Covid-19 has not reduced child labor in Indonesia, Malaysia and Tanzania, on the contrary. In question: a dropout of children. The number of working children worldwide has increased from 152 million in 2016 to 160 million in 2021, due to population growth, crises and poverty, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).
Children in Indonesia and Malaysia work more during crises
This reality seems at first paradoxical: while a good number of adults lost their jobs in Indonesia as in Malaysia, children, them, started to work during the pandemic. When we look at the evolution of this scourge in recent decades, a phenomenon invariably seems to repeat itself. Whenever an event impoverishes the population, whether it be the Asian financial crisis of 1997 or the tsunami of 2004, parents tend to take their children out of school to put them to work. The closure of schools during a pandemic could only facilitate this trend.
It is still unclear how many children it affects, but researchers agree on the figure, in Indonesia alone, of 11 million children at risk of working rather than going to school. If this figure worries, it also saddens all the actors in the field because in recent years, this scourge had managed to decrease in Southeast Asia, and with the pandemic they fear going back years.
The labor of these children sometimes directly contributes to the production of consumer goods that we buy every day. This is especially true in palm oil plantations. By a tragic irony, this raw material is also used in abundance in the products consumed by little French people, from infant milk to cookies and spreads. Here again, it is difficult to have precise figures. The International Labor Organization speaks of 1.5 million children working in Indonesia’s agricultural sector in general, where palm oil is one of the most important crops.
It should also be remembered that one in two children in Indonesia does not have a birth certificate, so it is very difficult to monitor their future.
In Malaysia, palm oil plantations exploit mostly foreign children who often come illegally with their parents. They therefore pass even more under official radars. This unknown number on the exact number is moreover very symptomatic of the problem: the children are not employed directly by the owners of the plantations, they come free of charge to help their parents achieve the objectives set. And this, even in the plantations which claim a label “fair” assures an investigation of Associated Press. Because when the plantations are inspected, the children stay at home.
In Tanzania, young girls particularly at risk
Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the regions of the world most affected by child labor. It is estimated that one in five children works on the continent. In East Africa, the situation is particularly problematic in Tanzania, where 70% of children aged 5 to 17 work. These figures are on the rise for the first time in 20 years due to the pandemic and its economic consequences, as in many countries.
The plight of girls is of particular concern to children’s rights organizations. One in three girls is sexually assaulted before the age of 18, among other forms of violence and harassment they endure. An invisible reality because it usually happens in their workplace. They are servants, housekeepers, cooks. But also small hands in the mines or in the tobacco fields to harvest the leaves under a blazing sun. All this in often dangerous working conditions.
The poverty of Tanzanian households explains this phenomenon in large part because 80% of Tanzanians live on less than two dollars a day. And they rely on their children as a source of income.
But young girls are also victims of a sexist mentality deeply rooted in Tanzanian society. They are considered inferior to boys and society assigns them very specific roles, such as keeping a house or helping with household expenses, explains the NGO Plan International. This is how they often carry out a professional activity at home instead of going to school. A real trivialized exploitation in the country to which we must provide legislative responses but above all to raise awareness to change mentalities.
Samia Suluhu, president who took over as head of state in March 2021, marks a major political shift in Tanzania. She has already feminized government and key political positions and is raising a lot of hope. Especially for pregnant girls or teenage mothers who are excluded from public school by Tanzanian law. The new government is now promising specialized colleges for these students. A positive step but no revolution announced in favor of the education of young girls.