Bolivia
Slavery and Child Labour in Bolivia
How do people become slaves?
The majority are in debt bondage and are mainly indigenous people. The debt is created by loans of money and purchase of food and goods on credit at high prices. This debt forces the worker to stay as they can never earn enough money to pay off the debt.
Where is the slave labour?
Forced labour occurs in three main areas in Bolivia: the sugar cane industry, the Brazil nuts industry and on private ranches in the Chaco region.
- In 2003 there were 21,000 forced labourers including children under 14, working in harvesting sugar cane in the Santa Cruz area (ILO estimate)
- In 1997 Bolivia became the biggest exporter of Brazil nuts meeting ¾ of the world supply. The industry is 75% of the economic activity in the North Amazon region and employs half the workers in the region. Each year 31,000 people migrate to harvest Brazil nuts. They work as forced labourers for 12 hours a day and live in miserable conditions having to build their own shelters and with no drinkable water. Most leave at the end of the season but over 5,000 remain unable to pay off their debts.
- Forced labourers on the ranches are from the indigenous Guarani people. A typical family works from 6am-12 without a break, has a small lunch of beans and then work until 5pm. They may then work on their own subsistence crops in the evening.
Since 1999 the worst forms of child labour have been outlawed internationally. However in Bolivia:
- In sugar cane there are 10,000 children involved in the harvest, half are between 9 and 13 years old.
- Children work in tin, zinc and silver mines, out of 38,000 miners 10% are children.
Parents justify their children working because they need the extra income and in mining it is a traditional activity and it is felt to be learning the child a trade. However in some extreme cases children are sent down small mine shafts to carry tools, mine minerals and explode dynamite! This is comparable to children in Victorian Britain cleaning chimneys. In 2000 the government agreed a 10 year plan for the Eradication of Child Labour but it has little money to carry this through.
Taken from ‘Contemporary forms of slavery in Bolivia’ by Anti-Slavery International 2006
How does this effect achieving the MDGs?
People in modern slavery will all be living on less than $1 a day, their children will not be able to go to school, they may well not have clean water etc. Tackling slavery is necessary for the poorest people to benefit from achieving the MDGs.
At least 10 million* children are in domestic work; they are vulnerable to brutality and exploitation. *ILO
Credit: Asociación Grupo de Trabajo Redes
