Definitions and Facts

In 2008 there were 215 million children working illegally in the eyes of international law, almost 14% of all the world’s children under 18. This includes 115 million children under that age engaged in "hazardous work" which could threaten their safety or health. such as handling chemicals, heavy loads or enduring long hours.

The remaining 100 million child labourers are those aged under 15 - the international minimum age for legal employment – whose tasks are not hazardous but are more substantial than “permitted light work.”

Indian children © Centre for Science and Environment

Almost all child labour occurs in developing countries, with about 60% engaged in agriculture. Other occupations include domestic service, factory production and backstreet workshops. Over 25% of children in sub-Saharan Africa and 13% in Asia remain trapped within the cycle of poverty of which child labour is part.

The darkest category of child labour relates to those children caught up in criminal activities such as prostitution, military enrolment, slavery (such as bonded labour), or trafficking (which involves the removal of a child from its home, often involving deception and payment, for a wide range of exploitative purposes).

These activities are beyond the reach of statistical surveys but the numbers are likely to be over 10 million. Together with hazardous work, they are described as the "worst forms of child labour."

The small decline in the overall incidence of child labour in the four-year reporting period to 2008 is inconclusive and disappointing. The most significant change is a 31% drop in hazardous work for children aged 14 and under, but this is countered by a 20% rise amongst the 15-17 age group. Figures are gender-sensitive for the first time and suggest that child labour amongst girls fell by 15% over the four years.

The accuracy of this child labour data is improving but is based on national surveys conducted over the period 2005-2008. The impact of the recent global economic crisis on poor households is therefore not yet reflected in the figures. It is no surprise that the Global Report 2010 warns the international community that “we will not get there with a business-as-usual approach (to child labour)."
Causes of Child Labour

Poverty is the main cause of child labour but it is a symptom as well. Poor parents send their children to work for reasons of economic expediency. But the consequent denial of education blocks the escape route from poverty for the next generation of the household.

Charikar High School, Afghanistan © Beth Bolitho

Other factors may provoke this cycle; for example, schools in poor countries are often inaccessible or prohibitively expensive, with inadequate teaching and classroom resources. Cultural pressures can undermine perception of the long term value of education, especially for girl children.

Economic setbacks arising from recession, adverse climate or conflict scenarios will therefore regenerate the supply side of the child labour equation. This has been one consequence of HIV and AIDS in Africa - household resources have been depleted by prolonged absence from work and by medical expenses. The hunting grounds for child traffickers are invariably areas of the most extreme poverty where families have exhausted all other strategies for survival.

This supply of child labour is matched by the demand of employers for a cheap and flexible workforce. This attribute appeals especially to small-scale enterprises, including those whose owners exploit their own family members.

There is perceived value in the particular skills that children’s dexterity can offer; for example in weaving or in tasks involving crop seeds. Girl children are in demand for domestic service, the invisible nature of which adds to their vulnerability to abuse. Absence from official statistics is also the fate of those girls kept away from school in order to work for their own families in the home or on the land.


Child Labour Thrives in Pakistan, from AlJazeeraEnglish
Child Labour Laws

Global political initiatives to combat child labour are initiated by the International Labour Organization (ILO). Technical support for governments, together with the production of internationally recognised statistics, is provided by the ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC).

Child labour © ILO / International Labour Organisation

The ILO has sponsored the two key instruments of international law. Firstly, the 1973 Minimum Age Convention 138 establishes the obligation for countries to work towards a minimum age of 15 for legal employment. Secondly, the 1999 Convention 182 for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour calls on governments to identify and quantify the incidence of such child labour, backed by national plans for its elimination.

The ILO aims to achieve this goal by 2016, backed by its ten-year Global Action Plan drawn up in 2006.

Countries ratifying these Conventions are committed to pass laws consistent with the provisions. Unfortunately, 11 countries had still not ratified Convention 182 as at July 2010, including India, Burma and Sierra Leone, countries with high incidence of the worst forms of child labour.

Furthermore, many countries which have ratified the Convention are failing to set themselves time-bound objectives, the essential driver for meaningful national policy initiatives. A major review published by the ILO in 2010 says that “the pace of progress is not fast enough to achieve the 2016 target."

Although almost every country has laws prohibiting the employment of children below a certain age, legislation too often proves ineffective. New laws periodically introduced in South Asia are shrugged off by hardened business owners and disillusioned campaigners alike.

Convention 182 is particularly weak on the special vulnerability of girl children. This is countered in part by extra-territorial laws that permit prosecution of citizens who sexually abuse children in another country. For example, nationals from many European countries and the US can now be charged at home for engaging a child prostitute in Thailand.
Development Solutions to Child Labour

A rights-based approach to child labour, relying on laws and their enforcement, is therefore insufficient. Broader human development interventions relevant to the underlying causes must play a role.

