Labor force in Sudan

The size of Sudan's labor force is difficult to determine because of the various definitions of participation in economic activity and the absence of accurate data from official sources.[1] In rural areas, large numbers of women and girls engage in traditional productive occupations, but many probably are not included in calculations of the active workforce.[1]

More than 7.9 million people were employed in Sudan in 1989, according to an International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimate.[1] In the early 1990s, the employment scene was exacerbated by the 1991 Persian Gulf War, which resulted in the return home of thousands of Sudanese workers who had been based in Kuwait and Iraq, leaving many of their possessions behind.[1] Sudan's support of Iraq was also a factor in the departure of thousands of Sudanese workers from Saudi Arabia.[1] By 2000, the total labor force of Sudan had grown to an estimated 12 million, of which the government counted 9.6 million as actively employed.[1] Approximately 30 percent of the workforce was female.[1]

Unemployment figures were affected by the severe drought that spread throughout Sudan in the 1980s.[1] In 1983–84, for example, several million people migrated from the worst-hit areas in both Western and Eastern Sudan to Khartoum and other urban areas along the Nile.[1] Many remained in these areas once the drought had eased, living in shantytowns and contributing to unemployment, underemployment, or employment in the informal sector in the cities.[1] In addition, more than 2 million people from the South migrated to the North over the years, as a result of the civil war and famines in these areas.[1] In 2009 the government estimated unemployment at about 20 percent, perhaps not an accurate figure, because a large proportion of Sudanese engaged in small-scale and subsistence agriculture.[1]

Agriculture was formerly the predominant activity in Sudan, although its share of the labor force gradually declined as other sectors of economic activity expanded.[1] In the 1955–56 census, almost 86 percent of those then considered as part of the workforce were involved in agriculture, livestock raising, forestry, fisheries, or hunting.[1] The ILO estimated that by 1998, the figure had declined to 70–80 percent.[1] By 2008 the government claimed that the percentage was significantly lower.[1] The services sector, which included a government workforce that grew about 10 percent a year in the 1970s, emerged as the second largest area of activity, encompassing an estimated 13–22 percent of those economically active in 1998, compared with 4.6 percent in 1955–56.[1] The industry sector, including manufacturing, mining, electric power, and construction, accounted for 7–9 percent during 1998, compared to 5.6 percent in 1955–56.[1] The proportions of the labor force in each of these sectors undoubtedly changed after the estimates were made in 1998, as the relative importance of these sectors altered in the succeeding years.[1] It was difficult to determine the extent of the changes, however, as despite the oil sector's great importance, it did not directly employ many people.[1] Its impact on employment occurred as a result of the increased spending allowed to the government, which created new jobs, often in the public sector.[1]

The minimum working age in the early 2000s was 18 in theory; however, the law was not enforced, and some 27 percent of Sudanese children aged 10 to 14 were estimated to be in the labor force.[1] For example, children as young as 11 or 12 years of age worked in a number of factories outside the capital that produced edible oils.[1] Child labor was widespread in the informal economy, and children traditionally worked on the family farm from a young age.[1] Sudan did not adhere to ILO Convention no. 182, the Worst Forms of Child Labor.[1] The Child Act of 2010, among other laws, governed hours and working conditions of young people, but the law was not effectively enforced, particularly in the informal sector, where enforcement was especially difficult.[1]

The 1998 constitution prohibited forced and bonded labor, although it did not specifically prohibit trafficking in persons.[1] Nevertheless, there were credible reports that slavery persisted, particularly affecting women and children, and that the seizure and sale of women as domestic servants continued.[1] All sides in the Sudanese conflict also conscripted men and boys forcibly into their fighting forces.[1] In May 1998, the government formed the Committee for the Eradication of the Abduction of Women and Children, which resulted in the identification and release of several hundred abductees, but the government did not police the laws on forced and bonded labor effectively.[1] In November 2001, the government announced the establishment of special civilian tribunals in the border regions separating the South and the North of the country to prosecute persons involved in the abduction, transport, holding, and selling or exchanging of women and children from war zones.[1] Even so, as late as 2010, the Committee surmised that possibly 10,000 or more abductees from groups such as the Misiriyyah and Rizayqat as well as South Sudanese were engaged in some form of forced labor in the border regions.[1]