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Statement on Child Labour
October 1997
CAFOD’s position on child labour is based on its experience in working with
partners in 75 countries around the developing world and on the UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, in particular its emphasis on consulting and involving children when
devising policies to address their needs.
Child labour is often seen as a straightforward issue. It is not. Some jobs, such as
bonded or slave labour, or commercial sexual exploitation, are clearly bad for children
and should be ended immediately, and support given to the children affected. For most
working children, however, work brings a mixture of costs and benefits, depending on the
child’s age, income, the hours they work, the kind of job they do, their access to
education, and the level of exposure to hazards such as dangerous chemicals or machinery.
Take a typical example – a ten-year-old girl selling newspapers in the morning
rush-hour traffic of a large city. She runs risks: to her health from pollution or traffic
accidents; to her education in terms of lost schooling or exhaustion; to her future in
exposure to street crime or drugs. On the other hand she benefits: the money she earns may
help her pay her way through school in the afternoons; she may eat more or be treated
better in her home because of the income she brings in; her status as a breadwinner brings
her new self-confidence.
CAFOD believes that governments and other organisations should act in the best
interests of the children involved by ending work that is clearly hazardous or
exploitative, and acting to improve the lives of other working children. Governments
should regulate hours and wages, and provide education which is adapted to their needs,
for example, ensuring that schools are near their place of work, or which fit schooling
around working hours, such as having holidays in peak harvest periods in rural areas.
To achieve this, there are certain basic principles which should be followed:
Ask the children
Working children and their families must be involved in designing the programmes aimed
to improve their lot. This is both their right, laid out in the UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, and good practice. Children and their families know most about their
lives, and how to improve them.
This kind of approach could have averted one of the more spectacular examples of
misguided action on child labour: in 1993, when a US Congressman threatened to legislate
to ban Bangladeshi garment imports made with child labour, factory owners promptly sacked
all their 50,000 underage girl employees. Many had no choice but to take even worse jobs
in other areas, such as brick-making and prostitution.
Child labour is about family poverty
In trying to improve children’s life chances, the place to start is adult
poverty, working to improve job opportunities for adults, so that families no longer need
to send their children into hazardous and exploitative jobs.
Action in Britain
Public concern on this issue is being channelled in a variety of ways. CAFOD and other
development agencies support projects with working children and the newly-established
generation of working children’s organisations which involve a high level of
participation by the children themselves. CAFOD is also pressing UK companies to include
child labour issues in the codes of conduct which an increasing number of companies are
introducing for their third world suppliers. The British government is committed to action
on the issue. In all cases, it is vital that any action follows the principles laid out
above, if it is truly to benefit working children.
For further information contact Duncan Green, Public Policy Unit,
CAFOD, Romero Close, Stockwell Road, London, SW9 9TY
Tel: 0171 733 7900
Fax: 0171 274 9630
E-Mail : [email protected]
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