Victim of Child labour continued

Child Labour

The struggles of a girl child, “not born with a silver spoon” poverty plays an enormous role in the phenomenon of child labour. Because of gender discrimination in the household, the community and, indeed, all levels of society, girls face multiple disadvantages. These vulnerabilities are stronger in rural areas, where poverty, traditions and lack of infrastructure and services prevail, including lack of access to quality education. Being desperate for money when poverty looms, poor families around the world especially in some parts of Africa, are forced to push even young children most times girls to work to support the family's income. “For poor families the small contribution of a child's income or assistance at home that allows the parents to work can make the difference between hunger and a bare sufficiency,” according to the 1997 UNICEF report. A study of nine Latin American countries found that without the income of working children aged 13 to 17, the poverty rate would climb by 10 to 20 percent, the report found out that many desperately poor parents pledge their children, sometimes as early as four years of age, to factory owners in exchange for modest loans, sometimes as small as $15. This practice is known as bonded Labour, and is little different from slavery, this act is also indirectly practiced in Africa.

Some parents especially in Togo, Benin Republic, and some other parts of West Africa, voluntarily release their girl child for trafficking so as to make ends meet. And in turn! Most female teenagers often find themselves involuntarily in another form of virtual servitude: prostitution (Sexual abuse). This occurs when adults use children for sexual gratification or expose them to sexual activities. Sexual abuse may begin with kissing or fondling and progress to more intrusive sexual acts, such as oral sex and vaginal or anal penetration. Some girls have been lured or forced into commercial sexual exploitation through this means. Young teenagers, most especially females, are often the victims of a practice called sex tourism in which wealthy vacationers travel to tourist site throughout the world in search of sex. Most time some of the work of young people in this sector is considered legitimate but there are indications of considerable abuse. Low pay is the norm, and in some tourist areas, children’s work  in hotels and restaurants is linked to prostitution. In at least one example, child hotel workers received such low pay that they had to take loans from their employers, the terms of the interest  and repayment often led to debt bondage  adding to the tragedy, if these children prostitutes ever escape and find their way home, they are often stigmatized and rejected by their families and communities, this in turn emotionally destroys their self-esteem.

In some other cases, a girl as young as ten-year-old can be made to wake every morning as early as 5 am, she trudges out to nearby well to fetch water for her master's household. Every day she would also help to prepare and serve the family's meals, runs errands, sweeps the yard, washes dishes and clothes, and other house chores. She lacks basic needs like shoes clothing, and she’s fed with leftovers most of the time, she sleeps outdoors or on the bare floor. She is frequently beaten with a leather strap. Various works that are been done by these young girls can be termed as child labour. Although It is generally accepted that not all work should be considered as negative for children, since it may be a way for developing one’s personality, maturity and skills. But there should be set standards for such work, for instance the type of work done and the numbers of hours used in doing such work should be considered. Chores that are harmful to a child’s health or development and Detrimental to school attendance such as hawking could be considered as child Labour.