| Total
Child Labour |
NATIONAL STATISTICS
* For the year 2000, the ILO projects that
there will be 820,000 economically active children, 393,000 girls
and 427,000 boys between the ages of 10-14, representing 51.13%
of this age group.
(ILO, International Labour Office - Bureau of Statistics, Economically Active Population 1950-2010, STAT Working Paper, ILO 1997)
*
In 1995, there were 729,000 economically active children, 350,000
girls and 379,000 boys between the ages of 10-14, representing 54.53%
of this age group. (ILO, International Labour Office - Bureau of Statistics, Economically Active Population 1950-2010, STAT Working Paper, ILO 1997)
GENERAL
NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS
* Children work in rural
areas, helping family farms and herds, and also as street vendors. (US Dept of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 1999, 25 February 2000)
* Child labour predominates
in the agricultural sector, and to a lesser degree in crafts and trades,
apprenticeships and cottage industries. (EI, EI Barometer on Human and Trade Union Rights in the Education Sector, 1998)
* Child labour is widespread, above
all in the informal sector of the Malian economy.
(UN Committee
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Concluding observations
on Mali, 1994)
|
| Child
Slavery |
ADULT STATISTICS
* Mauritania's haretine
(black Africans) are slaves to the beydanes(white Arab-Berber nomads).
The beydanes often roam with their slaves into Mali. According to Moctar
Teyeb of El Hor, at least 100,000 are in the Mali desert.
(American Anti-Slavery Group, Jesse Sage,
e-mail to GMIS, 6 November 2000)
GENERAL
NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS
* There are no
reports of forced or bonded child labour in Mali.
(US
Dept of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 1999, 25
February 2000)
* Thousands of
Malian children were trafficked and sold into indentured servitude
on Ivorian plantations. In September 1998, a private Abidjan daily
newspaper exposed the widespread practice of importing and indenturing
Malian boys for field work on Ivorian plantations under abusive conditions.
(US
Dept of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 1999, 25
February 2000)
* There were some
reports that the de facto slavery long reported to have existed in
northern salt mining communities has evolved towards wage labour in
recent years, however, reliable current evidence about labour conditions
in those remote facilities remained unavailable.
(US
Dept of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 1999, 25
February 2000)
* Debt-bondage
still exists in the salt mining communities north of Timbuktu. It
has to be stated, however, that the number of people treated in this
way has decreased. (UN
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Concluding observations
on Mali, 1994)
* Many families
entrust their children, mainly boys aged five or six, to the care
of a religious leader, or marabout, with whom the boys live until
the age of 15 or 16. The children perform various tasks in the marabout's
school or household. Begging is considered to be a part of the child's
learning process because. These students, known as garibou, live
in poor conditions with up to 3,000 other students.
(CWA,
"Child Prostitution in Vietnam", Child Workers in Asia,
Vol. 10, No. 3, July -September 1994)
|
| Child
Trafficking |
GENERAL
NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS
*
Mali is a source and destination country for trafficked persons,
primarily children. Children from Mali are trafficked to Cote d'Ivoire
to work on cotton and cocoa plantations or for domestic servitude.
Women from Nigeria are trafficked to Mali for sexual exploitation.
