"Study, work and fight"

(Extended version)

Working children and adolescents (NNATS) in Lima, Peru: their vision against the global perception

After leaving school, Angel gets to his home and takes his skate, ball, surf table or a bus. He usually gets in the carro to work, and with his zampoña, his guiro and his charm he earns some money while he plays music for all the travellers of a busy coach. Angel is also a delegate of the Peruvian Organized Working Children and Adolescents Movement (MNNATSOP). "I don't like routines", he says. He has learned how to combine all these activities to provide a better life for himself.

According to the Specialized National Survey about Child Work (ENETI, 2015), there are approximately 2 million working children and adolescents (NNATS) in Peru. This study done by the Peruvian Ministry of Labour and Promotion of Employment and the International Labour Organisation (ILO), highlights that 26% of children have performed some economic activities. The same survey states that the reasons why children work are mainly to supplement their family income (27%), to acquire skills (19,8%) and to help in the family business (18,3%), among others.

Knowing these figures, that seem to be repetitive in other 'developing' countries, the ILO, other international organisations and, in this case, the Peruvian Government have adopted a protectionist discourse that seeks for the eradication of the work that NNATS carry out. The ILO differentiates between 'child work' and 'child labour' (concepts that have no differentiation in Spanish) and condemns the last one, defined as 'work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development'. Therefore, theoretically, the ILO accepts that not all work done by children is included in the definition of 'child labour'. However, in practice, Angel explains that there is a generalised perception that views the elimination of any form of work done by children as a need for development. He also says that the population is not aware of which kind of work affects working children negatively or not.

Israel Rivera, a psychologist and also a collaborator with the MNNATSOP, points out that international and national regulations result in daily criminalization of NNATS in the streets, where they are discriminated without distinction just because they work. Rivera started working when he was a young boy living in Huancavelica (a region in the Peruvian mountains), where he helped in his family shop as also sold newspapers in the streets, among other jobs. At that time, there was not a generalised negative perception about working children in the country, and he enjoyed his condition as well as his siblings and some neighbours did. His father repeatedly encouraged with words that gave him strength all of his life: "study, work and fight". Israel brought this with him to Lima and is now his motto while he helps working children get over difficulties. Even as time passes by, Israel still believes that the identity of his country is in the people, their culture and tradition, and conceives that NNATS who work because they want are part of this Peruvian reality and identity. Equally, he is aware that there are situations where child work is not desired but he believes that those will not be detected or decreased with current politics because these ones affect all NNATS without differentiating their will.

What should be considered first about work: age or dignity?

Angel started selling sweets in the streets of his neighbourhood, as many working children in Lima do, but he did not like the job and he did not feel fulfilled doing it. "What differentiates work that should be accepted from the one that should not or exploitation is dignity", he says. This means that work is an activity that "makes us feel good, where we are well treated and where we feel protected and proud". Angel reflects about how slavery has existed historically, he is aware of his country's past and reminds with sadness the colonization period. "We have now stopped talking about slavery or exploitation to start talking about working bad conditions", however from his point of view, this last categorisation is the evolution of the first one. "The fact that someone does not feel dignified in his job is not a matter of age", he believes that the problem should be focused on how people feel and is treated in their jobs. According to the MNNATSOP, labour exploitation of minors is not going to be solved fixing an unrealistic minimum age or wanting to eliminate all child work, because this one is related to their culture, tradition and identity.

Katy is 12 years old and she is the owner of a small shop where she sells school utensils. Her smile and energy are the only things she needs to be able to sell. She works when she has time, in her free time after studying. She is also a member of the MANTHOC (Working Children and Adolescent's Christian Labourers Movement), where she spends time doing her homework and sharing games and conversations with her peers. She started selling to known people or after school, "I started to be motivated about selling because I liked it, I felt good doing so because I could earn my own money and help my family". Katy complains about people who do not know her reality: "sometimes we work to help our parents and make our households better, but there are other occasions that we work also just for ourselves", she states. Katy tells that in the MANTHOC they talk with every children legal tutor to realise that they work with rights and in good conditions. "Fixing a minimum age is not the solution", she follows, "there are people who see a friend of mine who is 7 years old and they could think that he is being exploited, but the truth is that he is helping his family because he wants and he has fun doing so, they do not obligate him".

Today Katy does not have any school tasks, so she decides that she will set up her 'small-shop', as she calls it, outside MANTHOC's door. Some of her friends help her to prepare the business. One of them, Soledad, a tireless 10- year-old girl with a pink jacket, organises all the products in the table. Soledad studies, plays and works too. She works sometimes as a nanny and she explains how happy she is helping her friend in the shop. Both, together with other friends, also cook to earn money and keep organizing activities in the Movement. They say, 'this is also work', because at the end it is another economic activity that they enjoy.

"I know there are loads of children who are being exploited and I feel bad for them, but I feel good and useful working so is not my case". These are Andreí's words. A joker and a tall boy, he works because he wants to help out his family. Every morning before going to school, Andreí recycles plastic bottles in the streets of his neighbourhood. He is 11 years old. While he is proudly showing some medals, he narrates that he is also a swimming teacher. On Saturday, after running in the district streets, he will sell the plastic that he has collected during the week and he will give the money to his mother or keep it for himself to save it.

