Child Labour Row Rages

Toivo Ndjebela

29 June 2011

Windhoek — The Office of the Prime Minister is adamant that the 116 San children recently rescued from Rundu-Grootfontein road were not used as labourers on commercial farms.

But the man who rescued nine of the children, former Rundu mayor Gosbert Mandema, insists that the children were kicked out of the farms after they refused to be used as child labourers.

The contradictory versions by both the OPM and Mandema leave an avalanche of unanswered questions.

Mandema says some of the parents of the concerned children, all aged between 6 and 14, informed him that some commercial farmers in the Grootfontein district wanted to use the children at their farms.

The farmers, Mandema is said to have been told, told the parents that the presence of their children on the farms added extra liability on them.

Hence, the children had to work to cover expenses incurred through their presence on the farms like water consumption and other services.

Some parents refused to accept this proposal from their employers, who then decided that the children would not be allowed to be on the farms if they could not work as labourers.

“The farmers apparently told the parents that the children were using water and other logistics on the farms for free and they should therefore repay these by working on the farms,” Mandema told New Era in an interview.

Mandema said parents of the children contacted him asking for assistance after some children were dumped along the Rundu-Grootfontein road.

“I ordered a truck and picked up nine children who were all from the same farm,” Mandema said.

The number of the affected children however skyrocketed to 116, all of whom are now housed at the Mururani Community Hostel in the Kahenge Constituency.

But a team of officials from the OPM, who primarily visited Mururani to deliver donations to the San children and are said to have then carried out an investigation, claim that the child labour allegations hold no water.

The officials from the OPM visited farms Farm Voorwaarts and Farm Deovilenda, which housed 15 and 10 children respectively.

The children are said to be aged between two and eight years old, the OPM officials say.

The officials spoke to the parents of the children about whether they were interested in the education of their children, New Era understands.

There are no indications whether questions were also asked about whether the children were being used as labourers on the farms.

Rhingo Mutambo, Development Planner for the San Development Programme in the OPM, said parents of the children begged the management of Mururani Combined School to admit their children for classes.

“We are not denying that there is child labour on Namibian farms, but the children at Mururani are there for schooling purposes,” Mutambo told New Era yesterday.

He said he and other officials from the OPM who visited Mururani were told that a deliberate mobilization was undertaken to group these children so that they can all register for classes at Mururani Combined School.

But a curious Mandema quizzed: “If this was a collective decision of the parents, why were they dumped by the roadside? Why didn’t the employers transport their workers’ children to the school?”

The fact that the children are being registered only in the second semester of the academic year also leaves unanswered questions.

Joseph Sikongo, the councillor for Kahenge Cosntituency, could not be reached for comment as he is attending the National Education Conference underway in Windhoek.

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