SANA'A, March. 07 (Saba)- Training workshop for occupational, safety and health's inspectors from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor and its offices in governorates of Aden, Taiz, Hodieda and Hajjah began on Sunday. 

The five-day long workshop, which is being organized by Combating Child Labor Unit in the ministry in cooperation with International Labor Organization (ILO) and CHF, aims at giving 35 labor inspectors knowledge and skills on health and safety inspection for child laborers and those under 18 years. 

Participants, who came from targeted governorates and the Capital Sana'a, will be given a list on works children are forbidden to do. 

Opening the workshop, Undersecretary of Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor Abdu Al-Hakimi highlighted the role played by labor inspectors in field of occupational safety and health, namely on child laborers working in dangerous work. 

He affirmed that poverty is the first enemy to families who force children to go to work and then leave schools. He admitted that the ministry and its offices across the country lacks of specialists in field occupational and health safety expect only a doctor in Lahj. 

He argued the participating inspectors to make use of the workshop and from the Jordanian ILO's expert Amin al-Woraidan to come out with skills and knowledge helping them in their field work. 

For his part ILO's Representative and National Coordinator Yemen Raidan Al-Saqqaf indicated that the organization has been working in Yemen since 20000 with social partners and the government to combat child labor. 

This workshop is another intervention towards strengthening the institutional capacity to combat child labor through labor inspections, he added. 

"We value our partnership with government, CHF and social partners and we look forward to more cooperation in the future to advance decent work for all," he further said. 

CHF's Director in Yemen talked about importance of the Occupational Safety and Health Program in combating child labor in Yemen, especially in heavy populated areas where child labor is widespread. 

She affirmed significant of exchanging experience between participants as the workshop is the first of its kind being held in Yemen on combating child labor. 

According to formal statistics carried out in 2000, there are 420 thousands child laborers in Yemen. 

How much would you pay for a winter coat? How much would you pay for the child that made it?

Fifty years ago, the abomination of slavery seemed like a thing of the past. But history has a way of repeating itself. Today, we find that human slavery is once again a sickening reality. At this moment, men, women and children are being trafficked and exploited all over the world: 2.4 million have been trafficked into forced labour worldwide of these, 600,000 to 800,000 are trafficked across borders each year and 12,000 children are working as slaves on cocoa plantations in West Africa. It is impossible to ever reach a consensus on the true scale of the problem but, regardless of the figures, what matters is that human trafficking is big and getting bigger. What matters is that every number represents a human life destroyed. It is happening on every continent and in almost every country: whether the place we live is a source, destination or transit point for trafficking, none of us can claim to be wholly unaffected by this crime.

As the extent of human trafficking is recognized, a number of approaches to tackling it have been developed. Stop the Traffik is one such approach. Born out of witnessing first-hand the effects of human trafficking, we started out in 2006 as an informal coalition dedicated to raising awareness of trafficking and generating the political will necessary to stop it.

During our short existence we have found that one of the biggest impediments to anti-trafficking efforts is a lack of understanding of the issue. Trafficking, and consequently, the measures taken to combat it, is often entangled with people smuggling, immigration and asylum, prostitution and other forms of organized crime. It must be emphasized that the essence of trafficking is the forced exploitation of individuals by those in the position to exert power over them. While moving people is an intrinsic part of trafficking, this may occur within as well as across borders, and it may take a variety of forms. If they have been tricked or deceived, a person may even willingly transport themselves into a situation of exploitation. But unlike those who pay to be smuggled into another country, victims of trafficking have no prospect of making a new life for themselves.

International trafficking will inevitably raise issues of immigration, but its victims cannot simply be treated as illegal migrants, nor can the efforts to tackle it be reduced to stricter border controls. We can find sex trafficking abhorrent without taking a particular stance against prostitution, and policies to reduce or control the sex industry are just one approach to ending the trade of human flesh. Finally, despite the similarities between the organized trafficking of drugs, arms and humans, which may require comparable police tactics to combat, we commit a grave injustice against the victims of human slavery if we reduce them in our minds to the status of commodities.

The first step to preventing human trafficking and prosecuting the traffickers is therefore to recognize the complexity of the crime which cannot be tackled in a vacuum. Anti-trafficking strategies have to be embedded in every policy area, from improving female education in source countries so that girls are less vulnerable to trafficking, to increasing police pay in destination countries so that officers are less susceptible to bribery. We cannot allow ourselves to marginalize the issue of trafficking, viewing it as something that can be ended with a few extra taskforces or dedicated units. We need everyone to be aware of how it affects them, and what they can do to stop it. Laudable efforts in this direction have already been made. In 2000, the United Nations launched the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, which established a victim-centred approach to trafficking. It has since been signed by 177 countries. In 2005, the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings marked a step towards greater cooperation and dedication within Europe.

