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Prevalence and Sectoral Distribution of the Worst Forms of Child Labor

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Prevalence and Sectoral Distribution of the Worst Forms of Child Labor BENIN Benin Benin has enacted comprehensive laws to protect children from trafficking and greatly increased BENIN funding for the enforcement of child labor laws; however, child trafficking and child domestic labor continue. Benin permits domestic work for children ages 12 to 13, allows children to stop attending school before they are old enough to work and lacks the capability to enforce laws and regulations necessary to eliminate the worst forms of child labor. Statistics on Working Children and School Attendance Other Children Age Percent 3.7% Working 5-14 yrs. 13.2 Attending School 5-14 yrs. 59.2 Services 22.3% Combining Work and School 7-14 yrs. 1.4 Agriculture Manufacturing 68.9% 5.2% Prevalence and Sectoral Distribution of the Although trafficking in Benin is primarily Worst Forms of Child Labor conducted internally, Benin is also a source, transit and destination country for trafficked children.519 Children in Benin are engaged in the worst forms Children are trafficked within Benin for the 512 of child labor, including in domestic service or purpose of domestic servitude, commercial sexual as victims of trafficking for labor and commercial exploitation and labor on farms, in stone quarries sexual exploitation.513 Through the system of and in markets.520 Children are trafficked from “vidomegon,” girls are sent to work as domestic Benin to other West African countries to work in servants in exchange for housing. These girls quarries, fishing and agriculture, including in the may be as young as age 7.514 Income generated production of cocoa. Children are also trafficked from these arrangements is shared between the from Benin for commercial sexual exploitation children’s host and natural families.515 While such and domestic work.521 Beninese children arrangements are generally voluntary between trafficked abroad are known to endure sexual the families, children frequently work long hours, and physical abuse, including flagellation, burns, receive insufficient food and are vulnerable to malnourishment and abuse leading to death.522 sexual exploitation.516 Children, including those Children from Togo, Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, already working as child domestic servants, Senegal and Niger are trafficked to Benin for the also work in markets.517 Children in these purpose of exploitation in domestic servitude, circumstances may work up to 17-hour days. They commercial sexual exploitation and agriculture.523 are subject to verbal and physical abuse, including Children work on farms producing cotton, where being beaten with sticks.518 they often work long hours, are underpaid and 2010 FINDINGS ON THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR 67 COUNTRY PROFILES may be subject to physical abuse.524 Children also age 16 from performing certain types of work, reportedly labor in the production of cashews.525 including transporting heavy loads, working in Some children working in agriculture are engaged slaughterhouses and operating certain types of in forced labor.526 machinery.541 The law also sets limitations on work performed by youth ages 16–18.542 An expanded Children, including street children, are engaged list of hazardous work prohibited for children was 527 in commercial sexual exploitation. Children passed in January 2011. The law prohibits children are sexually exploited by people from all strata of under age 18 from hazardous work in areas such society, including bar owners, sailors, teachers and as mining, domestic service, agriculture and stone 528 members of the defense forces. Reportedly, child crushing.543 sex-tourism also occurs in Benin.529 Children work in construction, the transportation C138, Minimum Age 9 industry and as street vendors.530 They also work C182, Worst Forms of Child 9 in fishing.531 Children’s work in fishing may expose Labor them to risks such as drowning. Children work CRC 9 in mines and quarries.532 They also crush stone CRC Optional Protocol on Armed 9 into gravel. Children who crush stone into gravel Conflict are subject to long hours, physical injuries and CRC Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child 9 hazards, including exposure to dynamite and Prostitution, and Child 533 falling rocks. Pornography Access to quality education is a critical component Palermo Protocol on Trafficking 9 in preventing the economic exploitation of in Persons children.534 Access to education in Benin may be impeded by costs such as school-related Minimum Age for Work 14 construction, school books and uniforms.535 Minimum Age for Hazardous Additionally, school children are subjected to 18 verbal, physical, psychological and sexual abuse Work at school. Abuses range from beatings with Compulsory Education Age 11 sticks, whips or belts, to sexual abuse by teachers who may demand sex for grades.536 School- Free Public Education Yes based violence may discourage families from accessing education for their children.537 Access Primary school is free and compulsory in Benin.544 to education is also impeded by a lack