Page 11 - ARUBA TODAY

A11
WORLD NEWS Thursday 13 sepTember 2018

In South Sudan, some children work in mines to survive

By SAM MEDNICK ing education and knowl-
Associated Press edge to a dark place,” Mc-
KAPOETA, South Sudan Clerkin told the AP.
(AP) — Stained with mud, Titus Lopir was 8 when he
the 8-year-old traces her began washing dishes at a
fingers over the infected hotel in Kapoeta town. For
wound on her elbow. “It’s two years the child worked
hard work digging and the daily without pay in ex-
shovel is heavy. I just want change for food and shel-
to be in school,” Losika Los- ter, lighting the fire in the
epio said. kitchen at night, cooking
Standing in a gold mine for the staff and cleaning
outside the South Sudan up after customers while
town of Kapoeta, the girl eating the scraps off their
says she digs pits and sifts plates.
through soil daily so that her “It was hard but I had no
family can sell gold to buy choice,” said the boy, who
food. Sometimes she works lost his mother when he was
so late that she sleeps in the younger and never knew
mines overnight, she said. his father. Now 12, he’s
South Sudan’s five-year civ- been in and out of class at
il war has devastated the the boarding school for two
economy, fueling child la- In this photo taken Monday, Aug. 6, 2018, eight-year-old girl Losika Losepio, right, stands with other years, often disappearing
bor in some of the country’s child miners including her five-year-old sister, left, at a gold mine outside the town of Kapoeta, for months to make mon-
most impoverished regions. South Sudan. ey selling stolen phones or
Mineral-rich yet exception- Associated Press secondhand clothes.
ally poor, Kapoeta state are estimated to be work- on setting labor standards er, that children were work- Staring at the floor, the boy
has been plagued by se- ing in a range of industries and policies, a child is not ing in mines anywhere in says he wants to stay put
vere hunger during the in Kapoeta including min- allowed to work below a the country. and study to be a doctor.
conflict. Losepio’s father ing, retail and hospitality, country’s minimum legal Kapoeta’s government “It’s better to be in school,”
can’t afford to educate all according to the govern- age, which is 15 in most na- said it is trying to crack he said. “We can learn
nine of his kids so he sends ment, which has called tions. Some less developed down on the issue by rais- to help ourselves and our
four to school and keeps the situation “urgent” and countries such as South Su- ing awareness and advo- community.”q
the others back to work in compounded by general dan have a minimum work- cating for children to stay
the mines. The youngest is 5 ignorance and neglect in ing age of 14 or younger. in school, but that chang-
years old. the community. Hazardous work such as ing mindsets will take time.
On a visit last month, the “The number of children mining, however, which At least one local organi-
AP saw dozens of haggard working is increasing day falls under the category of zation is attempting to get
children working in an ar- by day ... People don’t “worst forms of child labor,” children out of the work-
tisanal mine 20 kilometers care how old or young a can’t be carried out until force and into classrooms.
(12 miles) outside Kapoeta child is,” Jennifer Edward, a person turns 18, the ILO Ten years ago, the U.S.-born
town as well as children minister for humanitarian says. Gregory McClerkin helped
doing other hard labor and gender in Kapoeta While South Sudan’s gov- found Hope4Sudan , a pri-
throughout the city. Small state, told The Associated ernment doesn’t have mary school supported by
boys pushed wheelbarrows Press. countrywide statistics on a Pentecostal church back
stacked with jerry cans of “Local businessmen use child workers, it maintains home that provides free
water along uneven dirt kids to sell commodities that the problem isn’t “cat- education for children as
roads, while others sold for them in exchange for astrophic” and that em- well as room and board for
secondhand clothes in a food,” said Josephine Mo- ployers abide by interna- those in need. More than
makeshift market under the dong, a local aid worker. tional laws, said Mary Hillary 200 children are registered
scorching sun. According to the Interna- Wani, undersecretary for including street kids and
More than 600 children, tional Labor Organization, the ministry of labor. former child laborers.
mostly between 8 and 12, a U.N. agency focused She wasn’t aware, howev- “I wanted to help by bring-