MOZAMBIQUE -- CHILD LABOR INFORMATION

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 MAPUTO 000041

SIPDIS

DOL/ILAB FOR TINA MCCARTER
DRL/ILCSR FOR TU DANG

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ELAB EIND ETRD PHUM SOCI MZ
SUBJECT: MOZAMBIQUE -- CHILD LABOR INFORMATION

REF: 08 STATE 127448


1. SUMMARY: The Government of the Republic of Mozambique
(GRM) is party to the ILO convention against the worst forms
of child labor. The GRM has a regulatory framework in place
to monitor and prosecute infractions of the labor code, but
does not have a regulatory body specifically devoted to child
labor cases. The Ministry of Labor (MOL),in conjunction with
multilateral organizations and non-governmental organizations
(NGOs),continues to develop and implement programs to combat
the worst forms of child
labor, but the impact remains minimal. Child labor and forced
and bonded labor remain common practices, particularly in
rural areas, but also in urban domestic settings. UNICEF
estimates that 32 percent of children between the ages of 7
and 17 years old are engaged in economic activities, with 40
percent of children in rural areas working and 16 percent of
urban children involved in economic activities. Even at the
age of seven, six percent of Mozambique's children are
engaged in productive activities. Child labor is
particularly prominent in the cotton and tobacco agricultural
sectors. Major factors contributing to child labor include
chronic family poverty, lack of employment for adults,
breakdown of family support mechanisms, an inadequate
education system, gender inequality, and the increasing
impact of HIV/AIDS. END SUMMARY.

Laws Proscribing the Worst Forms of Child Labor
-------------- --


2. Law 8/98 sets the minimum age for employment at 15 years,
but, in exceptional cases, allows for children between the
ages of 12 and 15 to work with the joint approval of the
Ministries of Labor (MOL),Health, and Education. The law
sets restricted conditions on the work that minors between
the ages of 15 and 18 may perform, limits the number of hours
they can work, and establishes training, education, and
medical exam requirements. Children between the ages of 15
and 18 are prohibited from being employed in unhealthy or
dangerous occupations or occupations requiring significant
physical effort, as determined by the MOL. Article 79 of the
Labor Law stipulates that employers must provide children
between 12 and 15 with vocational training and offer
age-appropriate work conditions. For children between 15 and
18 years of age, the employer is required to provide for
their education and professional training and to ensure
conditions of work that are not damaging to their physical
and moral development. In April 2007, the Council of
Ministers approved a draft Child Protection Law and forwarded
the draft to the National Assembly for final approval, which
was promulgated by the President in June 2008. The new law
ensures greater protection of children's rights against
discrimination, violence, and exploitation, and identifies
children's rights to education, medical treatment, and
parental support. The law also calls for the establishment
of a National Council on Children to coordinate the GRM's
activities related to children's rights.


3. For minors under 18 years, the maximum workweek is 38
hours and the maximum workday is 7 hours. Children must
undergo a medical examination before beginning work. By law,
children must be paid at least the minimum wage or a minimum
of two-thirds of the adult salary, whichever is higher.
Children, including those under the age of 15, commonly
worked on family farms in seasonal harvests or commercial
plantations, where they were paid on a piecework basis. The
minimum age for military recruitment or involvement in armed
conflict is 18. In the urban informal sector children
performed such tasks as guarding cars, collecting scrap
metal, working as vendors, and selling trinkets and food in
the streets, and presumably are paid on a piecework basis.
Children also are employed as poorly paid domestic laborers,
and as employees in informal bars where they are often also
prostituted.


