The children heading families say that the inability to provide adequate food to feed the family forced them to drop out of school to find other alternatives for survival.
The hunger
crisis in Karamoja is pushing children to work in mines to support their
families.
The majority of children in Karamoja are working all sorts of jobs such as charcoal
burning, collecting firewood for sale, and street vending.
The children heading families say that the inability to provide adequate food
to feed the family forced them to drop out of school to find other alternatives for survival.
Christine Nachap, a 14-year-old girl who is looking after three siblings says
since both parents died, their relatives abandoned them and they have been
struggling with life feeding on local brew residues as food.
Nachap
explains that she usually treks to Moroto town which is about 8 kilometers to
beg for the residues that she brings home for other siblings to feed.
Hellen Nate,
a 13- year-old girl, says her parents were killed by warriors and she is single-handedly
taking care of the other three children.
Nate says that he was forced to drop out of school this year in primary three
because there was no one to support them. she added that their lives have been
relying on charcoal burning and selling firewood for survival.
Emmanuel
Lokot, a 15-year-old in P.4 class in Musas Primary School says that he
struggles to balance school and looking after his siblings.
Lokot says
that every Friday he returns home early so that he goes to the quarrying site
to break the stones that he sells to buy food for the family. He says the only source of income to support
their livelihood is stone quarrying which also exposes his life to danger.
Teddy Adong, the LCI Chairperson Ckekolias Village in Loputuk Sub County says
most of the families are being headed by the children because they either lost
parents or the parent are too vulnerable to provide basic needs.
Adong noted
that food security is closely linked to child labour because when parents
struggle to provide food for the family, they often feel there is no choice but
to send their children to the mining sites.
//Cue in:
‘’they lost all their parents’’
Cue out:…..build for themselves’’.//
Joyce Mary
Agwang, a teacher at Kodonyo Primary School in Moroto district noted that one
of the factors contributing to child labor is hunger and insecurity, which
forces children to prioritize survival for basic needs such as food over school.
Agwang urged
the government and other development partners to emphasize feeding children
at school because it is the only way of luring children to stay in school.
She said
many children in Karamoja are in dire need of humanitarian assistance to
survive and save them from hazardous income-generating activities.
Benjamin
Nangiro, the project coordinator at Work No Child business observed that
poverty levels have increased with most families unable to take their children
to school.
Nangiro said
that children most especially at the quarrying site are at risk of contracting
diseases and even death due to accidents.
Nangiro
however revealed that they are trying their best to sensitize the community to
withdraw children from the mines and take them to school.
He says they are also empowering community members in economic income-generating activities so that they can make their own money when the children
are at school.