(US
Dept. of State, Trafficking in Persons Report, July 12, 2001)
* Government
of Mali admits that international traffic in children had been detected
in Mali. As to the cross-border trafficking of children, the Ministry
for the Advancement of Women, Children and the Family said that
Malian children had been taken across the border to Ivory Coast
and other countries in the sub-region to work as domestics and on
plantations in deplorable conditions where most are susceptible
to sexual exploitation. (ECPAT,
CSEC Database, http://www.ecpat.net/eng/ecpat_inter/projects/monitoring/online_database/index.asp)
* A United Nations
Report on child trafficking in West Africa says that children in
West and Central Africa are trafficked within the sub-region and
sometimes to countries in Europe. Children from Mali, Togo, Benin,
Nigeria and other neighbouring countries are trafficked to Ivory
Coast to work on plantations, for use as domestic servants, market
traders, child beggars and prostitutes. (ECPAT,
CSEC Database, http://www.ecpat.net/eng/ecpat_inter/projects/monitoring/online_database/index.asp)
*
Reports in national and international media throughout 1998 carried
out accounts of illicit trade in children from Mali to the Cote
d'Ivoire to be sold to farmers. (Child
Trafficking in West and Central Africa, submission to the UN Working
Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, June 1999)
* Suspected child
trafficking activities have also been identified in Mali, Mauritania
and Burkina Faso. These networks feed the domestic labour market in
the main urban centres of countries like Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon, Nigeria,
Equatorial Guinea and the Congo. (UNICEF,
The Issue of Child Domestic Labour and Trafficking in West and Central
Africa, July 1998)
* In October
1997 police Intercepted traffickers in neighbouring Mali taking
young Mauritanian children to the Gulf.
(CWA,
Anti-Slavery International – Urgent Action on Child Labour,
"Child Camel Jockeys in the Gulf States", Child
Workers in Asia, Vol. 13, Nos. 2 & 3, April - September 1997)
|
| Child
Prostitution and
Pornography |
GENERAL
NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS
* One NGO "Association
Pour le Progrès et de la Défense des Droits des Femmes
Mallienne"(APDF) reports that prostitution is on the increase
in Mali and the reason is basically economic as a result of Structural
Adjustment Programmes that has exacerbated the poverty in Mali.
The report also says that the prostitutes are very young ranging
in age from 14 to 40 years old. (ECPAT,
CSEC Database, http://www.ecpat.net/eng/ecpat_inter/projects/monitoring/online_database/index.asp)
|
| Children
in Crime |
- |
| Child
Soldiers |
RECRUITMENT
LAWS AND REGULATIONS
*
The minimum age for both compulsory and voluntary recruitment is 18 years
and the maximum age is 22 years. (CSUCS,
Africa Report, April 1999, citing Report of Mali to the UN CRC, 8 September
1997)
NOTES
ON GOVERNMENT FORCES
* There is no evidence
of any underage recruitment in Mali. (CSUCS,
Africa Report, April 1999, citing UNICEF)
* In February 1999,
Mali sent troops to Sierra Leone as part of the ECOMOG forces. There is
no evidence of any underage soldiers among the Malian contingent. (CSUCS,
Africa Report, April 1999)
|
| Domestic
Child Servants |
NATIONAL STATISTICS
* An even greater
number than 15,000 have been pressed into domestic service. (US Dept of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2000, February 2001)
|
Other
Hazardous
Child Labour |
NATIONAL STATISTICS
* An estimated
15,000 Malian children between the ages of 9 and 12 have been sold
into forced labour on the cotton, coffee, and cocoa plantations
of northern Cote d'Ivoire over the past few years. (US Dept of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2000, February 2001)
GENERAL
NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS
* Child labour exists,
though to a lesser degree, in crafts and trades apprenticeship and cottage
industries. (EI, EI Barometer on Human and Trade Union Rights in the Education Sector, 1998)
SPECIFIC SECTORS
* Commercial Agriculture
- Thousands of Malian children were trafficked and sold into indentured
servitude on Ivorian plantations. In September 1998, a private Abidjan
daily newspaper exposed the widespread practice of importing and indenturing
Malian boys for field work on Ivorian plantations under abusive conditions.
Mali was not the only source of forced child labour used in the country.
(US Dept of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 1999, 25 February 2000)
* Commercial Agriculture
- Reports in national and international media throughout 1998 carried
out accounts of illicit trade in children from Mali to the Cote d'Ivoire
to be sold to farmers. (Child
Trafficking in West and Central Africa, submission to the UN Working
Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, June 1999)
* Street Vending -
Children work as street vendors. (US Dept of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 1999, 25 February 2000)
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