Doing some household chores is not child labour. Nor is work that does not affect the health of a child and their personal development. It is even so that working is not that bad for children. They might actually benefit from learning how to work and gaining responsibility. But when do you call it child labour? What kind of aspects does the kind of work they do, have to have to call it child labour?
The term ‘child labour’ is often defined as work that divests children of their childhood. And according to ILO conventions, the description of child labour is: “Work that children should not be doing because they are too young to work, or – if they are old enough to work – because it is dangerous or otherwise unsuitable for them.” Another definition of child labour is that children till the age of 15 need to work the whole day. And if children are doing some work to earn some pocket money, you will not call it child labour because they will still have time to do other things, it is voluntary and it is not bad for their health.
But there is an other story when they have to work the whole day, can not go to school and do not have any free time. Whereby they can not learn or play, like any other child, but instead of that they need to carry out heavy, monotonous and dangerous work. Some of those are: housekeeping, in the countryside and in factories. This is harmful to their health, growing up and to their physical and mental development. Besides that there is a huge risk of getting injured, becoming sick or even worse, dying.
Not only is the work that they are doing dangerous for them, they also work at least 9 hours a day and mostly 7 days a week. And making it even worse most of them do not even get paid for the work they are doing, only 1 in 5 children get a compensation of about one euro. And that is what they have to get through the day which is not enough for them. These things are factors to call the work done by children, child labour. Still it is difficult to explain child labour and there is no universally accepted definition of it.
Why does child labour exist?
Even though there are laws against child labour, it still exist. The question is: why does it exist? We will not look whether it is good or bad but what the reasons are for the existence of child labour.
There are a lot of different reasons for using child labour and the main reason is:
Poverty:
Child labour originates from poverty. Children have to work, to support their family or to support themselves. If they do not, there is not enough money for food, housing or clothes because the parents have a low income. But even when the parents and children are working, there is not enough money and the reason for that is that the children earn only a little. Although they do not see the vicious circle. The family is poor so the children have to work. Because of this the…
…children can not go to school:
The children can not go to school out lack of money. They do not have the money to pay the school fee, school uniforms and books. Not only is the education expensive, the school can also be too far away from where they live. Another reason is that the parents think that the children need to work for the family income. And that is a big problem. A good system where the parents would be obligated to send their kids to school, would help against child labour. But unfortunately, the countries where child labour exist the most, do not have a strong and stable government. So they go to work instead of school. Hereby they will not be educated and because of this, later they will not be able to get good jobs. They will not earn enough money and the vicious circle starts again.
Demand for child labour:
A lot of companies want to have higher profit. Using child labour is one of the reasons why that is possible. Children are cheaper and obedient, they do not complain about work conditions, do not make demands and they want to make long working days. All these things provide higher profit and that is what the employers want. They also use child labour because they want to produce their products as cheap as possible because there is a lot of rivalry between international companies from Europe and America. To keep the prices low they set up their companies in the low-income countries. The customer wants to pay low for his products and it requires child labour to make those products as cheap as possible.
Rapid population growth:
The increase of the population leads to the increase of child labour. The families with a lot of children, sent their kids to work. They do that because they need the money to take care of their children. So again it is a vicious circle. There is child labour, increasing of the population leads to lack of money to take care of the kids, so they will have to work to support himself and that leads to child labour. And you see in the two figures below that especially in Africa the population strongly is growing. That might be a big concern seeing how much child labour is used in Africa. This growth can reinforce that.
Bounded labour:
When the parents make debts usually their children have to work to pay those debts off. But what mostly happens is that the children become property of those who the parents lend money. This bounded labour is forbidden but
especially in India they still use it.
War:
War is also one of the reasons. It destroys families, parents are killed and children are left behind. They are put in orphanages, can not go to school to learn or play. So what they will do is seek work. They become a child soldier or they are just going to work in factories.
And unfortunately a lot of people find it normal that child labour is still be used and that children do not go to school. It is something that is going on for so long that a lot of people do not see the seriousness and danger of it. But what is even worse, is the people who do see it close their eyes for it. “Child labour exist because we allow it to exist.”
