system in Zimbabwe with a selected focus group of teachers in Mutare, as originally planned by CACLAZ.
The meeting did take place after being postponed by a day and a half, but was very brief and thus could not achieve more than mutual expression of support and sympathy to the groups combating child labour in Zimbabwee.
However, due to the presence of senior members of PTUZ in the travelling group for the whole length of the road trip, the delegation had ample opportunities to discuss not only the prolonged teachers’ strike (pushing for pay increases) which has been a topical issue at the time of the Tour’s stop in Zimbabwe but also some other education- and child labour-related matters.
While the delegation found it unfortunate that the nearly year-long strike has allowed children to learn very little during this period, according to them only 23 days of uninterrupted schooling and thus further undermining the already waning attractiveness of school in the eyes of many pupils and their parents, the demands of the teachers have to be perceived as legitimate and the strike therefore justified.
Most importantly, the delegation has noted with great joy that PTUZ adopted the zero-tolerance policy towards child labour as stated in the Chapter Five of its membership manual.
Venkat Reddy of MV Foundation engaged in a conversation with a student from the Tanganda Tea Estates school, which runs a “Earn and Learn” scheme
IV. Meetings in Harare
After returning to Harare, the delegation visited several NGOs, agencies and institutions active in the field of child protection and noted their laudable work.
The work of The City Presbyterian Children’s Club, for example, is a case in point that the faith-based organizations can oftentimes fill the gap where others fail to intervene. The church-run club targets orphans and other destitute children from the street and provides them with food, shelter and crucially basic education.
It is all the more surprising then, that one of the club’s most generous benefactors, Norway’s Save the Children organization, seems to be rather oblivious to the dangers of child labour, as attested to by its focus on meliorating the working conditions of children rather than fighting for elimination of the scourge as such.
Perhaps the most fruitful of the meetings was the date at ILO’s Harare office, which not only shared the extent of its activities concerning the fight against child labour with the Africa Tour’s delegation but also repeatedly invited CACLAZ to form “a strong bilateral relationship” for all future undertakings.
The ILO’s national professional officer responsible for programming, Ms. Chiratidzo Iris Mabuwa, also pleaded with the delegation to take the message to Brussels that “there are people in Zimbabwe ready to seriously tackle the issue of child labour”, who have so far been denied bigger successes, mostly due to the lack of funding.
Once the political deadlock is broken between Zimbabwe and the West, Ms. Mabuwa believes, the Time-Bound national action plan, which is to be developed in partnership with the Ministry of Public Services, Labour and Social Welfare and which is to bring all stakeholders on board, should immediately roll out.
There has been a memorandum of understanding signed between the ministry and ILO to that effect a year ago. So far, the first stage – identifying the worst forms of child labour - is being implemented, with the action plan envisaged at stage two.
CACLAZ, for its part, welcomes the invitation to form a partnership with the ILO as it sees the UN agency as its natural ally.
V. Closing workshop in Harare
The week’s proceedings and experiences were duly summarized and showcased at Africa Tour 2008 - Zimbabwe Chapter’s closing workshop in Harare, where all the relevant partners and local media were invited and where the commitment to work towards the total eradication of child labour in Zimbabwe (and elsewhere, for that matter) has been once again publicly announced by CACLAZ.
It also provided the coalition with a good platform for highlighting once again the findings of the baseline survey on child labour in Zimbabwe, which it commissioned a year ago. Its chief author Dr. Lazarus Zanamwe from the University of Zimbabwe was there to present it.
In the final discussion several points have been raised which shall become the focus of future efforts of the campaign against child labour in Zimbabwe. First of all, pressure will be increased on the (future) government and (present) legislature to revise the present laws which need more clarity insofar as pushing the child labour strictly out of legal bounds is concerned.
A call for greater engagement of media has also been made towards dispelling the popular myths of how beneficial the child labour can be for the poor. It can be noted with much satisfaction that the first step has already been made in this direction by the extended coverage of the Africa Tour 2008 and the issue of child labour in general in a respected weekly Zimbabwe Independent, which came out the very same day (fruits of the previous week’s hard campaigning by CACLAZ).
The delegation at the closing workshop in Harare, Zimbabwe
3. CONCLUSION – HIGHLIGHTS, CHALLENGES AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Highlights:
CACLAZ and other groups working for an end to child labour should:
Reccomondations from Pascal Mosocha, CACLAZ, Zimbabwe
In view of the importance of the africa tour in terms of the opportunities it has bought participating countries, I propose the following.
1. A comrehensive report be produced and be circulated to all the participants countries as well as relevant UN agencies and the respective governements.
