Decades of civil war and a hangover from colonial times has left Angola with a child workforce which is missing out on education, a report launched on Tuesday said.
According to research by the Christian Children's Fund (CCF) and World Learning, children in the oil rich southern African country are forced by their parents to work instead of attending school.
"We found children aged 10 or 11 years who were getting up at 5:00 am to fetch water, and they were still working as late as midnight, selling on the streets," CCF head of the study, Luis Cevallos, said.
Researchers met children as young as six selling gasoline by the roadside, while others worked with dangerous chemicals, sold alcohol or were made to carry heavy loads.
In 2004, the male adult literacy rate in Angola was 82.9 percent compared with 54.2 percent for women.
The report collected information on 7,000 children in rural and peri-urban neighbourhoods of the province of Benguela — most children worked in agriculture or selling.
Vice-Minister for Education Ana Paula Ines said the culture of child labour needed to change.
"These figures are an unfortunate reality in Angola, we have come from many years of war and any country which has gone through war like us would have the same situation," Ines said.
"Because of war we didn't have schools for children and during the colonial period we didn't have any education for Angolans …there was a culture of children being made to work," Ines added.
The 27-year old Angolan civil war ended in 2002.
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