Did We Just Walk into a Child Labor Shop?

We were at the end of a too-long tour of Cairo, starting with the Giza Pyramids, then driving out of town to Memphis to see the original capital of Egypt, then off to Sakkara to see the very first pyramids on earth, that are somehow still standing after nearly five thousand years.

We were heading home when our guide mentioned we could go to a rug-making school, where children learn how to weave, a worthwhile skill in a place so stricken by poverty. And we could look at their handy-work and maybe buy a little something if we wanted.

We were excited. A chance to see the local children bettering themselves is rare in our own country, at least for a childless couple like us, and here was an opportunity to see children building a better future for themselves in a poor part of Egypt, and to end the day on a high note. As we pulled up to the school, Mrs. Done by Forty asked an innocent enough question.

"Do the parents have to pay tuition to send their children to the school?"

"Oh, no. The children get paid."

Immediately, we felt something bad in our stomachs. Still, we had hope. "Like a scholarship? A stipend, to help the kids while they learn?"

"No, the children are paid a small fee for every rug they make. The more they make, the more they earn. So it is a good system."

"Ah."

It was too late to turn back now, so we entered the ground floor of the building, with a single, large room taking up the entire floor, with looms all around, and a child at every one, dutifully working away. There were a couple adults working as well: we were later told these were the artists who handled the more complex designs. Some of the fathers working had their children working alongside them, the guide told us. Everyone seemed to be focused and intent on their work. But when we entered, every eye turned to us, the weird foreign tourists who came to see how rugs are made.

The owner, or manager, whoever, the guy in charge, came up and introduced himself in perfect English and offered to show us around the place, to see how the rugs were made. First he took us to a silk loom where a girl, maybe twelve years old, was making a beautiful blue and yellow rug out of tiny, smooth strands of silk, tied deftly with a knot in her little hands, and then cut with a tool. Over and over again, with hundreds of knots in a single square inch. Here she is, in the picture below.

And after weeks of work, here is what the finished product looks like, with hundreds or thousands of these rugs available for purchase in the show room right above the workshop. The silk ones are unbelievably smooth to the touch - as beautiful as they are they beg to be walked on in bare feet.

As I am no reporter, I failed to ask any of the important questions that would have given us a better idea of how this place really operated. I didn't ask how much the children were paid, though as the large silk rugs sold from eight thousand US dollars and up, part of me hopes they are making a very good wage, and part of me knows that is hopelessly naive.

I didn't ask how many hours the children worked, though our guide mentioned the kids came after school and worked during the summers. So I should give a clear disclaimer: I really don't know if this place qualifies as a child labor shop. There were children making rugs, and they were apparently making money. But the room was fairly well lit and well ventilated. The kids honestly seemed happy as some smiled and waved to us walking by. Maybe this is just a school with a pragmatic mission: to teach young people a trade. Maybe they are doing a great service for their community. I just don't know. At the time, it sure felt like the business was making money by having children do the work, at least to this one ignorant American tourist.

The more interesting part was the way Mrs. Done by Forty and I debated the issue afterwards, on our drive back to downtown Cairo. Even if it were child labor we just saw, we were conflicted as to how we ought to feel about it. We saw a lot of poverty in Cairo, with children asking us for money or food on our way out of a grocery store. Our tuk-tuk driver couldn't have been older than fourteen. We saw children loading vegetables onto carts, to be pulled by horses in the Cairo streets alongside taxis and cars. So, it seems that children are involved in the earning of money here. If that's the reality, was this rug school/shop such a bad option for them?

It's pretty easy for me to just say child labor is wrong, end of story. Which sure, yes, it clearly is. But when your family is poor, working for money is a good alternative to going without food, too. In a world of bad options, you choose the best one available.

I remember my mom telling me a story when I was a kid and I was complaining about some little American problem I had. She told me that when she was going to school, she only had one uniform to wear, so she had to hand wash it every couple days herself to keep it looking presentable. But the sad part was that she had to wash other kids' uniforms, too, those of families that were better off, to earn some money for the family. And she didn't get to keep any of the coins the families gave her, either: those went to my grandma, to help with the family finances, which were pretty dire considering they were all living in a one room house with a dirt floor. So I should stop complaining about being grounded and not getting to watch TGIF.

Given my mom's upbringing, I might have a weird view of child labor in general. It's definitely a bad thing, one the world would clearly be better without. But these poor kids in Egypt probably have to work in some capacity. Either in the fields that we drove by, or in the cities of Cairo in some capacity. Maybe learning a marketable skill in a well-shaded, cool room that is outside of the Cairo heat is not as bad as it seems to a couple well-to do tourists from the states. Maybe the situation is complicated.

Anyway, enough of that grandstanding for now. I promise a more enjoyable post the next time I am by a computer: maybe one with some pictures of African wildlife and an explanation of how we were able to do this trip on the cheap with help from Brad at Richmond Savers. But either way, I promise to avoid depressing topics for the duration of the trip.