According to Unicef UK,
Every day, 14-year-old Tenasoa, who has lost the use of her legs, works in a mine to earn money for her family. "I don't know the origin of her disability,” explains her mother. “She has to work because it allows us to increase our income.”
In Madagascar, about 10,000 children work in the mica mining sector. Mica is commonly found in products such as cosmetics, paints and electronics – and mining it requires people to work in dangerous conditions underground. Long-term exposure to mica dust can irritate the lungs and cause irreversible fibrosis that causes blood to be coughed up.
In the mine where Tenasoa works, she sorts and cleans 2 kilogrammes of mica per day. Forty children work in the mine. They labour for seven days a week, with no access to school or health services. The dry, rocky landscape leaves few other ways to make a living. As one of the elders says, "If we don't work, we don't eat, it's very simple. Men, women and children must all work to survive."
Worldwide, child labour has risen to 160 million – an increase of 8.4 million in the past four years – and the risk to children is only increasing as conflict, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and a global recession push more families into poverty.
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Here is the beautiful part: “UNICEF works with governments and policymakers to make sure that children don't have to work in hazardous conditions and that their health and welfare are protected.”
Global capitalism and major capitalist states have created or supported the creation of international organisations to show that they work to mitigate, or even eradicate, poverty. The same system creates institutions for public consumption: a Westerner feels good that their country is doing something about global poverty and a local regime, say in Africa, perpetuates the socio-economic power relations. A café hangs on its walls a couple of pictures showing how they helped set up a school or schools in an Africa country. Philanthropists and celebrities add ice to the cake.
Western universities train both Westerners and ‘lucky’ Africans/non-Westerners in general to be cadres who wave the flag of advocacy, turning a blind eye to structural roots of poverty and ignoring the ruling classes’ roles in maintaining those socio-economic power relations.
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| UNICEF/UN0673617/Andrianantenaina |
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