CHILD LABOUR

At regular times,  there are reports in the PNG media of children on the street carrying out what the informant terms as child labour.

In the Post Courier there was obvious fake news recently of two boys posing with a load. One looked like  barrel on his shoulder and the other a short load of wood. 

This is all proof by "do gooders" of parents sending kids out to work instead of sending them to school.

In the years past there were reports of children directing traffic, pushing furniture and selling at street lights.  

Chances are many of these kids are orphans or playing games with their schooling. They earn enough money each day to buy food and cigarettes. Some will go home pretending to have spent the day at school. Others will sleep in drains with other street boys.

Perhaps we should ask Colin Pake who looks after children at his orphanage at Gerehu. 

Part of the job of parents is to assign work to their children to train them for adulthood. I lived on a farm in Queensland and worked like a man from about 8 years old. It was all part of growing up.

I have a step-daughter in my family. She is the half sister of my daughters but I am not the father. She was dumped on me when she was six. Now she is 15 years old in grade 8. 

She studies hard and does house work. She washes clothes, sweeps the house, cooks food and looks after the grandchildren. 

I give her lunch money and pay other expenses. I asked her yesterday and she said she started house work at 12 years. 

The do-gooders would say this is child labour. But it is her decision. She talks cross to me when I make a mess. She works as I worked on the farm. 

She will make some man a great wife. But I tell her I will support her as high as she wants to go in her studies. Or as long as I live.

I am waiting patiently for a Covid 19 jab.