Strikes in France put government on defensive
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Child labor thrives in Benin

By Michee Boko

Banikoara, Northern Benin, May 23 (IPS)-- Eighteen-year-old Gnoulla Yempabou started as a farmhand in cotton fields here, when he arrived from neighboring Burkina Faso a few years ago.

Now, Yempabou has his eyes on other business: he is slowly becoming interested in joining the child-trafficking racket. The work is less backbreaking and the profit is good.

On the back of his boss’s motorcycle, Yempabou says he is on his way to Burkina Faso, about 60 kilometers northeast of Banikoara, to look for “unskilled laborers’’ for the next cotton harvest.

“It is much easier to be a farmhand in Benin than in Burkina Faso where the land is hard to work,’’ he explains.

Banikoara, with a population of 150,000, is 700 kilometers north of Cotonou, the commercial capital of Benin. The town has always touted itself as the country’s breadbasket because of its promising agricultural yields — especially cotton, which is Benin’s main export.

“The cotton farming in Banikoara has created two phenomena: jobs and child-trafficking. The two are intertwined, and we are forced to live with them,’’ says Daniel Sabi Sabidare, the Mayor of Banikoara.

Cotton farmers in Banikoara earn about 13 billion CFA (around 22.8 million US dollars) from the crop every year. About 60,000 of the 350,000 metric tons of cotton produced in Benin are grown in Banikoara.

But few children go to school here. In some villages, schools do not exist, and when they do, they are either located far away from the residential areas, or they have no teachers, according to Adama Toubou of the Benin-based Africa Third Millennium Group, a non-governmental organization.

“Child labor is cheap in Banikoara,’’ says Toubou, whose group is involved in the campaign to combat child trafficking and child labor.

“A farmer can have, on average, 10 children on his farm, for example,’’ says Gilbert Kogrembo of the Africa Third Millennium Group. The children, aged between six and 17, live on the farm, under harsh conditions. On average, they work ten hours a day, and are poorly nourished, he explains.

Statistics on child labor, as well as on child trafficking, varies in Benin. Some rights groups put the figure to as high as 150,000.

On foot, by bicycle or by car, a group of child traffickers ply the dusty roads between Benin and Burkina Faso looking for children to work in Banikoara.

“All that interests the Burkinabe children is the 60,000 CFA [about $105] they’re going to bring home at the end of the season, and the honor they’ll derive from their stay in Benin,’’ says Orou Mahame Doune, a local official on the border with Burkina Faso.

For a young Burkinabe, he says, “having lived in Benin is considered an honor. A young person, who has stayed in Benin, is considered more heroic than someone who has never been here. He is more likely to be a catch to the girls, and more deserving of the community’s entrustment with greater responsibilities than the one who has never been to Benin. These perceptions only fuel the trafficking,’’ Doune regrets.

Africa Third Millennium Group has developed a project which it hopes will free 400 children, both from Benin and Burkina Faso, from the cotton fields, where they have helped make Banikoara the number one cotton-producing region in Benin.

The 59,000-US-dollar programme, known as the “Support Project to Care for and Rehabilitate Children Victimised by the Worst Forms of Labor and Trafficking in Banikoara’s Agricultural Sector,’’ is funded by the International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC), a division of the Geneva-based International Labor Organisation (ILO).

The project, which began in April, aims to enroll the freed children in school or in vocational training centres, according to its chairperson, Cossi Bossou.

The project provides awareness training on the harm caused by child trafficking and child labor in Banikoara.

“Well-known and respected for its democratic tradition, Benin unfortunately also has the sad reputation of being a revolving door for a shameful trade in school-age children,” says Florent Adegbidi, the IPEC-ILO coordinator in Benin.

Benin is also a transit for child labor destined for Nigeria, Gabon and Cote d’Ivoire.

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Strikes in France put government on defensive

By Murray Smith

Paris, France, May 28— Following the success of the massive one-day general strike on May 13, the government of French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin is in deep trouble.

The May 13 strike, the largest since 1995, was in response to the government’s plan to make it harder for workers to retire on a full pension. Under the plan, employees would have to work for 42 years (up from 40 years in the private sector and 37.5 years in the public sector) before being entitled to a full pension.

A one-day strike on May 19 was also a success. Although it mainly involved the public sector and was prepared on the scale of May 13, 800,000 demonstrators took to the streets in 70 cities.

The government’s success in splitting the trade union movement, by persuading the second biggest union, the CFDT, to accept the pension plan has turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory. It has hardened the attitude of the other unions, who are all calling for a mass demonstration on May 25 in Paris.

Meanwhile, the opposition to the deal within the CFDT, which is stronger than the leadership expected, has made it clear that it will continue to campaign against the plan. In the militant Marseilles region, local unions, including the CFDT, have called a one-day strike for May 27 — the day before the French cabinet is expected to adopt the pension plan.

A strike by teachers is continuing. For weeks, the government and the capitalist media have tried to black-out news of the scale of the teachers’ strike, claiming it was faltering when it was spreading. At the same time, they tried to ignore mounting protests over the pension “reforms.”

But now there is a whiff of panic in the air. The press is full of articles about the “crisis in education” and even the “social crisis.” Raffarin is haunted by the example of the November-December 1995 strikes, which broke the back of the right-wing government of Alain Juppe. He is faced with a potentially bigger crisis. Polls show that a majority opposes the pension plan and supports the strikes (72% of public sector workers and 46% of private sector workers say they are ready to take part in strikes and demonstrations).

Speculation is rife that the government will make concessions to the teachers, in order to hold the line on pensions. At one point, that might have defused the teachers’ movement. But it may be too late.

The CGT trade union federation is maintaining its threat of a general strike from June 3 if the pension plan is not withdrawn. Rail and public transport workers’ unions have already called an unlimited strike from that date. The Force Ouvriere confederation has called for turning the May 27 strike in Marseilles into a national strike.

The Raffarin government is under siege but not yet beaten. As the Paris daily Liberation put it, the unions and the government are engaged in a “conflict with no emergency exit.” Whatever happens, the outcome of the present confrontation will determine the relationship of class forces and the political climate in France for some time to come. It is beginning to look as if it won’t be to the advantage of the government and the employers.

Source: Green Left Weekly

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