you're watching d.w. next to business news. updates at the top of a good. rock n roll. band. since the rhythm. of the church. i know the evil feeling that you feel when you think. stuff no one is more popular. rock

and religion the clash that brings many. to. 42 really soon to reconcile the. june 17th t.-w. . more than $150000000.00 children around the world being forced to work now today on the world's day against child labor we take a closer look at the situation in africa to find out why child labor is still widespread. also coming up uganda is rolling out fiber optic technology to connect more citizens to the worldwide web the costs for internet access are still a major. welcome to do business africa i want to get that have you with us.

the how we treat our children is a reflection of our societies and values this is part of a statement released for well today against child labor in which the international labor organization is urging authorities and employers to make a final push to end child labor and while official figures show that child labor is decreasing around the globe africa is bucking the trend some kids so the is 12 years old when he grows up he wants to be a lawyer but that can sometimes seem like a pipe dream instead of going to school he and his brother are sent to work to support their mother and 7 siblings. and this is where they toil for more than 8 hours a day a mine that supplies sand to uganda's booming construction industry there are no safety standards in place and the pay is unreliable. sometimes

i don't get paid and sometimes i'm hungry while i work. when that happens i just go home afterwards to get food bathed and to sleep. some is one of africa's 72000000 child laborers most of those kids work in agriculture primarily in subsistence and commercial farming 11 percent are employed in services and 4 percent in industry. the causes of child labor are manifold impoverishment exploitation and cultural attitudes all play a role over the past few years the issue has attracted widespread attention and governments have been under increasing pressure to act some progress has been made a report by the international labor organization found that between 202013 the

number of child laborers in the world dropped by a 3rd but for the 10s of millions of kids who are still spending their days at work instead of at school those figures mean little. well for more i'm joined now by my colleague chip on the chin below here in the studio to ponder good to have you with us now why is child labor still such a major problem really in africa well child labor is highly linked to poverty so that is the major issue in africa obviously so a lot of the families who have children working don't even have a choice it's either that a child has to contribute to the household income or there's going to be of course very little food on the table and that's the choice that they face another reason of course is governance and the lot of these places in the countries there is very weak governments which how the rules against how the labor they cannot implement them by one other issue is cultural acceptance at least according to experts there

is a certain level of cultural acceptance of child poverty so in a family that might be poor they might have a relative who is more wealthy and they might send that child to you know be basically a domestic. for the family and that's what happens in some cases so the cultural acceptance also plays a role so it is an issue of the slave for that reason. boys and girls equally affected by this well in terms of the labor itself the numbers the figures that there is no disparity between goals and boys so it's the same level and what is different of course is that maybe girls might have to do more household work so on top of maybe helping alt earn money for the family they're also going home and helping cook or clean the house which is of course a lot for a child you know 2 boys males who end up working more in industry so mining for instance which can be very dangerous you might find boys working there but in terms

of farming which is the biggest issue as we saw in the reports like 75 percent or so you know being in farming that is the same for boys and girls they have to help out in the fields or help with the harvest of quarks so every every child is affected who is affected whether it's a boy or girl there is no disparity there. now of course when we talk about child labor in africa africa is a huge continent is it equally bad you know how widespread across all the countries so are there some worse off than others of course is some countries which are really worse off and there's reasons for that as somalia. chad the central african republic south sudan now if you look at south sudan somalia these are places of conflict so there's a reason there's a high correlation between conflict poverty and child labor so those things obviously you know will be 3 for 2 factors that will lead to child labor so children in conflict zones are more likely to be working because obviously there's very high levels of poverty in those places and it is there any pressure on

companies on mines for example all the businesses fama has to do something about it of course there is there's a huge reputational risk you know if someone finds out they are products we have possibly made by a child these days and they post it on social media a company stands to lose out so they are companies that are trying to do their best to find out what the sources of their products are so the supply chain is that initially and i.b.m. and ford started a technology initiative with block chain that helps them track where the minerals are coming from most of those for like say smart phones and batteries for electric cars come from the congo 60 percent of kabul is from congo so they're trying to track that the london metal exchange as well for instance is trying to make it compulsory by 2022 for older produces now the in the middle exchanges the huge is the biggest you know market for minerals in the world and they want to make it compulsory for every producer to say where you know whether that is children

