ICTs and the Global Politico-Economic Agenda: Locating Africa in Cyberspace

Until recently I had never really given a thought to the role of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the development of the developing world, especially Africa. Each time I was faced with the question of ICTs I would resort to “parroting the half-digested rhetoric” that Africa is in the fast-lane of technology and it is all gains for the region. Half-digested rhetoric I say because this is really only what the mainstream media using the same ICTs has conditioned us to believe, and we never have a second thought to evaluate the role of ICTs on the global agenda politically and economically, and the location of Africa within that context. Recently at the 2^nd International Conference on Human Rights Education in Durban I was asked a question by a student participant on my thoughts on social media with regard to human rights education and social media and young people generally. I responded that social media is useful in reaching out to young people especially on the view that this is perhaps one of the few best ways to reach out to this “facebook generation” and educate them on human rights, mobilising them for a human rights culture. As I responded, it made me to reflect on the way we as young people see social media and its utility, and subsequently on the role of ICTs in the larger development agenda, especially with regard to what it has brought for Africa thus far. This essay seeks to broaden our perceptions as we tackle the issue of ICTs, and to help us as a continent in mapping a way forward in putting Africa on the development path through ICTs. The essay draws from the work of Y. Z. Ya’u “The New Imperialism and Africa in the Global Electronic Village”[1] and the insights of Emmanuel Sairosi at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.[2]

In the globalised world

ICT is the fulcrum of globalisation. This is now an unquestionable fact. Through ICTs distance and space, though still relevant, have collapsed as stumbling blocks to communication and interaction. With the increasingly faster and widening use of the internet, contemporary communication goes faster, farther, wider, cheaper and clearer. This is unprecedented. This generation has witnessed telemedicine saving lives, robots teaching children, e-commerce making trade easier, e-governance and the development of disaster mitigation strategies. It is true that ICTs have transformed lives. For what we are used to learning on ICTs, or at least what we are supposed to know, it ends here. Yet this is where the real story begins. This essay will take it further from here and explore virtual colonialism and the truths beyond this hyper-optimism that blurs people’s vision on ICTs, the social re-orientation being fostered, and the emergence of a single-market economy through ICTs, all driven by power-politics.

In 2009 a revolution occurred in Iran. It was never televised but was publicised on Twitter, earning itself the tile “the Twitter Revolution”. In 2010 a revolution occurred in Egypt and a dictator fell. The masses were brought together through Facebook and it was termed the “Facebook Revolution”. In most countries ranked as the most media repressive nations of the world,[3] citizen journalism has filled the gap, and hand-held gadgets and social media is used to circumvent repressive media laws. All these events attest to the mobilising power of modern ICTs. It is this same power that has facilitated virtual colonisation through ICTs, a vehicle for the proliferation of structural power “to secure the virgin markets of developing countries and also to configure the world in the interests of the new imperial powers”.[4] This is a new platform for the “masters” of ICT to strengthen hegemonic hold over the world.

High-tech terrorism?

Julian Assange, Wikileaks founder and director, received, among others, the 2009 Amnesty International UK Media Award for his publications and in 2010 the Reader’s Choice Award by TIME Magazine as well as the Sam Adams Award. In the same year US Vice President Joe Biden, US Senator Mitch McConnell and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich labelled Assange a “high tech terrorist”. How then is it that one man receives such awards by reputable organisations whilst being labelled a terrorist, all for the same acts? The answer is there is information, according to his accusers, that is classified and is not meant for public consumption, never mind that it is about that same public! Julian’s crime is to have revealed this ‘exclusive’ information. His is “exceptional courage and initiative in pursuit of human rights."[5] It is because he is a journalist "whose work has penetrated the established version of events and told an unpalatable truth that exposes establishment propaganda, or 'official drivel'".[6] When he was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism the judges said, "WikiLeaks has been portrayed as a phenomenon of the hi-tech age, which it is. But it's much more. Its goal of justice through transparency is in the oldest and finest tradition of journalism."[7] This highlights the first tool of control furthered by hegemonic powers through ICTs, information rationing and the control of what knowledge is to be known as the “right knowledge”, and what information gets to who. With the control of what information reaches to who comes agenda setting.

