About 400 thousands minors work in
Italy, in every region of the country, in the most varied ways: in
family, for a third party, during school time, before or after
school, forced to stressing overtime works and deprived way too
ealier of an optimistic and healthy idea of the future. This is the
most obvious result of a survey, sponsored by Cgil Department of the
Right of Citizenship and Social Economy in the space of two years.
The survey has involved searchers and union structures and examined
16 territories from the South to the North of Italy and more than
600 stories of children.
The survey is now a book: Labour and child works, Ediesse 2000
that will be presented on November the 7th in Cgil house,
Corso d’Italia.
350 thousands Italian children, 50 thousands immigrants: this is
the map drawn by the book that defines the data which move Sergio
Cofferati’s complaint in the introduction.
Gianni Paone, Inca Cgil, responsible of the association"L’Aquilone"
in Rome and in charge for the survey explains how these numbers must
be meaningfully interpreted. During the survey -explains Paone- we
have not just "counted" the phenomenon but we have also
crushed it in the different regional realities, weaving together
quantitative data and selected qualitative profiles, therefore
looking at the working story of these children, at their
relationships with the school and the family.".
The picture that has emerged is inevitably heterogeneous, because
child work is that of the child that works a few hours a day and
goes to school, but also that of a child abused in exhausting shifts.
Different conditions, different incandescence, however united -says
Paone- by the same danger of social exclusion and above all by a
negative projection of the children’s future. That is to say by
the lack of any hope.
"Another important element -underlines Paone- is that in
Italy, industrialized country, there is no difference between child
work and child labour as it happens in the developing countries. In
Italy there is overwork also in child work. Especially in the North
and in the Centre children usually work in family where, because of
evident bonds of affection, they cannot negotiate the conditions of
their employment.They might work before going to school, at five o’clock
in the morning, or after they comeback from school and till late at
night. In other words children become a private property."
"It is a situation spread in the North and Centre of Italy
because of the economical features of these areas -states Paone- but
we have noticed a cultural poverty that is probably the most
disturbing factor .Especially in the North-East families don’t
recognise any positive role to education and children are inclined
to finish compulsory education and work while still in school. After
getting their Middle School degree children usually quit their
studies. In the South, it is the traditional dynamic to prevail: the
majority of the minors works for a third party and the percentage of
school quitting is very high."
An allarming picture that requires prompt interventions.
"This Cgil survey -ends Paone- does not want to simply make
the point of the situation, but aims to open an operative phase. The
institutions must be moving, going beyond the declarations of
purpose; on the other hand the Union must exploit the survey
experience and the subjects involved in it. The priority is the
fundamental communication among schools, families and territories. I
think, for example, to contracts between educational institutes and
families to recoup the children. But these initiatives perhaps
require more promptness from the institutions.
(november 7th 2000)
a
