Recent studies have shown that Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland (referred to as the BLNS Countries) all have cases of child labour, although the nature and incidence differ between the countries. See in this regard:
All these countries have ratified the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999, which identifies worst forms of child labour, including the commercial sexual exploitation of children, forced labour, children used by adults in the commission of crime, child trafficking and other forms of very hazardous work. The Convention requires of states that ratify the convention to take immediate ‘time-bound measures’ to secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour.
The countries have some policies and programmes in place to help eliminate child labour, but none of them as yet have comprehensive strategies to address these issues specifically.
In 2006-2008 the BLNS countries plan to put in place national Action Programmes on the Elimination of Child Labour (APECs). The process is expected to involve extensive consultation with stakeholders at national level and also in the regions or districts, and is described in more detail below. It is led by the various Ministries responsible for labour and is assisted by the programme Towards the Elimination of the worst forms of Child Labour (TECL).
Programme Advisory Committees on Child Labour, representing government departments, organised labour and business, and civil society guide the development and implementation of the programme.
Analysing existing policies
The second phase of the programme will involve the publication of a discussion document on child labour in these countries. It will consolidate information available on child labour in these countries and include an analysis of existing policy and identification of any possible policy gaps.
Consulting stakeholders
The discussion document will form the basis of a detailed consultation process, the third phase of the programme. This will be on what action steps should be put in place in a concerted effort to eliminate child labour, focusing on worst forms of child labour.
After having obtained input on suggested actions that should be taken, these proposals will be negotiated directly with the suggested implementing department. The aim will be to draw up a list of actions that will be taken, which implementing agencies have agreed to.
Adopting APECs
All these activities culminated in early 2008 in the national endorsement of Action Programmes on the Elimination of Child Labour (APEC) in Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland. Although endorsed by national forums of stakeholders, including representatives of key government ministries, these programmes are expected to be tabled at cabinet level during 2008.
Adoption of the Lesotho APEC is also expected during 2008. Implementation of the action programmes will follow their adoption.
The Southern African Customs Union (SACU) is a customs union among five countries of Southern Africa: Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa. Its headquarters are in the Namibian capital, Windhoek. It was established in 1910.
The Child Labour Programme of Action is the national plan on elimination of child labour in South Africa. It was provisionally adopted by a large group of key stakeholders in September 2003. These stakeholders include key government departments, including those responsible for labour, education, provincial and local government, water service, justice, policing, prosecution, social development, and education. The lead department is the Department of Labour. It was previously known as the Child Labour Action Programme, but was renamed in February 2006 because of the negative connotation attached to the abbreviation CLAP.
The Survey of Activities of Young People (SAYP) is a national household-based survey of work-related activities among South African children, conducted for the first time in 1999 by Statistics South Africa.
A Child Labour Programme of Action, sometimes called a Child Labour Action Programme or Action Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (APEC) is a national programme aimed at addressing child labour within a given country. It includes, but is not restricted to, the Worst Forms of Child Labour.
The South African Child Labour Programme of Action has identified Children used by adults in the commission of crime (CUBAC), one of the Worst Forms of Child Labour, as a priority area for action on child labour in South Africa.
The Convention concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour, known in short as the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, was adopted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 1999 as ILO Convention No 182. It is one of eight ILO fundamental conventions.
The International Labour Organization Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention calls for time-bound programmes for the eradication of the worst forms of child labour. Countries ratifying this Convention must take immediate and effective measures to secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour (WFCL) as a matter of urgency.
The International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) is a programme that the International Labour Organization has run since 1992. IPEC's aim is to work towards the progressive elimination of child labour by strengthening national capacities to address child labour problems, and by creating a worldwide movement to combat it.
The South African Child Labour Programme of Action provides that pilot projects should be run on the Delivery of water to households far from sources of safe water. The Survey of Activities of Young People (SAYP) undertaken in 1999 indicated that collecting fuel or fetching water are by far the most common work-related activity done by children in South Africa. South African stakeholders have indicated, in the consultative process that led to the Child Labour Programme of Action, that the fetching of water over long distances should be regarded as a priority, given its prevalence and associated hazards.
