The children who run away to work: Ethiopia’s hidden weavers
EMELINE WUILBERCQ and YARED TSEGAYE FIVE barefoot young boys were walking to town to look for work when they were apprehended by the police, in a cat-and-mouse battle to stamp out child labour among traditional weavers who produce Ethiopia's famous, white 'shamma' shawls. The Gamo and Dorze people of southern Ethiopia have woven the soft, cotton cloth with its delicately embroidered edges for decades, proud of their heritage and of a valuable source of income in the impoverished Horn of Africa nation. Mathewos, a 13-year-old weaver, interweaves threads to create an intricate border on a headscarf at his relative’s home…