Maputo lures child workers
June 30, 2017
Sunrise has barely set in at about 6am in Lichinga, the capital of Mozambique’s northern Niassa Province, and teenager Jossias is already in the market.
He is not on his way to school, as one would expect of someone his age. Oblivious of international laws dissuading child labour, he considers his “work” easy despite lifting loads of 25kg or more.
“I am 15 years old,” he discloses.
“It doesn’t seem fine to me to be asking my parents for money,” he says. “I help people carry loads, mostly rice. I also unload trucks. My friends also do that.”
The weight of the loads Jossias carries daily vary from 25kg to the most he is able to lift. He can carry 10 loads on a “good” day.
People who perform such tasks in the southern African country are called madjovidjos or gai-gais.
Those who hire Jossias see an advantage over his colleagues because he is young. Other gai-gais are usually old, weak and compromised by alcohol.
After his day’s work, Jossias receives some money and goes home to watch television. Since all the big Mozambican media houses are headquartered in the capital Maputo city, the image Jossias and most of his friends have of the city is of high-rise buildings, good cars, the best universities and luxurious shopping centres.
Whoever goes to Maputo is expected to return home rich or at least financially stable.
As statistics from the first National Survey on the Informal Sector carried out by the National Institute of Statistics show, if Jossias went to Maputo, his fate as an uneducated under-aged Mozambican would not change much.
