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LATIN AMERICA |
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Child
Labour Nightmare Still Haunts
Middle-Aged Brazilian Woman
BRASILIA - Overworked,
starved and humiliated, the 30-year-old
Brazilian woman cannot forget what it was
like as a child laborer. After all these
years, the haunting memory is still biting
when she recalls her childhood.
Etelca Vieira dos Santos started working
when she was only 6. After her family moved
into a small town, she was "given" to a
family and worked for them in exchange for
food and shelter.
"I was exploited," she said. "The
environment was so harsh that I ran away
from that house when I was 8. I was looking
for my mother and found her but she gave me
to another family in Campo Grande as soon as
she could."
Etelca had lived for seven years with the
family in Campo Grande, the capital city of
Mato Grosso do Sul state. She used to work
from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. in return for nothing
but food and a place to sleep.
"I was always starving and humiliated. I did
not know anyone in the city. I was badly
treated from the moment I got up until
bedtime," she said.
Child labor exploitation was one of the
major social issues facing Brazil. According
to the National Household Sample Survey
(PNAD) conducted by the Brazilian Institute
of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), 12.7
percent of children aged between 5 and 17
were child laborers in 2001 with 41.2
percent of them unpaid.
Fortunately, Etelca managed to study when
she was young. Yet she was forced to grow
mature without truly living her childhood
and adolescence." The worst thing was the
humiliation and lack of freedom to come and
go and express ideas," Etelca said.
When Etelca turned 15, the family she worked
for treated her nicely. Etelca was paid and
taken care of. The family even paid for her
to study tourism and gastronomy at college.
The story of Etelca has a happy ending. The
efforts of the Brazilian government to
eliminate child labor have also produced
positive results. Survey showed the
proportion of child laborers aged between 5
and 17 is dropping while that of children
attending school in the same age group is
increasing in recent years.
The government's efforts have drawn praise
from the International Labor Organization
(ILO). Michele Jankanish, director of the
International Program on the Elimination of
Child Labor (IPEC), said Brazil had managed
to generate new skills and increase efforts
to deal with the problem.
In October 2009, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador,
Paraguay and East Timor signed an agreement
to work together to eradicate child labor
and strengthen social protection by 2020,
with the support of ILO.
Etelca now is working in a restaurant. She
planned to go to SaoPaulo to work with
well-known chefs and come back to Campo
Grande to set up her own business.
"Dreaming is free, isn't it?" she said.
Although lack of a normal childhood has
caused psychological problems that still
disturb Etelca, she still has dreams about
the future. In Etelca's eyes, the key to
root out child labor is "investment in
education and respect to child rights".
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