child labour

A young girl working in a brickyard in Victorian England, 1871. Factory owners exploited children, sometimes just five or six years of age, to work long, hard hours in poor conditions. In 1878 the first significant legislation against child labour banned the employment of children under 10 years of age and restricted the hours of those aged between 10 and 14.

Work done by children less than 15 years old. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates (1996) that there are at least 250 million child labourers aged 5–14, 150 million working on a full-time basis; in some countries 20% of child workers in rural areas are aged under 10, 5% in urban areas. Asia (excluding Japan) has an estimated 153 million child workers, Africa 80 million, and Latin America (including the Caribbean) some 17.5 million (1996). However, the estimated incidence of child labour is largest in Africa, at approximately 41% of all 5–14 year olds (two out of five children), compared with 21% in Asia (one in five), and 17% in Latin America (one in six). Child labour in Asia is declining as a result of growth in income per head, the spread of basic education, and a reduction in the size of families. In Africa and Latin America, however, it is increasing owing to rapid population growth and lowering standards of living. Child labour also exists in richer industrialized countries in seasonal activities, street trades, farming, or small workshops, and in those regions moving towards a market economy, such as Eastern Europe. More than two-thirds of all child labour is found in the agricultural sector. In the UK, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) estimated that some 500,000 schoolchildren were working illegally in 2001. In the USA the growth of the service sector, the rapid increase in the supply of part-time jobs, and the search for a more flexible workforce have contributed to the expansion of the child-labour market. In the 1990s there was a major international effort to end child labour.

Nine out of ten working children are engaged in agricultural or related activities. World attention, however, focuses on children in developing countries employed in manufacturing and export industries such as textiles, clothing, carpets, and footwear, where hours are long and working conditions hazardous to their health and safety, and where their labour is cheaper than that of adults. Children employed as wage earners account for a small percentage of working children. Most hand their earnings over to their parents and their work is often essential to the household.

More boys than girls work. Girls, however, tend to work more hours, especially those employed as domestic workers. Girls working as domestic servants away from their homes are frequently victims of abuse. Statistical surveys usually fail to account for full-time housework performed by many children, the vast majority of whom are girls. Prostitution is another type of activity in which children, especially girls, are increasingly found. It is estimated (1996) that more than a million girls and boys aged 17 and younger are engaged in prostitution in Asia, particularly in South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines. The fear of AIDS is aggravating the problem by driving customers to younger children.

Child labour first became an issue in the USA in the 1850s when poor children, some as young as six or seven, were sent by their parents to large industrial cities, such as New York, to earn their keep and contribute to the household economy. Working as scavengers, street sweepers, ‘bootblackers’, and newspaper vendors, they worked on the streets and often fell into gambling, prostitution, and theft. Children also worked in glass factories, textile mills, and coal mines. By 1870 there were 750,000 workers under 15 in the USA, not including family farms or businesses. As numbers rose numerous organizations, such as the National Child Labor Committee (1904), worked to eliminate child labour. In 1916 the Keating–Owen Act banned articles produced by child labour from interstate commerce and in 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act required employers to pay child labourers the minimum wage and announced a minimum age of 16, and 18 if the occupation was hazardous. Child labour remains a problem in the USA today, especially among migrant farm workers.

History Child labour was one of the biggest scandals in 19th-century Britain. Orphans, and children whose parents could not support them, were known as ‘pauper children’ and under the English Poor Laws, local governments were obliged to arrange apprenticeships for them to learn a trade and be cared for. Thousands, however, were sent to distant mills or sold to a mill owner by their parents. Others lived with their families and supplemented the family income. Thousands of children under ten, some as young as five, were employed by textile factories and mines, and forced to work in hazardous conditions, with little pay and sometimes for up to 16 hours a day. One of the most effective attacks on child labour came from Charles Dickens's book Oliver Twist 1837. The first child-labour legislation was passed in England in 1802, but it only applied to pauper apprentices and was not enforced. The Factory Acts, passed in 1819, 1825, 1833, 1844, and 1878 gradually enforced inspections, shortened hours, and raised the age at which children could work. The ILO was created in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles and adopted a Convention prohibiting work in industry by children under 14. In 1973 its Minimum Age Convention obliged the 138 countries that ratified it to raise the minimum age of employment. In 1991 the ILO launched the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), a major global offensive. Its priority is to prevent children from working in hazardous or otherwise abusive conditions. In 1998 it launched a five-year survey into the worst forms of child labour to cover at least 50 countries.

Risks to children The most widespread risk to children working excessive hours is the inability to benefit from education; opportunities for future employment increasingly depend on literacy and other skills. Girls are especially at risk as they usually work longer hours than boys, often engaged in both economic and household tasks. The greater burden placed on girls may help explain their generally lower rate of school attendance and completion. Much of the work children do is also dangerous. In traditional subsistence farming systems, children face not only the risk of accident but also long hours, work that is too heavy for them, and exposure to the elements and to toxic chemicals. Some occupations can cause psychological and social problems, especially in domestic services where girls work long hours among unloving adults and in isolation from family and friends.

Concerns about the use of child labour were fuelled in 1994 by the case of Iqbal Masih, a 12-year-old Pakistani boy who had been sold by his parents at the age of four to a carpet manufacturer. Shackled to a loom much of the time to prevent him from fleeing, he suffered from a form of dwarfing brought about by his living conditions. At age ten he escaped and then organized efforts to educate other children about their rights; his efforts led to the liberation of hundreds of other children. He received the Reebok Human Rights Youth In Action Award in 1994. He was shot in his home town in April 1995.

Child slavery Many employers exercise rights of ownership over a child, where the child is treated as an asset that can be exchanged. In debt bondage, a child is the collateral for a debt. Parents may also exchange a child for a sum of money described as an advance on wages. A large number of child slaves are found in agriculture, domestic situations, the carpet and textile industries, quarrying and brick making, and in the sex industry.

Poverty and child labour Poverty is the greatest single reason why children work. The need to keep all family members working also prevents parents investing in their children's education. Even if education is free, books and supplies are expensive, and when a child goes to school instead of working, the family also loses income. Many children work to earn the money to pay for their schooling; 50–70% of child workers combine school and work (1996). Poor households also tend to have more children, and family size is known to affect whether children work. Policies limiting family size have a beneficial effect on reducing child labour and improving school attendance. Child labour aggravates poverty because it is harmful to the educational development of children. It may also increase poverty by increasing the unemployment of adults, but conversely, many women are able to enter the job market because their children assume responsibility for domestic tasks. Many farmers and small entrepreneurs maintain their enterprises by relying on the unpaid work of their children. Countries using child labour may also gain an advantage in international trade over those that are more strict; in the UK, thousands of footwear workers have lost their jobs as imports undercut UK manufacturers.

Solutions Efforts to eliminate child labour include statistical surveys to provide an accurate picture of the situation so that effective policies and programmes can be developed, and legislation and enforcement measures introduced. Eliminating child labour from one industry may not solve the problem, as children may transfer to other activities that are just as harmful. Efforts to eliminate child labour have therefore concentrated on providing subsidies to replace the income from child labour, and to help cover school expenses. Attention has also focused on consumer boycotts and trade sanctions to discourage the demand for child workers. The US and European System of Preferences, for example, discourages the use of child labour, and the Harkin Bill, (in Congress in 1996) aims at banning the import into the USA of goods produced by children. The threat of sanctions has led some countries to develop industry codes of conduct. Many Indian carpets, for example, now come with a label to show that production has not involved child labour. Such negative sanctions may, however, deprive families of income and drive children into more hazardous occupations such as prostitution.