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"Child labour has serious
consequences that stay with the individual and with society for
far longer than the years of childhood. Young workers not only face
dangerous working conditions. They face long-term physical, intellectual
and emotional stress. They face an adulthood of unemployment and
illiteracy."
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan
What is child labour?
Some types of work make useful, positive contributions to a child's
development. Work can help children learn about responsibility and
develop particular skills that will benefit them and the rest of
society. Often, work is a vital source of income that helps to sustain
children and their families.
However, across the world, millions of children do extremely hazardous
work in harmful conditions, putting their health, education, personal
and social development, and even their lives at risk. These are
some of the circumstances they face:
- Full-time work at a very early age
- Dangerous workplaces
- Excessive working hours
- Subjection to psychological, verbal, physical and sexual abuse
- Obliged to work by circumstances or individuals
- Limited or no pay
- Work and life on the streets in bad conditions
- Inability to escape from the poverty cycle -- no access to education
How big is the problem?
- The International Labour Organization estimates there
are
218 million working children aged between five and 17 (2006)
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- 126 million are estimated to work in the worst forms of
child labour -- one in every 12 of the world's five to 17
years olds (2006)
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- 74 million children under 15 are in hazardous work and
should be "immediately withdrawn from this work"
(2006)
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- 8.4 million children are in slavery, trafficking, debt
bondage and other forms of forced labour, forced recruitment
for armed conflict, prostitution, pornography and other
illicit activities (2002)
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- Girls are particularly in demand for domestic work
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- Around 70 per cent of child workers carry out unpaid work
for their families
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Child trafficking:
Trafficking involves transporting people away from the communities
in which they live, by the threat or use of violence, deception,
or coercion so they can be exploited as forced or enslaved workers
for sex or labour. When children are trafficked, no violence, deception
or coercion needs to be involved, it is merely the act of transporting
them into exploitative work which constitutes trafficking.
Increasingly, children are also bought and sold within and across
national borders. They are trafficked for sexual exploitation, for
begging, and for work on construction sites, plantations and into
domestic work. The vulnerability of these children is even greater
when they arrive in another country. Often they do not have contact
with their families and are at the mercy of their employers.
Why do children work?
- Most children work because their families are poor and
their labour is necessary for their survival. Discrimination
on grounds including gender, race or religion also plays
its part in why some children work.
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- Children are often employed and exploited because, compared
to adults, they are more vulnerable, cheaper to hire and
are less likely to demand higher wages or better working
conditions. Some employers falsely argue that children are
particularly suited to certain types of work because of
their small size and "nimble fingers".
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- For many children, school is not an option. Education
can be expensive and some parents feel that what their children
will learn is irrelevant to the realities of their everyday
lives and futures. In many cases, school is also physically
inaccessible or lessons are not taught in the child's mother
tongue, or both.
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- As well as being a result of poverty, child labour also
perpetuates poverty. Many working children do not have the
opportunity to go to school and often grow up to be unskilled
adults trapped in poorly paid jobs, and in turn will look
to their own children to supplement the family's income.
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Where do children work?
- On the land
- In households -- as domestic workers
- In factories -- making products such as matches, fireworks and
glassware
- On the street -- as beggars
- Outdoor industry: brick kilns, mines, construction
- In bars, restaurants and tourist establishments
- In sexual exploitation
- As soldiers
The majority of working children are in agriculture -- an estimated
70 per cent. Child domestic work in the houses of others is thought
to be the single largest employer of girls worldwide.
Export industries account for only an estimated five per cent of
child labour. To see what you can do to help see our Fair
Trade, Slave Trade leaflet.
Case Studies from around the world:
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Dieusibon -- Haiti
"When I first moved to Port-au-Prince I cleaned dishes,
the house, everything. My 'aunt' would beat me whenever I
didn't get water. I worked so hard that my body ached and
I couldn't move, but she would beat me if I didn't do more
work. Her three children went to school...One day my aunt sent me to fetch water. I refused, so
she took a pot of boiling water and threw it at me and burned
my face and slammed the hot cooking pot on my hand."
Dieusibon*, 14, ran away and found help from a shelter
in Haiti.
Mohen and Nihal -- Pakistan
In Pakistan, brothers Mohen and Nihal* began working on
carpet looms when they were four and five years old in order
to help their family meet their basic needs.
"The health hazards caused to us are that our fingers
are trimmed and we have to work all day long. Often for a
couple of days in a week, we have to work for the whole day
and night.
Mohen often gets miserable and fatigued with the long
hours or work and he tries to escape. Then the master weaver
keeps a strict watch on him and never lets him move for three
or four days.”
Ahmed -- United Arab Emirates
When Ahmed* was five years old he was trafficked from Bangladesh
to the United Arab Emirates to be a camel jockey. He was forced
to train and race camels in Dubai for three years.
"I was scared .... If I made a mistake I was beaten
with a stick. When I said I wanted to go home I was told I
never would. I didn't enjoy camel racing, I was really afraid.
I fell off many times. When I won prizes several times, such
as money and a car, the camel owner took everything. I never
got anything, no money, nothing; my family also got nothing."
Ahmed was only returned home after a Bangladesh official
identified him during a visit to Dubai in November 2002. Our
local partner Bangladesh National Women Lawyers' Association
provided him with the specialist support and help he needed
to resume his life with his family.
*Names changed
Child
labour in Yemen
A 2 minute film. At least 15,000 children, many under the
age of 12, work in dangerous or abusive conditions in Yemen,
an IRIN report.
