Child Labor

The most recent studies on child labor in Cape Verde dates back to 1995, and basically refer to urban centers. In spite the legal prohibition of labor for children under-fourteen, different child labor situations were identified, most of which are a family strategy for survival. Working children in urban areas exercise their activity in carpentry, metal-mechanic and mechanic shops, on the streets or in institutions where most are taken by their parents.

A greater diversity of activities is encountered however in street work. These are children who do any kind of work they are told to as a strategy for survival, for example, car-wash, transportation of cargo, distribution of newspaper, etc., and often times working in organized groups that are sometimes used to traffic drugs. Many children sell a variety of consumer products on the sidewalks or crowded places where a lot of people circulate. Most of these children are sent by their parents in order to complement the family income.

According to the study, most working children are boys (86%) and are in the age-group older than fourteen. However, about 35% to 47%, are in the 10-14 age group. About 45% of children have 5 or 6 years of schooling, and 30 to 40% have 4 years of schooling.

Street children are a phenomenon that seems to be associated in some way to the intense internal migration and concentration of populations in urban areas, with the consequent establishment of peripherical neighborhoods, where the most poor live. The difficulty to ensure family sustainability seems to be the common denominator to greater part of the cases of street-workers and school dropouts.

Children are hardest hit by poverty because it strikes at the very roots of their potential for development — their growing bodies and minds. Considerable number of children live without parental support, such as orphans, children living on the street, children affected by trafficking and sexual and economic exploitation and children who are incarcerated.