Kampala — MBALE district leaders expressed shock and concern after the head of the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) in Uganda revealed that the district had 3,300 child labourers.

The IPEC Uganda chief technical adviser, Akky de Kort, said 53% of the children drop out of school to work to supplement their family incomes.

She said her facts were based on a recent survey carried out by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics in Mbale, Rakai and Wakiso districts.

The three districts are implementing a pilot project called Support for the Preparatory Phase of the Uganda National Action Plan (SNAP) initiated by IPEC and funded by the American Labour Organisation.

Kort was speaking on Tuesday at Mbale district headquarters during a meeting to brief the district technical staff and political leaders about the implementation strategy of the SNAP project.

The SNAP senior programme officer, Jackie Banya, said about sh500m would be spent on activities to save children from labour in Mbale.

The leaders blamed the Government for failing to come up with appropriate programmes to address the problem.

The district LC5 chairperson, Bernard Mujasi, said most children were victims because the Government had not addressed poverty in rural areas.

Mujasi said most child labourers are from peasant families in rural areas.

He called upon the International Labour Organisation to pressurise African governments to channel more funds to the agriculture sector where most Africans have been trapped in poverty.

Mujasi commended IPEC for coming up with the project to address child labour.

However, he noted that the intervation was short-term. He appealed to the Government to come up with long-term solutions to end the crisis.