The Dilemma of farm labourers
Posted on Wednesday 9 March 2011 – 10:04
Misheck Rusere, AfricaNews reporter in Harare, Zimbabwe
Martin Kalembo and his family migrated to Zimbabwe in 1986 from Malawi
when his country’s economy was not doing well and hoped for a better life
there, they later found work on the farm of one white commercial farmer
where they became farm labourers.
Zimbabwe
Most of Kalembo’s kinsmen later joined him after his communication
with them that he was now living a better life, as compared to their lives
back home. However, Kalembo was not the first from Malawi to migrate to
Zimbabwe but other foreign nationals from other neighbouring countries had
also settled in the Southern African country.
“I came here in 1986 after realizing that life was now unbearable back
home where we had to rely on begging to feed the family. My fellow
countrymen latter followed when I told them that life here in Zimbabwe was
better than the one we where leading back in Malawi,” said Kalembo.
While most of the foreign nationals felt at home on these farms as
farm labourers, most of them had no positive identification particulars like
the national identity documents as they were not registered through the
Registrar of Births and Deaths, where Zimbabweans obtain their identity
documents. This has resulted in them failing to acquire identity documents
which are essential when acquiring formal education and employment.
Despite having been a happy farm community at Major Brown farm in
Glendale, about 70 km North of the capital Harare, some very sad faces could
easily be noticed on the residents’ faces when this writer visited the
place.
Asked to explain their ordeal, most former farm workers pointed out to
the land redistribution which was radically led by Zanu (PF) and war
veterans as the agents to their demise as the current new black farmers who
took over from the commercial white farmers do no pay them reasonably after
working for them.
Little wage
“We used to send our kids to school from money earned from these farms
but with the new black farmers, it is totally impossible to send them to
school because they pay as little a dollar for a day’s work,” said another
farm worker at Major Brown.
One social analyst Dr Abel Kasi described the current scenario facing
farm labourers as a bid by the new farmers to breed cheap farm labour
through paying slave wages that will not allow them to send their children
to school.
“In my own view these new farmers have realized that if the farm
labourers send their children to school they will eventually run out of
labour so they want keep the farm labourers and their children uneducated so
that there is a constant supply of labour,” said Kasi.
However, Dr Kasi’s analysis was somewhat a reflection of the situation
on the ground as the farm labourers’ children of school going age are also
actively working on the farms owned by the new farmers in a bid to sustain
themselves as they cannot be sent to school. This is however a violation of
the children’s rights as enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the
rights of the Child in which Zimbabwe is signatory.
In an interview with Africanews.com, thirteen-year-old Maria Saini who
went only up to grade three said she had to help her parents provide for
their family given that the money they receive from the farmers is not
enough.
“If I work for one month, I will get twenty five dollars while both my
parents will get $30 each on the grounds that they are adults. This is
however not enough to take care of our food, clothing, and school among
other essentials,” said Maria.
Child labour
Labor and social services Minister however indicated that the practice
of child labor was against the laws of Zimbabwe as well as some other
regional and international conventions to which the country is signatory.
“It is against the laws of this country to have a child who is less
than 18 years of age going to work, it amounts to child labour and it is not
acceptable here in Zimbabwe,” she said.
The spokesperson of the country’s General Agricultural Plantation
Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ), Tapiwa Zivira said the practice of
allowing children to work is against their rights. He also distanced his
organization from the practice.
“GAPWUZ observes the law and values children and their rights as such
it is very much against the practice of child labour and none of them form
part of our membership,” he said.
“We are also part of the Coalition Against Child Labour in Zimbabwe
(CACLAZ) which seeks to end child labour by raising awareness and engaging
in projects aimed at bringing children back to school,” said Zivira.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has set the minimum age
limit for anyone to be admitted into the employment industry at 18 years of
age which is also Zimbabwe’s legal age of majority.