“We know it does exist, still we close our eyes. We think when we do not see it, it is not there. But we forget that it is not about what we see but what they see.”
How and when did child labour originate?
Many people think that child labour originated in the industrial revolution while actually that is not the case. It existed long before the industrial revolution even started. Child labour started in the form of child slavery in Egypt and Greece. In those early ages of our history mankind did not find child slavery something that was wrong. And there are some reasons for that. One is that slavery in particularly was not looked badly upon. The other is that they did not value the importance of education.
But in 1780 and 1840s, there was a massive increase of child labour. It was common for children to find work in the factories, during the industrial revolution. The exploitation of child labour was very important for the economy in the 19th century. Children were cheap and could get in small places where grown men could not. Children were also easy to control. They would not quickly complain about there work because they did not yet have a will of their own. They were easy to manipulate.
During the Industrial Revolution people also started to recognise the importance of education. Only children from wealthy families got education in that time. Education was expensive and it took time. Time that people from the lower classes did not have. They were severely underpaid and because of this they had to work every minute that they could to get money to pay for there food. People from the lower classes could not improve there lives because they did not have the basic education like reading and writing.
The factories kept employing children, even when countries made a law against children who worked under the age of 9. The factories got away with it because it was very hard to check if the children were above the age of 9.
In the Netherlands the first law against child labour was “het Kinderwetje van Van Houten”. On September 19, 1874 Samual van Houten thought of this law where children under the age of 12 were forbidden to work in factories or workplaces.This law was almost never checked up on, so child labour was still used in the factories. That is why in 1882 there was the Labour inspection. They started controlling the factories whether the law was upheld. The ones who did not uphold the law, would get a fine or even jail time.
In 1901 there came a public education law. Children from the age of 6 to 12 were obliged to attend school. In 1969 the age was prolonged to 15 and in 1975 it was prolonged to 16.
In the United Kingdom they started 40 years earlier with coming up with a solution for child labour. In 1833 the Factory Act was enforced. The Factory Act forbade the employment of children under the age of 9 and limited the hours that children between nine and 13 could work. Textile factories were obliged to provide two hours of education daily for children under the age of 13. Further laws limiting child labour in factories were introduced in 1844, 1847, 1850, 1853, 1867. After 1887 employment under the age of 8 was forbidden, and employees between the age of 8 and 13 were to receive at least 10 hours of education a week.In 1870 the Education Act was inforced. It had brought huge changes. The Act had put in the building blocks for a free and compulsory education system. And in France the system was the same as in the United Kingdom.
Chapter 2
Rights and forms of child labour
What kind of child labour are there?
There are a lot of different forms of child labour. From things like working on the street and mines to working as a child soldier or prostitute. We have made a list with the most common and worst forms of it with an explanation why they use children for these kind of work.
Textile sector
Little kids have small hands which makes it easy to sew, embroider, bobbins and weave. They can, because of their tiny hands, do their work easier and more precise. This kind of child labor is especially used in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Nepal.
But not only is it a big problem that they are using children for this kind of work, the circumstances are also terrible. In 2010 and 2012 150 people died when a fire broke out in a factory in Bangladesh . After the deadliest factory fire in 2012 the director of Walmart were going to pay more for clothing in order to help Bangladesh factories improve safety standards.
However, in 2013 eight people were killed again caused by a broke out fire. To make sure that the effort to improve safety were being coordinated, they started a program in 2014, called “Accord on Fire and Building Safety.”
The circumstances are still very unhealthy and bad but they are trying to make it better and there is an improvement.
Sexual exploitation
Child prostitution has been defined by the UN as "the act of engaging or offering the services of a child to perform sexual acts for money or other consideration with that person or any other person". Millions of children prostitute themselves worldwide every year.
Children, mostly girls, are forced to have sexual intercourse with strangers, are being mistreated, abused and used for personal gain and profit, by involving them in prostitution or commercial sexueal activity. Besides that, they are also used by adults for pornography and sexual performance. The children are forced in differents ways into these activities. They are being bought, sold into marriage, prostitution or slavery. And if that is not terrible enough, they are also kidnapped and trafficked across borders, sold to be prostitutes in foreign countries. But even worse, sometimes the parents are selling their children because they will get a lot of money for and these kids are mostly ending up in the prostitution.