Negative and positive aspects of work according to NNATS

"Work is a value, it does not have just to relate with money, contrarily of what currently seems to be enhanced", Israel comments. He talks about a social perception of the population, who do not differentiate between help, work and exploitation. The psychologist perceives that the position of governmental repression does not help to improve the country's reality, rather it affects children in a negative way. He puts an example: loads of children negate their own condition of workers to protect themselves, and this affects their personality and self-esteem. However, organised children also debate how work affects them, usually being accompanied by adults in places like the MNNATSOP, the MANTHOC, as also other movements like the MOLACNATS (Latin-American Movement of NNATS), among others.

"There was a day when some adults saw us selling and men started saying "oh, poor girl, why are you not playing in your house or studying at school?" and they started insulting us because we were working", Katy remembers, "but we shouldn't make them sad, because our work is decent. They have to collaborate with us because of our motivation to work not for compassion". She argues that "the difference between work and exploitation is not the money, it is the time invested, the routine, the quality and if you like it or not".

Elías, who is 17 years old, is a member of Ato Colibrí, a group of organised young adults and adolescents from La Vitoria neighbourhood, in Lima. All of them work by carrying fruit in the fruit market, and most of them combine working and studying. Elias opens up and says that at the beginning the adaptation in the market was a bit difficult. Nevertheless, he affirms that gradually he has learned and currently he enumerates much more positive factors that working in Ato has given him. The main one is that he can work together with his friends and learn about team work, because "union is strength", he says. He also mentions that he has learned to understand his responsibilities and how to save money. His friend Rubén, who is 19, laugh together with Elías while they narrate their overcoming stories and think together about their professional future aspirations. They know that to achieve their goals they will have to work hard to form themselves, but they know that if they do not pass school they will not be able to keep working in Ato Colibrí. Remigio, the coordinator of the organisation and a sociologist, monitors his studies and work. This support, together with the companions one, help Elías to wake up every day to go to Ato or to attend school: "We work with peers and this makes us feel good, we understand each other because we live the same situations more or less", he ends.

"Working helps me to overcome shyness in front of the public", Pool explains. He is 12, he studies and works in his neighbourhood. He sells key rings in the market, where his grandmother has a shop. Pool narrates that in a future he would like to be a technological engineer because he is fascinated with the idea of working with computers. Pool also assists the MANTHOC's assembly every Saturday, where together with Andreí and other companions debate and opine about situations that worry them. The topics of the meeting are varied, from personal situations to broaden realities of their country. One week, for example, they talk about the general educational strike and how they can understand what their teachers claim. Another news topic that a girl introduces is about a girl who had been killed in the city because of gender violence. They talk about feminicides and some of them decided they will go to a march against gender inequalities and gender violence organised in Lima. Nevertheless, this time they will not go as a Movement because they consider that they need to plan in advance.

Angel, Katy, Soledad, Andreí, Elías and Pool believe that work helps them develop their personal and professional abilities, to gain new skills and to feel capable of much more.

What NNATS claim in Lima?

Sitting in San Martín's square, Israel Rivera thinks over working children's future and how they can organize in a better way. This municipal area is a symbolic place for the country's "street children". During the Internal Armed Conflict (CAI) in Peru, it was the home of thousands of children who were surviving in working between Lima's traffic and the square. Israel remembers the repression that so much of them suffered by the Fujimorista State, until 1990 when some of them were embraced in Generación home, currently a children's shelter where he works as a psychologist.

Israel keeps talking about repression, even if in the present this has changed its form to social or police discrimination. Thus, he considers that the State politics are not in favour of child's best interests as some preach. He believes what should be done to know how children feel should be listening much more to them. For November of 2017, the ILO has organized the IV Global Conference on the Sustained Eradication of Child Labour in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Both in this and the last Conferences, the MOLACNATS have not got any invitation to take part in, so working children cannot raise their voice through official channels.

Israel is not the only one who thinks that way. "What I would say to someone who wants to eradicate children's work, in general, would be that we work for our need, and that s/he does not know or understands our reality", says Elías from Ato Colibrí. The adolescent proposes that we should look for ways to support and reduce necessities because "how we feel depends on the support that we get". He also thinks that working children in Peru is a cultural issue and this should be more respected without promoting "bad ways" of seeing it. Holding his zampoña, Angel states that there are many actions that the government and organisations could do to help. For example: "promoting protection, but also motivating us to keep working to get ahead instead of judging our condition". He says what the MNNATSOP wants is "to get into a fair society, where children's rights could be accomplished" and he adds that "in a correct world they would let us work, as we do with adults, because we like to work to develop ourselves". In the MANTHOC, Pool is sitting down with a plate of food. He considers that someone who believes child work should not happen "has to ask children, looking how work affects us". He also points out that if they would ask him, he would say that he works "because it is my effort and I want to do it, and because it is my decision and is not that hard to sell key rings".

Travelling to San Bartolo, southern Lima, the landscape changes radically. Getting off the bus the air is different, slower, dominated by the sea breeze. There, Angel explains that he would like to be a football player when he grows up, or maybe study law to defend other people's rights. He thinks about himself and states "we cannot do all what we like easily, there are a lot of obstacles in life", but without losing his sense of humour and relentless energy he points out that his fight defending working children to keep their dignity is worth it.