AFRICANEWS

Kenya

The child salt slaves of Gongoni

Children

What most people do not get to know is that children, some as young as 10-years-old, make up a major part of the labour force involved in harvesting, processing and packaging of salt in Kenya.

To eight-year-old Amina, the games her agemates play in school or after school are luxuries she cannot afford. Every day she comes to Malindi Salt Works accompanying her parents who work there as casuals.

Children of both sexes, with ages ranging from 10 to 17 years are employed in all the processes involved in the refining of salt; if not in direct harvesting of the salt, they are packing it in the factory or are found in the mines taking care of their younger brothers and sisters as their parents' toil in the fields or selling foodstuffs to other workers. Most of the children not only come from the immediate area around Gongoni town but also from the poorer areas in the interior, specifically the Marafu area. Others come from the southern parts around Malindi town. With an eight-hour working day similar to their adult companions, the children toil under humid temperatures that average 35 degrees Celsius in the mines of this coastal town dotted with beautiful Arabic architecture.

In the fields, their work consists of breaking ten by ten-foot salt rocks into smaller pieces that they then have to transport to nearby points for further crushing before the salt is carted to the factory for final refining and packaging. It is not uncommon to find families working on a single stone to finish faster and get more money. Most of the harvesting work is done during the extremely hot dry season in October up to April. It is during this period, according to Paul Mwandoe, a weatherman at one of the companies and a local Catholic Church leader, that most of the children are used as harvesters. The high temperatures prevalent at that time are ideal for evaporation of the crushed salt. Consequently, there is high demand for casual labourers and children to harvest as much salt as possible before the rainy season sets in from May to September.

Whereas this harvesting time is a critical one for the companies it is also a crucial one for the children as it coincides with the examinations period in the country's academic calendar when both the national primary and secondary examinations are done. As a consequence few children in the area are examined and those who undertake the exams end up performing poorly. Salt mining is the only occupation that can earn poverty-stricken families some income in an area whose poor sandy soils are insufficient to sustain meaningful agricultural activities. The cassava, maize and peas the local people plant is not enough to feed large extended families, hence the need to chip in extra income from elsewhere like the mines.

But even after the harvesting time has passed and the rainy season arrives, most of these children do not go back to school or rest. In the face of the above economic hardships most either take to fishing or hawking as they wait the dry season when they head back to the salt works. Only a few of them return to school and something that has caused a drastic fall in academic performance and a high rate of illiteracy in the area. Very few children, according to Boaz Musandu, the Malindi district labour officer, ever finish primary school in the area. "All these are fertile breeding grounds of helpless child workers who can easily be exploited," adds Musandu.

Salt harvesting is a labour-intensive and most of the workers in the plants are employed on a casual basis either receiving their pay at the end of the day or week. Those intending to continue to work have to re-apply again to be considered for the work. A day's pay ranges from Ksh 70 to 200 (US$1.2-3.3). However, this depends on the task one was doing during the day with packers getting the former and crushers the latter figure. Some of the children interviewed like 16-year old Aljanerius Katana, an orphan say it is not uncommon to find some children being paid KSh50 (US$0.8) at the end of a day's task.

He himself went to work in the mines after the death of his parents about three years ago. As the oldest in a family of three he had to feed his younger brother and sister. " It is hell to work in there," he says pointing at the nearby Malindi Salt Works. " On average I had to work eight hours a day and the wage was KSh 50 per day which I used to feed the family," he adds. Now Katana is back studying in the only primary school in the area, Mapimo, after a three-year break. A German lady he met in Lamu where he was working as a hawker on the beaches is sponsoring him. He has had to work in the salt plants for the last two years after his parents passed away.

According to some locals, the harvesting environment is not a healthy one, and has led to stunted growth in the children, chest problems as a result of carrying the heavy loads, exhaustion, stress and lack of concentration, dehydration, poor eyesight and wounds that do not heal properly in case of injuries. The latter is serious as most of the children clad in rags work barefoot even though the companies are required provide them with rubber boots. Poor eyesight is a consequence of not being provided with dark goggles to wade off the reflection of sunlight by the salt crystals. Those who have them, have to organise their own ways of getting them.

Twelve-year-old Lewa Ndzai continues to work in the salt works even after she developed chest problems due to pushing wheelbarrows loaded with harvested salt. It is the same chest problems that forced Katana out of the work and travel to. When Lewa's chest problem started, a doctor recommended that she be taking milk frequently to alleviate the problem. But she has not been doing so. " With my daily wage of Ksh 70 (US$ 1.2) what will I be left with considering that half a litre of milk retails at Ksh 25(US$0.4)," she pitifully asks. Lewa works alongside her elder brother so as to supplement the income of a family of eight whose father is jobless and alcoholic. Her mother hawks coconuts in the town. The milk, though an essential remedy, is a luxury that she can do without, she adds.

It is a combination of economic and cultural factors that have embedded the practice of employing children in the region that have made elimination almost impossible. Gongoni is located in the poorest division in Malindi district, Magarini. It is an area with unreliable rains, poor sandy soils and lacks any development opportunities. The consequence is an abject poverty that visitors immediately notice on setting foot there. The only investments around are exclusive hotels like Angel Bay, Beach Villas mostly owned by Italian hoteliers and local politicians. These, however, employ few people, relying mostly on trained personnel uncommon to the area.

The result has been a large army of the unemployed, both children and adults, and when the saltworks opened, their owners were hailed as saviours, says Musandu. These investors are only interested in harvesting the salt at the lowest cost, conditions notwithstanding, with little concern over the workers. The companies care little whether children are part of the labour force or not. Since these investors have no other interest in Gongoni apart from salt, they have built no schools or clinic. Children who cannot afford to attend the nearest secondary school, Galana Secondary, which is 50 km away or travel to Malindi or Mombasa for career training, have no option but to troop to the mines. P However, the employers deny that they employ children in their factories and have even forged their employment records, says the labour officer. They do so by listing only those who have national identity cards. In the country anybody with the card is supposed to be aged eighteen and therefore is not a minor. Whether they admit or not children can be seen working in the mines especially at the Malindi salt factory.

Child labour in Gongoni is not confined to harvesting salt, there are also the incidents of children engaged in hawking foodstuffs in the market, working as house servants or employed as waiters in some of the cafes in the town. Some are as young as 10-years-old. According to one resident, few of the children in the area ever mature to adolescence without having engaged in one form of child labouring in the area. With no meaningful intervention in sight, child labour continues to prevail in Gongoni even when the evidence shows nothing but exploitation.

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