4. In April Mozambique passed an Anti-Trafficking in Persons
Law which prohibits all forms of trafficking in persons;
however, there continued to be reports that persons were
trafficked to, from, through, or within the country.
Traffickers can also be prosecuted using laws on sexual
assault, rape, abduction, and child abuse. Post is unaware of
any prosecutions or convictions for trafficking cases during
the year; however, the new law provides for penalties of 16
to 20 years imprisonment for those recruiting or facilitating
the exploitation of a person for purposes of prostitution,
forced labor, slavery, or involuntary debt servitude. The
government has responded to trafficking-related allegations

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in the press by conducting follow-up investigations, issuing
public awareness announcements, and holding local workshops.
The police conducted general training on vulnerable children,
including trafficking, in provinces throughout the country,
and have established an Anti-Trafficking Police Brigade.
Trained police officials continued to staff women's shelters
at police stations to protect trafficking victims in Maputo,
Beira, Nampula, and several large towns in Gaza
Province. The Ministry of Interior has established 204
Victim Support Centers across the country specifically
designed to support child victims of crimes among other
vulnerable groups.


5. Save the Children funds the country's only known shelter
for trafficking victims. The shelter is located half way
between Maputo and the South African border post of Ressano
Garcia, which is a major crossing point for trafficked
persons. The shelter serves approximately 15 children. The
shelter also works with other NGOs on the border to screen
for victims of trafficking among the hundreds of illegal
Mozambican immigrants repatriated each month by South African
immigration authorities. The Department of Migration
maintains an agreement with the Government of South Africa to
share facilities and information, including information on
trafficking in persons.


6. The government ratified ILO Conventions 29, 138, and 182
in June 2003. Mozambique ratified the UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child in April 1994, the UN Optional Protocol
to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of
Children, Child Prostitution, and Child Pornography in March
2003, and the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish
Trafficking in Persons in September 2006. Focus on
children's rights continues to be a primary objective of the
government, particularly as it relates to HIV/AIDS, violence
against children, and trafficking in persons.

Implementation and Enforcement of Labor Laws
--------------


7. The MOL regulates child labor in both the informal and
formal sectors. Labor inspectors are authorized to obtain
court orders and use police to enforce compliance with child
labor provisions. Violations of child labor provisions are
punishable with fines ranging from 1 to 40 times the monthly
minimum wage. Enforcement mechanisms generally are adequate
in the formal sector, but remain poor in the regulation of
informal child labor. The Labor Inspectorate and police force
lack adequate staff, funds, and training to investigate child
labor cases, especially in areas outside of the capital,
where many cases occur. In 2007, the MOL carried out 4,998
non-specific inspections of businesses which involved 103,649
workers. Post is unaware of any child labor investigations
occurring in 2008. The
GRM provides training for police on child prostitution,
abuse, (including pornography),and trafficking; however,
there is no specialized child labor training for the Labor
Inspectorate. The GRM has disseminated information and
provided education about the dangers of child labor.

Social Programs to Counter Child Labor
--------------


8. The MOL and other organizations continue to do some work
on child labor issues, but with little impact. The MOL has
developed an action plan for reducing child labor and
allocated funds to organize seminars to discuss this issue.
The trade union movement in Mozambique also has been involved
in the eradication of child labor. The Confederation of
Trade Unions (OTM) has participated in several initiatives
against child labor, particularly in rural areas, including
participation in seminars and workshops as well as in the
design of the child labor regulations.


9. The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of International
Labor Affairs funded one project in Mozambique, which began
in 2005, and closed in late-2008. The project targeted
children in 18 communities in Tete Province for withdrawal
and prevention from work in agriculture, as domestics, in
the streets, and commercial sexual exploitation. The major
focus is to withdraw or prevent from exploitative labor
approximately 2,600 children through the provision of
educational and non-educational services.


10. The GRM also has programs aimed at supporting children
from impoverished families to stay in school and away from
the labor market and the worst forms of child labor. For

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example, the GRM has established a scholarship program to
cover the costs of school materials and fees for children.
These programs are targeted particularly at vulnerable groups
affected by HIV/AIDS such as young girls, orphans, and
child-headed households. Education is compulsory and free
through the age of 12, but there is a matriculation fee for
each child, and children are responsible for purchasing
books, uniforms, and school supplies (spending on these
associated costs often was higher than matriculation fees).
Such fees and associated costs represented a significant
financial burden for many families. Children who have a
certificate that testifies that their parents' incomes are
below a certain poverty level do not pay any matriculation
fees. Enforcement of compulsory education laws is
inconsistent due to the lack of resources and the need for
additional schools.

