Report by Bettie K. Johnson-Mbayo, [email protected]
Monrovia – By law, children in Liberia may not work until they turn 18. Still, many parents in Liberia require their children to work as housekeepers or independent sellers to help their families make ends meet. International aid and rights organizations focus their efforts on reducing the worst abuses of the law – in mining, prostitution, soldiering and the drug trade.
Brewerville– Every day after school, 12-year-old Eliza Parley dashes out of her fifth-grade classroom and rushes home.
When she arrives at her family’s small zinc house in the crowded neighborhood of Brewerville, Montserrado County, she loads a plastic tub full of boiled coconut on her head and hustles back out into town.
The oldest of four children, Eliza says her mother told her two years ago that he was old enough to begin contributing to the family’s income. Previously, she could focus more on her schoolwork.
“At first, my mom could single-handedly support our family by selling coconut,” Eliza says. “So I could go to school and then stay at home after school.”
Her father, a contract bricklayer, works inconsistently.
“We could not rely on his pay for survival because he could spend some days looking for work to no avail,” Eliza says, a calm maturity in her words.
Eliza talks about her work with bittersweet pride.
“Moving throughout the town with a tub full of coconut on my head in order to contribute financially to the family was no simple task,” she exclaims.
When she was 10, Eliza learned the trade by shadowing her mother for six months. After that, she and her mother would branch off to sell individually, then meet up in the evening to report their earnings.
“When I started selling, I was given 10 coconut, which cost 30-50 Liberian Dollars (LD) each,” she says flatly.
When she began regularly selling of the coconut, her mother increased her daily sales quota to 20 coconuts.
Eliza says she accepts her twin responsibilities.
“I study and work at the same time,” she says. “I am always obliged to perform both tasks, because I have to financially contribute to my family.”
Eliza says she is happy to help her family. She proudly confirms that she is responsible for bringing in at least 10 percent of her family’s income. But she admits that she often yearns for childhood fun.
“My parents always tell me that I must work to prepare for my future, because the value of a one’s life is his work,” she says. “But I really find it very saddening not finding time to have a bit of fun with my classmates and my friends in my neighborhood. I don’t get to chat with other kids apart from during school because I must financially contribute to my family.”
Eliza’s mother, Bento Anderson, knows child labor is illegal here, but she says the family has no choice.
“Eliza helps us solve some financial problems,” she says. “At the moment, we’re counting on her contribution. I know that children working is not good, but I do not have the choice; we are poor.”
She says Eliza is “at least average in school,” so she doesn’t worry about her academic performance.
But Eliza says she does wish she had more time to focus on her studies. She dreams of becoming a member of Legislature someday.
“But given these conditions, I might not be able to achieve my dream,” she says.
A 2010-2014 General Auditing Commission (GAC) report found 509,619 school going children remain out of school in Liberia.
The report titled “Auditor General’s performance audit report on the management of the free and compulsory primary Education,” the report revealed that there are limited infrastructures to accommodate school going age children in the country.
According to the report, the Ministry of Education said the total number of school infrastructures in the country is around 1,767.
The report stated that statistics from the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo- Information Service (LISGIS) showed that the total number of school going age children in the country for the period under audit was 776,167, while the number of school going age children in school is 266,548, and 509,619 of school going ages are out of school.
In 2017, The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection in collaboration with the Child Protection Network and the Liberia Children Representative Forum, launched an intensive sensitization and awareness project on the removal of street selling children in urban cities, particularly Monrovia.
The awareness project under the banner “Get Them Off The Streets Campaign” was intended to conduct a baseline survey and engage community dwellers as well as media practitioners in deriving at a concept that will serve as a child protection framework in supporting the removal of street selling children.
International rights and aid organizations invest heavily in efforts to help Liberia decrease more exploitative forms of child labor, including commercial mining, prostitution, and soldiering, spying and distributing drugs.
Abraham Johnson, 11, sells cold water, “My mother told me that life is difficult,” he says.
Recently separated from Abraham’s father, his mother, Esther Brown, struggles to pay for her children’s school fees, clothing and food.
“She said a child who do not contribute to the needs of the family would be denied the right to food and education,” Abraham says.
Like Eliza, Abraham wakes up early to go to school and rushes home when school lets out at 1 p.m. After a lunch break, he leaves home at 1:30 to sell in the street. He returns home late in the evening, feeling tired but ready to report his income.
Abraham says his mother stresses the value of a strong work ethic.
“She told me that if I begin financially contributing to the family and starting working at an early age, I will have no problem in my life,” Abraham says. “She says I will have acquired experience earlier and that life will be easier for me as I will have learned to cope with life obstacles.”
But Abraham says he isn’t doing well in school because he doesn’t have time to do homework.
“Frankly speaking, I have no time for revising my lessons,” she says. “If I do not understand what the teacher says in class, I can’t later understand it. Sometimes I am forced to get up late in the night to revise lessons while others are in bed.”
Siah Jarbo, 13, found that working and going to school was too much. She dropped out and now sells vegetables in front of her house every day.
The oldest of six children, Siah says she is happy with her decision.
“I love this work because it enables me and my family to live from one day to the next, even if it does not allow me to study,” she says.
Her father is a taxi driver and her mother sells wheat flour on the street; their income alone was not enough to cover food, rent, clothing and school fees.
“My father’s pay was insufficient to cover all family expenses, and even school authorities could no longer let me study without paying school fees,” she says.
“This is why my father saw it fit to take me out of school so that I could financially contribute to the family.”
Like other working children, Siah takes part in the evening ritual of reporting her daily income.
She says she aims to sell at least over 5,000 Liberian dollars (LD) a month, She sells cucumber 25-40 LD for (below 1 USD). On a good day, she can earn 600 LD ($5 US).
Siah hopes to re-enroll in school someday.
At Kamara Town primary school in Brewerville, Webster Dahn, a teacher, says that nearly half of his students work after school. He has 43 students, and at least 18 of them work.
Children who don’t work perform at a higher academic level than those who do, he says.
“The children who are working do not have suitable time to rest or do homework,” Dahn says.
Satta Sheriff, former speaker of the children parliament said despite the past administration prohibiting children selling in the street nothing was done to curb the increase of children selling in the street.
She states: The ministry of Gender is not doing much to reduce the number of children selling in the streets, and that is a violation of their rights, children in Liberia are vulnerable because lot of them are out of schools.”
Madam Sheriff expressed frustration on the poor attention children are receiving from Government adding that it is not favorable for children to be leading their blind parents at the hour they are to be in school.
“We have been hypocritical because children are still not protected despite all of the international funding, and I think it is unfair to children in this country.”
She called for collective efforts in tackling child abuse, “Government and citizens have to be practical because children are the next generation.”
But in reality, Brewerville residents say child labor is common and unregulated, in part because so many families are in dire economic straits.
But even residents who often buy goods from children say they deplore child labor.
“How can a parent let a girl or a boy aged 13 years or 10 years, even 15 years travel throughout the city with goods on their head?” asks David Kimba, a petty trader and father of three.
He says he would never allow his children to work. For them, he says, learning is more important than earning wages.
“A child is the hope for the future of its parents and even of our country,” he says.
Some children say they embrace their duty to help their families. In private moments, others express sadness at their hardship.
“This is not really an admirable life,” Theresa Williams says. “Every child would love to be stable, quiet, and expect parents to do all for them. But parents think differently.”
Still, she hasn’t lost faith.
“I know full well that one day my living conditions will end up changing,” she says.