Socio-economic status of children involved in child labor in markets in Kampala a case study of Gayaza food market, Kampala
Abstract
This study was conducted in Gayaza Market, Kampala, Uganda. The main objective of this study wasto find out the socio-economic status of children involved in child labor in the informal sector of Kampala. The study specifically evaluated influence of education, family background characteristics and individual characteristics (demographic factors) on the child labour involvement in Gayaza Market. The study adopted a cross-sectional survey design and collected data from 63 children involved in child labour using snowball sampling technique.The study findings indicated that 52% of the respondents were males whereas only 48% of the respondents were females, 47.6% of respondent had spent only one year, 34.9% of them had spent two years. The study findings indicated that out of the 63 interviewed children, 21 had lost both parents, 22 had only mother still living 3 had only father alive. In total, 46 out of 63 children (73%) were orphans.The study findings indicated that the average number of household members was 4 members per household with a standard deviation of 2.27, a maximum of 14 members and minimum of 1 member. The study findings indicated that majority of the children (95.2%) had ever attended school whereas 4.8% had never attended school. Of the children who had ever gone to school, 57.6% of them are currently schooling while 42.4% are not. The findings indicated that 61.0% of the respondents had ever attended primary education, 31.7% had not completed primary while only 7.3% had ever attended secondary education. The study findings indicated that male children had worked in the market for more years than females, most of the children (36 out of 63) were working in family business followed by (19 out of 63) were working for survival,7 out of 63 were working for family support while only one child was working following a parent’s decision, most of children received money from work (31 out of 60), 85.7% of them were planning for their money, 8.6% decide jointly with someone else while 5.7% are decided for by another person. The study concluded that there are many children practicing child labour in informal sectors in Uganda and these children are majorly from come from less privileged families with many household members in one household. The study recommended that the government should reopen schools to allow these children go back to school since some might lose interest in education due to little pennies earned from the market.