Child Rights Toolkit Workshop: Background Case Scenarios
Case 5. Egyptian cotton
Background case
'Egyptian cotton is synonymous with luxury, yet the reality behind its production is endemic child labour – up to 1m children are working in the cotton fields each year.” - Environmental Justice Foundation
Like hundreds of thousands of other people across Egypt’s Nile Valley, Shaban Abdulal and his family are bonded to their fields in Zawyat Al Kardsha, the farming community in the oasis that they call home. Shaban's youngest son, seven-year-old Abdul Rachman is exhausted and drenched in sweat and dirt. “It is my job to take the worms off the cotton leaves,” he says. “But it is hard. The worms that eat the cotton are difficult to spot and the earth is dry and dusty. I feel sick in the heat but I must work. My family needs bread.'
For the children here, education is a luxury their parents cannot afford. In the next month the fields that cling to the banks of the Nile will be full of children working the cotton for up to 11 hours a day. Perhaps most alarming is the nature of their work – removing the leafworm/bollworm, the cotton farmers' nemesis, and handling plants drenched in pesticides. Even though the Agriculture ministry had made significant strides in recent years to reduce the volume of pesticides applied on cotton, and had banned the use of several categories of hazardous pesticides, research conducted by Human Rights Watch found that children resumed work on cotton fields either immediately after pesticide spraying or after twenty-four to forty-eight hours, a period that falls short of the recommended intervals for reentry after the use of certain pesticides registered for use in Egypt. Accurate health studies are thin, but many of the children complain of breathing difficulties at the height of summer.
An estimated 2.7 million children work across the country, the majority in agriculture, with more than 1million hired each year for the cotton harvest, during which they work long hours in 40C heat. A majority of the children working for cotton co-operatives are between the ages of seven and twelve. The children's working hours far exceed the maximum six hours per day for which they may be employed under the Child Law. They earn on average about one U.S. dollar each day. In a recent UNICEF survey, nearly all children asked reported beatings by foremen in the fields.
According to most NGOs, eradicating child labour in agriculture in Egypt would be impossible, as it is traditionally an issue between families. But today many children in the Nile Valley are found to be victims of modern-day gangmasters, who recruit them from impoverished families to work the fields from dawn until dusk.
In the west, Egyptian cotton has become a byword for luxury. In terms of prestige nothing comes close to Egyptian cotton. The US and the UK are Egypt's biggest customers, but India, once a major client, stopped importing in the 70s, when it attained self-sufficiency. India now grows and exports its own 'Egyptian cotton'.
Egypt's cotton exports are worth £150m, a business that should be securing the livelihoods of the farmers. Egypt is a nation of thousands of Shaban Abdulals, trying to survive amid inflation, corruption, dwindling water resources, high fuel prices and a government that has yet to ease their burden. Now, the farmers feel besieged on all sides. Their decrepit irrigation systems, which pump waters from the increasingly depleted Nile, are rusting. The cost of seeds and fertiliser has soared. Many pay rich landowners ever higher rents for the right to work their modest lands. Those who own their own simple farms end up with smaller and smaller plots as each generation's inheritance subdivides farms among several sons.
Like countless other farmers across Egypt, Shaban Abdulal and his friends planted the land with hybrid cotton seeds fifteen years ago, joining the tail-end of the country's agricultural evolution, growing a high-yield cash crop destined for world markets. The cotton seeds, unofficially supplied by a western agricultural giant, were initially a success, but the amount of cotton they were able to produce kept falling.
Cotton prices have plunged, and the cost of starting each year's crop has jumped. Shaban Abdulal says the biggest victims of the crisis are his children and his neighbours' children, who, instead of going to school, now work the fields, on his own smallholding and that of other landowners. He says he can no longer send his children to school as they must work in the fields and he was compelled to borrow money from his brother to feed the children for the winter.
While the Egypt Child Law of 1996 bans the employment of children under 14, and regulates the hours and conditions of those between 15 and 17, it remains largely unenforced. More importantly, it does nothing to address the root causes propelling youngsters into this line of work. The essential reason is poverty. According to the UN 2005 Egypt Common Country Assessment, almost 17 per cent of Egypt's 77.5 million people were living below the poverty line in 2007. The situation is much worse in Upper Egypt, especially in rural areas where the cotton fields lie.
The Land Centre for Human Rights believes the cotton farmers' intensive farming methods are coming back to haunt them, exhausting their soil and polluting the irrigated Nile channel waters that feed it, reducing their annual yields, in many cases, to one-tenth the level they saw a decade ago. Larger farms can afford to regenerate soil by leaving a third of their fields fallow for long periods, but this is impossible for tiny family farms. Farmers are yet to shift from the mindset that cotton is a good economical cash crop.
