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afrol.com, 21 November - According to a report released today by the Global March Against Child Labour documenting child labour all over the world, there is no escape for children suffering the "worst forms of child labour" in Equatorial Guinea. This includes child trafficking, child prostitution and other labour by children which should be attending school classes. As it is common for the situation in Equatorial Guinea, the report had little data to base its conclusions on. The organisation, being the single largest movement on behalf of the world's 250 million child labourers, however has trained experts to assess the data. And a pattern of widespread use of child labour indeed becomes visible, in line with many other African nations. The labor code prohibits forced or bonded labor by children and defines the legal minimum age for child employment as 18 years. However, the Ministry of Labor does not enforce this law. The Government also does not enforce the law that stipulates mandatory education up to the age of 18, the report states. The lack of an educational service can be seen as one of the root problems to child labour in Equatorial Guinea. A survey by UNICEF in 1998 of 14 of the world's least developed countries found half of the pupils were without textbooks. Classes are mostly huge - between 60 and 100 pupils per teacher in Equatorial Guinea. Girls are reported to have a high drop-out rate after the age of 12, often due to precocious child-bearing. According to more recent news from the Equatorial Guinean opposition, the current crisis in the educational sector effects more than 80 percent of the population, living in poverty and without the means to send their children to foreign boarding schools. According to the representative of UNICEF in Equatorial Guinea, 50 per cent of school-age children do not attend primary school. The crisis in the educational sector is said to be the single most important reason behind the "worrying increase of prostitution and alcohol consume among school age juveniles in the country," as claimed by the opposition. Child prostitution indeed has boomed in the two capitals Malabo (old) and Bata (new), a fact even admitted by the local Government close newspaper La Gaceta de Guinea Ecuatorial. The daily newspaper in an article earlier this year pointed out that, "regrettably," the youngsters they had consulted justified these actions when there was a "lack of necessary economic means to survive." According to the same newspaper, "sex has turned into the principal trade of the youth," and the sex trade was something common "in the streets of our towns, as a topic of conversation - it's all over...". Equatorial Guinea is also reported to one of the destinations for regional child trafficking. The report mentions "networks that feed the domestic labour market" in Equatorial Guinea with children from Benin, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo. Equatorial Guinea has a long history of forced labour, both domestic and on plantations, going continuously back to early colonial times. Then, there is common child labour, practiced by a majority of the country's poor families. According to Global March's report, in 2000 there will be 18,000 economically active children, 7,000 girls and 11,000 boys between the ages of 10-14, representing 32% of this age group. Underage youth perform both family farm work and street vending on a wide scale. This can of course against be seen in the context of the low school enrollment. Also the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, making annual reports about the situation in Equatorial Guinea, regularly confirms that "the situation of children in Equatorial Guinea is extremely disturbing, due to the social and economic situation of large sectors of the population, who live in extreme poverty." In most ways, Equatorial Guinea is not worse off then many other African nations. The difference is, however, that while the country's economy is booming, to the
benefit of the small ruling class, children's situation is actually growing worse. Poverty is not addressed, there are no major investments in the school system, child prostitution is booming and the
labor market for (especially foreign) children seems to be increasing. Source: Based on Global March and afrol archives
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