戦争と貧困、イラクで増加する児童労働

【バグダッドＡＦＰ＝時事】木工所の作業場を片付けたり、材木を運んだりして１日８時間働くハイダル・カラール君（１３）は、貧困や紛争によって労働を強いられているイラクの多くの子どもたちの一人だ。（写真は、木工所の作業場を掃除するカラール君）
　首都バグダッドで大工をするおじの下で８歳の時から働き始めたカラール君の子ども時代は、祖国を襲った紛争、そして貧困によって失われた。「けんかをしたら退学させられた。学校は僕に戻ってきてほしくなかったんだ」
　週給は２０ドル（約２７００円）にも満たないが、自分と妹の生活費をこれで賄っている。２人は別のおじの家で暮らしている。
　労働・社会問題省の担当者は、１５歳未満について禁止されている「児童労働が増加の一途をたどっている」と指摘し、その理由は「戦争、紛争、避難」だと述べた。特にイスラム過激派組織「イスラム国（ＩＳ）」が支配していた地域での増加が目立つという。
　子どもを雇用すると服役または罰金が科せられるが、「多くの家庭では稼ぎ手がいなくなり、母親たちは子どもを働かせるしかない」のが実態だ。
　国連（ＵＮ）によると、イラクは石油資源が豊富だが、人口４２００万人のうち３分の１近くが貧困状態にある。
　数十年に及ぶ戦争、そして２０１７年末にイラク政府が勝利を宣言するまで続いたＩＳとの戦いの後、イラクは現在も安定せず、汚職がまん延する中、インフラや公共サービスも崩壊している。
　■貧困からの脱却
　労働・社会問題省が行った調査によると、バグダッドだけでなく、北部のキルクーク県や、県都モスルがＩＳの拠点だったニナワ県でも児童労働が増加している。
　国際人道支援団体「国際救済委員会（ＩＲＣ）」がモスルの４１１世帯、２６５人の子どもを対象に行った調査では、市内の約９０％の家庭に「労働に従事している子どもが１人以上」いた。そうした子どもの約７５％は、ごみ拾いや建設作業など非正規で危険な仕事に従事しているという。
　イラク政府は対策として、最貧困層の家庭に子どもの数に応じて毎月９６～２５０ドル（約１万３０００～３万４０００円）の手当を支給している。
　国連児童基金（ユニセフ）イラク担当広報官のミゲル・マテオス・ムニョス氏は、バグダッドおよび北部クルド自治区の当局と協力し、子どもたちが「貧困から脱却」できる「社会保護システム」を支援していると述べた。
　またユニセフでは、子どもたちが「１８歳以上」になるまで働かずに済むための教育や「スキルを身につけるためのプログラム」の開発にも力を注いでいるという。
　１４歳のモハナド・ジャッバール君は兄と同様、７歳から働いて家族を支えている。今は建設業用のふるいを製造するバグダッドの工場で働き、１日６ドル（約８００円）の収入を得ている。「勉強してエンジニアになりたかった」というジャッバール君。「でも、家族には僕が必要なんだ」【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】

〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/03/03-19:55）

Haydar Karar spends eight hours a day tidying a carpentry shop and lugging wooden beams, forced like many other Iraqi children into work by poverty and conflict.
Now 13, Karar has been working with his carpenter uncle in the capital Baghdad since the age of eight, his childhood marred by the troubles that have ravaged his country.
I was expelled from school because of a fight, he said. The school didn't want to take me back.
His family had decided to find work for him to build my future and marry me, added the petite boy, who works from 8:00 am until 5:00 pm every day with a one-hour lunch break.
He leans over a wooden armchair to sand it, and then moves around metal trestles before carrying large planks of wood about twice his size.
Karar's weekly pay, the equivalent of less than $20, covers his own needs as well as those of his sister. They both live with another uncle.
Children in Iraq work as apprentice mechanics and rubbish collectors, in shisha cafes or hair salons, and washing car windows and selling paper tissues by the roadside.
Child labour is constantly rising, said Hassan Abdel Saheb, in charge of the portfolio at the Iraqi labour and social affairs ministry, citing wars, conflict and displacement.
Despite its oil riches, nearly one-third of Iraq's 42 million inhabitants live in poverty, according to the United Nations.
The country has struggled to regain stability after decades of war and a brutal campaign against the Islamic State (IS) group, which Baghdad declared defeated in late 2017.
Iraq still suffers from instability coupled with endemic corruption, and crumbling infrastructure and public services.
Abdel Saheb noted a rise in child labour -- officially banned by law before the age of 15 -- specifically in provinces that had been invaded by IS.
Employing children is punishable by prison time or a fine, he said, but with many families left without a breadwinner, mothers have been forced to let children work.
- 'Out of poverty' -
The labour ministry official said a study conducted by his office showed a rise in child labour in the northern provinces of Kirkuk and Nineveh -- whose capital Mosul was once a jihadist stronghold -- as well as Baghdad itself.
To counter that trend, the government distributes aid to some of Iraq's poorest families, with monthly allowances of between $96 and $250, depending on the number of children.
Miguel Mateos Munoz, spokesman in Iraq for the UN children's agency UNICEF, said poverty and economic inequality are among key factors contributing to the rise in child labour in the country.
The last years have created an environment that is leading many children to child labour, he told AFP.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) aid group noted in late 2022 an alarming spike in child labour in Iraq, particularly in war-ravaged Mosul.
Some 90 percent of households in the city had one or more children engaged in labour, according to an IRC survey of 411 families and 265 children.
And about 75 percent of these children reported working in informal and dangerous roles such as rubbish collection and construction, the group said.
UNICEF has been working with authorities in Baghdad and in the northern autonomous Kurdistan region to support a system of social protection that could lift children out of poverty, Munoz added.
He said the UN agency also focuses on developing education and programmes to build skills to let children delay their entry into the labour force till they are over 18.
Mohanad Jabbar, 14, earns six dollars a day in a Baghdad workshop that manufactures sieves for the construction industry.
Like his older brother, Jabbar has been working since he was seven to help support their family.
I would've liked to study and become an engineer, he said. But my family needs me.