Our knowledge economy

We live in an information economy; a knowledge-based society where the man with the most knowledge wields the most power and chances of survival. Africa’s integration in the global information economy circuit is one of being at the receiving end, a position condemned to information poverty. Africa is configured with the information and knowledge passed on to it, and this is aided by the next portal of control; that Africa is a net consumer of information communication technology and has almost zero production. What this means is that as a region we lack control of access to ICTs, and where we have access we find ourselves without any real option on content. It is monopoly over information by the global north, who happen to be the producers and subsequently the controllers of the content. Never mind the fact that Africa is the world’s largest producer of coltan, and of course may other raw materials in the ICT manufacturing industry. This monopoly of information and information poverty and dependence has been institutionalised through the most powerful organisations of the world, economically and otherwise, among them, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It is evident the World Bank and the IMF manipulated their monopoly over “expert knowledge” and prescribed destructive structural adjustment programmes in the developing world at the height of the neo-liberal creed. Today no one country that was involved in those programmes can stand up and show positive results thereof. Not even those who got A+ ratings for perfection in the implementation of the programmes. Only the ignorant do not know that participant countries emerged poorer than before. In fact the World Bank has now transformed itself into the “knowledge bank”. Together with the WTO, the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and all its constituent agreements in the form of TRIPS, GATS and the Agreement on Telecommunications, among others, have also assumed the role of spreading capitalism and laissez faire economics where they do not work. As has already been noted, Africa is in a different stage of development, one that the global north passed through decades ago, and Africa is in need of the developmental state, the Mercantilist approach. Through ICT’s Africa is being forced off-track from its course of development and whatever benefit is to be derived therefrom is at best unsustainable and at worst self-destructive in the medium to long-term. In all this the state has been relegated to the creator of a conducive environment for private sector-led development, with the giant ICT multinational co-orporations emerging the biggest winners.

Still on access, ICTs are more expensive in the developing regions than the developed world, yet Africa is said to be in the fast lane of technology. It has been established that there are more internet uses in the United States alone than the entire African Continent, in spite of the huge population differences.[8] This “marginality of Africa in cyberspace” is responsible for the digital divide between the global north and the global south, a structural relationship wherein the developed world stands to benefit more and Africa the least. As it stands, the region has poor ICT infrastructure to develop ICT usage for mutual benefit and has found comfort in being dumping ground for obsolete technology.

The great trek: ICTs and wealth transfer

On the economic front, Africa has experienced a multiplicity of phases in its history wherein massive transfer of wealth occurred from this peripheral region to the imperial core in the global north. The trans-Atlantic slave trade saw huge and crippling human capital transfers. Then came the trade of chartered companies that was neither symmetrical in outcome nor “legitimate” as it is sometimes referred to. Afterwards came colonialism, wherein arbitrary expropriation of resources occurred. Natural resources and minerals were looted. Post-colonialism came the period of structural adjustment programmes following the Washington Consensus, wherein large amounts of money were paid to the developed nations and the global financial institutions as balance-of-payments for debts that are, apparently, never fully paid up even to this day. At present we are I a new phase of wealth transfer, this time through ICTs. Ya’u identifies areas through which ICTs are leading to the movement of wealth to the developed world as electronic transfers, repatriation of profits by ICT firms, cost of connection to the internet backbone and the costs of importing the equipment and building ICT infrastructure.

The current and trendy way to do business is now e-transactions. Electronic transactions being invisible are difficult to tax. The implication is lost state revenue and higher profit margins for the transitional corporations who do business across national borders. With e-transactions, capital is highly mobile and can be transferred to foreign lands easily.

As Africa is not engaged in production of ICT equipment and infrastructure, it is heavily dependent on imports, and the cost of is very high. Added to the cost of connecting to the internet backbone and to various enabling networks, all based and controlled in the global north, Africa parts with large amounts of capital funds.

The use of ICTs itself opens up trading opportunities and access to wide markets. From all perspectives the global north has cashed-in with this as Africa’s markets are opened up without protective barriers. Prima facie there is nothing wrong with opening up to wide markets of the world. The problem with this is that while developed countries get unlimited access to the virgin markets of Africa and the developing world, aided by the free-trade prescriptions of the WTO and the conditionalities of the Bretton Woods Institutions’ development assistance, developing countries are in no position to undertake reciprocal trade in developed countries. Inevitably this regime results in surplus value for the developed countries, entrenching all the propositions of the neo-liberal Marxists’ dependency theory. In essence, ICTs erase boarders and unites the world into a single, but brutally competitive market in which Africa stands no chance (Ya’u, 13).

