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Child Labour
(updated 4th April 1997)
ARTICLE 32 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
"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 children's health or physical, mental,
spiritual, moral or social development; the state to set minimum ages for employment,
regulate conditions of employment and provide sanctions for effective enforcement."
"My mother was sick all the time. We had no food for me, my sister
and brothers. I started to wash the car windscreens at the traffic lights. I was nine. Now
I sell sweets, chewing gum, pulseras (friendship bracelets) outside the bus station. The
bus drivers let me on their big buses. I earn good money and take it to my mother. She
doesn't hit me anymore because I bring her the money."
Guadelupe, a 10-year-old Mexican street vendor.
"A lot of people call me a small boy. I work selling chewing gum
outside a cinema. I have no sleeping house. I sleep at the petrol station."
Keweku, a 9 year old boy in Ghana.
Child Labour - a thing of the past?
Child Labour is the major global children's rights issue. Many
governments claim to be committed to the eradication of child labour. Yet few people
realise the extent of the illicit use of children working for a pittance in desperate and
dangerous conditions. These children are deprived of an education, the security of
childhood and basic human rights.
Some 250 million children continue to eke out a living for their families
in the developing world. Many of them, according to the International labour Organisation
(ILO), are in Asia.
ILO surveys in Ghana, India, Indonesia and Senegal found that on average
a quarter of children aged between 5-14 were working. Of these, most were 10-14, though up
to 20 per cent in Ghana and Senegal were under 10 years old.
The types of work range from domestic service, forced and bonded labour,
prostitution, industrial and plantation work to "girls' work", in which girls
work at home so that other family members can take up paid work.
WHY PICK ON CHILDREN?
Children are often the most vulnerable and helpless people in society.
They make easy targets for people who want to exploit them because
 | they are dependent on other people
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| they can easily be made to feel too afraid to complain
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| it's almost impossible for them to organise themselves to ask for
better conditions of work
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| they are by far the cheapest form of labour, costing much less than
adult workers
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| they are rarely allowed to have the protection of a trade union
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HOW EXACTLY ARE CHILDREN AFFECTED?
| Malnourished children using precious energy are susceptible to
infectious diseases.
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| Cramped working space often leads to bone deformities.
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| Assembling intricate electronic appliances can lead to damaged
eyesight.
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| Working with or near chemicals or dangerous machinery increases the
risk of serious accidents occurring.
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| Working children are deprived of the chance to go to school, which
means that they have no hope of ever doing anything other than unskilled, low-paid or
dangerous work.
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WHAT KIND OF WORK DO THEY DO?
There are five main types of work done by children:
1. Domestic work. This includes cooking and looking after
younger brothers and sisters.
2. Non-domestic work and non-paid work. This takes place mainly
on farms. Many children in poorer countries start this kind of work at the age of five or
six.
3. Tied or bonded labour. Children often have to work to pay off
the debts their parents or grandparents have built up and sometimes this continues
throughout their lives.
4. Wage-labour. This might be regular or casual, legal or
illegal, part of a family effort or on an individual basis. Marginal activities which
often take place on or near the streets. For example: "looking after" cars,
collecting rubbish, selling newspapers and shining shoes.
The worst forms of abusive work in which some children are caught up are
illegal activities, such as drug-dealing or prostitution.
WHAT IS CAFOD DOING?
CAFOD recognises that many children in developing countries have to work
in order for themselves and their families to survive. Conditions of poverty and
inequality that give rise to this situation have to be tackled as root causes of the
problem.
CAFOD believes that child labour which is exploitative, physically and
emotionally damaging, hazardous to health or limiting to children's education is wrong and
should be eliminated. CAFOD works with many local groups in developing countries trying to
tackle the root causes of poverty
THINGS TO DO
1. Devise a questionnaire to find out what
sorts of jobs are available to young people in your area. Present the results of your
survey to the rest of your school at an assembly or perhaps mount a display.
2. Find out about the laws relating to
child employment in the UK? Your local Citizens Advice Bureau will be able to help.
3. Hold a discussion or debate in your
class on the topic of child labour: Should it be banned altogether? How can governments
tackle illegal or exploitative child labour?
4. Find out more about CAFOD's Fair Deal
for the Poor campaign. You can hire or purchase a video on child labour in India from
CAFOD, Angels with dirty faces (37 minutes) �5 hire charge.
[quotes which might be used]
"The way a society treats its children
reflects not only its qualities of compassion and protective caring, but also its sense of
justice, its commitment to the future and its urge to enhance the human condition for
coming generations. This is as indisputably true of the community of nations as it is of
nations individually." (Javier Perez de Cuellar, former UN Secretary-General)
"Our society is neither sufficiently
developed nor egalitarian to afford the complete abolition of child labour. No law can
prevent this social curse when abject poverty is the order of the day." (quote from a
newspaper in Bangladesh)
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Factsheets Index,