This kind of child labor is one of the worst forms. The consequences are very serious and dangerous for the children. They get easily sexually transmitted diseases and because of the lack of medicine, therefore is a high chance that they die.
The top five countries with the highest rate of child prostitution are: Sri Lanka, Thailand, Brazil, US and Canada.
Mining Industry
This kind of work belongs among the category: worst forms of child labor. The reason that it belongs there is because of the dangerous environment in which the children have to deal with. They are risking death or injury from tunnel collapses, accidental explosions or rocks falls.
And unfortunately, many children are working in this industry. There are different kinds of mining like gold mining, salt mining, stone quarrying etc. which is mostly found in Africa, Asia and South-America.
These are all very dangerous for the health and growth of the children. They work above and under the ground and both have their own riskiness.
Gold mining under the ground ensures air filled with dust and toxic gases. Breathing this is very harmful to their health. Above the ground they have to dig, crush, mill, all these kind of activities while standing under the hot sun.
The danger of salt mining is that it is corrosive which causes skin on the hands to crack and discolouration of the irir that can damage the vision. And the stone quarrying will create lopsided growth in children. But they have to do it. The money they earn is not much but it will make the difference between eating and not eating.
Domestic work
You would think that this is not such a “bad” form of child labour. Wrong. Domestic work is also one of the worst forms. The reason for that is quite simple. The children in domestic work are below the minimum age and have to work around twelve hours a day, seven days in a week and if they are lucky, they earn around 11 dollars a month. They work in a house of a third party or employer in hazardous conditions or in a slavery-like situation. One of the reasons why they use kids for this kind of work is that a lot of them are not going to school. It is very easy to send them to work for things like cleaning and cooking because that is not very difficult for them to do.
Surprisingly according to Human Rights Watch, some of the girls have declared that they do not mind working. The only problem they have is that they are physically abused, overworked and can not go to school.
But it is way more than that, domestic work is a matter of serious concern. The children come in contact with stuff which are very bad for their health and the tasks which should not be done by children. Examples are: use of toxic chemicals for cleaning, using dangerous items like knives and hot pans for cooking, having to work long a tiring working days, physical and sexual abuse etc.
A lot of children are locked away and only used for household tasks when necessary. This is the reason why it is so hard to control if this child labour is used. And because of this they have no access to education which prevent them to learn, grow and play like any other child.
Street work
Maybe you have one time experience this: you are on vacation and suddenly you see little kids running up to you asking for money or offering you different kind of things. This phenomenon is called street work and usually takes place in the city. These children have not much and are just trying to survive by selling products like cigarettes or doing some favor, like washing your car so they will have a little money as income. Most of them are also living on the streets.
Things like school seems impossible for them and it is regrettably because they are earlier and easier in contact with drugs and sex.
They have to grow up fast while they are still kids.
Child soldiers
This kind of child labour is one of the worst and used the most. The reason for that is that there are in so many countries armed conflicts. To get an amount of people willing to fight in those conflict is pretty difficult. So what do they do? Kidnapping children and forcing them to fight. It is very easy to brainwash little kids. Telling them that it is okay to kill people very often, and they will believe you. And they are children so they easily obey to the officers of the military.
The worst is: they literally have to give their lives. They may fight on the front lines, participate in suicide missions, they have to build mines, make bombs, and act as spies or lookouts. All of these activities can lead to serious injuries, physically and mentally and there is a big chance they die. But they will never survive the war, because they will be traumatized forever.
Luckily there are so many organizations against this type of child labour. A lot of them are very actively fighting against it through actions and protests.