On shaping perceptions: “Africa the darkest continent”

Through the internet and other media outlets, people have written and proliferated the most negative of things about a continent they have never set foot on. And they have turned away the mind of the world from Africa, painting everything associated with Africa black. The media has painted a picture of Africa as the continent that will and can never be industrialised, as a continent in ongoing conflict emanating from almost primitive savagery resident in Africa.

It has not ended there, the perception of Africans themselves have been conditioned, alienated from their true selves. Indeed brainwashing and psychological conditioning has never been easier. It is rather unfortunate that the internet has been used for wholesale consumerism of Western cultures. Inevitably Africa has lost a significant part of its distinct civilisation, culture, pride and identity, and the little that is left is continually being lost.  Once again the West has found another tool to spread Western civilisation across the globe as the universal civilisation that all ought to adopt.

Moving forward

This essay should never be misconstrued as implying that ICTs are undesired, but that the current institutional arrangements allow for manipulation and encourages a widening of the digital divide and for the use of ICTs as a vehicle for control and agendas setting by the powerful nations over the weaker. The solution is certainly not for Africa to isolate itself. It can neither be disconnecting Africa from the world. Rather it is to channel ICTs for development where there is access to it, and not using it for wholesale consumerism of foreign cultures and filtered information systematically designed to perpetuate dependence. Indeed hope never dries, and there are remedies.

Africa must seek to be a producer. Without production, Africa will continue to provide a market for developing nations at its detriment, and capital flight will continue to occur at unprecedented levels, unabated. Production will certainly not be achieved over night, but existing efforts have been minimal, and all that is needed is to widen and speed up such existing efforts.

ICT themselves move along with literacy. Production and channelling ICT for development is impossible without basic literacy ad ICT education, and this draws attention to the need for an educated continent if the lucrative benefits brought by the ICT revolution are to be harvested. For ICT development projectisation specifically, the status quo calls for an integration of ICT education at all levels of the education system.

In all these endeavours, Africa ought to keep in mind the goal of first bridging the digital divide so that the asymmetrical outcome of ICTs at a global scale is done away with. Also to note is that the digital divide is not in isolation, but an extension of a wider divide featuring imperial domination by the core, in itself also a tool to deepen and widen the divide. Efforts to eliminate or narrow the digital divide specifically will thus be hardly successful should other areas be ignored, politically and economically. What is required is a holistic approach where there is concurrent initiative to catch-up in economic development and technological sophistication, and in resisting hegemonic dominance furthered though economic and technological tools.

It is never too late for Africa to Act and indeed hope never dries up.

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[1] Y. Z. Ya’u “The New Imperialism and Africa in the Global Electronic Village” (2004) Review of African Political Economy No.99:11-29, ROAPE Publications Ltd.

[2] Emmanuel Sairosi is a Lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, School of Politics.

[3] Rankings are made annually be Freedom House and the 2012 rankings are available at http://www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/inline_images/FIW%202012%20Booklet--Final.pdf

[4] Ya’u “The New Imperialism and Africa in the Global Electronic Village” (2004), 11.

[5] Hayes, Isabel (2 February 2011) "Julian Assange awarded Sydney peace medal". The Sydney Morning Herald. Australian Associated Press. Available at http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/julian-assange-awarded-sydney-peace-medal-20110202-1ad7y.html. Retrieved 19 May 2012.

[6] “Julian Assange wins Martha Gellhorn journalism prize” 2 June 2011 The Guardian  Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jun/02/julian-assange-martha-gelhorn-prize. Retrieved 19 May  2012.

[7] “Julian Assange wins Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism” 2 June 2011 Available at http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/julian-assange-wins-martha-gellhorn-prize-for-journalism/s2/a544492/. Accessed 21 May 2012.

[8] With a population of over 1 billion people, Africa has only 139,875,242 users (6.2 % of the world’s internet users): http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm. The Unites States alone with a population of 313,232,044 (as at 2011) has 245,203,319 users: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats14.htm#north.

