PBS高端访谈:疫情肆虐, 乌干达儿童如何艰难度日(1)（在线收听）

Well, the effects of the pandemic on children vary dramatically depending on the country.

疫情对儿童的影响很大程度上因国家而异。

With schools still shuttered in Uganda and other developing nations, many children have no choice but to work to survive.

在乌干达和其他发展中国家，学校仍然关闭，许多孩子别无选择，只能工作来生存。

In Africa, more than a fifth of all children, or some 87 million kids, work.

在非洲，超过五分之一的儿童(约8700万儿童)在工作。

Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports from Kampala.

坎帕拉特别记者弗雷德·德·萨姆·拉扎罗拉报道。

It looks like a scene set in the Middle Ages, a gaping, sprawling stone quarry just outside Uganda's capital. It is also a gravel factory, all of it done by hand, large, small, and very small hands.

乌干达首都外的一个巨大的采石场, 看起来像发生在中世纪的场景。它也是一个砾石工厂，所有的工作都是手工完成的，用大的，小的，非常小的手。

Evelyn is 11 years old. She works every day balancing on a makeshift ladder to crack open the rock face. Her family will then pound the larger rocks into gravel with crude hammers.

伊芙琳11岁了。她每天都在一个临时梯子上保持平衡，以便敲开岩壁。然后，她的家人会用粗糙的锤子把较大的岩石敲成砾石。

For some, the only available tool is a larger rock.

对一些人来说，唯一可用的工具是一块更大的岩石。

Evelyn's mother, Sylvia Naggujja, who has done this work for more than a decade, labors by her side, next to six brothers and sisters.

伊芙琳的母亲西尔维亚·纳古贾从事这项工作已经十多年了，她和她的六个兄弟姐妹一起工作。

For all this work, they earn less than $2 a day. That's the whole family.

尽管做了这么多工作，他们每天的收入还不到2美元。那是整个家庭的收入。

We go and break stones. Like, that plastic jerrican you see there. We fill it at 300 shillings for each jerrican.

我们去敲石头。就像你看到的那个塑料罐。我们以每罐 300 先令的价格装满它。

It's exhausting, dangerous work, a scene repeated at dozens of sites in the area. Accidents and injuries are common, especially among young children.

这是一项累人又危险的工作，在该地区的几十个地点都出现了这样的场景。事故和伤害很常见，尤其是在幼年儿童中。

Life is not OK. When I break these stones, sometimes, they cut my fingers. Sometimes, the small pebbles fall into my eyes. Life is not good. Another time, a big stone hit me on the head right here.

生活并不好。当我敲碎这些石头时，有时会割到我的手指。有时候，小石子会掉进我的眼睛。生活并不美好。还有一次，一块大石头砸中了我的头。

But what weighs on Evelyn most is her life before the pandemic. Aside from a few weeks between Uganda's two COVID surges, schools have been shuttered across this nation of 44 million.

但对伊芙琳最沉重的是她在疫情前的生活。乌干达有4400万人口，除了两次疫情病例激增之间的几周外，该国的学校已经停课。

I miss school. I miss work at school. I work every day. I would like to be a doctor or a nurse. I wanted to go to school, go to university, possibly go abroad and help my mother.

我想念学校。我想念在学校的功课。我每天都努力学习。我想成为一名医生或护士。我想去上学，上大学，可能还想出国帮我妈妈。

It is not uncommon to see young children doing hard work, fetching water or wood for the family cook stove. But, whether in quarries, mines, or farmland more and more children are being forced to work for their survival.

我们经常看到孩子们在做艰苦的工作，比如为家里的炉灶打水或打柴。但是，无论是在采石场、矿场还是农田，越来越多的儿童为了生存被迫工作。

2020 was the first year in two decades that saw an increase in child labor around the world. And with the pandemic devastating economies, the United Nations says the problem is getting much worse.

2020年是20年来世界各地童工数量首次增加的一年。联合国表示，随着疫情对经济的破坏，这个问题变得更加严重。

It issued a report that found 160 million children, some as young as 5, working in child labor, many doing tasks that directly threaten their health and safety.

该组织发布的一份报告发现，1.6亿儿童(有些只有5岁)从事童工工作，许多人从事的工作直接威胁他们的健康和安全。

I saw a 9-year-old in a gold mine.

我在金矿里看到一个九岁的孩子。

As the mother of a 9-year-old herself, human rights advocate Angella Nabwowe says the encounter stopped her in her tracks.

安吉拉·纳布沃是一个9岁孩子的母亲，同时是人权倡导者，说，这次遭遇让她停下了脚步。

I was practically looking at my daughter doing that work. I talked to this girl.

我几乎是在看着我女儿做那件事。我和这个女孩谈过。

She lives with her grandmother. They have nothing, nothing. A 9-year-old in a gold mine working, it is not right. It's not.

她和她祖母住在一起。他们一无所有，一无所有。一个九岁的孩子在金矿里工作，这是不对的。它不对。

She says years of progress have been wiped out by the pandemic, as have the income and prospects of a large number of Uganda's poorest people, who live hand-to-mouth in the mostly informal economy.

她说，疫情已经摧毁了多年来取得的进展，也摧毁了乌干达许多最贫穷人口的收入和前景。这些人主要靠非正规经济勉强糊口。

The urban areas, the official data is that 23 percent of that lost everything. They do not have any source of what? Income, because of COVID-19.

官方数据显示，在城市地区，23%的人失去了一切。由于新冠肺炎，他们没有任何收入来源。

It's not just income, she says. For many children, the loss of school has deprived them of a reliable meal each day.

她说，这不仅仅是收入的问题。对许多孩子来说，辍学使他们每天失去了一顿可靠的饭。

As we saw in this school in 2017, meals are often provided across the developing world to boost both nutrition and attendance. That all stopped when the schools closed.

正如我们2017年在这所学校看到的，发展中国家经常提供膳食，以提高学生营养和出勤率。当学校关闭时，一切都停止了。

Food is a basic right. People don't have what to eat. And what is the effect of that?

食物是一项基本权利。人们没有吃的东西。 这会产生什么影响呢?

It's been pretty catastrophic.

这是灾难性的。