The fight against child labour therefore shares common ground with poverty reduction programmes, and would benefit from greater recognition by them.

The connection is most apparent in the strategy of “conditional cash transfers” (CCT), payments to poor households made on condition that children attend school and health clinics. The success of Brazil in greatly reducing the incidence of child labour is in part attributed to Bolsa Familia, recognised as the world’s largest CCT programme.

Women protest against human trafficking in Nepal © Mark Naftalin

Progress towards education for all children is the development indicator most closely linked with child labour. Every full-time student is one less potential full-time child worker. There is correlation between those countries lagging behind education targets and those in which child labour thrives, such as Pakistan and Nepal.

Unfortunately, the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for primary school enrolment aims for a total of only five years of education, far less demanding than implied by the Minimum Age Convention. Countries will be encouraged to follow the example of the Indian government which, in 2009, introduced a law backing the right of children to free and compulsory education from age 6 through to 14.

The integration of child labour concerns into national development strategies, backed by effective legislation, is therefore the preferred route to a lasting solution.
Consumer Campaigns against Child Labour

Failure to deal with child labour is an emotive issue in rich countries. Consumers are sensitive to the track record of globalisation in driving labour costs and standards to the bottom.

Disclosure of the use of child labour in a supply chain represents a major public relations disaster for both multinational companies and the host countries concerned. Even Apple, one of the world’s most respected corporations, faced a crisis in 2010 in admitting the presence of child labour in a Chinese factory producing the iPhone.

Children working in Pakistan © Manos Unidas

The 2010 World Cup re-awakened old controversies over the role of children in sewing soccer balls. Although doubts linger, the long-established partnership between ILO, the world football authority, FIFA, and factory owners in the region of Sialkot in Pakistan is generally regarded as a success.

A less convincing example is the cocoa industry in West Africa which has so far failed to meet deadlines in a longstanding attempt to certify its product. Critics say that international chocolate companies have made insufficient efforts to support poverty reduction programmes in the countries concerned. Almost 300,000 children are believed to perform hazardous work on the cocoa farms, many of them in conditions of bonded labour.

Attempts to certify goods such as chocolate as “child labour free” have struggled to establish credibility. Manufacturers in developing countries often subcontract labour-intensive segments of the product to backstreet producers which are very difficult to audit.

One of few successful certification schemes is the GoodWeave label which protects the carpet industry. Its sponsors, Rugmark International, claims that more than half a million weaving jobs previously occupied by children in South Asia have been replaced with adult labour.

There remain doubts over the effectiveness of western-inspired consumer boycotts which often result in sudden closure of factories, contributing little to address the root causes of child labour. Headlines that children have been “rescued” represent positive news only where institutional capacity exists to rehabilitate the children and assist their families in overcoming the loss of income.

Many governments respond to public opinion by introducing conditions relating to child labour in trade agreements. Both the US and EU seek to include clauses imposing labour standards or requirements to ratify child rights treaties.

Many campaigners are uncomfortable with these linkages, preferring that child labour be addressed by explicit domestic laws addressing all occupations, rather than the small print of international trade.
Child Soldiers

The recruitment of children under age 15 for military purposes is a war crime under a statute of the International Criminal Court. In 2009, the Court opened its first case with a charge for against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, a militia leader from the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2007 the war crimes court for Sierra Leone was successful in convicting three warlords for the use of child soldiers.

Children at war in DRC © Amnesty International

These landmarks are however tempered by the knowledge that children remain vulnerable in countries suffering longstanding civil conflict, in regions of extreme poverty or complete breakdown of central authority. For example, residents of camps for refugees and internally displaced persons such as those in Somalia, Sudan and Chad are particularly at risk.

The proliferation of lightweight but deadly small arms of sophisticated modern design - a child of 10 can be trained to strip down a Kalashnikov - enables a cheap, acquiescent and expendable army to be conscripted by warlords.

Despite the ending of various civil wars and release of tens of thousands of child soldiers in the period since 2004, the UN still names as many as 16 armies and groups where recruitment continues. An estimated total of up to 300,000 children are in military service, including a significant proportion of girls.

There may be as many as 70,000 child soldiers engaged by government and rebel armies in Burma, the country named as the worst offender. Rape and sexual violence are rampant, especially within groups in The Democratic Republic of Congo and amongst the Lord’s Resistance Army which was formed originally in Northern Uganda.

These countries and others are now under pressure to sign the “Optional Protocols” to the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. Drawn up in 2000, these Protocols attempt to prevent recruitment of children under 18 for hostilities.

They are supported by the 2007 Paris Commitments and Principles, a set of practical guidelines for the process of “disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration” which is particularly sensitive for children, often psychologically disturbed by violence. The UN's efforts have been supported in 2008 by tough legislation in the US governing its relationship with countries or warlords linked with the use of child soldiers.

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