Thursday June 12th, was a day to remember children in bondage of labour to earn an extra buck in a home or to feed their siblings. This is very common in the developing world that so many people have come to accept it as normal. If it is not for this day, which is not nationally publicized anyway, not much thought or awareness campaigns about child labour would be in place.

This year’s theme was to raise awareness that Education is the right response to child labour. The Ugandan government has put into place “free” primary education, not entirely free because of a few charges for scholastic materials and the feeding at school but at least better than before where the costs for a basic education were really high.

According to a local daily, one of every three children aged between 5 and 17 are forced to work by either their parents or out of poverty with a total of 2.7 million children under forced labour in Uganda. An estimated 300,000 children are engaged in hazardous labour, which exposes them to risk of contracting the HIV virus.

There are unscrupulous older women in the city exploiting young girls to provide sexual pleasure for their clients. They normally bring them on as waitresses in the makeshift restaurants in town but later encourage them to offer sexual pleasure to their clients. These older men grappling with marriage trouble most times, are always convinced that they are getting value for their money with girls who virgins, still young and obedient to their every wish and whim.

It’s no wonder that recently there are reports of alarming levels of child labour, of parents dragging their kids to provide casual labour as housemaids and prostitutes to earn money to sustain their families.