In 1989, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) within which Article 32 asserts the right that children should not be engaged in work deemed to be "hazardous or to interfere with the child's education, or to be harmful to the child's health". Global political initiatives to respect these rights, together with the production of internationally recognised statistics, are coordinated by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) which has allied its mission with the cause. For example, the ILO aims to achieve by 2016 the objective of its 1999 Convention 182 for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour, encouraging countries to have timebound plans in place by 2008.

Countries ratifying these conventions are committed to providing laws which enforce the provisions. Similar rights to children's education backed by laws serve to reinforce child labour legislation. Every full-time student is one less full-time child worker. Unfortunately, more than 10 countries have still not ratified the ILO convention, notably India where child labour remains stubbornly widespread. India government estimates concede the existence of over 12 million child labourers but civil society organisations put the figure at over 100 million. A major review published by the ILO in 2007 says of the 2016 global objective that “it is clear that this ambitious target will not be achieved by business as usual”, urging the worldwide movement to “re-energize” itself.

Although almost every country has laws prohibiting the employment of children below a certain age, legislation too often fails to close the door on child labour. For example, it may exempt certain sectors - often the very sectors where the highest numbers of working children are found - or its penalties for violating child labour laws are inadequate. And probably the most common obstacle to adequate legal protection for children is the fact that legislation is not enforced. For example, in 2006 India strengthened its laws by extending the definition of hazardous work to include domestic labour and catering establishments but there is virtually no evidence of enforcement.

Convention 182 is particularly weak on the special vulnerability of girl children. The worst form of exploitation of girls is being fought 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.

A rights-based approach which relies on laws and their enforcement is insufficient in isolation because child labour is a dynamic feature of complex social and economic conditions. For example, authorities in India occasionally engineer police raids on suspect factories creating headlines that children have been “rescued”. But such actions will be ineffective in the absence of institutional capacity to rehabilitate the children.

Laws need to be complemented with development programmes which tackle the underlying causes of child labour and which recognise the practical difficulties in reintegration of children into formal education. Development agencies are also now more likely to acknowledge that children themselves should be consulted on the issues – for example many children are anxious to find ways of combining education with the economic expediency of helping their families.

The integration of child labour concerns into national development strategies, backed by effective legislation, is therefore the preferred route to a lasting solution. Reduction of chronic poverty through broad-based economic and social development, will create the platform for fundamental change in cultural attitudes towards children.

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