Kyrgyz child labour raises concerns

BISHKEK – Aidar Sobirov, 15, rises at 6am every day, but he doesn’t go to school. Starting at 7, he hauls carts at the local market, where he has worked for more than a year.

“Zhol, zhol!” the slender boy from Osh Oblast shouts as he hauls a cart and dreams of earning enough to rescue his family from poverty.

Aidar is one of thousands of Kyrgyz youth who forgo school for work.

While their diligence might be laudable, the government and public welfare organisations recognise problems inherent in the trend. These include health issues and concerns that undereducated youth are receptive to extremist recruitment.

The government is trying to contain the problem.

The Ministry of Labour, Employment and Migration, for example, monitors compliance with a national ban on child employment and tries to persuade parents to observe it, ministry spokeswoman Samiya Talybova said.

That effort has not stopped Aidar. Korima Bashalova, who sells greens at the Osh Market in Bishkek, recently hired him to haul a 50kg-load. It had to be delivered to Dyikan Market, 3km away. She paid him 50 KGS (US $1).

“Aidar is a good boy,” she said, helping him load the cart. “He does the job eagerly for only 50 soms, whereas adult cart haulers won’t lift a finger for under 150. And there’s nothing too heavy – only greens.”

The boy threaded the cart through the market and onto the roadside, his neck and back straining.

“I am the eldest son; my parents are peasants,” he said. “They didn’t make me work – I came to the city voluntarily to stay with a cousin, a market trader, whom I asked to help me find a job.”

By UNICEF estimates, 38,000 (local NGOs say 120,000) children do not attend school because they work.

Given low living standards and high unemployment, a child often is considered the breadwinner in the family, International Labour Organisation (ILO) analysts say.

By working with schools, government officials are trying to make sure that all children ages 7-18 at least get an education, Education Ministry representative Khatyra Sadykova said: “Where children stay away from school or miss classes, we meet with parents and children to persuade them to attend,” she said.

“School and parent committees seek to help too, providing schoolbags, textbooks, pens and free meals to poorer children.”

The government is planning to set up quick-response groups to more actively help working and neglected children.

“These groups will check with schools and local governments to see how many kids are registered and how many of them actually go to schools,” Sadykova said.

“The government is discussing providing certain financial assistance to schoolchildren who are in need. The schools will also create special classes for them after school so that they get help with their homework.”

Still, many children work in plain view. By the end of the day that Bashalova hired him, Aidar had delivered 40 boxes of peaches and 150kg of eggplants. He wasn’t tired, he said.

But medical professionals disagree.

Cart-hauling is difficult for an adult, let alone for a teenager, paediatrician Elena Khakimova said.

“That’s unacceptable! I wonder what his parents are thinking about – a cart hauler’s work is much like that of rickshaw pullers in China. Many of them died under 30,” she said.

Talybova of the Labour Ministry said that fining illicit employers of children is a good first step, but, “We should pay special attention to every child, because they, especially when they are in their teens, are very vulnerable. If we don’t start working on making a good person out of every child, nobody knows whom he or she will become later. Children who are out of control can fall under bad groups’ influence.”

Sadykova agrees. “If children don’t get proper education and don’t feel happy, they might pretty easily fall into extremist groups’ hands. Because this is what extremists hunt for – vulnerable people. We must do everything to protect our kids from them.”

Children mostly are employed as farmhands, market vendors, bus fare collectors and shop assistants.

The work puts them at risk for health problems. Doctors at the National Paediatrics and Paediatric Surgery Centre have examined 300 children ages 8-16 who work at the Dordoi market and found that their meals barely sustain them physically, leaving them open to developmental and immunity problems.

Kyrgyzstan ratified the 1999 ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention and adopted a 2008-2011 national programme to eliminate the most exploitative forms of child labour. Its constitution also bans child labour.

But the law can be an abstraction when economic reality is so unforgiving, some say.

“I can earn at least 200 soms a day, even 700 on a good day. I pay 45 soms a day for the cart’s rent, 20 more for its storage, 50 for meals and 1,000 per month for housing,” Aidar said, wiping sweat with a dirty sleeve. “I can even save something for my family.”