I (Naiema) have also experienced a actions against child soldiers. This was done by 538 For War Child in 2013. They came here in Den Bosch where artists were performing and revealing the amount of money they had collect. It was a lovely experience and it made me think of the current situation. While we are safe here, there are thousands of children serving as soldiers in armed conflict around the world. I also made a video and believe me it is worth watching! Unfortunately it is not very good quality but it is good enough to see what is going on.
http://youtu.be/Cd3T-pRJPi0
Agriculture
Children have to work on plantations, rice fields, cornfield etc. Tasks as farming, fishing, aquaculture, forestry and livestock are also part of agriculture. Not only does this harm to their body but because they are also in contact with pesticides against insects which are very dangerous for them.
The work-related fatalities, non-fatal accidents, occupational diseases (thanks to the pesticides), operation of heavy machinery and sharp cutting instruments pose major threats to the minors. One of the reasons why there are so many children working in this sector is because of the inadequate agriculture technology. That is why it all has to be done with handwork and children are perfect for this. Besides that, the context of family farming is another reason. Mostly the parents have a large piece of land which they use for living. But to make this bearable the children (often) have to help. Helping in small-scale fisheries and livestock and husbandry does not mean it is bad. Some participation of children can create a positive effect on the intergenerational transfer of skills and children’s food security. So it is very important to make the difference between agriculture that do harm the child and which do not. The difference is not that difficult. Does the work they do prevent them from education and does it damages health and personal development? Than you can say that the agriculture sector is a form of child labor.
Trafficking
“Child trafficking is about taking children out of their protective environment and preying on their vulnerability for the purpose of exploitation.”
“Child trafficking is the illegal trading (buying, selling and movement) of children for labour or sexual exploitation. Children are trafficked for many reasons, including forced labour, prostitution and recruitment as child soldiers and beggars.”
The quotes above are two definitions given by ILO about child trafficking. This type of child labor is characterized nu environments that are unacceptable, the treatment grossly violates the human right of the children and besides that also very dangerous for the health and development of the child. I already mentioned a couple of reasons why the children are used for trafficking but there are many more like, camel jockeying (very populair in Bangladesh), commercial sexual exploitation and prostitution, drug couriering and child soldiering.
Child trafficking is a serious world problem. Aforetime, not very people were aware of this issue but luckily is it becoming more visible every day. People are realizing what there is really going on and are protesting against it. An example is the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC). This programme works with the governments, workers and employers to fight the child trafficking.
Unfortunately there are still every year about two million children being traded.
What kind of rights do children have?
Children have a lot of rights, 40 to be exact. You can find these in the Convention on the Rights of the Children. These rights are important because children are very vulnerable. Children depend so much on there parents, but when there parents can not provide for them the way they should, then the government has to help them so the children can have a healthy and normal childhood. But these rights are not always complied.
Article 3: Interest of the child
All decisions made concerning children, have to be made with the child's best interest. But is not the case with children who work. They have to work hours that are too long for them, they do not get enough food, some of the work that they do is physically bad for them and they do not get a good education so that they have a future.
Article 11: Child abduction
Children have the right to be protected against child abduction abroad. The government shall take measures to make sure that the child returns from abroad. It happens a lot between parents were one of them is from another country. When they break up one of them could go back to their own country and take their child with them without that the other parent knows. Not all governments in the poor countries work together with the other goverment to get the child back.
Article 13: Freedom of speech
Everyone, children and adults have freedom of speech. They can have their own opinion but they can also tell your opinion to others. Nobody may hurt you for your own opinion. They could feel insulted, hurt or discriminated but the may not hurt you. But in countries that are corrupt you could be arrested for your own opinion or killed. Especially in countries that are poor.
Article 23: Children with a handicap
Children with a physically or mentally handicapped have the right to special care. The government has to do everything in its power to ensure that the child has an equal and an so independent life as possible. The child has to be as active in society as possible. But the poor countries do less to nothing to provide for these children. It is so extreme that these children are left on the street to fend for himself or even killed. The parent can not take care of them and they know that children with a handicap can not work to earn money for food. There are some organisations that take these children in but they are small and do not have that much money for all the children on the streets.
Article 24: Healthcare
Children have the right to the best possible health care and healthcare Facilities. Children in poor countries die of diseases that could be easily avoided. That is why rich countries have to help the poor countries with health care, so that all children have the same odds.