LAW SCHOOL AWARDS & THE GRIFFITHS MXENGE MEMORIAL LECTURE @ UKZN

ADV MADONSELA DELIVERS THE VICTORIA AND GRIFFITHS MXENGE MEMORIAL LECTURE

Volume: 6 Issue: 21

http://enewsletter.ukzn.ac.za/Story.aspx?id=1016

Left: Public Protector Thulisile Madonsela. Right: Professor Managay Reddi congratulates Ms Tatum Govender.

Public Protector Thulisile Madonsela called for academic research into the role of the public protector and the meaning of good governance during her address at the 10^th annual Victoria and Griffiths Mxenge Memorial Lecture and the School of Law Student Awards Ceremony at the Howard College campus.

Madonsela defined the role of the public protector as helping to ensure that there was proper planning, budgeting, prioritisation and good governance in the affairs of the state in South Africa.

‘If I could have my way I would have academics research this entity as we need their view. I believe UKZN has the ability to do this. We should look no further than your rich history of respect for human rights and pull out all stops to see to it that all South Africans enjoy the full protection of the law,’ said Madonsela.

The annual Lecture commemorates the significant role Griffiths and Victoria Mxenge – who were both lawyers – played in the liberation struggle.

Dean and Head of the School of Law at UKZN, Professor Managay Reddi, hailed the Lecture as the annual highlight in the University’s Law calendar and commended Madonsela’s role in protecting the rights of South African citizens.

Madonsela highlighted the sacrifices the Mxenges made for the freedoms and rights South Africans enjoy today.

‘The Mxenges and others who fought for our freedom rejected the apartheid society where the state was not accountable to the majority of its people. It not surprising therefore that the Constitution that came out of their thoughts, sacrifices and suffering of their loved ones is one that commits to laying a foundation for the rebirth of South Africa,’ said Madonsela.

She also expressed her honour at delivering a Lecture that over the decade of its inception had been delivered by legal icons including former President Nelson Mandela. The Lecture was followed by an awards ceremony which recognised law students’ achievements.

Summa cum laude final year law graduate Ms Tatum Govender  won the Lexis Nexis Book Prize for the Best Insurance and Agency student, the KwaZulu-Natal Law Society Prize for the Best Final Year student and the Abel Torf Prize for the Best Overall Student, the Shepstone & Wylie Award for the Best Maritime Law Student, the Cox Yeats Award for the Best Corporate Law Student, the Shunmugam N Chetty Memorial Prize for being the final year student with the best aggregate in Human Rights, Constitutional Law, Criminal Procedure and Administrative Law  and the  Phatshoane Henney Group Honour Medal.

The Kessie Naidu Award First Year Prize went to Mr Lethukuthula Khumalo while Mr Musa Kika was named the Best Foundation of Law Student and received the Rudolph Bernestein & Associates Prize.

The 1st Year Moot Court Competition for October 2011 went to Ms Kisty Frances, Mr Arthur Whitfield, Ms Sashin Rajah, Mr Alastair Dey-Van Heerden and Mr Phillip Ross Thompson while Mr Ntokozo Qwabe was given the Norton Rose Prize for the Best Delict Student.

The Bell Dewar Prize for the Best Environmental Law Student was awarded to Ms Stephne Kleinloog. The Penny Andrews Prize for the Best Clinical Law Student went to Mr Nelson Cheng.

The Adams and Adams Labour Law Prize for the Best Labour Law Student and the Juta Prize for the Best Third Year Student was won by Ms Kimberly Ann Sharp. The Barend van Niekerk Prize for Best Jurisprudence Student went to Ms Natasha Panther and The Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyer Prize for the Best Second Year Student went to Ms Tafadzwa Chiposi and Mr Caleb Jones while Mr Melusi Dlamini and Ms Chantele Sibanda received the prize for the 3rd Human Rights World Moot Court Competition.

The prize winners for the 20th Africa Human Rights Moot Court Competition held in October 2011 at the University of Abomey-Calavi in Cotonou, Benin were Ms Caitlin van Rensburg and Mr Lunga Siyo and Mr Greig Campell, while Mr Melusi Dlamini received the Frances Tobias Prize for being the Best Negotiable Instruments Student.

"Blacks can't be racist"!!!!!

