PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT

Pacific Islands Development Program/East-West Center
With Support From Center for Pacific Islands Studies/University of Hawai‘i

By Dr Arnold Kukari

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (PNG Post-Courier, June 5, 2009) – Research into school drop-outs clearly shows that girls are more likely to drop out of school than boys. The lack of supportive and enabling cultural, social, political, and economic environment often forces many girls to leave school at an early age. There has been some research on what girls actually do when they drop out of school. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that many female drop-outs engage in some sort of child labour in the home and in the community.

What is child labour?

Child labour is defined in terms of the International Labour Organisation’s Conventions - C138 on the minimum age of entry into employment and work, and C182 on the worst forms of child labour, and their respective accompanying recommendations, R146 and R190.

Experiences have shown that those girls who are the eldest child in the family and come from broken homes often see themselves as breadwinners for their mothers and siblings.

This situation usually arises when the father leaves the family. In order to ensure that there is an income to support the family with the necessities of living, these girls, being the eldest in the family, seek employment in the formal and informal sectors, or engage in illicit activities to support their mother, brothers, and sisters.

The pressure that is put on them as the breadwinners drives them into income-generating activities that are, in most cases, harmful to their well-being. They become vulnerable and easily exploited as a consequence of being forced to earn money to support themselves and their mothers and other siblings.

Many girls are influenced and shaped by modern development and ways of living and doing things. They watch or read advertisements about good food, clothing, cosmetics, and entertainment. These advertisements influence their thinking, behaviour, and attitudes, and also help to shape their taste for goods and services.

These advertisements not only make young girls dream about possessing or doing the things that are advertised, they actually drive them to seek employment to enable them to purchase those products and services.

The quest for modern pleasures, goods and services often drives many girls to engage in child labour to make money to buy, possess, and use these goods and services.

The high standard of living, particularly in the urban areas, often makes it difficult, especially for those girls in the low socioeconomic sector of society, to adequately sustain them on a daily basis. The income that many working parents earn is often insufficient to adequately cater for their families needs. For the unemployed, living in the urban centres and raising a family is a continuous struggle.

A family’s desire for a satisfactory standard of living and a better future for their children often results in many girls, including those that drop out of school, volunteering, or being forced into child labour to make money to support their families. There is anecdotal evidence of mothers, fathers, and close relatives forcing school-age girls under 16 or 18 years of age to engage in prostitution to earn an income to support the nuclear and entire extended families. This practice has become very common in places such as Port Moresby, Lae, and Mt Hagen.

There are different types of child labour in which girls who drop out of school engage to earn an income. These range from light to hazardous work.

Drug processing and trafficking

Many children, including girls, engage in illicit activities to earn an income. These are, in most cases, hazardous activities, such as the processing and marketing of home-brewed alcoholic beverages in private homes, on the streets, and in the markets, and the trafficking and selling of drugs.

The plight of girls who drop out of school and engage in these types of activities was driven home by the moving story of a 16-year-old girl who had dropped out of school because of lack of school fees.

In one of our meetings this year, a 16-year-old girl, who came from a broken family, shared her experience in processing and selling home-brew to make enough money to support her mother and her younger siblings to pay school fees, and buy kerosene for the family lamp, clothes, and food. She was in school when her father deserted the family for another woman in the city. She struggled to complete Grade 8 with good grades, which enabled her to do Grade 9 the following year. However, she dropped out of school because of no money for school fees.

Realising that she, her mother, and the other siblings were struggling to survive, she decided to seek ways of making money to support them. She began processing and selling home-brewed alcohol in the village to make the much-needed money to support herself, her mother, and the other siblings, as well as pay for school fees for her brothers and sisters. Not withstanding the illegality of the economic activity and its harmful effects on the girl’s social, psychological, and physical being, she had little choice but to do what she did to ensure that there was an income for the family, and that her brothers and sisters continued in school to complete their education and get a decent job.

There is anecdotal evidence, especially in the media, that many girls, including those who have dropped out of school, are engaging in child pornography. These girls are lured by pornography cartels to participate in pornographic activities in exchange for money.

This economic activity, just like the processing of home-brewed alcohol, is an attractive money-earning option for girls, despite the risks, because it provides an easy way of making large sums of money in a short period of time.

Girls who engage in this form of economic activity are often commercially and sexually exploited without them or their families

realising, or even understanding, the severe consequences associated with their social, psychological, physical, and mental well-being.

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