It is also hurting the environment as the Nile's decline has had a severe impact on farming. According to Maged George, Egypt's Minister of State for Environmental Affairs, the effects of global warming will threaten 15 per cent of the land in the Nile Delta by as early as 2020.
“Now, with climate change, we are losing what we have gained over the last many thousand years, and the livelihoods of millions of farmers are under threat,” says Dr Salah Soliman, a professor at the Department of Pesticide Chemistry and Toxicology at Alexandria University. “Grim forecasts are being made about how long they can sustain large-scale irrigation.”
Sources:
-The Observer, Working flat out - the child labour behind your Egyptian cotton sheets, 8 June 2008.
By Dan McDougall
-Human Rights Watch, 2001. Egypt: Cotton Co-Ops Violate Child Labor Laws [1] Children overworked, mistreated, exposed to pesticides
Case 5. Egyptian cotton
Fact Sheet
Basic facts about child workers and cotton harvest in Egypt
• An estimated 2.7 million children work across the country, the majority in agriculture, with more than 1million hired each year for the cotton harvest
• These children work up to 11 hours a day in 40C heat.
• A majority of the children working for cotton co-operatives are between the ages of seven and twelve.
• Children earn on average about one U.S. dollar each day.
• In a recent UNICEF survey, nearly all children asked reported beatings by foremen in the fields.
• According to most NGOs, eradicating child labour in agriculture in Egypt would be impossible, as it is traditionally an issue between families.
• Today many children in the Nile Valley are found to be victims of modern-day gangmasters, who recruit them from impoverished families to work the fields from dawn until dusk.
Government and governmental regulations
• The children's working hours far exceed the maximum six hours per day for which they may be employed under the Child Law.
• Egypt suffers from inflation, corruption, dwindling water resources, high fuel prices and a government that has not been responsive.
• The Egypt Child Law of 1996 bans the employment of children under 14, and regulates the hours and conditions of those between 15 and 17, but it remains largely unenforced.
Poverty
• Many children, instead of going to school, now work the fields, as their families can no longer send the children to school.
According to the UN 2005 Egypt Common Country Assessment, almost 17 per cent of Egypt's 77.5 million people were living below the poverty line in 2007.
• The situation is much worse in Upper Egypt, especially in rural areas where the cotton fields lie.
Exposure to pesticides
• Most children work removing the leafworm/bollworm, and handling plants drenched in pesticides.
• Even though the Agriculture ministry had made significant strides in recent years to reduce the volume of pesticides applied on cotton, and had banned the use of several categories of hazardous pesticides, research conducted by Human Rights Watch found that children resumed work on cotton fields either immediately after pesticide spraying or after twenty-four to forty-eight hours, a period that falls short of the recommended intervals for reentry after the use of certain pesticides registered for use in Egypt.
• Accurate health studies are thin, but many of the children complain of breathing difficulties at the height of summer.
The Egyptian cotton market
• In the west, Egyptian cotton has become a byword for luxury. In terms of prestige nothing comes close to Egyptian cotton.
• The US and the UK are Egypt's biggest customers, but India, once a major client, stopped importing in the 70s, when it attained self-sufficiency. India now grows and exports its own 'Egyptian cotton'.
• Egypt's cotton exports are worth £150m, a business that should be securing the livelihoods of the farmers.
Cotton farmers and the cotton industry
• Farmers feel besieged on all sides. Their decrepit irrigation systems, which pump waters from the increasingly depleted Nile, are rusting.
• The cost of seeds and fertiliser has soared.
• Many pay rich landowners ever higher rents for the right to work their modest lands. Those who own their own simple farms end up with smaller and smaller plots as each generation's inheritance subdivides farms among several sons.
• Cotton prices have plunged, and the cost of starting each year's crop has jumped.
• The Land Centre for Human Rights believes the cotton farmers' intensive farming methods are coming back to haunt them, exhausting their soil and polluting the irrigated Nile channel waters that feed it, reducing their annual yields, in many cases, to one-tenth the level they saw a decade ago.
• Larger farms can afford to regenerate soil by leaving a third of their fields fallow for long periods, but this is impossible for tiny family farms.
• Farmers are yet to shift from the mindset that cotton is a good economical cash crop.
• The Nile's decline has had a severe impact on farming. According to Maged George, Egypt's Minister of State for Environmental Affairs, the effects of global warming will threaten 15 per cent of the land in the Nile Delta by as early as 2020.
