Malagasy Children and Child Labor

I have been blessed to not have endured stressors during my childhood.  I asked my parents if they had and my dad shared a story with me I had never heard.  He was never allowed to ride a horse because my grandmother had been thrown off a horse and then stepped on by the horse.  As a result, my grandfather had to do the heavy lifting with the laundry because she had hurt her back.  While not a real huge stressor in childhood, it is a true example of how one incident can affect so much of your life.  In the 20’s and 30’s it was not common for the husband to help with the laundry.

I decided to look at Madagascar again, as that is where our friends are serving.  Check out their amazing journey here.  Some of the great stressors on childhood in Madagascar are: violence against children, forced marriages for girls, forced child labor, lack of care, environmental issues, and discrimination.

Through my reading I found the term “Worst Forms of Child Labor” which includes slavery (sales, trafficking, serfdom, forced labor, using children in armed conflict), Sexual exploitation of children (prostitution & pornography), and using children for illegal activities.

The question is posed “Why is it urgent and important to take action against the worst forms of child labor?  Their answers include:

•  It is a matter of human rights
• It is a matter of saving lives.
• It is a matter of combating some particularly odious forms of organized crime.
• It is a matter of protecting children from the horrors of war. 
• It is a matter of building a nation’s future.
• It is a matter of international concern.

Photos of beautiful Malagasy children

In Madagascar the child labor imposed on nearly 1.9 million children involves sexual exploitation of children, work in stone quarries and mines, domestic servitude, farm and fishing industry work, and other work in dangerous and unhealthy urban and rural jobs.  This represents 20% of 5-9 year olds and 50% of 10-14 year old children are exposed to these labor conditions.

Madagascar has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and are in the very beginning stages of enacting government procedures to protect children.  January 20, 2012 the United Nations considered the Madagascar report and their dialogue is posted here.

Along with the governmental work, Pact, a non-profit is working in Madagascar to use education to combat child labor.