2. A review meeting/workshop be held early next year(2009) in the region or at a venue suitable to all.
3. Capacity building workshop be held for the members of the organisation.
4. High profile meeting be held with ILO,UNICEF,IOM,UNESCO and the governements ministers from relevant ministries on the child labour scenario in member countries and impediments to achieve to universal education.
Chapters:
1. Introduction
2. Field trips:
I. Uswaushava - Engaging with the community
II. Tanganda Tea Estates – dubious private sector initiative
III. Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe and its strike
IV. Meetings in Harare
V. Closing workshop in Harare
3. Conclusion - highlights and recommendations/challenges
***************************************************************************
1. INTRODUCTION
The economic turmoil Zimbabwe has been lately experiencing seems to influence all aspects of life in the country, including the education system, which collapsed about a year ago when Zimbabwean teachers decided to go on strike.
It is important to note that any meeting the Africa Tour 2008 delegation attended was started by the local organizations pointing out the abnormal situation the country happens to be in. A major part of all discussions was dedicated to the hardship the local teachers are going through. It is rather impossible for them at the moment to focus on child rights when they have hardly anything to eat and cannot feed their families. Thus emergency food aid has been provided to the poorest teachers who have been literally starving.
Eighty percent of the population is unemployed and most of Zimbabweans are involved in non-formal economy with only 600,000 employed formally.
Among the estimated three million who have left the country in search of job, are teachers and young people between 18 – 30 years old.
Education under normal circumstances has always been valued in Zimbabwe but the relatively high literacy rate – 90.7 percent – is soon likely to be affected by the drastic brain drain and economic collapse.
At the moment there is practically no school with 70 percent of teachers on strike. This has a grave impact on the existence of child labour. In a UNICEF survey conducted in 2004, it was found that26 percent of children were involved in child labour. Child labour is now estimated to be much higher, with the economic hardship Zimbabweans are undergoing.
The Zimbabwean part of the Stop Child Labour campaign’s Africa Tour 2008 was organized by Hivos and CACLAZ (Coalition Against Child Labour Zimbabwe) which unites three organizations: Progressive Teachers´ Union (PTUZ), General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ) and African Network for the Prevention and Protection Against Child Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN).
Upon its arrival to Harare, the Africa Tour 2008 delegation was briefed by Overson Chiyaka from the Hivos office and CACLAZ´s coordinator Pascal Masocha.
The closing workshop in Harare concluded the successful Africa Tour delegation’s visit, which culminated by CACLAZ announcement of adopting the “child labour free zone” scheme and declaring its commitment to create two such zones in Zimbabwe – urban and rural - in the following years.
At the same time CACLAZ representatives readily admitted know-how assistance and material support will have to be secured in order to be able to replicate the child labour free zone model.
The CACLAZ delegates also openly expressed their interest to stay in touch with the Africa Tour 2008 delegation in order to gain more experience from all the countries – Morocco’s SNE, India’s MVF and Nepal’s Asamaan.
The workshop was attended by local media representatives and Zimbabwe’s Congress of Trade Union
2. FIELD TRIPS TO USWUASHAVA, TANGANDA TEA ESTATES, MUTARE AND HARARE
Venkat Reddy listening attentively in a non-formal school in the village of Uswaushava in southern Zimbabwe
I. Uswaushava - Engaging with the community
Due to some problems with transportation (substantial delay caused by a tire puncture on the road), the program of the Africa Tour 2008 delegation - as prepared by local partners from CACLAZ - only started in real on the third day after the arrival in the country.
Despite delays, the visit of Uswaushava village school in the province of Masvingo in the southern part of the country, proved to be very fruitful as it gave the delegation a great opportunity to engage with the locals on the ground level.
The local community leader together with the headmaster of the school and several members of the community including a member of the local School Development Committee sat in for an extended session with the Africa Tour delegation plus representatives of CACLAZ during which all the important issues concerning the topics of child labour and education were thoroughly discussed.
Headmaster Mr. Mafuma briefed the delegation on the history of the school, which came to existence in 2002, just two years after the founding of the settlement, and has transformed itself from the humble beginnings when he himself was the only teacher for 200 pupils into a proud, if simple, institution of basic learning for 500 students, served by 13 teachers.
The ANPPCAN was instrumental in setting up the school together with the Ministry of Public Services, Labour and Social Welfare which had pre-selected the area, as there was a high incidence of child abuse.
All the structures (of semi-permanent nature) have been put in place with the help of the local community which has provided all the necessary labour. Today, 22 village headmen from the area are involved in maintaining the school.
It transpired over the course of the debate that the challenges the school has to put up with do not radically differ from those faced by the country in general, i.e. raising costs of living and basic services including the education, lack of financial support from the government (towards securing the necessary supply of textbooks and stationary) and the fleeing of youngsters, especially boys to neighboring South Africa in search of jobs. The schoolmaster believes as many as 5 to 10 percent from the overall number of students have immigrated to South Africa. .