Child Rights Toolkit Workshop: Session 1 small group work– Facilitator’s Notes
Case 5. Egyptian cotton
1. Causality Analysis
Problem statement / Child labour and poor health of children working in cotton production in Upper EgyptImmediate Causes / · Impacts on health from exposure to pesticides, heat, lack of food and water
· Household poverty
· Lack of access to quality health care
· Lack of access to quality education
Underlying Causes / · Costs of education
· Ag production financing (requires high front end out of pocket expenditures )
· Management of agricultural inputs ( non-reusable seed)
· International demand for product
· Tradition of cotton farming (honorable respected work in the region)
· Agricultural inputs
Root/structural Causes / · Unenforced child labour laws and conditions of work
· Lack of Education For All policy framework (free and eventually compulsory)
· Lack of leadership in agriculture and health sectors to protect children from exposure to harmful agricultural inputs
· Pressure on agricultural sector to achieve export – led economic growth strategy
· Inadequately negotiated trade agreements (both importers and exporters have a role to play)
· Intergenerational poverty in Upper Egypt
2. Capacity Gap Analysis
Level/type of duty / Role-pattern analysis / Capacity and gap analysisAs defined in relation to the issue at hand and local situation / Who is supposed to do what to help solve the problem? / Motivation
Does the duty-bearer accept the responsibility? If not, why? / Authority
Does the duty-bearer have the authority to carry out the role? If not, who does? / Resources
Does the duty-bearer have knowledge, skills and organizational, human, financial and materials resources? If not, what is missing?
Knowledge and skills / Organizational and human resources / Financial Resources
Immediate care giver / 1. Make sure that the children are protected from impact of exposure to harmful substances.
2. Take all necessary action to enroll children in school support their effective participation.
3. Report impact of working in cotton production to the relevant authorities. / Yes
Parents in UE are committed to their children’s education and working in cotton production interferes with enrolment and completion. / Yes
Parents are responsible for enrolling their children in school and providing all support materials. / No
Parents may not be sufficiently knowledgeable about the harmful impacts of exposure to pesticides to be able to advocate effectively. / No
The administrative and financing arrangements are a barrier to effective parental advocacy with authorities. / No
Farm families do not have access to funds necessary to advocate or access health care for affected children.
Household / All members of the household should care for the health needs children and support access to education. / Yes
Same as above / Yes
Same as above / Yes
Same as above / No
Same as above / No
Same as above
Religious, social and cultural leaders / Monitor the situation of children working in cotton production and advocate for action by the government and international partners / Yes
Same as above / Yes
Same as above / Yes
Same as above / Yes
Leaders have access to political leaders and possibly business leaders as well to advocate for mitigation actions and adherence to child labour laws. / No however leaders may not need significant financial resources to be effective advocates.
Community group / Same as above / Yes
Same as above / TBD - / Yes
Same as above / Yes
Same as above / No
Same as above
Local government / 1.Monitor the situation of children and produce timely and accurate analytical reports to national and international authorities
2. Ensure that the voices of child advocates are heard and their views included in monitoring and reporting. / Yes,
depending on level of decentralization / Yes,
Depending on the level of decentralization local education and health managers could advocate for modifications in the treatment of child workers and for adherence to child labour laws and workplace health and safety standards / Yes however LG may need additional information about good practice in other cotton growing countries. / Yes however LG may need technical assistance to manage the monitoring and evaluation systems. / No
Same as above
National government / Undertake a child impact assessment in conjunction with policy dialogue on the role of cotton exports in national growth strategies.
2. Together with the private sector producers of ag inputs (seed and fertilizer) consider technical adjustments to the products used by children
3. Together with private sector and labour organizations consider alternatives to involvement of young children in cotton production.
3. Train education and heatlh sector on impacts of participation in cotton production on children’s health and readiness for school. / Yes.
Govt is committed to achieving sustained economic growth with equity, based in part on ag exports. / Yes
Govt has ratified all relevant international treaties that protect children from harmful practices, including in traditional labour settings. / Yes
Govt has wealth of technical expertise in the ag sector. / Yes
Govt has a strong agriculture extension and outreach capability. / Yes
Govt has access to resources to acquire knowledge and technology that could be helpful in mitigating the impact of child labour in sthe Upper Nile region.
International / 1.Use outcome of child impact assessments in determining support for the child- and family-friendly economic growth strategies consistent with the principle of the best interest of the child .
2. Insist on respect for international standards on child labour and workplace health and safety for all workers.
3. Ensure that private sector actors recognize their accountability under international law , standards and practice. / Yes
However intl partners are also supportive of ag export market and its role in economic growth / Yes
Intl multilateral agencies are committed to upholding the commitments around child labour and universal access to education and health. / Yes
Intl partners – public and private – have he technical knowledge required to mitigate the impact of cotton production in children. / Yes
Intl partners have the capacity to train ag workers and their families on strategies for protecting children from harm and to reduce the reliance on child labour in cotton production. / Yes
Intl partners have financial resources to reduce the incidence of child labour in cotton production.
3. Analysis of the Enabling Environment