Dad, thanx for sharing. This is valuable advocacy information on the behalf of our children, the least among us without much clout. This is how child slavery is propagated. Haruna. -----Original Message----- From: Modou Nyang <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Tue, Mar 16, 2010 2:56 am Subject: Foroyaa Editorial: CHILDREN MOBILISED TO CLEAN THE STREET WITHOUT PROTECTION Is This Not Child Labour? CHILDREN MOBILISED TO CLEAN THE STREET WITHOUT PROTECTION Is This Not Child Labour? It was indeed a contrast when the Cameras were put on the Mayor of Banjul and compared to the children who wore no protective gears and were mobilized to take part in the cleansing exercise. The officials had uniforms, socks and shoes which covered their feet, hats to cover their heads and nose guards to prevent infection. Foroyaa has been complaining of the plight of the Cleansing service workers who are subjected to hazardous working conditions without insurance or free medical care. As if this is not enough now some people have started to mobilize school children to work under the hot burning sun without any form of protection to clean the streets. Section 29 subsection 2 of the Constitution states that: “Children under the age of 16 years are entitled to be protected from economic exploitation and shall not be employed in or required to perform work that is likely to be hazardous or interfere with their education or be harmful to their health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.” The Government should therefore issue an immediate directive for such a practice to cease. One could understand school gardens being introduced to teach children agricultural Science. The transformation of children into cleansing service workers without pay and protection is exploitative and oppressive. Foroyaa further calls on the education authorities to introduce civic education as part of the curriculum so that the children will be taught their constitutional and legal rights as stipulated in the Children’s Act. Teachers should also be exposed to such provisions in their training so that they would not be conditioned to force children to do things that are not in line with the law. The Child Protection Alliance, The Youth Parliament and other child right advocacy groups should draw the attention of the policy makers on such violations of the rights of the child and prevent its reoccurrence. ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