Children from low-income families in Tajikistan are forced to earn money for school and other necessities during the summer vacations. Experts believe that the situation will not change for the better in the near future.
Ten-year-old Amir (name changed) moonlights at one of the large markets in Dushanbe, washing the wheels of cars of market visitors. He has been doing this job for two years now. During vacations, he comes to the market early in the morning and leaves after it closes, and during school he comes here after classes. Despite this workload, Amir says, he manages to do his schoolwork.
He charges one somoni (about 10 US cents) for his services. He earns 20-30 somoni (about $2-3 US) a day, he said. It is considered great luck if he earns 50 somoni (about $4-5) per day, but this does not happen often, especially since he is not alone in this service market and he has competition from other peers.
“Recently one earned 100 somoni (about $10), 50 somoni of which he ‘ate,'” the boy says admiringly, referring to the fact that his friend spent half the amount on various delicacies for himself.
Amir and the other boys can only afford a hot dog for 5 somoni (about 40-50 cents) and a bottle of water for 2 somoni (about 20 cents) a day. That’s the whole lunch. The rest of the money Amir saves and spends on personal needs. For example, he bought school supplies with the money he earned during the vacation. The entire purchase, including clothing, a briefcase and stationery, cost him 350 TJS (about $35).
According to Amir, going to work was his decision, which his parents did not object to, especially since the market is not far from their home. His parents also work – his father builds a house in the Varzob district, and his mother cooks food for the workers at the same construction site.
While I was chatting with the boy, a policeman appeared nearby and Amir immediately threw away a bag with some working props, consisting of a tank of soap solution and a sponge. These uncomplicated tools allow the boys to bring not only the rims, but also the tires of the wheels to shine.
Labor Code of Tajikistan Article 174. The age from which employment is allowed
Persons under the age of fifteen shall not be allowed to work.The boy’s fears turned out to be in vain – the policeman headed in the other direction. According to Amir, the police do not always disperse them, but it is better not to get caught by them, as he has already been caught once and sentenced to three days in jail. Police at the market told him he would spend 15 days in jail, but a wealthy neighbor, who paid a “fine” of 2,500 TJS (about $250), came to his rescue.
“He’s a very nice man, I always wash his cars for him, so he got me out,” Amir said. At the police station, he said, the treatment was good.Enterprising or forced?
In the market where Amir works, there are a lot of children who do different activities. Some drag an arba, some sell compote in small jars.
According to one of the arbakesh (arba driver – ed.), he earns 30-40 somoni a day. He works because he wants to earn his own money. That’s why he works not only on vacation but also during his studies. He admits he sometimes misses classes.
“In summer, there are few people who monitor the market, although there are still raids, but during the study period I hide from the police. They can fine my parents a large sum of money”, says the young Arbakesh.
The sellers of the compote turned out to be brothers who study in the 5th and 3rd grades. According to these boys, their grandmother makes compote from fresh fruit or dried fruits and then they sell the drink at the market. A half-liter bottle of compote costs 2 somoni (about 20 cents). They sell 10-15 jars a day each.
These kids also already have school supplies. Only they don’t know how much it cost them, because they mostly give the money to their elders, and they buy the things they need for school themselves. The elders are mom and grandma. Dad is in Russia. Mom works in the canteen, but she doesn’t always have enough money to live on, and dad can sometimes not send for a long time if there are problems with work in Russia.
In Dushanbe, children can be seen washing cars (although this type of activity is greatly reduced for them, law enforcement is now very strict about it), selling small goods, behind the counters of stores and other outlets, where they help and sometimes even substitute for adults. They offer their help to carry bags and heavy bags near large shopping centers, and some of them even offer to shine shoes.
Expert: “In our realities it is difficult to eradicate child labor.
According to experts, in the early 2010s, international organizations, together with governmental and non-governmental organizations, stepped up efforts to eliminate child labor in Tajikistan.
In 2012, the Statistical Agency under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan in cooperation with the International Labor Organization’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labor (ILO-IPEC) conducted the first survey on the extent of child labor in Tajikistan.
According to the data received, the share of working children then was 23.4 percent (522,000 people). The highest employment rate (45.5 percent) was among boys between the ages of 15 and 17.
In 2014, the government adopted a decree “On the National Program to Eliminate the Worst Forms of Child Labor in the Republic of Tajikistan for 2015-2020.”
This document noted that “Tajikistan does not keep statistics on child labor on a regular basis. Officials also acknowledged that child labor was used in many sectors and activities. In cities, most children worked as trolley drivers, loaders, car washers, market assistants, plastic bag sellers, money changers for public transport drivers, etc. To implement the program, a set of measures was developed, which included the creation of a database on child labor.
However, now there are no detailed updated statistics, including the scale of child labor. There are only fragmentary reports on the topic.
For example, according to the Ministry of Labor, Migration, and Employment of Tajikistan, in 2018 more than a thousand children were “shielded” from child labor as a result of various measures. However, the report does not specify the total number of children who were not “shielded” from labor. Experts estimate that we are still talking about thousands of young citizens.
According to human rights activist and social activist Oinihol Bobonazarova, laws that protect children from labor usually work in developed countries. In Tajikistan’s economic conditions, according to Bobonazarova, such laws will not work.
“As long as parents have problems of an economic nature, child labor will take place. I remember many years ago international organizations and NGOs worked very actively in this direction, but now we see that it is impossible to stop it, because working children partially support themselves,” Bobonazarova said.
According to the human rights activist, if the laws and regulations that prohibit children to work are strictly enforced, then the state should take them on its own provision – to create boarding schools for the poor and allocate funds for them.
“The state does not have such an opportunity, and so children from low-income families are now forced to earn their own money for school,” Bobonazarova said.
This publication was produced as part of the mentorship programme under the Development of New Media and Digital Journalism in Central Asia project delivered by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) with support from the UK Government. It does not necessarily reflect the official views of IWPR or the UK Government