“Racism” is a concept that is historically rooted in the oppression of blacks by whites (slavery, colonialism, apartheid, imperialism etc.). Find another conceptual equivalent to “racism”, says Andile, but please don’t rob the term of its core meaning by extending it to the racial discrimination of white people — it just isn’t “racism”.

One simple reason why blacks can’t be racist

This is a piece by Suntosh Pillay, a clinical psychologist who writes independently on social issues.
The writer comments on Andile Mngxitama's argument, subcribed to by all in the Black Consciousness Movement. I agree!! 

http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/mandelarhodesscholars/2010/03/23/one-simple-reason-why-blacks-cant-be-racist/

A short little booklet caught my attention recently. On its red cover, the bold title “Blacks can’t be racist” appeared. Curious by such an absurd claim, I parted with R20.
Indeed, it was a 23-page explication on why black people cannot be racist. CANNOT. This argument, written in July 2009, was put forward by one Andile Mngxitama in his self-published pamphlet “New Frank Talk”. Beyond the emotional drama of his tone, inappropriate profanities, really bad editing and confusing referencing, it’s worth considering his defence, which is very different from the one others on this website have made.
It’s a simple point — “conceptual fidelity”.
Andile reckons the definition of “racism” must include the ability of one group to subjugate another, and since black people have never had the social, economic or political power to subjugate white people, they cannot be racist, by definition. He sees racism as “discrimination by a group against another for the purpose of subjugation or maintaining subjugation” (Biko, I write what I like).
Does this mean black people cannot be racially prejudiced against whites? No. Does this mean black people do not utter racial slurs? No. Does this mean black people do not commit nasty acts of atrocity against other race groups? No. Black people are fully capable of doing unsavoury things to other race groups, but Andile maintains that we must call it something else, just don’t call it racism.
“Racism” is a concept that is historically rooted in the oppression of blacks by whites (slavery, colonialism, apartheid, imperialism etc.). Find another conceptual equivalent to “racism”, says Andile, but please don’t rob the term of its core meaning by extending it to the racial discrimination of white people — it just isn’t “racism”.
Properly conceived, Andile argues that racism “locates white power and privilege on the historical reality organised upon white on black violence … to make the concept of racism elastic, as to include whites as victims, is to render it useless, and more importantly, to make it susceptible to appropriation by the very beneficiaries of racism”.
Andile was responding to that 2008 incident where the Forum for Black Journalists (FBJ) stopped their white colleagues from attending a blacks-only meeting with Jacob Zuma. The SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) ruled it unconstitutional and the FBJ was branded racist.
Andile wrote in the Mail & Guardian: “Let the historical record reflect that the FBJ was the first black organisation to be disbanded by law in post-apartheid South Africa.” He also noted the irony of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging being relaunched at the same time, without a scolding from the SAHRC.
Andile draws on radical Nigerian scholar Dr Chinweizu, who defends blacks-only groups by claiming “the right to racial privacy”. (Is this the same as Steve Biko’s notion of “black solidarity”?). It’s an interesting view. It does seem logical that in order to overcome a historically rooted oppression a group should therefore organise efforts on the basis of the very thing that marks them out for oppression — skin colour.
There is a small explosion of “whiteness” studies in South Africa following international trends of critically reflecting on the condition of being white and the privileges that accompany this lack of melanin. As Peggy McIntosh wrote in her essay “White Privilege: Unpacking the invisible Knapsack”: “I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets, which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I remain oblivious.”
White privilege continues unabated largely because the “myth of sameness”, “non-racialism” and “the rainbow nation” has obscured the continuation of racial hierarchies in post-apartheid SA to the point of normalising black suffering and masking ill-gotten white benefits.
Andile says this is why the FBJ incident was so shocking for white journalists — their invisibility was made visible. They were “raced”. And whites can’t bear being raced, because being a privileged white has become such a normative state of (racial) being in SA and the world. Professor Melissa Steyn from UCT has done extensive work in this arena. As the title of her key work sympathetically, critically, and reflexively notes “Whiteness just isn’t what it used to be”.
But blackness also isn’t what it used to be. Though Andile elaborates at length the reasons why black subjugation is still a blatant psychological and material reality in SA, he fails to acknowledge that white privilege has considerably decreased in the political arena. Blacks now have the political power to subjugate.
The conspicuous consumption of wealth and tenders and big bonuses has placed an elite group of black bigwigs at the centre of social, economic and political power. And yes, they do not by any means represent the hungry, powerless, dirt-poor black people who have all but lost faith in the government’s promises. But they are black. And they are powerful. And they can subjugate. And if we use Julius Malema as the exemplar of this new black elite and use his public utterings as further exemplars of the potential for black racism, then some holes start forming in Andile’s thesis.
At the very least, “conceptual fidelity” and “the right to racial privacy” may refine the question of “black racism” to a more clearly defined problematic.

