In 1998, the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimated that 37.9 percent of children between the ages of 10 and 14 in Tanzania were working.¹⁶⁸⁰ A child labor survey conducted in 2001 by the Tanzania Ministry of Labor, Youth Development and Sports in cooperation the ILO’s International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (ILO-IPEC) estimated that 39.5 percent (4.8 million) children between the ages of 5 and 17 in Tanzania were working, 40 percent of working children were boys and 39 percent of working children were girls.¹⁶⁸¹ Approximately 27 percent of working children are between the ages of 5 and 9, and 44 percent are between the ages of 10 and 14.¹⁶⁸² Thirty-four percent of rural children were working, compared to 11 percent of urban children who worked.¹⁶⁸³ Forty-eight percent of working children also attended school.¹⁶⁸⁴

Children in Tanzania work on tea, coffee, sugar cane, and tobacco plantations as well as in the production of cloves, corn, green algae (seaweed), pyrethrum, rubber, sisal, and wheat.¹⁶⁸⁵ On farms, children often perform tasks, such as spraying agrochemicals, usually without the appropriate protective gear.¹⁶⁸⁶ Children working in agriculture are also vulnerable to health hazards.¹⁶⁸⁷

In mining regions, children are employed to work in surface and underground tanzanite mines. Some children (typically boys) known as “snakes,” crawl through narrow tunnels to help position mining equipment and ignite and assess the effectiveness of explosions.¹⁶⁸⁸ Children in underground mines work in extreme heat and are exposed to high noise levels. Children in mines are more prone to stress, cataracts, burns, and hearing loss than adults.¹⁶⁸⁹ Many suffer from chest pains, tuberculosis, respiratory diseases, and other illnesses due to exposure to harmful mineral residue.¹⁶⁹⁰

Children, primarily girls from rural areas, work as domestic servants, often working an average of 18 hours per day.¹⁶⁹¹ On average child domestic workers receive Tsh 6000 (US$6.41) per month, since employers frequently deduct the cost of room and board.¹⁶⁹²

Children in urban areas work as barmaids, street vendors, car washers, shoe shiners, carpenters and auto repair mechanics.¹⁶⁹³ Children in skilled crafts, carpentry and mechanic work often receive minimal pay while working as apprentices.¹⁶⁹⁴ Girls as young as 9 years old are engaged in prostitution.¹⁶⁹⁵ There are estimated to be at least 800 children in prostitution in Arusha, Dar es Salaam, and Singida alone.¹⁶⁹⁶

According to UNAIDS, over 650,000 children under the age of 15 were living as orphans in 1999, due to the country’s AIDS epidemic.¹⁶⁹⁷ Many HIV/AIDS orphans leave school prematurely and become involved in some of the worst forms of child labor.¹⁶⁹⁸

In 1996, the gross primary attendance rate was 78.1 percent and the net primary attendance rate was 51.3 percent.¹⁶⁹⁹ According to Tanzania’s child labor survey, over 4 million of Tanzania’s 10 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 did not attend school in 2000.¹⁷⁰⁰

Throughout Tanzania, the growing incidence of HIV/AIDS infection is placing an additional burden on an already strained education system, contributing to an increase in teacher turnover, loss of experienced teachers, and orphans with special needs.¹⁷⁰¹

The Employment Ordinance of 1956 states that children under the age of 15 are restricted from using or working in the vicinity of machinery or engaging in any subsurface work that is entered by means of a mine shaft.¹⁷⁰² The Ministry of Energy and Minerals has also instituted standard regulations to ensure that children under 16 years are not involved in mine work.¹⁷⁰³

Employers are obliged under the Employment Ordinance of 1956 to keep registers that indicate the age of workers, working conditions, the nature of employment and commencement and termination dates.¹⁷⁰⁴ The Employment Ordinance also states that any employer found to be in violation of the minimum age of employment law is subject to a fine and/or three months imprisonment.¹⁷⁰⁵ If the employer is found to be in subsequent violation, the penalty will be a fine and or six months imprisonment. Currently the fine charged by the labor inspectorate is Tsh 2,000 to 4,000 (approximately US$2.14 to 4.28).¹⁷⁰⁶

The Sexual Offences Special Provisions Act of 1998 criminalizes child sexual assault or abuse, and the Penal Code prohibits procuring a female under the age of 21 for prostitution.¹⁷⁰⁷

The Ministry of Labor and Youth Development (MLYD) has primary responsibility for enforcing laws against child labor; however, other agencies also have jurisdiction over areas which affect child labor. A Child Labor Unit within the Ministry of Labor Youth and Development (MLYD) serves as a liaison between the various government ministries and stakeholders. It is responsible for child labor related projects, conducts the child labor component of the labor inspector training, and gathers and disseminates data on child labor.¹⁷⁰⁸