But more needs to be done. Many people still do not know what trafficking is, or do not care. We are working to change that, at every level of society. In February 2008 we delivered 1.5 million signatures to the UN from people calling for an end to human trafficking; as a result, our founder Steve Chalke was appointed UN.GIFT Special Advisor on Community Action against Human Trafficking. Since then we have continued to build on our grassroots support, firm in the belief that trafficking cannot be stopped by international conventions alone. Our focus is currently geared towards three key campaigns.

First is Start Freedom, our dynamic new global project run in conjunction with the UN that aims to engage and raise awareness among young people, helping them learn about the issues surrounding human trafficking. The fact that over half of all victims of human trafficking are under 18 empowers young people to realize the importance of their potential to prevent this illicit trade. Already we’ve had stories from source, transit and destination countries such as Greece, Mexico and Nepal, about how young ¬people, schools, faith groups and ¬communities are engaging with Start Freedom. Communities are at the heart of our campaigns. During Freedom Week in March 2010, young people will connect, engage and share in their communities varied and creative ways to mark their objection to human trafficking.

Our other key project at the moment is Active Communities against Trafficking (ACT), which aims to bring together members of a community under the umbrella of an ACT group. We equip these groups with an abundance of resources to help them identify trafficking, understand how it affects local communities, and learn how to help prevent its continuation. They can do this by asking questions about missing children and by forming connections with local authorities, professionals and community leaders. We believe trafficking starts in a community, and can be stopped by a community, and as the ACT project takes hold across countries, we are witnessing the profile of trafficking being raised, bringing together a diversity of people to help combat human trafficking in its various guises. The second stage of ACT, currently being piloted, will be launched in 2010. It is essentially a community research project that aims to gather information about human trafficking for sexual exploitation in local communities. This project has strong potential to contribute immensely to our key objectives: prevention of trafficking, prosecution of traffickers and protection of victims.

A third central focus is our Chocolate Campaign, which is informed by the fact that more than a third of the world’s cocoa comes from Côte d’Ivoire, where child trafficking and forced labour has been widely documented and acknowledged by international initiatives, such as the International Cocoa Initiative. Since international deadlines for eradicating child trafficking were missed by manufacturers, we decided to campaign ourselves by trying to get the big chocolate manufacturers to tell us that their products are “traffik free”. Up until very recently, most of them could not guarantee this—quite simply because their supply chains were not free of child slavery. Our Chocolate Campaign encourages people to help spread awareness about child trafficking in the cocoa industry, and to pressurize big chocolate manufacturers to commit to certifications, such as Fair Trade or Rainforest Alliance, which are currently the best guarantees we have to indicate that products are “traffik free”. Our campaign strategy relies on our numerous grassroots supporters: people host Fair Trade Chocolate Fondue fundraisers, send letters and make phone calls to manufacturers, boycott brands until they become Fair Trade, and hold awareness-raising events to inform and empower others to make ethical decisions. Our successes so far have been fantastic: Cadbury committed to a Fair Trade Dairy Milk, and Mars promised to certify the Galaxy bar with the Rainforest Alliance by 2010, and their whole range by 2020. Within a few weeks of targeting Nestlé to commit to a fair trade Kit Kat, we got news that they too were following suit in the United Kingdom by introducing a Fairtrade four-finger Kit Kat in January. This is a start, but it is nowhere near the end.

Only with a concerted effort by governments, private companies, non-governmental organizations, and above all communities, can we hope to end the horror of human trafficking. Stop the Traffik has developed into an independent charity with over 1,500 member organizations and hundreds of thousands of individuals around the world who refuse to tolerate the existence of slavery in the twenty-first century.

People are talking, communities are rising, global networks are being forged and governments are responding to the united message that human trafficking must end.

Social workers are advising the public to desist from employing the services of head porters (Kayayei) who are minors or below 18 years. They are also seeking empowerment so that social workers can stop any child head porter from carrying loads in the various markets nationwide.

The Accra Metro Director of Social Welfare, Ms Marian Mensah argued that the practice of load carrying among children is tantamount to child labour and therefore, illegal.

Speaking to Public Agenda in an interview in Accra she entreated the law enforcement agencies to enforce the relevant laws on this problem including The Labour Act No 651 of 2003, The Children?s Act, No. 560 Of 1998 and The ILO Convention No. 182, the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention in 2000 which has been ratified by Ghana.

Labour law
In Ghana, the minimum age of entering the labour market is 15 years. Sections 58 to 61 of the Labour Act prohibit the employment of young persons in hazardous work, which is defined to include work likely to expose the person to physical or moral hazard.

