Published on 4 November 2012 in Report
Samar Qaed (author), Samar Qaed (photographer)
Khalid Barman, a one-time fourth grader, dreams of going back to school with classmates he left behind more than a year and a half ago.
He now fills his days with hard labor by toiling in a mechanic's shop, earning a scant wage.
“I left the school following a dispute between me and my teacher, who beat me,” the 12-year-old said. “The teacher had trouble with my father, who coerced me into working in a mechanic shop owned by my cousin. I do my work for lengthy hours. It is really hard. I wish I could return to school and meet with my classmates. I am bored of the arduous work in this shop.”
He is not the only one resorting to spending his adolescence laboring. There are thousands of Yemeni children who drop out of school to earn money as mechanics, blacksmiths, carpenters, agriculturalists and other fields with high human capital demands.
Political analysts believe the skyrocketing cost of living in Yemen is a major cause driving children into workplaces, where the tasks are often dangerous and the pay abysmal.
There are many families that are forced to deprive their children of an education and send them into the labor markets in the name of financial gain, according to Mona Salem, the manager of the Child Labor Combat division at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor. She says families are often aware of the hazards child laborers face, but are burdened by their own nominal earning power.
Salem says the worst kind of work children can partake in is agricultural-related because of the risk of ingestion of pesticides. Children often buy the chemicals and spray them without protection.
Abdulhameed Abu Hatim, a pediatrician at Al-Thwara Hospital in Sana’a, says this is a cause for concern. Pesticides have become a main cause behind the spread of cancer in Yemen because of the excessive use by the farmers, according to him. Hatim thinks awareness about the spread of pesticides should be just as important as the awareness of the child labor.
The child labor phenomenon has increased over the course of the past three years, becoming particularly evident during the political impasse the country witnessed last year, said Fuad Al-Jumaei, a sociology professor at Sana’a University. According to him, this is due to the absence of labor laws that prohibit children under 18 from working as well as an absence of state and civil institutional oversight.
“The state should support the families of these children so that they will not resort to the labor market,” he said.
Though almost all agree that the economic situation is the behind child labor increases in Yemen, Al-Jumaei opined that traditional culture is a culprit as well.
“There are some families who are well-off, but they encourage their children to work as work is a sign of masculinity,” he said.
Dr. Jamal Al-Hadi, the former manager of the Access Bliss Project in Yemen, said the child labor phenomenon has led to smuggling children out of the country. Since the project began five years ago they have rescued almost 5,000 children from this lifestyle.
Many activists and experts have warned against the increase of child labor in Yemen, foreseeing the spike as a result of deteriorating economics. It has dire consequences for an educated future populous as many of the children never return to school.
Jamal Al-Shami, the head of the Democracy School, an NGO that advocates human rights, said from 2008-2012, the shaky economic situation has led approximately two million children to drop out of school and instead support their families all across Yemen.
A recently-published report prepared by the Child Labor Combat Administration at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor, indicated that currently 189,000 children in the governorates of Aden, Taiz, Haja, Sana'a, Ibb and Hodeida work, with the majority of these jobs being hazardous.
The paper points out these governorates have especially high numbers of child laborers due to a lack of self-sustaining job opportunities for adults.
With regard to the motives of the child labor, the General Union of the Laborers Syndicate published a field study indicating that 76 percent of working children do so to cover their families' daily expenses, 8 percent work to afford costs associated with school and the remaining work to feed themselves.
Government sources said in various statements that the 2008-2012 action plan pertinent to combating child labor was recently fulfilled. They claim a total of $8,448,300 was spent on rehabilitation and education programs to highlight the dangers of child labor.
A report released by the Children's Parliament in Yemen said that government efforts are unconvincing.
Although laws in Yemen ban children from working in 72 different fields like agriculture and mechanics shops, the enforcement is very ineffective. Laws also prohibit working over six a day, but the report found children that work 17 hours a day.
The study recommends the implementation of a comprehensive strategy in order to alleviate poverty and better the situation of children in Yemen by the means of increasing childhood benefits in education, health and social welfare. It also advocates for those in poverty to be connected with microfinance projects so as to generate family income and not rely on children as a source.