Your parents are responsible for you and also decide for you what is best for you. But when a child turns 12 years old it has the right to co-decide in their own health.
The government also has to protect children against harmful traditional practices like circumcision of girls in Africa. It can be done in different ways, but they are all painful and can lead to death. These practices are done without sedation and non sterile tools. These practices are still done in some countries in Africa.
There are a lot of things that can lead to child labour. Because of this the UN has made up several rights that will help to prevent that every child has no choice. Every child should have a choice about what he would like to do in their future. Below I have worked out four rights. If these rights were to be complied than it would be a lot easier to prevent child labour.
Article 18: Responsibility of parents
All parents are responsible for their children until they turn 18. The parents have to put the child's interest first. The government has to help these parent by giving child support or to provide childcare. The government also has to protect the child if it has it bad growing up.
But this is not the case in poor countries. The government does nearly nothing to help the children in any kind of way. The parents do not get child support and because of this parents have to work night and day to get money to pay for food. But because the children can not stay at home alone they go with their parents, so they can also earn a little money. If the children are working they can not go to school, if they can not go to school they will not learn the basic things like reading and writing. Now they always have to do hard labour work, but that does not pay well. And when they have children of their own the whole cycle will start over again.
Article 20: Children without parental care
Children that can not stay at their own homes, has the right on special protection. The government has to provide for alternative childcare, like a foster home or a children's home. This is very hard to provide in poor countries. There is not enough money to support children homes and it is very hard to get people to give their family up for fostering. Most of the population is poor so they can not take in a child and provide for it. And the people who are rich try not to get involved with the poor. So all the children who live on the street because the have a bad home or are kicked out of it, have to fend for themselves on the streets. They try to work a little here and there so that they have a little money, but that money can be stolen and then they have nothing.
Article 27: Standard of living
Every child has the right on a standard of living that is sufficient enough to his or her development. Your parents have to provide for that, but the government helps with that. In the Netherlands this is well taken care of. But there are children that live under the poverty line. These children have it a little harder than the rest of the children in the Netherlands. But in comparison with children that live in poor countries under the poverty line have it much harder. Some of the children do not even have a roof above their heads and can not eat every day because they have no money. The Convention on the Rights of the Children states that the rich countries have a duty to help these children.
Families who are illegally in a country are not able to work there. And without work they can not make any money to provide for their family. But this is contrary to what is said in the Convention on the Rights of Children.
Article 28: Education
Every child has the right to education. Elementary school is for every child free and mandatory. The government has to make sure that there are no early school leavers. The discipline on school has to be carried out in a human way, not like 50 years ago that you got a slap on you fingers with a wooden ruler. But because poor countries can not always provide this, there has to be international cooperation to prevent illiteracy. Even with all this help there are still children that are not going to school. School provides a lot of changes for children, not only will the have an education that could get them uit of the poverty that they live in, but it also is a escape from all the problems that these children have to deal with at such a young age. They enjoy school, make friends, laugh and more that we take for granted.
The UN has also made rights to protect children from any kind of child labour. These rights are made so that children have a future without working full-time and in dangerous work conditions.
Article 19: Protection against child abuse
Children have the right to be protected from any kind of child abuse, physically and mentally or neglect. The government has to do everything they can to prevent that this will happen. There are many kinds of child abuse. A child can be physically hurt by their parents or guardians, but some children are mentally abused instead of physically. They are children who are being yelled at and belittled by their parents. This can be very bad for their own image of themselves. They will think that they are worth nothing and that everyone hates them just because their own parents are that way. It is very important that children talk about these things so that they will know that it is not normal.
Child labour is also a form of child abuse. The children have to work to long hours and work mostly in bad conditions. They are also withheld from a education and a social life. It is very hard to make friends or to play if you have to work all day.
