Stories Of Child Labor

Sir I am making project on the child labor so can you pleas provide me the stories of Child Labor

[Shaleen]

Child Labour is the practice of having children engage in economic activity, on part or -time basis.

The practice deprives children of their childhood, and is harmful to their physical and mental development.

Child Labour Stories

ALEJANDRA
Twelve-year-old Alejandra is woken up at four in the morning by her father,
Don José. She does

not go to school, but goes to collect curiles, small molluscs in the mangrove
swamps on the island

of Espiritu Santo in Usulutan, El Salvador.

In the rush to get to work, Alejandra does not take time to eat breakfast. It
is more important

to make sure she has the things she needs to make it through a workday
that can mean

spending up to 14 hours in the mud. These items include about a dozen
cigars and at least four

pills to keep her from falling asleep. A good part of the money that she earns
goes to buy these

things.

In the mangrove swamp without shoes, Alejandra has to face bad weather,
mosquito bites and

cuts and scrapes from having to pull the curiles out from deep in the mud.
The cigars help to

repel the mosquitoes, but when she runs out of cigars Alejandra has to put
up with the insects

as she moves from branch to branch and from one area to another in search
of shells. When she

returns from work, her body is nearly always covered with bites.

She earns very little. If she is lucky in one day Alejandra manages to collect
two baskets of curiles

(150 shells), worth little more than 12 colones, or $1.40. Alejandra, who has
seven younger

brothers and sisters, has no time to go to school or play with other children.
Anyway, she prefers

not to play with other children because they say she smells bad and exclude
her from their games

for being a curiles worker.

Little by little Alejandra has lost her self-esteem. Like the other children who
work collecting

curiles, she feels separate from the rest of society. For Alejandra, life seems
like a tunnel with no exit.



HAMISI

Even though he is only 11 years old, Hamisi already has had a career as a
miner. He dropped out

of his third year of primary school and left his home village of Makumira in
Tanzania after his

father was unable to pay for his uniform and school fees. Although Hamisi's
parents have their

own half-acre coffee farm, their income fell sharply because of the decline in
the market price

for coffee throughout the world.

Hamisi had heard stories of people making money from mining and decided
to try his luck. He asked his mother for a small amount of money to buy
some socks and other items, but instead

used this for the bus fare to Mererani, a town in northern Tanzania about 70
kilometres from his

home.

Personal Stories

International

Labour Office

InFocus Programme on Promoting the

Declaration on Fundamental Principles

and Rights at Work



Work In Freedom



When he arrived at the village, he approached a boy and asked him where
the mining site was

located. It was very difficult for him to get work right away because he was
a newcomer and had

no relatives there, but he managed to make friends with some children who
knew the place and

could help him.

After several days of hanging around the mining site, he was hired by one of owners to work as


Child Labour Stories