The Government of Tanzania ratified International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention No. 138 on the Minimum Age for Employment on December 16, 1998, and ILO Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor on September 12, 2001.¹⁷⁰⁹

In March 1994, Tanzania signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the International Labor Organization’s International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (ILO-IPEC). Since 1995, 40 action programs have been implemented by ILO-IPEC, through various social partners. These action programs have sought to build institutional capacity, raise public awareness, and mobilize local communities. The programs have also aimed to withdraw children from hazardous work and reintegrate them into schools and vocational skills training. In addition, the programs assist parents of former working children in identifying income generating alternatives to help reduce their reliance on income earned by their children.¹⁷¹⁰

In 2000, ILO-IPEC with funding from the U.S. Department of Labor launched a three- year regional project (including in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia) to build institutional capacity and prevent children from entering child labor in commercial agriculture. The project seeks to remove and rehabilitate 7,500 children engaged in exploitative work in this sector in the five countries and prevent a further 15,000 at-risk children from entering such work in the first place. To enhance the effectiveness and sustainability of this program, ILO-IPEC is utilizing the Community Child Labor Committees for efforts aimed at monitoring, preventing, and eliminating child labor.¹⁷¹¹

The Government of Tanzania, local government actors and civil society organizations have incorporated child labor issues into their activities. Labor inspectors from the Ministry of Labor, Youth Development and Sports now report and take actions against child labor as a regular task of the labor inspectorate division.¹⁷¹² At the community level, Child Labor Monitoring Committees have been established which identify and monitor cases of child labor and work to implement by-laws, directives, and collective bargaining agreements regarding child labor, to allow community based actions to precede federal legislative reform.¹⁷¹³ Community initiatives to increase enrollment and retention rates at the primary school level have resulted in a decrease in the incidence of child labor.¹⁷¹⁴ Community-based task forces and peer group clubs also play a role in activities aimed at preventing and rehabilitating children in prostitution.¹⁷¹⁵

Various trade unions, the Tanzania Federation of Trade Unions, and the Association of Tanzania Employers (ATE) have also worked with ILO-IPEC. The efforts of ATE to sensitize owners and managers of sisal, tea, and coffee plantations to child labor issues have helped plantation owners and managers to become active collaborators in designing measures to prevent child labor on plantations.¹⁷¹⁶ Trade unions have also initiated local community actions to prevent child labor and to withdraw children from hazardous worksites through collective bargaining arrangements with employers and dialogue with community leaders.¹⁷¹⁷ The Tanzania chapter of the African Network has worked with 800 children to stage awareness raising street theatre performances about exploitive child labor in the hopes of preventing child labor on plantations.¹⁷¹⁸

In June 2001, the Government of Tanzania announced that it would initiate an ILO-IPEC Time-Bound Program, a comprehensive, national project to eliminate the worst forms of child labor over a certain period of time. During Phase 1 of the time bound project, Tanzania will focus on eliminating child labor in the commercial sex sector, mining, abusive forms of domestic work and commercial agriculture by 2010.¹⁷¹⁹

Education in Tanzania is compulsory for seven years, until the age of 15; however, education is not free, and costs include enrollment, books, and uniforms.¹⁷²⁰

Since 1990, the Government of Tanzania has collaborated with donors and various civil society and district level actors to increase access to and quality of education. In 1991, national and district level government representatives, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), community-based organizations, religious institutions and private individuals who own schools set up a Task Force on the Education System for the 21st Century, to improve equitable access to a quality education, and since then have been working on reforming the country’s educational system.¹⁷²¹ In 1996, the Government of Tanzania published the blueprint for education reform, the Basic Education Master Plan 1997-2002 (BEMP), to coordinate the activities of the various institutions involved in education reform.¹⁷²²

The BEMP sought to achieve universal access to basic education and increase primary school gross enrollment to 85 percent by the year 2000.¹⁷²³ A related BEMP goal was to ensure that at least 80 percent of children complete primary education by the age of 15.¹⁷²⁴

The Ministry of Education and Culture, with support from UNICEF, has launched a three- year program to help reintegrate children who have dropped out of the system into schools and has made it illegal to expel students because of pregnancy.¹⁷²⁵ The Ministry of Education has also launched a Community Education Fund, with World Bank support, to improve the condition of schools, and is working independently with districts to develop new and relevant curricula. ILO-IPEC is supporting Ministry of Education efforts to improve pre-primary education and the German Technological Assistance Agency (GTZ) is supporting an initiative to improve vocational education.¹⁷²⁶

