BY: Shallon S. Gonlor
NIMBA COUNTY — A female Magistrate of the Sanniquellie City Magisterial Court, Angela Yeanua Kehleay has resounded caveat against unhealthy and unsafe works for underage children.
Associate Magistrate Kehleay condemned in the strongest terms and warned parents or guardians against posing hazardous workloads on children, and denied them education.
“Child labor is a greater barrier for children to enter, persist, and succeed at school,” she said
According to her, children in Liberia are subjected to the most dangerous forms of labor, which violates the Ministry of Labour 2015 Decent Work Act and, the UN Convention on Child Rights among other legal instruments, which safeguard children.
Reflecting Liberia’s Labour Ministry’s act on hazard and light work for children in Liberia, Magistrate Kehleay averred further that hundreds and thousands of children in Liberia are poised under tension to work long hours considering the dangerous, such, according to her risked children’s health, safety, and even drop them out of school.
Addressing WOMEN VOICES NEWS, the esteemed female Magistrate of the Sanniquellie City Magisterial Court named farming work, mining, construction, manufacturing, as well as hotels, bars, restaurants, street selling, domestic service among others as hazardous child labor.
Hazardous child labor is unhealthy working conditions that result in a child being killed, injured, and disabled, which becomes future implications, something she noted is punishable by the Liberian constitution and constitutes the toughest punishment.
In Liberia, due to hardship, child labor is widely reported, keeping hundreds of children out of school during each academic year.
Notably, September is a month that many of the world, including Liberia’s children return to school. However, this is not the case for a lot of children involved in child labor who are denied the chance to get an education.
Education, a fundamental human right and a major enabler in reducing inequalities and building peaceful, democratic, and inclusive societies had a percentage of children aged 5 to 14 years above in child labor that are not attending school, an investigation conducted by the WomenVoicesNews Correspondent in Nimba County.
Corroborating also with the investigation, some education stakeholders in Nimba County are alarmed largest percentage of children who are excluded from school within the age range for compulsory education.
As a result, the brightest future and life opportunities for all children are seriously impeded.
The educational stakeholders also noted that even those children who get to attend school, mostly struggle to balance the demands of education and their work, adding that they generally do not attend school full time, lag behind their peers in grade progression and learning achievement, while more likely dropped out of school prematurely and permanent.
Hazardous child labor constitutes an even greater barrier to school attendance.
The situation is widely reported to be getting worse each academic year for many children, especially on account of economic challenges, and poor family tag, thus becoming breadwinners for their families.
Accordingly, there is no single reason why children find themselves in child labor and are not able to fully attend school. In many cases, the work demands so much time and energy making it impossible for them to enter, persist, and succeed at school.
In other instances, children work, and do street selling because they lack financial support, access to quality, and free schools. And decisions also concerning children’s education can be influenced by family perceptions of its importance.
Notably, girls also have the double burden of doing unpaid work — household chores, prostitution, and family care, which prevents many from attending school full-time.
