BENIN: CHILD LABOR PERSISTS IN STONE QUARRIES

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 COTONOU 000451 SIPDIS DOL FOR ILAB/RRIGBY AND DGARMS STATE FOR AF/W DORSEY LOCKART E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ELAB PHUM EIND SOCI BN SUBJECT: BENIN: CHILD LABOR PERSISTS IN STONE QUARRIES REF: (A) COTONOU 314 (B) 07 COTONOU 915 ¶1. SUMMARY: Child labor continues to be used in stone crushing quarries in central Benin. On June 24, 2008 a mission team visited the quarries to gage the magnitude of the use of child labor in them. The team observed that children continue, in significant numbers, to engage with their parents in stone (granite) crushing. Without increased government enforcement of existing child labor laws and alternative forms of economic activity for women in this region it is unlikely this problem will end soon. END SUMMARY -------------- Children involved in Stone Crushing -------------- ¶2. A mission team including the Political Officer, Political Assistant and Self-help/Democracy and Human Right Funds Coordinator saw children aged between 5-18 crushing stones in quarries that were located in the region of Dassa-Zoume, in the department of the Collines, central Benin, during a June 24 visit. In Tchatchegou, a small village north of Dassa, the team found 38 children working with adults in a granite quarry located within view of Benin's main north-south highway. A number of other children were found working in another abandoned GOB quarry further from the road. The presence of visitors did not worry children or adults at either site. An adult worker at the site closest to the road told PolOff that visits from delegations, including the GOB, were frequent. The team also spoke to adults and children in Mondjigangan, another village in the region, about the use of children to crush rocks. According to Laurette Ekon, the Program Officer for the International Labor Office's International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (ILO-IPEC),the problem is not limited to the Dassa area but also exists in Beterou a village in northeastern Benin. According to Ekon, local entrepreneurs in Beterou buy crushed stones directly from children. ¶3. According to adults involved in the production of crushed rocks, the children work under the auspices of an adult who is often a parent and usually the mother. Adults that Poloff interviewed affirmed that the children working with them were their own and that the children assisted them in crushing stones. Other adults present explained that they also paid children from surrounding villages to crush stones. All of the adults encountered on the sites acknowledged that stone crushing is a hazardous activity as fragments of rock occasionally wound children while crushing. The adults also acknowledged they were aware that child labor is against the law and said that given their poor condition, they were forced to engage in this activity for money. ¶4. It takes about one hour and a half for a child to produce a bucket of crushed stones. Children are normally paid 400 FCFA (approximately .97 USD) or the equivalent in stones after they produce four buckets of crushed stones (six hours of work). According to adults at the sites, the number of stone-crushing children increases during holidays as they use the money paid to them to buy school supplies and clothes. Additionally, children come to the quarries after school and during breaks in their classes to earn pocket money. Other children are brought to the sites by their parents to assist them in their work. ¶5. A prior attempt to assist the women involved in crushing rocks in Tchatchegou failed because of inappropriate technology. In 2005, the GOB provided the Women's Association in Tchathegou with a stone crushing machine. The person responsible for the machine, El Hadj Fassassi, told the team that stones first needed to be broken into smaller pieces before being processed by the machine and that the machine's fuel consumption was too expensive. Women stopped using the machine, because it did not save them time and cost too much. -------------- NGO and Government Response -------------- ¶6. Ekon, ILO-IPEC's program officer told post that in 2005 ILO-IPEC produced, in conjunction with GOB's Office of Labor, a documentary film on stone crushing children that was extensively broadcast on local television stations. She said that anti-child labor NGOs use this film to conduct awareness campaigns in stones quarries regions. She also related the efforts of ILO and the Labor Office in 2003 to end child exploitation in the Beterou quarries (mentioned above). According to Ekon, the Labor Office in cooperation with ILO, rescued one hundred children from those quarries and enrolled them in schools. In addition, the Labor Office equipped a stone quarry with a stone crushing machine. Gazard Gertrude, a Labor Administrator serving at the Labor Office told Post that the Labor Office was currently standing up a team for an inspection to the stone quarries. COTONOU 00000451 002 OF 002 -------------- Comment -------------- ¶7. Comment: Exploitive child labor exists openly in the hilly region of Dassa. Beninese authorities are well aware of the scope of the problem but are constrained in their effort to fight it by a lack of labor inspectors to check quarries and to arrest perpetrators. Implementation of anti-child labor legislation is also lax in this region. Any attempt to use law enforcement to end this exploitation would need to be accompanied by programs to provide alternative sources of income for the adults, primarily women, involved in stone crushing. Without other economic outlets child labor would almost certainly resurface in areas further away from government oversight. End Comment. BROWN