Grace Young 
Covid-19 lockdown increases both child labor and the financial crisis in Uganda.
Covid-19 lockdown increases both child labor and the financial crisis in Uganda. When Uganda announced lockdown for around two months to contain the spread of the virus, vehicle movement for exports, malls, schools, and also places of worship was prohibited. Due to which many small businesses closed, many kids from lower income strata had to start selling products on streets. The coronavirus pandemic has put a large number of children worldwide at risk of being forced to child labor, Thomson Reuters Foundation News exclusively reported.
The pandemic has put millions of children worldwide at risk of being pushed into labour, reversing two decades of work to combat the practice and potentially marking the first rise in child labour since 2000, the United Nations warned in June. https://t.co/oGFOHFZzBw
— International Labor Rights Forum (GLJ-ILRF) (@ILRF) July 10, 2020
In an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation News, head of advocacy and communications for Save the Children in Uganda, Alun McDonald expressed that there are kids in the streets who have no choice but to sell stuffs like vegetables, fabric masks, eggs, toys, and snacks in the market to support their family during these tough times.
Many nonprofit organizations and activists have been getting reports about the expanding number of young women being brought into sex work to enable their families to make a decent living and purchase daily commodities he included.
The education minister Janet Museveni stated a week ago, while online schools continue primary and secondary education, we will try and review when to reopen schools in the nation.
With schools closed, child labour on the rise in lockdown Uganda: Every morning soon after dawn, 10-year-old Moses leaves home carrying trays of hard-boiled eggs and walks for half an hour to sell them outside a petrol station in the Ugandan city of Gulu. https://t.co/EpFVYrZnSH pic.twitter.com/YaRr9KFGpb
— SA Breaking News (@SABreakingNews) July 8, 2020
Analyst and activists fear that children might not return to school when they reopen, particularly those from less fortunate systems of society that struggled to pay school fees and other expenses, for example, books, uniform, and shoes. The longer the lockdown extends, according to the circumstances it will be uncertain if kids will join back schools.
As per The Reuters, many kids are trying hard to help their families sell goods in the market amid the coronavirus pandemic yet police bothers and asks them to go back home and also take their goods. It’s extremely tough for children like Nyero Kaka Rashid, who sells eggs in a close-by corner store as his family business went into misfortunes during the lockdown.
Child labour increasing in lockdown Uganda while schools are closed https://t.co/aCAgeC7Giq via @IrishTimesWorld
— UNICEF Ireland (@unicefireland) July 10, 2020
Article Credit: Thomson Reuters Foundation News