National Policy and Plan of Action
--------------


11. While the Ministry of Education and Culture has made
significant progress in increasing school enrollments at all
levels, significant challenges remain. UNICEF estimates that
94 percent of children were enrolled in primary education in
Mozambique. Completion rates remain much lower: in 2006,
only 29 percent of girls and 41 percent of boys completed
primary school. The government's 2007 economic and social
plan aims to increase the overall number of students by 13
percent as well as recruit 9,000
new teachers, though this is not a budgetary priority. The
GRM's Second Poverty Reduction Strategy for 2006-2010 also
includes an education investment component. Over the next
several years the government set goals to achieve gender
equilibrium in primary schools, and by 2015 ensure that all
children complete the full cycle of primary education. The
program also seeks to improve access to and quality of
education at all levels, by investing in teacher training and
school equipment (particularly in rural areas),by increasing
the amount of time children spend at school, by providing
additional vocational programs, and by orienting the
curriculum to specific employment opportunities.


12. The Ministry of Education and Culture and UNICEF are
working together in Zambezia Province to implement an
innovative package of school interventions to improve access
and quality, known as the Child-Friendly School (CFS)
initiative. CFS includes learning and teaching material,
extracurricular life skills programs on HIV/AIDS prevention
and girls' empowerment, and access to social services for
orphaned and vulnerable children. The program will be
implemented in all primary schools in seven model districts
over the next three years, with the goal of benefiting some
300,000 children.


13. UNICEF, UNESCO, and national broadcasters Radio
Mozambique and Television Mozambique continue the
Child-to-Child radio and television programs. The radio
program involves 233 children between the ages of eight and
18 working on more than two dozen programs broadcast
provincially and nationally in 16 local languages and
Portuguese. Discussion topics include themes such as child
abuse, violence, and trafficking, HIV/AIDS and health
awareness, and girls' access to education. To ensure
nationwide outreach, the programs occasionally are also
broadcast live from districts and remote communities. The
television program, entitled "Roda Viva" is dedicated to
children's rights and issues of interest to young people and
involves 16 children in program design, production, and
presentation.

Progress Towards Elimination of Child Labor
--------------


14. Although forced and bonded labor by children is
prohibited by law, it is common in rural areas. A Labor
Force Survey conducted by the National Institute of
Statistics in 2004-05 revealed that 32 percent of children
between ages 7 and 17 were engaged in some form of economic
activity. Of this number, it was estimated that 40 percent
of children in rural areas work, while only 16 percent of
children in urban areas work. The same report revealed that
the provinces with the highest levels of economically active
children were Tete, Inhambane, Manica, and Nampula (all
between 38-51 percent). UNICEF estimates that more than one
million Mozambican children under 14 years of age are subject
to exploitative labor. The most common forms of child labor
included children working on family farms, in

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commercial agriculture, as domestics, and as prostitutes.


15. The major factors contributing to child labor in
Mozambique were chronic family poverty, lack of employment
for adults, breakdown of family support mechanisms, an
inadequate education system, gender inequality, and the
increasing impact of HIV/AIDS. Regarding education, UNICEF
reports that more than half of primary school-aged children
leave school before they complete grade five; many of these
children eventually enter the informal job market, where they
are subject to abuse and exploitation. Concerning the effect
of HIV/AIDS, approximately 99,000 children under the age of
15 were living with the virus, the majority below the age of
five, and less than 3 percent of eligible children are
receiving anti-retroviral treatment. According to UNICEF, of
the country's 1.6 million orphans,
some 380,000 have been orphaned due to AIDS, representing
more than 20 percent of the total orphaned population.
Children orphaned by HIV/AIDS often are forced to work
because they are left without any adult family members or
with only extended family members who were unable to support
them.
Amani