of birth However, some parents have to pay tuition if registration.538 Forty percent of Beninese children their schools have insufficient funds.545 Beninese remain unregistered. Unable to prove citizenship, children are only required to attend school some children may be denied services such as through primary school (approximately age 11), education.539 while the minimum age for children to work is 14.546 This standard makes children ages 12 to 14 Laws and Regulations on the Worst Forms vulnerable to the worst forms of child labor as of Child Labor they are not required to be in school but are below The minimum age for work in Benin is 14. the minimum age to work. Children between ages 12 and 14 may perform The law expressly forbids the trafficking of domestic work and temporary or seasonal children and provides penalties for those who light work if it does not interfere with their are involved in the trafficking of children.547 The 540 schooling. The law prohibits workers under law also forbids movement of children within 68 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR’S BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL LABOR AFFAIRS BENIN Benin by prohibiting the separation of children payment for labor violations.557 The number of from their parents without consent from local inspections conducted during the reporting period authorities.548 Benin also has three enabling is unavailable. The majority of labor inspectors decrees to regulate travel of minors within and work in urban areas. Focusing on urban areas across Benin’s borders.549 may leave children in rural areas, such as those involved in agricultural labor, unprotected.558 The The Penal Code prohibits the involvement with Government budgeted $204,500 for the Ministry or facilitation of child prostitution, but child of Labor and Civil Services to conduct child labor 550 pornography is not prohibited in Benin. The use inspections in its 2010 budget.559 This represents a 551 of children in armed conflicts is banned. budget increase of 230 percent from the previous 560 In 2009, the Government adopted the first volume reporting period. of the Child Code, a compilation of existing The Brigade of Protection of Minors (the Brigade), legislation related to children’s rights, education, under the Criminal Police Department, is the lead protection, labor and health. The Code’s second agency responsible for the protection of minors, volume, containing a bill on child protection and including child trafficking, child labor and the amendments pertaining to offences committed commercial sexual exploitation of children.561 The regarding minors, is pending adoption by the Brigade collaborates with the Ministries of Family, 552 National Assembly. Social Protection and Solidarity, Foreign Affairs and Labor.562 A lack of resources, including a lack Institutional Mechanisms for Coordination of office and transportation facilities, limits the and Enforcement Brigade’s effective enforcement of child protection laws.563 During the reporting period, the police Research found no evidence that the Government investigated 5 cases of child labor and 44 cases of Benin has established a coordinating of trafficking; 14 of the trafficking cases were mechanism to combat the worst forms of child referred to court.564 Although the status of these labor. The Ministry of Family and National cases is unknown, trafficking sentences handed Solidarity (MFNS) implements the government’s down in the past have ranged from 3 months to 1 overall policy to improve children’s’ welfare and year. These sentences are well below the 20-year leads government efforts to ensure children’s maximum provided for by law.565 rights.553 The MFNS chairs the National Monitoring and Coordination Working Group for Child Protection (CNSCPE), a technical agency Government Policies on the Worst Forms of that serves as a task force and comprises five Child Labor technical committees, including a committee for Benin has a National Policy and Action Plan for 554 trafficking and exploitation. The CNSCPE meets Child Protection.566 It also has a National Action on a quarterly basis and is comprised of members Plan to Combat and Eradicate Child Trafficking from sector-based ministries, NGO networks, and Labor. However, neither action plan has been international technical and financial partners and funded.567 bilateral partners. Each committee has an action plan and proposes activities to CNSCPE.555 Under the coordination of the joint Benin and Nigeria Committee to Combat Child The Ministry of Labor and Civil Service is Trafficking, the governments of Nigeria and Benin responsible for enforcing labor laws in the formal developed a 2009–2010 Action Plan to reinforce 556 sector. The Government of Benin employs border security measures and to repatriate the 126 labor agents throughout 12 departments to victims of trafficking.568 Child victims are not regulate the formal labor sector, including child repatriated unless a safe reinsertion program, labor. Inspectors can impose sanctions and order such as schooling, vocational training or an 2010 FINDINGS ON THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR 69 COUNTRY PROFILES apprenticeship, has been arranged in advance.
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