The education policy and child labour project (EPCL) is a project that forms part of the implementation of the Child Labour Programme of Action (CLPA) for South Africa.
A National Action Plan on the elimination of child labour is a national strategy, plan or programme aimed at addressing child labour within a given country, usually with an emphasis on worst forms of child labour. Some countries also refer to this as an Action Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (APEC).
The Common Monetary Area (CMA) links South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho and Eswatini into a monetary union. It is allied to the Southern African Customs Union (SACU).
Little is known about the nature and extent of child labour in Botswana, although recent studies have shown that the phenomenon does occur in the country.
Significant levels of child labour appears to be found in Lesotho. The 1997 Lesotho Labour Force Survey found that 4.6% of males who were working full-time, 14.1% of males who were working part-time and 1.3% of male job seekers in Lesotho were aged between 10 and 15 years. Many of these would have been involved in herding and those with part-time work were not necessarily earning an income but may well have been working on family land in subsistence agriculture.
Child labour in Eswatini is a controversial issue that affects a large portion of the country's population. Child labour is often seen as a human rights concern because it is "work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development," as defined by the International Labour Organization (ILO). Additionally, child labour is harmful in that it restricts a child's ability to attend school or receive an education. The ILO recognizes that not all forms of children working are harmful, but this article will focus on the type of child labour that is generally accepted as harmful to the child involved.
Child labour in Namibia is not always reported. This involved cases of child prostitution as well as voluntary and forced agricultural labour, cattle herding and vending.
Botswana is a source and destination country for women and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Parents in poor rural communities sometimes send their children to work for wealthier families as domestics in cities or as herders at remote cattle posts, where some of these children are vulnerable to forced labor. Batswana girls are exploited in prostitution within the country, including in bars and by truck drivers along major highways; it does not appear, however, that organized pimping of children occurs. In the past, women reported being forced into commercial sexual exploitation at some safari lodges, but there were no similar reports during this reporting period. Residents in Botswana most susceptible to trafficking are illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe, unemployed men and women, those living in rural poverty, agricultural workers, and children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. Some women from Zimbabwe who voluntarily, but illegally, migrate to Botswana to seek employment are subsequently subjected by their employers to involuntary domestic servitude. Botswana families which employ Zimbabwean women as domestic workers at times do so without proper work permits, do not pay adequate wages, and restrict or control the movement of their employees by holding their passports or threatening to have them deported back to Zimbabwe.
UCW: Understanding Children's Work is a programme to combat child labour. The 1997 Amsterdam Conference on Combating the Most Intolerable Forms of Child Labour and the 1997 Oslo International Conference on Child Labour both drew attention to the urgent need for concerted global action to end child labour, and called for an expansion of information gathering, statistics and empirical research to help inform this action. The inter-agency programme, Understanding Children's Work (UCW), was initiated by the International Labour Organization (ILO), UNICEF and the World Bank as one of the responses to the recommendations of the Amsterdam and Oslo conferences. Through a variety of research activities, the UCW Programme supports the partner agencies in improving statistical information on child labour in its various dimensions – its nature, extent, causes and consequences – as well as on what policy approaches are most effective in addressing it.
Child labour in Africa is generally defined based on two factors: type of work and minimum appropriate age of the work. If a child is involved in an activity that is harmful to his/her physical and mental development, he/she is generally considered as a child labourer. That is, Any work that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children, and interferes with their schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school or requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work. Appropriate minimum age for each work depends on the effects of the work on the physical health and mental development of children. ILO Convention No. 138 suggests the following minimum age for admission to employment under which, if a child works, he/she is considered as a child laborer: 18 years old for hazardous works, and 13–15 years old for light works, although 12–14 years old may be permitted for light works under strict conditions in very poor countries. Another definition proposed by ILO’s Statistical Information and Monitoring Program on Child Labor (SIMPOC) defines a child as a child labourer if he/she is involved in an economic activity, and is under 12 years old and works one or more hours per week, or is 14 years old or under and works at least 14 hours per week, or is 14 years old or under and works at least one hour per week in activities that are hazardous, or is 17 or under and works in an “unconditional worst form of child labor”.
Child labour laws are statutes placing restrictions and regulations on the work of minors.