Article 32: Protection against child labour
Children have the right to be protected from economic exploitation and against work that is dangerous and harmful for their health and will hindrance their upbringing. That is why the government has to enforce a minimum age and custom work hours and working conditions. But it is not that working is not good for children, a little is good as long it does not interfere with school. It will teach you responsibility and you will become more independent. But in the poor countries parents rely on their children to earn money so child labour can not be totally banned, not yet anyway. If the government would make sure that poverty in these countries will be reduced and the adults would have a normal salary so that they can take care of their children and do not have to rely on them. Richer countries have to help the poorer countries or it will be a very difficult task.
Article 33: Protection against drugs
Children have the right to be protected against drug use. The government has to take measures so that children will not be used to make or sell drugs.
As you can see in the United States but also in other countries, are children selling drugs on the streets. Children will not be easily thought of as drug dealers, that is why the big drug dealers use them. They will not be easily caught. But also children that make drugs come in very dangerous circumstances. The drugs are made of gemicalen that are very bad for humans, certainly for children.
Article 34: Sexuele abuse
Every Child has the right to be protected against sexual abuse and sexual exploitation. The government has to do everything that they can to prevent child prostitution and child pornography. In poor countries are a lot of children that are in the prostitution or are being abused by family members. Child prostitution is also a form of child labour and it is also the worst. Children who have run away from their families or orphaned are easily trapped in the world of prostitution. There are even countries in Asia where men pay a lot for a girls virginity like in the Philippines. But there are also children that move from the countryside to the city where they hope to get a job to help their family, but they mostly end up in the prostitution. Child prostitution continues to grow because of the tourists that come to these countries to have sex. If people travel to other countries to have sex with children it called child sex tourism.
Article 35: Trafficking in children
Children have the right to be protected against abduction and human trafficking. The government has to make sure that children will not be abducted, sold or traded. A lot of children are brought to the city or even sometimes to another country to be forced to work. A lot of them are from poor families who have been told that they were off to a better life. Often that is not the case. Most of the children that are abducted will be locked in a room where they are forced to have sex with adults.
Article 36: Other forms of exploitation
All children have the right to be protected against any form of exploitation that is in any way harmful of the child’s welfare. This means that adults may not profit of children.
Comparing of countries where child labour exist and why there?
Child labour still occur all over the world. We wish this is not the case but unfortunately, it is. The global number of children in child labour has been declined since 2000, from 246 million to 168 million. But according to Maplecroft are child labour risks rising around the world. The two pictures below shows the decline of child labour and the rating of child labor risk across the world
Here's a map of the declining of child labour.
And here's a map of child labor risk across the world.
As you can see in the picture there are a lot of countries who have a extreme risk of using child labour. It had been declined in 2000 but regrettably the risks of child labour are rising in 2012.
Even though there is still child labour in Europe yet we are going to talk about the top ten countries where child labour is used the most with the worst forms of it. We made a list with those countries where we collected information about the work the children so, why they are doing it, what the Government of that country is doing against it and how much they earn. (If that is relevant)
10. Ethiopia
In this country has been the worst forms of child labour detected. The Government of Ethiopia made a number of efforts to improve the laws against this. Yet the children still have to deal with child labour including agriculture, farm hands or miners and even worst forms like domestic work.
Besides that, nearly 60 per cent of the children have to work to increase the family income but what they earn isn’t even that much, about a dollar a month. If the Government want to do something about that they will have to work hard for it.
Fortunately, the International Rescue Committee is also working on the child labour in Ethiopia by offering educational opportunities to children with no access to schooling. The project, know as the KURET, what stands for Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia Together, tries to give children Alternative Basic Education so that there is a possibility for them to learn.
9. Pakistan
Also in Pakistan you will see the worst forms of child labour. But the Balochistan Provincial Government enacted legislation mandating free and compulsory education for children ages 5 to 16. To make it bearable for the parents of the children, the Government had distributed free books in primary schools. This will stimulate the parents to send their kids to school and to stop the child labour, which is really necessary. But even after they did that, there are still children in Pakistan who are rented, bought and sold. Child labour in the agriculture and other horrible kinds of forms are still be found in Pakistan.
Even the famous brand Nike has been accused for using child labour from Pakistan for the production of soccer balls. And unfortunately the Provincial Government does not have the ability to enforce laws prohibiting child labour and those laws are universally ignored.