FLORA VEIT-WILD's reflections on relationship with Dambudzo Marechera!

"He unlocked many doors for me and let me peek into the marvellous world beyond. He gave me intimations of hell but also the strength to resist. He, who said he had never met an 'African' but only human beings, made me into an 'Africanist'." Flora Veit-Wild
http://mg.co.za/article/2012-03-02-through-closed-doors-with-an--african-prankster

I have often been asked why I did not write a proper Dambudzo Marechera biography.

My answer was that I did not want to collapse his multi-faceted personality into one authoritative narrative but rather let the diverse voices speak for themselves. But this is not the whole truth. I could not write his life story because my own life was so intricately entangled with his. While I have generally come to be known as 'The Marechera Authority', there have always been two narrative strands behind this persona -- the public and the private. While the public one has stood out as strong and clear, my private life has been interlaced with love and passion, loss and pain, with illness and the threat of death. Yet, what I have gained is so much more than what I have endured that I am filled with gratitude and, I might add, with laughter.

My personal involvement with Dambudzo Marechera has affected my professional life in a way I would never have expected. The many ironic twists, the tricks that Dambudzo played on me even posthumously, make our story an immensely rich and funny one, one that I now, more than twenty-five years after I came to know him, want to tell.

I first met Dambudzo Marechera in Charles Mungoshi's office.....................................................

FREEDOM.................!!!!!

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion”. ALBERT CAMUS

THE UGLY FACE OF CHILD LABOUR IN AFRICA: THE CASE OF ZIMBABWE

In a socio-economic environment dominated by poverty and scarcity, the African child is confronted with a more pronounced risk of becoming a child labourer than a child from any other region. According to the International Labour Organization 95% of child labour occurs in developing countries, Africa being the hardest hit. An estimated 250 million children between the ages of 5 and14 years are in economic activity in developing countries alone, 120 million of them working full-time. As of 2012 UNICEF estimates that over 200 000 children work in the cocoa farms of Ivory Coast alone. This is the magnitude of the problem for most countries. Due to its predominance and perpetuation despite the apparent fatal implications it bears on the development of a child, it is relevant and crucial that we explore the international and continental legal frameworks that prohibits child labour and legal provisions governing child labour in Zimbabwe, and suggest a way forward.

According to the International Labour Organization child labour is any form of economic exploitation of a child for purposes of economic gain. This can take the form of a minor entering an employment contract or the allocation of a domestic task that is not in tangent with a child’s capacity and ability both in intellect and physically. Child labour includes all work that interferes with a child’s education and thereby future possibilities in the labour market. Zimbabwe adopted child labour to mean work done by children full-time without attending school. Obviously the definition leaves a lot to be desired as it completely turns a blind eye on all the other faces of child labour. Article 32 (1) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child calls for State Parties to “recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.” The same article proceeds to direct state Parties to “take legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to ensure implementation of the present article.”  Article 15 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child adds on the call on state parties to take legislative measures to protect children from child labour.

In Zimbabwe’s laws Section 11 of the Labour Act and Section 10 of the Children’s Act regulate the employment of children and provide that children under the age of 15 cannot be employed. This is also in line with the International Labour Organization (ILO) Section 138 on the minimum age of admission for employment. All these provisions align themselves desirably with Goal 1 of the Millennium Development Goals that points to the achievement of unimpeded universal primary education.

