RIYADH, 30 May 2007 — A 10-year-old Arab boy gets up each morning and ties a tool belt around his waist. At 7 in the morning he should be on his way to school. Instead, in clear violation of the Kingdom’s laws on child labor, he heads off to a construction site where he toils under the sun working as a laborer.
Muhammad (not his real name) works at a construction site in the Al-Aziziya district of Riyadh. Arab News photographed him carrying a heavy brick on his shoulder. A few hours later he was still there. This time he was carrying some metal bars.
Men working at the construction site ask him to do work that is not only dangerous, but he is incapable of doing.
In an attempt to find out why the boy was working at such a tender age, this reporter telephoned Muhammad’s father, who admitted that his son was working with him at the construction site, but said he was not doing any serious work. “He’s just helping the guys out there... It’s better than having him stay at home doing nothing,” he said.
Asked why the boy was not attending school, Muhammad’s father said the school term in Syria was over and that he and his family were only here in the Kingdom on vacation and not permanently. Arab News later found out that schools are still open in Syria.
A worker at the construction site, who did not want to be named, told Arab News that Muhammad works at the site from early morning until sunset. “He does everything. He carries cement blocks, uses the hammer and does everything else that we do,” he said, adding that the boy’s father has prohibited him from interacting with other workers and that the boy would innocently sometimes stop working to look at things around him and watch kids play soccer in streets close by.
“The father also has some of his other older sons working at the site. The boy is not the only one,” he added.
Like other construction workers in the Kingdom, Muhammad works in intense heat with temperatures reaching 47 degrees Celsius during the summer. In addition to the inhumanity of being made to work at a construction site at such an early age, the boy does not wear a helmet and work boots, and is not equipped with any sort of protective gear.
According to various international treaties signed by the Kingdom concerning the protection of children’s rights, all children should be provided with a good education. The treaties oblige signatory countries to protect children against anything that may harm their health, including hiring them to work as laborers.