In 1997, Tanzania became one of the first nations to join ILO-IPEC’s Action Against Child Labor through Education and Training Project. The project mobilized teachers, educators and their organizations and the general public to launch campaigns against child labor at local and national levels.¹⁷²⁷

In 1998/99, the Government of Tanzania allocated 24.2 percent of its total budget to education, and according to the BEMP it will allocate 25 percent of the total budget for education every year to cover operating costs to maintain the current infrastructure (recurrent spending).¹⁷²⁸ In 1997/98, the government allocated 68.4 percent of the education budget to primary education, and according to the BEMP the government plans to allocate 70 percent of the recurrent education expenditure to basic education.¹⁷²⁹

The following bar chart presents selected government expenditures expressed as a percentage of gross national product (GNP). The chart considers government expenditures on education, the military, health care, and debt service. Where figures are available, the portion of government spending on education that is specifically dedicated to primary education is also shown.¹⁷³⁰

While it is difficult to draw conclusions or discern clear correlations between areas of government expenditure as a percentage of GNP and the incidence of child labor in a country, this chart and the related tables presented in Appendix B (Tables 14 through 19) offer the reader a basis for considering the relative emphasis placed on each spending area by the governments in each of the 33 countries profiled in the report.

¹⁶⁸⁰ World Development Indicators 2000.

¹⁶⁸¹ Statistics on the number of working children refer to “usual” work activities for children who worked during the 12-month reference period. See “Labour Force Survey Preliminary Results (Quarter 1),” Time-Bound Program: Tanzania, RAP Reports (Tanzania; ILO-IPEC, 2001) [CD-ROM] [hereinafter Time-Bound Program: Tanzania ]. Statistics on the number of working children refer to “current” work activities for children who worked during the last week of the reference period. The number of children who were currently working was 3.4 million. See Time- Bound Program: Tanzania . See also ILO-IPEC, ILO-IPEC Tanzania: Focusing on the Worst Forms of Child Labour (Geneva, 2001) [hereinafter ILO-IPEC Tanzania: Focusing on the Worst Forms of Child Labour ].

¹⁶⁸² Statistics on the number of working children refer to “current” work activities for children who worked during the last week of the reference period. The number of children who were currently working was 3.4 million. See Time-Bound Program: Tanzania . See also ILO-IPEC, ILO-IPEC Tanzania: Focusing on the Worst Forms of Child Labour (Geneva, 2001) [hereinafter ILO-IPEC Tanzania: Focusing on the Worst Forms of Child Labour ].

¹⁶⁸³ Time-Bound Program: Tanzania.

¹⁶⁸⁴ Ibid.

¹⁶⁸⁵ By the Sweat and Toil of Children: Efforts to Eliminate Child Labor , vol. 5 (U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of International Labor Affairs, 1998), 165 [hereinafter Efforts to Eliminate Child Labor ].

¹⁶⁸⁶ Situation Analysis Report on Hazardous Child Labor in the Three Sectors: Plantations and Agriculture, Domestic and Allied Workers Union, and Tanzania Mining and Construction Workers Union (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Federation of Free Trade Unions, ILO-IPEC, 1997), 14 [hereinafter Situation Analysis Report ].

¹⁶⁸⁷ Hossea Rwegoshora, Hazardous Child Labor in Tanzania: A Case Study of Selected Worksites in the Agricultural, Mining and Informal Sectors (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: Child Labor Unit, Ministry of Labor and Youth Development, 1996).

¹⁶⁸⁸ Situation Analysis Report at 10.

¹⁶⁸⁹ Situation Analysis Report at 10.

¹⁶⁹⁰ Ibid. at 14.

¹⁶⁹¹ Situation Analysis Report at 14.

¹⁶⁹² Ibid.

¹⁶⁹³ Efforts to Eliminate Child Labor at 165.

¹⁶⁹⁴ International Labor Office, Child Labour in Tanzania (Geneva, 1992), 12.

¹⁶⁹⁵ Alakok Mayombo, Tanzania Media Women Association (TAMWA), “Rights—Tanzania: Children Drawn into Sex Trade,” Associated Press, April 27, 1998, as cited in Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation (Amherst, Massachusetts: Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, 1999).

¹⁶⁹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁶⁹⁷ United Republic of Tanzania: Epidemiological Fact Sheets on HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections (UNAIDS/WHO, 2000), 3.

¹⁶⁹⁸ Integrated Regional Information Network, “Tanzania: One Million AIDS Orphans by 2000,” June 17, 1999.

¹⁶⁹⁹ USAID, GED 2000: Global Education Database [CD-ROM], Washington, D.C.,2000, at http://www.usaid.gov/educ_training/ged.html.

