With no school, Busia children now mind their own business

Authorities in Busia District are concerned by the rising number of children who have taken to various forms of labour.

 Following the harsh economic hardships brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, several boys and girls have taken to vending fruits, pushing carts, smuggling across the Kenyan border, hunting, gold mining and fishing.

Some have been turned into house helps in Kenya after being trafficked across the border by some unscrupulous persons.

 Recently, Kenyan immigration authorities handed over several girls, some aged below 10 years, to Ugandan authorities at Busia border after they were rounded up by police on the streets of the capital Nairobi.

 Majority of the victims were from the Karamoja Sub-region who had reportedly been smuggled through the various porous routes in Busia District.

 Abdullah Umar, a 13-year-old pupil at Madibira Primary School, who sells apples in Busia, Kenya, told Daily Monitor that every morning, he crosses the porous border and has been motivated by the relatively good price and many customers.

 “Every day, my employer pays me between KShs250 (about Shs7,500)  and KShs300 (Shs9,000) because business is good across the border compared to Uganda,” he said.

 Umar added that he took up the job because schools in Uganda were still closed and he had to find something to do as he waits for them to reopen.

“But I am not sure of going back to school because I doubt whether my parents will have the money to pay my school fees and buy me uniform,” he added.

What children say

 Sebastian Bwire, 11, is hired to push pineapples on a cart across the border to Kenya and earns Shs4,000 per day.

“Each day, I earn Shs4,000 and give half of it to my parents and save the balance to buy clothes and books as I wait for schools to reopen,” he said.

At the Nangwe-Madibira swamp, several children with a pack of dogs were last week found fishing and hunting wild rabbits.

 The children told of how they were able to kill a wild rabbit for a meal, which later motivated them to continue with the exercise.

The lockdown has also exposed many families vulnerability to hunger and using children to search for food is common.

For instance, a June to July Sauti za Wanainchi survey by Twaweza, a non-governmental organisation, 70 percent of Ugandans reported having worried about running out of food at some point. Some 58 percent said they had eaten less than they should have because less food stocks at home.

 In Tiira, Sikuda Sub-county and areas of Busitema and Buteba, several children, some as young as 10 have taken to excavating pits as they search for gold-bearing rocks.

 After identifying the rocks, the children crush them into powder, apply some water which they mix with mercury to extract the gold.

 Mr Eriya Omoit, of Tiira Landlords and Artisanal Miners Association, said he was leading a campaign to push the children out of gold-processing areas like they had done with the gold pits.

 In Masaba and Buhehe sub-counties, many children are looking after cattle, while in areas of Majanji and Busime, a good number have taken to fishing.

 Mr Gilbert Mugalanzi, a child programme officer at Semero Uganda, a child-based organisation in Busia Town, on Monday said the child labour has been caused by the closure of schools.

 “The number of children involved in child labour is worsening by the day and we are seeing many of them crossing the border to work as maids in Kenya, while most of them are vending bananas and boiled maize on the streets up to late in the night, which puts their lives at risk,” Mr Mugalanzi said.

 Mr Alamanzani Kibikyo, a resident of Mawero East ‘B’ Village, said he recently rescued his16-year-old daughter who had been trafficked to Kenya to work as a house help.

She said a network of men was targeting girls by first herding them into a house in Mugungu Village, from where they are sexually assaulted and later taken to Kenya.

 Mr Semu Okumu, the Busia District community development officer, said economic hardships due to Covid-19 are to blame for the large number of children who are getting involved in child labour.

 “The children who are mining gold are at risk of exposure to the mercury, which puts many of them at various health risks, while pushing carts loaded with pineapples to Kenya is too much for the children,” he said. 

 Ms Harriet Mwesigwa, the district education officer, said they are worried that several children risk dropping out of school due to such early involvement in handling money.

 Figures recently released by the district statistician indicate that since last year, more than 10,000 school-going children aged below 19 years had become pregnant.

 The figures were from cases of teenagers reporting at various health centres for antenatal services, with authorities fearing that the numbers could be more.   Three years ago, the district council passed a child protection ordinance which seeks to criminalise individuals involved in child abuse and those who fail to report such cases.  The ordinance has, however, not been assented to as children continue to suffer the worst forms of child labour.

UN warning

Schools closed due to the coronavirus pandemic must reopen as soon as possible, the United Nations insisted in July, estimating that the education of more than 600 million children was at stake. While children in the northern hemisphere are on their summer holidays, in eastern and southern Africa, an estimated 40 percent of school-age children are currently out of school. Across that region, more than 32 million children estimated to be out of school due to pandemic-related closures.