86 Language skills Extras Explore 6 Production and industry Read the extract taken from a 2021 Human Rights Watch report about child labour during the Covid pandemic. Underline interesting facts and figures. 26 a The researchers interviewed 81 working children, some as young as 8, in Ghana, Nepal, and Uganda. The children worked at brick kilns, carpet factories, gold mines, stone quarries, fisheries, and in agriculture. Some work as mechanics, rickshaw drivers, or in construction, while others sell items on the street. “I started working because we were so badly off,” a 13-year-old girl in Uganda told ISER. “The hunger at home was too much for us to sit and wait.” Some children described work that was clearly hazardous, such as carrying heavy bags of ore, crushing the ore with hammers, breathing in dust and fumes and handling toxic mercury. Children showed researchers their cuts from the sharp tools they used to clear fields. In each of the countries, more than one-third of the children interviewed worked at least ten hours a day, some seven days a week. Several children in Nepal said they worked 14 hours a day or more in carpet factories. Most were paid very little if at all. More than a quarter said that their employer sometimes withheld wages or paid less than was promised. In Ghana, a 12-year-old said that he worked 11 hours a day carting fish to market, but was paid only 2-3 cedis per day (US$0.34–0.52). “On many days, I go very hungry,” he told Friends of the Nation. School closures have contributed to an increase in child labour worldwide. Most children interviewed had limited or no access to distance learning. Another significant driver of child labour is a parent’s illness, disability, or death. As the global death toll from Covid-19 has topped 3.3 million, hundreds of thousands of children worldwide have lost parents and may be forced to become their family’s primary wage earner. Before the pandemic, countries had made remarkable progress in reducing child labour. According to the International Labour Organization, the number of children in child labour decreased by approximately 94 million between 2000 and 2016, a drop of 38 percent. In many countries that successfully reduced child labour, governments provided cash allowances to help families and reduce pressure on children to work. However, 1.3 billion children – mostly in Africa and Asia – are not covered by cash allowance programmes. The researchers focused on Ghana, Nepal, and Uganda because they had made significant progress in reducing poverty and child labour, and as “pathfinder” countries, have committed to accelerate efforts to eradicate child labour by 2025 in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. However, each has been slower than neighbouring countries to use cash allowances to address the Covid-19 crisis. Compare with a partner. Did you underline the same things? Media task. The report was published in 2021. Do you think the situation has changed since then? Go on the internet and find some information about child labour. Make notes on the following questions. 1 Which facts or ideas from the report might mobilise people most to take action to improve children’s lives in Ghana, Nepal and Uganda? 2 Think of two measures people in Austria could take to help these countries meet their goal of eradicating child labour. Discuss your ideas in class. In small groups, talk about the following question: Are labour rights human rights? b 27 28 a b 29 Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv
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