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What do children want -- child domestic
workers speak out
From May to October 2004, Anti-Slavery International and its
local partners undertook consultations with more than 450
current and former child domestic workers in nine countries
in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Consultations took place
in Benin, Costa Rica, India, Nepal, Peru, Philippines, Sri
Lanka, Tanzania and Togo reflecting the reality of child
domestic labour in many countries. The majority of those who
participated were female -- but more than 100 boys also took
part.
Cutting across cultural and language divides, the child domestic
workers who were consulted had some clear messages about the
best kinds of assistance to protect them from the daily abuse
and exploitation that many of them endure. Their common appeal
for those who seek to help them are:
- To provide opportunities for education and training which
allow them to move on from domestic work;
- To assist them in seeking redress from abusive and/or
exploitative employers;
- Not to alienate employers, but to make them part of the
solution to their problems;
- To provide more services which cater specifically to the
needs of child domestic workers (since their needs are often
quite different from those of other child workers);
- To develop longer-term interventions, i.e. not to develop
services for them and then pull-out after just one or two
years;
- To develop interventions which take into consideration
some of the issues which most affect child domestic workers,
for example, early pregnancy and the effect of HIV/AIDS;
- More awareness raising about their situation, and to ensure
that this awareness raising goes hand-in-hand with concrete
services for child domestic workers;
- Assistance in accessing government and state infrastructure
that can help them; for example, in obtaining birth certificates,
enrolling in school, in accessing health care, in locating
families and returning home.
Perhaps the strongest message to emerge from the consultations
was the importance of those providing assistance to talk to
the children themselves about what they need. The work of
Anti-Slavery International's partners in this area has shown
that the most effective interventions are those which systematically
involve child domestic workers themselves in the planning
and implementation of their projects and programmes.
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Child soldiers
There are about 300,000 child soldiers involved in over 30 areas
of conflict worldwide, some even younger than 10 years old. Child
soldiers fight on the front line, and also work in support roles;
girls are often obliged to be sex slaves or "soldiers' wives".
Children involved in conflict are severely affected by their experiences
and can suffer from long-term trauma. The Optional Protocol to
the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of
children in armed conflict entered into force on 12 February
2002, which encourages governments to raise the age of voluntary
recruitment into the armed forces and explicitly states that no
person under the age of 18 should be sent into battle.
The United Kingdom, which has the lowest minimum recruitment age
in Europe at 16, ratified the Optional Protocol on 24 June
2003. The Government, however, added a declaration to reserve the
right to send under-18s into hostilities "if there is a genuine
military need" or "due to the nature or urgency of the
situation". This clause is in direct conflict with the spirit
of the Protocol, which urges that states "take all feasible
measures to ensure that members of their armed forces who have not
attained the age of 18 years old do not take a direct part in hostilities".
Action against child labour
International law:
International law forms the basis of our work against the worst
forms of child labour. The Conventions of the International Labour
Organization, the 1926 and 1956 Slavery Conventions and the UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child are the major tools we
use.
- Article 32 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child (1989):
"State Parties recognize the right of the child
to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing
any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere
with the child's education or to be harmful to the child's
health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.”
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- Convention 182 of the International Labour Organization
(1999):
The main aim of Convention 182 is to eliminate the worst
forms of child labour. It stresses that immediate action
is needed to tackle the worst exploitation of children,
and that measures taken by the authorities should start
as soon as the government is able following ratification.
The main provisions of the convention are to clarify which
situations should be classified as the worst forms of child
labour, and to specify what governments must do to prohibit
and eliminate them. A copy of the full text of Convention
182 can be found on the
ILO website
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Anti-Slavery International's work on child
labour
Anti-Slavery International is not a funding body, but works with
organisations around the world which work specifically in the field
of child labour.
Anti-Slavery International has worked on child labour since the
early 1900s. We have been systematically working on child labour
issues since the 1970s, mainly in research and international advocacy.
Relevant ILO and UN standards underpin all Anti-Slavery International's
work on child labour. We work collaboratively with other NGOs, inter-governmental
bodies and trade unions, and focus on the worst forms of child labour
and slavery-like practices.
Anti-Slavery International currently works in partnership with local
partners on:
- Developing specific expertise on the subject of children in
domestic service. This has involved: publishing hard evidence
about the situation of child domestic workers in several countries;
developing good practice tools on research and advocacy for use
by NGOs and others at national and local levels; consolidating
and building an international network of NGOs sharing information
and expertise about child domestic work issues; and identifying
and promoting good practice in programme interventions, particularly
those which best protect child domestic workers from abuse and
exploitation.
- Campaigning for the adoption and implementation of legislation
in Gulf States prohibiting under 18s being trafficked and used
as camel jockeys, and the prosecution of those involved.
- Increasing understanding and raising awareness of other issues,
including children in the cocoa industry, forced child begging,
and the health and psychosocial effects of the worst forms of
child labour, particularly children in domestic service.
Anti-Slavery International also founded a Sub-Group on Child Labour
of the Geneva-based NGO Group for the Convention on the Rights of
the Child, and remains an active member.
Child Slavery
Now -- an international conference is to be held on all
aspects of child slavery at the Wilberforce Institute for the study
of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE), University of Hull, UK in association
with Anti-Slavery International, Gilda Lehrman Center, Yale University
and Free the Slaves on November 27-28 2008.
| Recent Anti-Slavery International publications on child
labour |
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You can help to eliminate
the worst forms of child labour
For further information, contact Anti-Slavery International on
info@antislavery.org
*Names changed
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