'29% Malawian children engaged in child labour'

from The Daily Times

BY JACOB NANKHONYA

Twenty nine percent of children in the country are engaged in child labour, Unicef’s child protection specialist Seamus Mac Roibin has disclosed.

Roibin was speaking during official handover of 150 bicycles to Ministry of Labour at Trade Testing Centre in Lilongwe on Wednesday.

The bicycles are meant to help in fight against child abuse.

“Economically, we are stopping a generation of children to go to school thereby failing to invest in human capital,” said Roibin.

Minister of Labour Anna Kachikho said at the function that as most developments were now being channeled within the context of various frameworks such as Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Education for All initiatives (EFA), amongst others, was paramount.

“Ladies and gentlemen, such frameworks constitute ideal vehicles for combating child labour and efforts should be made to mainstream child labour in these frameworks at national level,” said Kachikho.

According to Kachikho, the 150 bicycles would be dispatched to 15 districts across the country.

Some of the beneficiary districts are Chitipa, Rumphi, Kasungu, Dowa, Mchinji, Dedza, Phalombe and Nsanje.

“These 15 districts have been selected because they are suppliers and receiving districts of child labour,” said Kachikho.

Roibin added that Malawi currently has over one million orphans, adding by 2010 there could be 40 million orphans in Africa.

“These children are some of the likely vulnerable ones to be abused sexually or economically exploited and Unicef is to walk side by side with Malawi in the fight against child abuse,” sad Roibin.