Given the above legal frameworks and statutes that presents child labour as an evil that must be repelled, it is astounding to note the high levels of child labour being perpetrated in Africa and here in Zimbabwe. The socio-economic meltdown that wrecked havoc in the country in the past decade left many children exposed particularly OVCs with no one to turn to for provision. This, coupled with the scourge of the HIV/AIDS pandemic that have ushered in a generation of child headed households, has been taken advantage of by unethical employers and other child abusers who have resorted to using children as cheap labour for maximum profiteering. Children as young as five years are working for their own meals and for their families’. Although rural areas, farm and mine communities are taking the lead in this trend, urban areas are not an exception especially among the low-income urbanities in high-density suburbs and informal settlements. It is a battle of life and survival.

A heartbreaking example of child labour in action can be seen in farms. Due to the absence of proper machinery in farms children are being employed to substitute the machinery and do work such as harvesting manually. What becomes worrying, more important than the meagre returns they receive for such services, is that these children are not attending school. Those who attend school sometimes skip school to attend work. Whilst some of those employing the children attempt to unreasonably justify their actions by saying they are giving the children a living, it must be stressed that should they be genuinely concerned with the children’s wellbeing, they must simply help them without exploiting them. The reality on the ground informs us that almost all the unthinkable works classified in the ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1990) have all been experienced by our children.

     Child labour in action: This picture was taken at one of Zimbabwe’s illegal gold panning sites and  shows a mother panning for gold with her children. These children are at risk given that they have no protective wear, coupled with all other risks associated with illegal panning.

Unfortunately, the consequences of child labour to the defenseless and helpless child are more than physical. In addition to injuries, poor health, and chronic illnesses, those still in school face the challenge of dropping out of school completely. Normally child labourers develop high level of stress culminating into anti-social behaviour. Low self-esteem and confidence affect their chances of success and subsequently in adult life. It is a complex matrix of psychological disturbances leading to the many problems of moral decadence and crime reaching its peak in their adult lives.

A debate that has risen with parents is whether or not giving children house chores is child labour. Child labour and children’s responsibility to do household chores must not be confused or mistaken for each other. Children have a responsibility to help their parents and guardians do household works, as long as the work allocated to the child is proportional to the child’s age, capacity and ability. Paragraph 7 of the Preamble of the UNCRC states that “the child should be fully prepared to live an individual life in society”. This means it is paramount that children also do some work at home so that they get an appreciation of the world outside childhood and parental care. This kind of work is what is acceptable, as a way to prepare children to face the challenges of the contemporary world. Section 11 of the Labour Act (Chapter 28:01) allows children from 13 years to work only if it is serving the purpose of educating the child, for example, during industrial attachment or apprenticeship.

Employment is normally through a contract. On contracts, Section 15 of the General Laws Amendment Act states that a minor has no legal capacity to enter a contract and where one is entered with such a minor it has no effect against him. For children above 7 years parental consent is a prerequisite for the contract. This implies that a child will enter an employment contract only if the parents’ or legal guardians’ assent to it. Parents therefore have an obligation to protect children from being economically exploited through child labour by not allowing their children to enter into employment contracts.

It is seen therefore that parents and guardians have a major role to play in combating child labour. Zimbabwe, however, needs to go a step further in protecting children from child labour through creating a section on children’s rights in the constitution so that the right to protection is enshrined in that section and oblige all concerned parties to protect children. At the knowledge that Zimbabwe signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and welfare of the Child, the former being one of the seven core treaties forming the international human rights framework, one is tempted to conclude that all is well. As perfectly knit and crucial as these conventions may be, they are still to become binding law in Zimbabwe, subject to a lengthy process of domestication as laid out in section 111B of the Constitution. The prevailing currency in Zimbabwe is that an international convention or treaty can only become binding law in the country upon domestication into local laws. Thus as it stands, all the provisions of these conventions can only be referred to as international desired standards in child protection, yet they cannot be used to enforce their application. Our position is sadly a sharp contrast to the more advanced jurisdiction of South Africa, wherein children’s rights are elaborately and comprehensively provided for in section 28 of the nation’s constitution. Child labour can thus be checked from its initial stages of manifestation and legal recourse can be taken as it is justiceable. This is the position Zimbabwe needs to take.

Finally, child labour is indeed a crime against humanity. It is not an insurmountable problem though as the evil can be completely eliminated by the right policy position, programming, legal position and institutional capacity. In as much as we seek to regulate the employment of children, it is crucial that we recognize child labour in all its forms as a deterrent to child development that must be completely eliminated. As such the regulations should go more in the direction of its complete elimination rather than merely attempting to regulate it. The problem starts with poor social services, with the failure of the relevant governments departments to provide the very basic survival needs to disadvantaged children. That is where the work must begin; restructuring, re-programming, and backing these with sound policy.