The School Development Committee (SDC), parents and school representatives have reportedly agreed upon the level of school fees which reflect more the affordability of the education than the actual running costs of its provision. In this respect, the community-serviced schooling and its governance prove to be much more accommodating than the state-run system in general, which tends to be rigid and may arguably rob many children of their right to education simply due to the current economic pressures. On the issue of school admissions, however, there seems to be little flexibility even on the community level, as the schoolmaster for example ruled out a possibility of late registrations – a child simply has to wait for the next school year to be able to join, as this is allegedly dictated by the ministry of education’s policies.
Gender inequality can enter the picture too - it is safe to assume, the schoolmaster and a female teacher agreed, that if parents can only afford to send one child to school, it will be the boy.
As far as child labour is concerned, it has been alleged by those present that parents usually do not expect children to help in the field or around the house and would rather let them focus on their studies - with the notable exception of harvest time (Uswaushava village lies in the cotton growing area) between May and August when children help pick up cotton etc. after the school.
Prompted by Mr. Venkat Reddy’s inquiry, the present SDC member admitted that children tend to overstay in school in the harvest time, as they clearly prefer school and play over the work.
Interestingly, the community seemed to be split over the issue of corporal punishments. It is currently allowed under the Zimbabwean school regulations but it can only be administered in grave cases by a headmaster which is allegedly a major step forward since previous generation’s times when disciplinary beatings in the class were common.
It became clear during the debate that some parents believe corporal punishment has a role to play in the process of bringing up children (it is said to be practiced rather freely at home) while some would not be adverse towards its abolishment.
There has also been notable interest shown among those present to test some of the concepts floated by Mr. Venkat Reddy, like the bridge school for the older illiterate children, and also the child labour free zone. Everybody also agreed on the necessity of holding more workshops in the future on the issue of child rights in general.
II. Tanganda Tea Estates – A dubious private sector initiative?
Next stop of the tour was the Tanganda Tea Company’s plantation near the city of Chipinge. The number one tea producer in Zimbabwe has been of special interest to CACLAZ because of its Earn-and-learn scheme, which has been for more than half a century offering education to the disadvantaged children provided they would pay the school fees back with their labour at the estate.
The delegation was briefed by the company’s representatives as well as by a local education officer on the benefits the scheme purports to provide for poor children. The human resources manager of the company Francis Chingono intimated that the costs of running the primary and secondary level school have been an extra burden lately as the estate struggles with the lack of labour force and other economic hardships, but categorically insisted that the company is not illegally exploiting child labour. He did admit there had been cases in the past of underage kids “trying to slip through the system” but the company, he said, was doing its utmost to prevent this from happening again.
Mr. Caiphas Chihlajo, the former ‘recipient’ of the company’s Earn-and-learn scheme and today’s administrator at the school, shared his own personal story with the delegation, admitting it was extremely hard at times to combine both the work and school load and that some children were unable to cope with this.
After touring the premises briefly and visiting the secondary school in Ratselshoek with the adjoining eating hall where young workers/students were just having their lunch, the delegation departed. The visit has by and large failed to dispel the doubts over the entire scheme which - the members of CACLAZ concluded - needs to be rectified to give children more time to play at the expense of the required workload. Strict screening is also desired to make sure no under-age children are working in the field as it seems to be fairly easy to trick the system with forged birth certificate or a declaration in lieu of the same.
III. Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe and its strike
Due to the time constraints it was not possible to thoroughly discuss the current ills of the education system in Zimbabwe with a selected focus group of teachers in Mutare, as originally planned by CACLAZ.
The meeting did take place after being postponed by a day and a half, but was very brief and thus could not achieve more than mutual expression of support and sympathy to the groups combating child labour in Zimbabwee.
However, due to the presence of senior members of PTUZ in the travelling group for the whole length of the road trip, the delegation had ample opportunities to discuss not only the prolonged teachers’ strike (pushing for pay increases) which has been a topical issue at the time of the Tour’s stop in Zimbabwe but also some other education- and child labour-related matters.
While the delegation found it unfortunate that the nearly year-long strike has allowed children to learn very little during this period, according to them only 23 days of uninterrupted schooling and thus further undermining the already waning attractiveness of school in the eyes of many pupils and their parents, the demands of the teachers have to be perceived as legitimate and the strike therefore justified.
Most importantly, the delegation has noted with great joy that PTUZ adopted the zero-tolerance policy towards child labour as stated in the Chapter Five of its membership manual.
Venkat Reddy of MV Foundation engaged in a conversation with a student from the Tanganda Tea Estates school, which runs a “Earn and Learn” scheme
IV. Meetings in Harare
After returning to Harare, the delegation visited several NGOs, agencies and institutions active in the field of child protection and noted their laudable work.