¹⁷⁰⁰ Yaw Ofosu, The Dynamics of Child Labour in Tanzania (Geneva: ILO-IPEC, 2001), 1.

¹⁷⁰¹ “IPEC Country Profile: United Republic of Tanzania,” fact sheet from Eliminating the Worst Forms of Child Labor: An Integrated Time-Bound Approach (Geneva: ILO-IPEC, 2001).

¹⁷⁰² The relevant Cap. 366, Section 77, provisions are in Report of the Commission on the Law Relating to Children in Tanzania (Dar es Salaam: The Law Reform Commission of Tanzania, 1996), 131.

¹⁷⁰³ International Program for the Elimination of Child Labor, Tanzania, “Time-Bound Program on the Worst Forms of Child Labor in Tanzania: Summary of the Institutional and Policy Study,” National Roundtable Discussion on the Time-Bound Program on the Worst Forms of Child Labor, Dar es Salaam, April 23-25. 2001, 12 [hereinafter Program for the Elimination of Child Labor].

¹⁷⁰⁴ Report of the Commission on the Law Relating to Children in Tanzania ( Dar es Salaam: The Law Reform Commission of Tanzania, 1996), 131. See Cap. 366, Section 85.

¹⁷⁰⁵ Ibid. at 132, Part VII, Section 94.

¹⁷⁰⁶ Ibid. at 132. Currency conversion at http://www.carosta.de/frames/convert.htm on 3/20/02.

¹⁷⁰⁷ Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1999 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, 2000), [hereinafter Country Reports – Tanzania ]. See also Human Rights Reports: Tanzania , Protection Project Database, at www.protectionproject.org.

¹⁷⁰⁸ Program for the Elimination of Child Labor at 12.

¹⁷⁰⁹ For a list of which countries profiled in Chapter 3 have ratified ILO Conventions No. 138 and No. 182, see Appendix C.

¹⁷¹⁰ ILO-IPEC Tanzania: Focusing on the Worst Forms of Child Labour , 14.

¹⁷¹¹ ILO-IPEC, Prevention, withdrawal and rehabilitation of children engaged in hazardous work in the commercial agricultural sector in Africa , Programme Document (Geneva: ILO-IPEC, 2000), 6-7.

¹⁷¹² ILO-IPEC Tanzania: Focusing on the Worst Forms of Child Labour , 14.

¹⁷¹³ Time-Bound Program: Tanzania, 18.

¹⁷¹⁴ ILO-IPEC Tanzania: Focusing on the Worst Forms of Child Labour , 14.

¹⁷¹⁵ Ibid. at 15.

¹⁷¹⁶ Ibid. at 14.

¹⁷¹⁷ Ibid. at 18.

¹⁷¹⁸ Child Labour in the Tobacco-Growing Sector in Africa: Report Prepared for the IUF/ITGA/BAT Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour, Eldring, Nakanyane & Tshoaedi, Nairobi, Kenya, October 8-9, 2000, 68.

¹⁷¹⁹ See “Special High-Level Session on the Launch of the Time-Bound Programme on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, Address of Mr. Benjamin Mkapa, president of the United Republic of Tanzania,” in International Labour Conference, Provisional Record, Eighty-Ninth Session, June 12, 2001, Geneva.

¹⁷²⁰ Country Reports – Tanzania, at Section 5.

¹⁷²¹ United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Institute for Statistics, Education for All: Year 2000 Assessment, Country Report, Tanzania (Paris, 2000) [hereinafter Education for All: Year 2000 Assessment—Tanzania ]; see also Education for All (EFA) 2000, Country Report, Tanzania [online] (www2.unesco.org/wef/countryreports/country.html) [hereinafter EFA 2000].

¹⁷²² Ibid.

¹⁷²³ Education for All: Year 2000 Assessment—Tanzania ; see also EFA 2000.

¹⁷²⁴ “Debt for Poverty Reduction: The Case of Education in Tanzania,” Oxfam International Position Paper , April 1998 (www.oxfam.org.uk/policy/papers/tanzdebt/education.htm#plan).

¹⁷²⁵ RAP Reports .

¹⁷²⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷²⁷ Action Against the Worst Forms of Child Labour through Education and Training, outline paper (Geneva: International Labor Office, International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor, January 1999), 7.

¹⁷²⁸ Education for All: Year 2000 Assessment—Tanzania ; see also EFA 2000.

¹⁷²⁹ Ibid.

¹⁷³⁰ See Chapter 1, Section C, 5, for a fuller discussion of the information presented in the box. See also Appendix B for further discussion, and Tables 14 through 19 for figures on government expenditure over a range of years.