In Broken Images

This is my favourite poem right now, an allusion to the arrogant and to the blind followers in illusion, wrapped in the mystery of their ignorance. This poem speaks volumes:

He is quick, thinking in clear images;

I am slow, thinking in broken images.

He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images;

I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images.

Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance;

Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.

Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact;

Questioning their relevance, I question their fact.

When the fact fails him, he questions his senses;
when the fact fails me, I approve my senses.

He continues quick and dull in his clear images;
I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.

He in a new confusion of his understanding;
I in a new understanding of my confusion.

by Robert Graves

Poverty and Child Development: The Dilemma of Children in Want”

In as much as children can successfully grow and develop into responsible and productive citizens able to fend for themselves and others regardless of where they come from, more often than not the economic status of their parents commands a greater say on where they go and how they will develop. In this regard, generally those children coming from well-off families have better chances to develop properly in areas of nutrition, health and education, subsequently having much more opportunities to choose what they want to be in their lives. The case is different unfortunately for the child who grows in want, deficiency and poverty.

A scene at a squatter camp.

With the scourge of poverty scorching through the continent, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, an alarmingly high number of children never get to enjoy a complete package of the rights they are entitled to. Due to poverty child mortality is very high as well as illiteracy. Malnutrition puts the lives of millions of children at the cliff-edge of mortality. For those who survive the scourge, life is never a pleasant experience. Whilst children born in poverty have the potential to develop into the kind of people they dream to be, the legacy of their parents’ poverty become a burden to them and a stumbling block to progress. At this stage the scene is not at all pleasing, but worse still it does not end there, but a multiplier effect is instituted bearing a string of burdens and challenges. When parents are unable to meet the needs of a child, neglect and other vices are certainly poised to affect the child, destroying security, protection and hope on the part of the child. For most children one alternative remains; to find ways to sustain themselves. The problem becomes even more pronounced given the ailing social security systems that are supposed to cater for the children’s development needs should they be sound and fully operational.

What ensures here is an ugly battle for survival and the children will do anything necessary and possible to survive, in the process turning a blind eye to the consequences of their ways, such as acquiring the HIV virus through prostitution. Many children opt for being in the streets engaging in begging and vending whilst some have made them their permanent homes, and the “homes” are not safe at all. In the streets children have become subjects of rape and sexual exploitation, bullying from their peers, harassment from local authorities, and are severely exposed to diseases and malnutrition arising from hunger, the unhealthy living environment and harsh weather conditions. Although never a justification of crime, criminal activity will certainly be done by most as an alternative for survival. Such is the dilemma of children who are prematurely ushered into the world of adulthood by the poverty at home, to stand on their own and seek survival.

With the desperate need for survival coming hard on the heels as a push factor, they unwillingly become more frequent offenders thereby running the risk of turning into hardcore-criminals, implying failed child-development.  Juvenile crime then becomes a mere indicator of loopholes in the way our children are raised, and because of the poverty of their parents that initiated this entire chain of events, they find themselves behind bars. Such is the sad reality on the ground. For this reason, a much higher number of juvenile offenders is seen in areas where poverty levels are high.

Even for many children in this vice who attempt survival strategies such as child labour, without necessarily heading for criminal activity, fate takes them there. In the process child labour interferes with the child’s education and thereby future possibilities in the labour market. Unfortunately, the consequences of child labour to the defenseless and helpless child are more than physical. In addition to injuries, poor health, and chronic illnesses, child labourers develop high level of stress culminating into anti-social behaviour. Low self-esteem and confidence affect their chances of success and subsequently in adult life. It is a complex matrix of psychological disturbances leading to the many problems of moral decadence and crime reaching its peak in their adult lives. This is how many children end up in crime and subsequently in prison.

It is never by choice that they find themselves as criminals at young age, but unfortunate fate passed down to them by the poverty of their parents and the resultant inability to cater for their proper development into what they ought to become. It is a battle for life and survival with a bitter ending-children behind bars. The reason: a search for survival!