The work of The City Presbyterian Children’s Club, for example, is a case in point that the faith-based organizations can oftentimes fill the gap where others fail to intervene. The church-run club targets orphans and other destitute children from the street and provides them with food, shelter and crucially basic education.
It is all the more surprising then, that one of the club’s most generous benefactors, Norway’s Save the Children organization, seems to be rather oblivious to the dangers of child labour, as attested to by its focus on meliorating the working conditions of children rather than fighting for elimination of the scourge as such.
Perhaps the most fruitful of the meetings was the date at ILO’s Harare office, which not only shared the extent of its activities concerning the fight against child labour with the Africa Tour’s delegation but also repeatedly invited CACLAZ to form “a strong bilateral relationship” for all future undertakings.
The ILO’s national professional officer responsible for programming, Ms. Chiratidzo Iris Mabuwa, also pleaded with the delegation to take the message to Brussels that “there are people in Zimbabwe ready to seriously tackle the issue of child labour”, who have so far been denied bigger successes, mostly due to the lack of funding.
Once the political deadlock is broken between Zimbabwe and the West, Ms. Mabuwa believes, the Time-Bound national action plan, which is to be developed in partnership with the Ministry of Public Services, Labour and Social Welfare and which is to bring all stakeholders on board, should immediately roll out.
There has been a memorandum of understanding signed between the ministry and ILO to that effect a year ago. So far, the first stage – identifying the worst forms of child labour - is being implemented, with the action plan envisaged at stage two.
CACLAZ, for its part, welcomes the invitation to form a partnership with the ILO as it sees the UN agency as its natural ally.
V. Closing workshop in Harare
The week’s proceedings and experiences were duly summarized and showcased at Africa Tour 2008 - Zimbabwe Chapter’s closing workshop in Harare, where all the relevant partners and local media were invited and where the commitment to work towards the total eradication of child labour in Zimbabwe (and elsewhere, for that matter) has been once again publicly announced by CACLAZ.
It also provided the coalition with a good platform for highlighting once again the findings of the baseline survey on child labour in Zimbabwe, which it commissioned a year ago. Its chief author Dr. Lazarus Zanamwe from the University of Zimbabwe was there to present it.
In the final discussion several points have been raised which shall become the focus of future efforts of the campaign against child labour in Zimbabwe. First of all, pressure will be increased on the (future) government and (present) legislature to revise the present laws which need more clarity insofar as pushing the child labour strictly out of legal bounds is concerned.
A call for greater engagement of media has also been made towards dispelling the popular myths of how beneficial the child labour can be for the poor. It can be noted with much satisfaction that the first step has already been made in this direction by the extended coverage of the Africa Tour 2008 and the issue of child labour in general in a respected weekly Zimbabwe Independent, which came out the very same day (fruits of the previous week’s hard campaigning by CACLAZ).
The delegation at the closing workshop in Harare, Zimbabwe
3. CONCLUSION – HIGHLIGHTS, CHALLENGES AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Highlights:
- The partnership that exists between NGOs and unions at the national level
- The clear mandate of CACLAZ of total abolition of child labour
- CACLAZ’s work reaching out to other organizations and trade unions in the fight against child labour
- The social mobilization demonstrated in the Uswaushava village community school
- The inclusion of zero tolerance of child labour in the Progressive Teachers´ Union manual
- The ILO´s invitation to form a bilateral relationship with CACLAZ
- The established contact with a private sector, such as Tanganda Tea Estates and Econet (local telecommunications company)
- The in-depth survey commissioned by CACLAZ and conducted by researchers of the University of Zimbabwe
CACLAZ and other groups working for an end to child labour should:
- Raise awareness on child labour issue among public as well as policy-makers through greater media engagement
- Internalise the child labour ideology among all its members at all levels
- share the survey results with the National Steering Committee
- Prepare all stakeholders to adopt the concept of total child labour abolition issue, so the corresponding policies can be implemented once the national government is in place
- Lobby on the revision of existing child labour laws to achieve clarity on the issue
- replicate the child labour free zone model in urban and rural zones
- Hold regular workshops and debates at national, province and district levels
Reccomondations from Pascal Mosocha, CACLAZ, Zimbabwe
In view of the importance of the africa tour in terms of the opportunities it has bought participating countries, I propose the following.
1. A comrehensive report be produced and be circulated to all the participants countries as well as relevant UN agencies and the respective governements.
2. A review meeting/workshop be held early next year(2009) in the region or at a venue suitable to all.
3. Capacity building workshop be held for the members of the organisation.
4. High profile meeting be held with ILO,UNICEF,IOM,UNESCO and the governements ministers from relevant ministries on the child labour scenario in member countries and impediments to achieve to universal education.
