Anti-child labour campaign takes to the streets

Harare, Zimbabwe – 10 December 2014 – The Zimbabwe Association of Female Photographers (ZAFP) in association with HIVOS, The Royal Netherlands Embassy and The Coalition Against Child Labour in Zimbabwe (CACLAZ) unveils its Human Billboard Exhibition today in Harare.

Due to poverty, inadequate social services and poor enforcement of laws, child labour is rampant in Zimbabwe today. There are children working as domestic labourers, in mines, on farms, on the streets and just about anywhere they can get a job. Many of these children are being denied their basic right to education and a childhood.

As part of the 16 Days of Activism and in commemoration of Human Rights Day ZAFP founding-member and photographer Nancy Mteki and associate photographer Steven Chikosi have created a series of powerful images that form the basis of an educational campaign against child labour that was shown today on the streets of Harare.

ZAFP Human Billboard Exhibition

Volunteers from around the city wore the campaign posters as sandwich boards thus turning them into ‘Human Billboards’ and handed out postcards to motorists at selected intersections in the CBD. Many of these volunteers are high school students on holiday and were excited to help educate others about the need for an end to child labour both here in Zimbabwe and around the world.

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The ZAFP was launched in 2013 to help encourage professional development and empower women in the photographic community through project-based training, networking and the promotion of members’ work. Director Angela Jimu says of this project, “as one of its objectives ZAFP is committed to bringing visual arts to the people as well as being involved in awareness campaigns, hence our involvement in this endeavour.”

The exhibition is funded by the Royal Netherlands Embassy through HIVOS Zimbabwe and is one part of a larger project entitled ‘Survivors and Activists’, which seeks to raise awareness on a variety of Human Rights issues.