By: Hertha Ekandjo
Children’s parliament’s chairperson and the chairperson of the health committee Rivaldo Kavanga says that when it comes to child labour, Namibia should also focus on foreign children who are in Namibia and subjected to child labour.
Kavanga said this in an interview with Eagle FM over the weekend.
“On the day of the African Child, I mainly focused on the foreign children in Namibia that are subjected to all these child labour issues. I provided tangible solutions to the government. We have the child protection act (CPA), with a section that calls for inter-country adoption,” he said.
Kavanga suggested that the government look into inter-country adoption and adopt foreign children in the county.
“This is, so we look after them as Namibian children”.
The chairperson said that Namibia also has problems,e even if its borders were open to everyone.
He further stated that Namibia had to mediate the transition of different people in the country and see how legally those children enter the country.
According to Kavanga, some foreign kids don’t have birth certificates, which makes it difficult for them to enrol in schools.
Moreover, he noted that there were so many unanswered questions regarding the foreign children in the country, such as who they live with and who their parents are.
“What government can do better is to start controlling the number of people entering and living the country. They also need to look at childcare protection because these issues are also being incorporated into the child care protection act. Because these children also, looking at children from different countries,” he emphasised.
Kavanga added that child labour not only happens when a child does extremely hard work, such as working at a mine but also selling in the streets instead of being at school.
Furthermore, he noted that the moment a child`s rights to go to school are taken away from him and placed on the streets to sell or do some form of work, that qualifies as child labour.
The chairperson mentioned that children are allowed to help at a specific time but strictly not during school hours.
With different economic at home, he said that one should idealise certain activities and regard them as child labour.
“The impact is that we take child rape as child marriage normal, whereby a child is sold off to a wealthier family and gets money in return. Most of these practices emanate from poverty. Families are forced to take these drastic decisions,” said Kavanga.
According to him, some of these situations are forced onto parents, whereby the economic crisis at home does not allow the kids to go to school.
The Bureau of Internation Labor Affairs (ILAB) earlier this year reported that in 2021, Namibia made moderate advancements in efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labour.
According to ILAB, the government substantially drafted an updated National Action Plan on Trafficking in Persons to guide responses to human trafficking, including children. It substantially increased funding for shelters servicing the physical and psychosocial needs of trafficking survivors.
“In addition, the government coordinated a training with the International Organization for Migration for front line officers and humanitarian actors to identify and respond to human trafficking in response to growing climate migration,” the organisation noted.
ILAB mentioned that children in Namibia were subjected to the worst forms of child labour, including commercial sexual exploitation, sometimes due to human trafficking.
The organisation highlighted that children also engaged in domestic work and street work. Prevention and elimination of child labour are not integrated into vital national policies. In addition, social programs do not address child labour in agriculture and domestic work.