involved in where the the minerals are produced and that's also important so that's a nation as a nation let's hope that all those initiatives and all that pressure actually helps to improve the situation on the ship thank you so much for joining the studio. well africa is also busy trying to catch up with fiber optic technology and there's no time to lose the world bank estimates that only one out of 5 africans has internet access global tech giants such as google and sure way of recently invested in africa to get more people connected the prices remain too high in many parts of the continent. ugandan software engineer. depends on the ups. without a reliable internet connection is practically out of business. literally of fuel everything we do runs literally on the internet this same applies to law student ties at 60. the internet is central to his academic research i communicate

a lot to my. design my lecturer and 3 i use the intern and good opportunity in. the to represent different classes of internet users in uganda but with similar concerns. the cost of staying on line is. some service provider has put the costs way out of the roof we thought that the introduction of a number of service providers will put competition into the business is a process. unfortunately it's not exactly the case. according to uganda government half of the country's 42000000 people have access to the internet. the number is growing. enough to result in lower intimate charges unlike many. products internet to have

a demand. the price so the more people we can get on quite active that a lot of the price. like many a fricken country's going to hustle for being unable to turn it infrastructure entirely with public funds instead it seeking private capital for technologies like fiber optic in order to make the internet affordable for users and profitable to investors. for more let's bring in. who also sent us this report tell me if the cost for internet access is high how does uganda hope to get more subscribers to lower costs. according to the us to try an internet agency says that it wants to stay with the government by connecting all government offices to both the products of it to boost the connectivity everywhere i went i was speaking to their technical director she told me that she wants to get

schools for speak to us armed forces and mistreated offices all on the internet where now this number comes on board to bring down because when you look at the number of subscribers and also coupled with initiatives from the private sector like the bunking like. health so they are looking at all those options but starting with the government to set the pace of journeys how important is this rollout of fiber optic for uganda's economy. it's very important because the government is very optimistic their investors a very optimistic on the users a very optimistic they're looking at fiber to help the country get flat to connect to the less money in the remote area to the money they are bouncing as they want people to get connected and as more people get connected it to boost productivity in the different sectors already many i've been tested including those that are high this is still like scientific research and then just

a trend agency says it's collected much more money ever since it moved its portal to the internet so the government thinks that fiber optic connectivity will really help productivity in many other sectors. where they have reporting for us from kampala thank you so much. ghana and ivory coast of suspended forward sales of cocoa beans buyers and sellers regions of gagnon capital to discuss pharmaceutical standards it's seen as an attempt to pressure the market the 2 west african countries together produce about 60 percent of the world's cocoa but have little influence over international prices farmers representatives say their incomes are too low in relation to the money made by because cocoa traders they're calling for the introduction of a minimum price for the commodity. and plans to build east africa's 1st coal fired power station close to a kenyan world heritage site has caused yet more protests opponents of the plant

near the long i keep a lakh go say can doesn't need it because its energy needs are already being met and mostly by the nubile sources u.s. analysts claim the energy produced will cost consumers $10.00 times more than previously thought the kenyan government says it will create jobs and secure future power supplies the $2000000000.00 project has been largely funded by china. and that drops business africa here on d w for me and the team in berlin thank you so much for giving us company.

entered the conflict zone confronting the powerful. my guest this week here in birmingham news the qatari foreign ministry spokesperson on top of the last 2 years the gulf states of qatar has been blockaded by a poor chance of states which accuses of supporting terrorism she has always denied the charges for. conflict. in 60 minutes g.w. . sometimes books are more exciting than real life.

preparing to. come on. what if there is no escape. ritualised under german law st. this is the deed of news africa coming up in the next 15 minutes fear itself takes the top of violence up to sunday's massacre in central mali un troops are stationed back to make people feel safe but is the presence making any real difference. to us nigeria said the briefs that broke us a big if we hear that also young nigerian on the state of the allegation.