By Wanangwa Tembo

Kasungu, December 19, Mana: It is a class time at Chankhandwe Primary School, some 30 kilometres west of Kasungu Boma in the area of Senior Chief Kawamba.

The schoolmaster, Lovemore Chisema notices that 12-year-old Robert (not real name) is again not in class for a good five days in a row and develops some curiosity to follow up on the Standard 7 boy known to be intelligent and ambitious.

What follows now is a search for the little genius, led by members of Chankhandwe Social Dialogue Committee, a community structure that fights child labour and promotes decent labour practices in the area.

“We were suspicious of the boy’s absence and knew that it wasn’t a case of illness. During the farming season, he was assisting parents with farm work.

“It was a straightforward issue that the boy had to be brought back to school and the parents were cautioned and mentored against such acts,” Chisema explains.

He says Robert’s issue is not an uncommon phenomenon in the area where many households are poor subsistence farmers who depend on family labour in both piece works and their own farms.

“Children from poor families are easily enticed to go into farms because they are already discouraged from attending classes as they lack school uniforms, notebooks and other necessities like food.

“This is why when we pluck them from farms, we support them with such materials so that they stay in school,” he adds.

Chisema says with the intervention of the social dialogue committee, there is a significant reduction in child labour cases and an increasing opportunity for children to stay in school.

Dialogue committees like Chankhandwe are specifically grassroots mechanisms for promoting decent labour practices under the Malawi Congress for Trade Union and Tobacco Allied Workers Union as supported by the International Labour Organization.

Florence Manda who is the chairperson for the committee at Chankhandwe says community initiatives to promote decent work practices have borne fruits in that many children have been removed from hazardous work environments and supported so that they remain in school.

The United Nation’s ILO, in collaboration with the Ministry of Labour and support from the Norwegian Government, is implementing a four-year ‘Addressing decent work deficits and improving access to rights in Malawi’s tobacco sector’ (Address) project in Traditional Authorities Wimbe and Kawamba in Kasungu.

The project aims to identify and address labour issues in the tobacco sector and ensure access to fundamental principles and rights at work as a means to improve livelihoods, income and food security.

Specifically, the Address Project aims to address child labour and abuse in tobacco estates and farms, ensuring the occupational health and safety of workers, abolishing the tenancy system, and improving the social welfare of the workers.

It supports the implementation of the country’s National Action Plan on Child Labour (2020-2025) which guides the elimination of child labour in the country’s sectors of the economy by 2025.

Additionally, the project echoes Sustainable Development Goal Target 8.7 which calls for immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced and child labour.

Manda says the issue of child labour goes beyond working in tobacco farms hence their committee targets other areas where there could be child exploitation.

“The ILO trained us on how we can contribute to ending child labour, especially in the agriculture sector targeting tobacco farms so that children are protected.

“However, child labour is not limited to that. Some people employ children to herd their cattle, and sell merchandise and still some use children to beg in the streets. We aim to end all such malpractices,” Manda says.

She says in most cases, children are not the employees themselves but parents who are contracted to work on the farms and use their children as supplementary labour, which results in the children missing out on classes.

“We are also aware that these children are found in the farms because of the poverty in the households they come from. With that understanding, we raise resources to support their education with uniforms, notebooks, and pens and award those who do well at the end of a particular school term.

“For parents, we engage them in a serious dialogue so that they understand the consequences of using child labour. It is pleasing that many parents easily understand this and if there could be anyone refusing to take the advice we give, we let the law take its course,” she says.

Manda also appeals to authorities to help construct classroom blocks at the school to attract learners.

She argues that dilapidated and makeshift structures being used as classrooms discourage learners from being in school.

On his part, Village Headman Changaluwa of the area expresses hope that soon his community will be without child labour cases.

“We have started on a good note. Just to ensure that these efforts are sustained, we have a village savings and loans group through which we raise money to support the children.

“Additionally, we cultivate various crops such as soybean and vegetables which we sell to raise money to support the learners,” Changulawa says, adding that 37 children have already benefitted from the efforts.

ILO’s National Project Officer, Ndamyo Kabuye notes that there are many challenges in the tobacco sector and agriculture in general regarding decent work practices.

“These groups are assisting to reduce these challenges which include child employment, the practice of not paying workers, tenancy labour arrangements and lack of occupation and safety health.

“We trained them to promote decent labour practices but they have gone beyond the project support. They are doing more. These are clear indications of community ownership of the project which signals that the activities will be sustained beyond the programme timeframe,” Kabuye said.

Decent labour practices also demand that the workers in the farms should have a clear contract agreed and signed by both the worker and the employer to guide the work process and avoid misunderstandings and exploitation.

Where only one member of the family is contracted, it is against the law to force the other non-contracted members of the family to work on the farms.

Kabuye says ILO’s role is to assist employers, workers and government to champion good work practices in the labour industry.

“In the tobacco industry, particularly, we must ensure that the interests of both workers and employers are protected. We want to encourage dialogue between the two parties and avoid exploitative practices.

“International labour standards demand that people of all genders have equal rights, responsibility and opportunities. In this regard, we also want to see that there are no abuses based on gender lines in the workplaces,” he says.

A 2023 report by the US Bureau of International Labour Affairs on the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Malawi notes that the country has made moderate advancement in efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labour.

This follows efforts by the government to enact the laws abolishing the tenancy labour system and mandating growers of tobacco to annually report on their efforts to prevent child labour in order to maintain their licenses to sell tobacco.

The report also says by substantially increasing resources in the cash transfer programme and roping in additional beneficiaries in urban councils, children from households vulnerable to child labour could be safe.

However, the report notes that although the government legally abolished the tenancy system in 2021, research indicates that children continue to be subjected to forced labour conditions.

“In addition, orphaned children may need to assume responsibility as heads of their households, including working to support their families. These children, especially those who become orphaned, are at increased risk of leaving school early and entering into the worst forms of child labour,” the report adds.

With this indication, efforts such as those by Chankhandwe Social Dialogue Committee will need replication to other communities so that learners like Robert stay away from farms.