RWANDA - Rwanda National Child Labour Survey 2008

v0.1: Basic raw data, obtained from data entry

2008-09

Child labour is a critical issue in Rwanda. This issue is considered as a socialization factor and gives rise to the problem of children’s participation in improving socioeconomic life of

their respective households, and even in improving that of the country.

The 2008 Rwanda National Child Labour Survey (2008-RNCLS) focused on children aged 5-17 years living in ordinary households countrywide. Street children and those living in

institutions like prisons, hospitals, children living in orphanages and others not living in ordinary households were not focused on in the survey.

Only households having children aged 5 -17 years were targeted by the 2008-RNCLS. In total 5,510 households were selected to constitute the survey sample and among them 5,084 were successfully identified and interviewed during the field survey, which is a response rate of nearly 92%.

Economic activities

The findings of the 2008-RNCLS show that children aged 5-17 years engaged in economic activities are estimated at 324,659 representing 11.2% of children in that age group. Almost half of them (5.3%) work full time while the remaining (5.9%) combine going to school with work.

Eastern Province is the most affected by child labour, since 15% of children aged 5-17 years are in employment. Western Province ranks second with 12.3%, followed by Southern

Province with 10.7%. Kigali City is the Province with the smallest number of children in employment with a proportion of 6.7%. It is worthy of mention, however, that Kigali City is the province with the biggest number of girls in employment.

The 2008-RNCLS findings indicate that 14.8% of children aged 5-17 years are neither in employment nor attend school. The occupation distribution by sex shows that more boys than

girls are unoccupied (15.9% for boys against 13.7% for girls), except in Kigali City where the proportion of unoccupied boys and girls is estimated at 12% and 15% respectively.

Concerning Provinces, the Northern Province and the Eastern Province register the lowest number of unoccupied children, which is 12.5% and 11.5% respectively. On the contrary,

the Southern Province and the Western Province regions see quite high proportions with 17.4% and 17% respectively.

Household chores

The vast majority of children carry out household chores (83.6%). The Northern Province and the Southern Province have high proportions (87.9% and 84,2% respectively). Children

enrolled in school spend less time on household chores than those not attending school (13 hours against 20 hours per week).

Characteristics of children’s economic activity

Agriculture sector employs the biggest number of children in employment with 79.3% while the Service Sector ranks second with 12.6% and the Industry Sector employs only 3.5% of

those children. It should be noted that the Service Sector mostly consists of domestic services and trade.

The number of children in the household chores reaches alarming proportions especially in the City of Kigali where 49.5% of children in employment carry out household chores. In

addition, the proportion of girls employed in domestic activities is nearly twice as big as that of boys. The majority of children affected by child labor are engaged in non paid family work

(64%). They are mainly found in Southern Province where 77.9% of occupied children are engaged in non paid family work.

Plantation is the main workplace of children in employment. In fact, approximately 70% of those children work in plantations and among them, those aged 10-15 years constitute the

largest number with a proportion of 74%. The proportion of those who carry out domestic chores within their own family comes at second position.

Children work an average of 24 hours per week for an economic activity. However, in the 16-17 year old age group, children employed full-time spend on work an average of 37 hours per

week while those combining work and school spend on it 11 hours per week.

Extent and characteristics of child labour

The findings of the 2008 RNCLS show that 190,395 children aged 5-17 years are engaged in child labour, representing 6.6% of all children in this age group. In Kigali, the proportion is

5.6%. Moreover, in Kigali, most of children in employment are involved in child labour (that is 83.1%) and boys’ proportion is slightly higher than that of girls (83.5% against 82.8%).

This trend is also observed in Provinces.

Among children in employment, 65,628 carry out hazardous work, representing 20.2% of all children in employment. This phenomenon is more prevalent in the City of Kigali where

60.4% of those children are engaged in such hazardous work. The Industry Sector emerges as the most hazardous sector for children, since 95.4% of all children engaged in that sector carry out hazardous work. In the same vein, household services rank second (with 71.5%) followed by the Services Sector (with 53.9%), followed by the Trade Sector (with 38.7%), and agriculture (with 24.1%)

As for the hours worked, the survey shows that the duration of child labour carried out by all children is an average of 30 hours per week, that is 6 hours per day, which duration is nearly

equal to that of adult labour (8 hours per day).

In Services Sector, the number of hours worked by children engaged in child labour is equal to that of hours worked by adults (42 hours per week). In the City of Kigali, with an average

of 53 hours worked per week, the number of hours worked by children is higher than that of work hours provided by law for adults. School attendance and child labour

The school attendance rate varies depending on whether children are in employment or not ; it remains lower in child labourers (57.1%) than in other children ( 88.6%). We note, however, that the school attendance rate decreases as the age of children increases, which appears suggesting that child labour has a negative influence on their schooling.

The lowest school attendance rate in child labourers is found in the City of Kigali with 17.2% compared to other Provinces. This trend can be explained by the predominance of the

Services Sector in Kigali, which is the most urbanised area in the country.

However, the performance of household chores appears to have no negative impact on children’s schooling. The school attendance rate decreases gradually as the age of children

increases, regardless of whether or not these children carry out household chores.

Among the reasons advanced for encouraging non-schooling in child labourers, is the lack of financial means of households which is cited as a prime cause, and this reason is the mostly frequently cited in Southern province. The reason ranking second is lack of will within the family to promote schooling of children especially that of girls who are forced to help with

domestic activities at home, which, over time, triggers girls’ lack of interest in school.

Children’s employment and health

According to the 2008-RNCLS, 31,000 child labourers aged 5-17 years (representing 16.3%) became ill or injured as a result of their employment and half of those children were engaged in full time employment

while the remaining proportion of such children combined work and school. Boys represent 62.7% of those children who became ill or injured.

It should be noted that some adverse consequences of work on children’s health can manifest many years later.

Finally, we note that the 2008-RNCLS revealed some underlying factors of child labour:

• Child age : the proportion of children in employment increases as the child grows older;

• The fact of not being a child of the head of household, contributes to an increase in child labour;

• Non-school attendance;

• Children living in a household where the head is less educated, is a female, widowed or single, or carries out agriculture activity;

• The decrease in the level of household income; and

• The distance between home and schoo

Sample survey data [ssd]

Households