THE WORK OF OTHERS

CHILD LABOUR

General Information

➢ The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as anyone below the age of 18.

➢ The International Trade Union Confederation defines Child labour as “work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development.”

➢ It refers to work that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children and/or interferes with their schooling, that is, they are not able to attend school, must leave school prematurely, or have to combine school with long hours of work

➢ So, when determining whether work is child labour, you need to look at the child’s age, the work that is performed, the working conditions, as well as the objectives of the worker.

➢ The International Labour Organization (ILO), a UN specialized agency, reports that in 2004 there were 218 million child labourers between the ages of 5 and 17, with 126 million performing hazardous work.

➢ UNICEF estimates that there are 158 m children working between the ages of 5 and 14, that is 1 in 6 in the world.

➢ Many children are victims of forced or bonded labour (trafficking and debt arrangement)

Where do we find child labour?

➢ We can find child labour probably in all countries, but it is prominent in certain regions.

o The Asia-Pacific region has the largest number of child labourers (122 million) o Sub-Saharan Africa (49.3 million) o Latin America and the Caribbean (5.7 million).

➢ The highest proportion of children working is sub-Saharan Africa

On a positive note, the ILO reports that between 200 and 2004 there has been an 11% decrease in the working children between the ages of 5 and 17. In hazardous work there has been a decline of 26%. The greatest decline in child labour has occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean, but Asia has