Harvest time

The President of Malawi has declared a state of disaster due to crop failure during this harvest season.  As many as 5 million people may be in need of food assistance towards the end of the lean season early next year.

Although this is the national situation, the picture is mixed, and fair harvest has been secured in the northern and central parts of the country.  People worked hard in their fields, and put much efforts into the harvest.  "Food" in Malawi is almost equal to maize, which they use in their msima, which is equal to ugali in Kenya and Tanzania.  You grind the maize and cook it into a dow-like porridge.

Many of my colleagues are cultivating maize, and have harvested during the last few weekends and late afternoons.  Our housemaid Emily is an eager farmer on the side.  She has rented land, and gradually bought land with the money generated from selling maize she does not need for the family's consumption.  The fields are about one hour walk from her house, and during planting season she leaves the house around 4 in the morning, works some hours in the field, walks back to her house and arrives at our house to do her daily chores.  No wonder she confides in me that she drops to sleep very early in the evenings!

During harvest season she hires a number of people, and rents a truck to bring the harvest back to her house.  As the photo shows, she is using her porch as primary storage.

Emily is satisfied and posing on top of her maize harvest.

Emily and her daughter Jacqline are also harvesting pumpkins.

We are not experiencing the sound of combines out in the field, but rather human voices.  Human hands are also used to shell the maize after the harvest has been brought home.  The extended family is put to work in order to shell and clean the maize, ready to be bagged.

Emily was quite satisfied with her harvest last year.  This year she believes she will have about 80% of last year's yield.  In one way she had hoped for more, but she is quite proud to observe that she has better harvest than her neighbours out in the field.  She will now store the bags of maize and wait for prices to go up during the lean season.  Her farming activity is an important supplement to her salary from working for us.  Her dream is to develop farming to become her main source of income.  I will not be surprised if the hard-working Emily will succeed in the next few years!

Labour, - but on what condition?

Let me today follow up my previous reflection on labour, but from a different perspective.  When I look into the official statistics of Malawi, I find a surprisingly low unemployment rate.  If I did not know better, I would believe that the labour market is thriving.  There are many reasons that there is a mismatch between official statistics and the reality.

When we travel along streets and roads in urban and rural Malawi we see economic activities on the roadside.  The photos in this blog give only a small glimpse of what we encounter.

The woman is preparing a piece of wood that will end up as a table for sale along the road in our area 12 of Lilongwe.  

From this vendor I purchased similar furniture for our guards.  

Vegetables are sold in more or less organised markets, as can be seen from this photo. 

 Along the roads in Lilongwe I can buy bananas every day on my way back from work if I want.

What is the common thread between these photos?  The chances are that their activities are not officially registered, but are part of the informal economy.  The informal economy is thought to represent a major portion of the real economy of Malawi.  These people never turn up in the unemployment statistics, since they are outside the system that is recorded in official statistics.

Those who work in the informal economy do not have any social safety net in terms of social security, pension rights, or other normal benefits that registered workers have.  They spend long hours, and very often travel long distances to reach their informal places of work.  The question is not idleness, since they work hard.  This does, however not translate into prosperity.  The majority of those in the informal sector remain poor.

Part of the problem has been that Malawi, until late last year, did not have a system of officially register birth.  There was no official ID cards being issued.  Big masses do not have a legal identity, and therefore they are prevented from officially taking loans, buying property, starting business...

Introduction of birth certificates and ID cards will hopefully be one step in the direction of channeling hard work and investments into formal economy, and more people into systems of social safety nets.  Perhaps the statistics of unemployment will be more realistic sometime in the future.

Child labour and modern slavery - on Labour Day

The labour movement in Norway is dealing with rather sophisticated challenges, and I find it interesting that the electronic version of Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) today only has a small article on "This is the way 1.May is celebrated throughout the world".

Looking through Malawian newspapers this morning gives a slightly different picture.  The President is marking the Labour Day through praising the value of work that contributes to development.  Commentaries are highlighting the workers as "building blocks" for development both in private and public sector, and their "welfare" is crucial to their production.  Little is mentioned about the conflict of interest between workers and business owners / investors.  This is in spite of on-going advocacy campaigns related to the mining industry, and struggles of the Malawi Congress of Trade Unions for "decent work".

My focus this Labour Day is on another category:  child workers and modern slavery.  Trafficking in children and young women is a significant problem in Malawi.

In Malawi, children are one of the vulnerable groups of people that are prone to child trafficking. With high poverty levels, orphan-hood due to HIV & AIDS, abuse, witchcraft and peer pressure there is an increase in the number of children being trafficked for different purpose within Malawi and to the neighboring countries. Perpetrators and even other trusted individuals, including parents, take advantage of their situation , abuse them and let them ending up being trafficked for cheap child labour, sale of their body organs and sexual exploitation.  This is the face of modern slavery.

Work is done to stem this trend.  Police has established "Victims Support Units", mandated to identify and rescue victims of trafficking and child labour.  NCA has lately engaged private sector in encouraging them to take responsibility to prevent and take actions to stop child labour and trafficking.  Two weeks ago we convened a conference together with the Congress of Trade Unions and with participants from the tourism, transport and agricultural sector.  It was confirmed that the problem is serious, and that they are ready to take serious steps.  We will follow the process.

The Salvation Army is engaged in identifying and rescuing trafficked children in Malawi and neighbouring countries. The town of Mchinji on the  Western border with Zambia is one of the major receiving districts of trafficked children on the borders of Malawi especially en route to Zambia and Mozambique.  The Salvation Army brings young survivors of trafficking to The Mchinji Anti-Child Trafficking Centre which they have run since October 2006. Norwegian Church Aid has been supporting the Centre since 2009. 

Rescued children attending school during their stay at Salvation Army Centre

The Centre receives the children, offers them psychological counseling, education and live-skills training.  In parallel the Centre contacts their home communities and their families, and attempts to create a conducive environment for the children to return to their families and communities.  They accompany the children and counsel the families as they resettle

 Joseph Paulo , a 12 year old Dedza boy was sold by some member of his family and dumped, in reality as a slave at a trading centre.  He was rescued by Police Victims Support Unit, placed in Salvation Army Centre and later returned to this family.

Dignified transition from slave-like child labour to safe re-entry into their families is worth while fighting for on Labour Day!