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HOLGUIN, Cuba, October 30 (Juan Carlos Garcell, APLO/www.cubanet.org) –
More than 2,000 children from schools in the municipalities of Sagua de Tánamo,
Frank País, Moa and Holguín in the province of Holguín have
to work on the coffee harvest barefoot and without proper work clothes.
Since September the youthful workers have been picking coffee beans as part
of a "camp school" program that obliges them to spend between 30 and
45 days in farm work. During this period, the students live in shelters under
poor conditions and far away from their families.
According to some of the parents, who didn't want to be identified, they met
with the Holguín Municipal Education Board and were told the board was
unable to supply shoes, clothing, hats and work accessories. They were told the
students were the most productive of the coffee harvesters.
Many of the parents said they were unable to buy shoes for their children
because of the poor salaries they received.
Versión
original en español
[ED Note.: "Camp school" or "country school" is a
nation-wide mandatory program in which for 45 days, middle and high school
students (as young as 11 years old) are sent to school/work-camps in the
countryside, where they work all day in the fields, under stressful conditions,
such as high and often times impossible work goals and fear of reprisal if the
work is not finished. The living quarters are wooden shelters with side openings
on the roof, which barely protect from rodents and heavy tropical rains.
Sanitary facilities are outhouses and open outdoor showers, which lack hot water
and provide no shelter from colder temperatures in the winter. The diet is very
poor. Oftentimes 300 or 400 students are supervised by as few as 10 adults. Sex,
theft and pregnancy are common.] | 