Indeed, Accra, the nation?s capital has its greater share of the ever increasing Kayayei population. According to Ms Mensah, every district assembly has a responsibility to cater for the people within its jurisdiction, particularly the indigenes.

She noted that Accra metropolis has lot of people coming in daily with about 70% of funds generated by the district assembly going to people who are not permanent residents or are not indigenes of Accra.

Some time ago, she recalled, a programme was proposed to deal with the issue of Kayayei but then it was realized that the indigenous people of Accra in areas such as James Town and Chorkor among others have similar issues to deal with.

?Kayayei cannot solely be an assembly issue; it seems to be more of a national issue that no one assembly can handle,? she added.

For now, the social services sub-committee and the women and children sub-committee of the AMA periodically hold fora for Kayayei to educate them on the effects of their activities and hazards involved in such migration by them. She said that initially, they intended to assist them acquire vocations so they could go back and utilize them but they were reluctant to learn or go back.

She said since the assembly does not have the resources to devote to deal with the issue of Kayayei, it is collaborating with NGOs like Swift AID to assist those who desire to learn vocations and also support them with micro loans.

Swift AID is an organization concerned about the rights of street children and child labour. Under the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives (CFLI), it is promoting the rights of children who are working as Kayayei on the street in three areas; Mallam Atta, Agbobloshie and CMB markets in Accra.

The project hopes to educate these communities on the rights of these girls, especially their right to education and strengthen coordination among institutions that protect the rights of the child. Swift Aid will also work with northern communities in a public campaign in an effort to warn other potential victims about the risks of becoming a Kayayei in Accra and to reduce the migration of vulnerable young girls from the north of Ghana to Accra

Their origin
Ms Mensah said most Kayayeis come from Upper East, Upper West and Northern regions. Most of them claim they migrate to the south due to lack of social amenities such as electricity, potable water, lack of employment and unfriendly access to education.

She said others also come purposely to acquire personal stuff like cloth and cooking utensils to facilitate their marriage, therefore after six months to one year some of them return home.

Those who return with a lot of valuables are hot candidates for marriage, since the more resources they acquire give the men more confidence in them. Also such migrants attract more attention from family and community members on their arrival.

This paper gathered that there are specific buses that transport these kayayei to Accra on Sundays around 5am. They normally alight at the CMB market in Accra. Given the orderly conveyance of these Kayayei from the North to Accra and their immediate recruitment as domestic and commercial sex workers, a section of the public is of the opinion that a network may be involved in the entire Kayayei trade.

In the past, males dominated the migration trend flowing from their traditional roles as breadwinners. But as both men and women began sharing economic roles the trend changed and now women dominate the Kayayei population.

According to Ms. Mensah, the vehicles bringing these girls have diverted to unknown destinations upon the monitoring of their activities by the Social Welfare Department. The only known station, where special buses transport Kayayei back to their hometown, is the Accra -Tema station. The journey from there on Sundays is usually a non-stop one.

Before adult kayayeis go to work, they leave their babies in the care of minor Kayayei between the ages of seven to ten to act as nannies. After a hard day?s work, they pay a fee for shelter, even on the pavements in front of stores in the market centres where they operate. Most of them sleep on cardboards.

Educational background
While majority dropped out from school at the basic level, a greater proportion have never been to school before. Interactions with some of them revealed they actually prefer to engage in commercial sex work in the evening than to sleep on the pavements for unscrupulous persons to take advantage of them.

There is a public perception that several NGOs claim to be working around the issue of Kayayei but in reality nothing seem to be happening. The Accra Metro Director therefore urged NGOs and individuals working in the area to register with the Social Welfare directorate at the assembly so they can work together.

Ms Mensah observed that Kayayeis need help which seem not forthcoming. She believes that if Northern communities are developed, and negative cultural practices such as child marriage and betrothal are stopped a lot of kayayeis will not migrate to the south.

The kind of help they want is not pushing them into vocational and technical skills like dressmaking, basket weaving and hair dressing but employable skills such as auto mechanic and tiling that can be used in their hometowns.?

She emphasized the need to rethink the kind of assistance offered to them. She called on metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to come out with policies to address the issue of kayayeis since they operate in their jurisdiction.

ecifically the northern caucus and individuals from the region to act on the issue before it becomes a national issue.

A report on a recent research on the sustainable repatriation of migrants to their origin said although female migration has important implications for development, it still receives little attention. Migration involves both the unskilled and semi-skilled from rural to urban areas mainly for economic reasons.

It cannot however be stated categorically, that there is sustainable return as many of the migrants can hardly boast of jobs that could guarantee sustainable incomes.

As a result, interventions should catch the migrants in their origin in order to attract others to go back.