2007年VOA标准英语-Activists Seek to Save Children from Work in Ke

By Cathy Majtenyi
Kiambu District, Kenya
11 June 2007
 

In Kenya's Kiambu District, activists¹ and local government and education officials are working hand-in-hand to rescue boys and girls laboring³ in the area's coffee, tea, and other plantations⁵. Cathy Majtenyi visited Kiambu District ahead of the World Day Against Child Labor² on June 12th and files this report for VOA.

To all outward appearances, 13-year-old Ruth Wangui is a happy-go-lucky girl who enjoys spending time with her friends during breaks from her classes at Maciri Primary School. But behind Ruth's easy smile are painful memories of her years picking coffee in one of Kiambu District's many coffee estates.

The grade seven student says that from the time her parents brought her to the plantation⁴ at the age of four to pick coffee until she stopped at the age of seven, she frequently felt ill from the pesticides⁶ and other chemicals the workers would spray on the coffee plants.

 "When I am in school I am feeling very good because I'm not going to pick coffee, and those chemicals cannot affect me when I was in school," says Wangui.

Nineteen-year-old John Vukaya Lumasia is a student at Riabai High School. He says extreme poverty at home pushed him into picking coffee with his mother from the time he was nine until he was 17 years old.

He tells VOA he earned a little over $2 for a nine-hour day of picking coffee beans and he says he suffered a lot of abuse on the job from his employers.

 "Sometimes they could have chased you out of coffee (plantation) if you decided⁷ to pick badly,” says Vaukaya. “Other times they beat you. The majority of them they beat you because they see as if you are disturbing them."

John and Ruth are two of an estimated 1,000 children in Kiambu District who have been rescued over the last four years from working in the area's plantations and taken to school.

Kenyan school children

Local government officials, in conjunction with donors⁸ and groups such as the African Network for the Prevention and Protection Against Child Abuse and Neglect, identify child laborers⁹ and encourage them to go back to school.

In some cases, families are given money to pay for uniforms, books and secondary school fees. Schools such as Maciri Primary School have lunchtime feeding programs. That meal may be a former child laborer's only food for the day.

Officials say they do not know the exact number of child laborers in Kiambu District. According to a 1998 government survey, 1.9 million of Kenya's 10.9 million children are employed. More than half of these children work on commercial plantations or in subsistence agriculture or fishing.

Many children who are rescued from child labor face enormous challenges as they try to integrate into a regular classroom setting.

James Gathage teaches grades five to eight at Maciri Primary School. He says his school has taken in more than 100 former child laborers within the past few years, and that it is very difficult to retain those children.

 "They take time to adjust,” explains Gathage. “Having been used to the life out of school, some are overage, so when you bring them back here, they tend to see as if they are brought back to a level whereby they are not getting money, they have been put in the discipline here, and (because of) the life they have been leading, they are quite different."

Gathage says the former laborers exhibit many adult behaviors and tend to run away from school when it is coffee picking season. Some of the girls, he says, have been sexually molested¹⁰ by their employers and even impregnated.

But for children like Ruth, school has been a godsend. Ruth says she wants to be an accountant, and urges all child laborers to return to school to get a better life for themselves and their families.

1 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

3 laboring   

n.劳动，操劳v.努力争取(for)( labor的现在分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转

参考例句：

• The young man who said laboring was beneath his dignity finally put his pride in his pocket and got a job as a kitchen porter. 那个说过干活儿有失其身份的年轻人最终只能忍辱，做了厨房搬运工的工作。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• But this knowledge did not keep them from laboring to save him. 然而，这并不妨碍她们尽力挽救他。 来自飘（部分）

4 plantation   

n.种植园，大农场

参考例句：

• His father-in-law is a plantation manager.他岳父是个种植园经营者。
• The plantation owner has possessed himself of a vast piece of land.这个种植园主把大片土地占为己有。

5 plantations   

n.种植园，大农场( plantation的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Soon great plantations, supported by slave labor, made some families very wealthy. 不久之后出现了依靠奴隶劳动的大庄园，使一些家庭成了富豪。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• Winterborne's contract was completed, and the plantations were deserted. 维恩特波恩的合同完成后，那片林地变得荒废了。 来自辞典例句

6 pesticides   

n.杀虫剂( pesticide的名词复数 )；除害药物

参考例句：

• vegetables grown without the use of pesticides 未用杀虫剂种植的蔬菜
• There is a lot of concern over the amount of herbicides and pesticides used in farming. 人们对农业上灭草剂和杀虫剂的用量非常担忧。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

8 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 laborers   

n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工

参考例句：

• Laborers were trained to handle 50-ton compactors and giant cranes. 工人们接受操作五十吨压土机和巨型起重机的训练。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. 雇佣劳动完全是建立在工人的自相竞争之上的。 来自英汉非文学 - 共产党宣言

10 molested   

v.骚扰( molest的过去式和过去分词 )；干扰；调戏；猥亵

参考例句：

• The bigger children in the neighborhood molested the younger ones. 邻居家的大孩子欺负小孩子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He molested children and was sent to jail. 他猥亵儿童，进了监狱。 来自《简明英汉词典》