Child Labor

Child labor is a pervasive problem throughout the world, especially in developing countries. Africa and Asia together account for over 90 percent of total child employment. Child labor is especially prevalent in rural areas where the capacity to enforce minimum age requirements for schooling and work is lacking. Children work for a variety of reasons, the most important being poverty and the induced pressure upon them to escape from this plight. Though children are not well paid, they still serve as major contributors to family income in developing countries. Schooling problems also contribute to child labor, whether it be the inaccessibility of schools or the lack of quality education which spurs parents to enter their children in more profitable pursuits. Traditional factors such as rigid cultural and social roles in certain countries further limit educational attainment and increase child labor. Slavery, debt bondage, trafficking, sexual exploitation, the use of children in the drug trade and in armed conflict, as well as hazardous work are all can describe the worst forms of child labor.

Child labor is the employment of children for economic gain. The term is most commonly used to mean the employment of minors at the expense of their health, education, or well-being. (New Standard Encyclopedia)

OF ALL the alleged sins of globalisation, child labour has been among the most scorned. Few people in rich countries (though not all, see page 49) like to think that their cheap clothes, toys and handbags have been made by workers who ought to be in schools or playgrounds. This dismay is usually genuine, but it has also been exploited by anti-globalisation activists to popularise their cause. Anti-globalisers have been joined recently by some of America's Democratic presidential candidates, who have cited child labour as a reason why America should reconsider its free-trade agreements with poor countries. The idea that these countries might be exploiting children is more disturbing than the highly debatable claim that poor labour standards for adults in the third world are unfair. Moral indignation has been used to advocate wrong-headed economic policies

One of the more credible critics of child labour, and the leader in the fight to enforce bans on the practice, has been the International Labour Organisation (ILO), a United Nations agency. On the ILO's analysis, the cost of ending child labour, by creating enough school places and replacing the lost income that children provide to their families, would be around $760 billion over the next 20 years, only about 7% of America's annual GDP. But the benefits, says the ILO, might be as much as seven times as large, when the gains of increased human capital, better health and fewer lives lost due to work accidents are considered. (Sickness or symptom? Economist, 2/7/2004, Vol. 370 Issue 8361, p73, 1p, 1c; (AN 12192447))

The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 250 million children between the ages of five and fourteen in developing countries qualify as child laborers, with at least 120 million working full time. Sixty-one percent are in Asia, 32 percent in Africa, and 7 percent in Latin America. Their work varies, from helping with the family farm to performing physically demanding tasks in manufacturing, construction, and extractive industries.These unfortunate children work long hours, often in unhealthy conditions. Many use hazardous pesticides or chemicals; others use dangerous tools and machines. Denied an education and a normal childhood, many of them are confined and beaten, reduced to a state of slavery. This sort of child labor creates lasting physical and psychological wounds and constitutes a grave violation of human rights.( Combating the Worst Forms of Child Labor in Bolivia. By: Henne, Kurt; Moseley, David. Human Rights: Journal of the Section of Individual Rights & Responsibilities, Winter2005, Vol. 32 Issue 1, p12, 4p; (AN 15852036) )

India has the biggest child-labor problem in the world. There are about sixty million child laborers in the country--more than 20 percent of the total child population. They toil in factories, making matches and locks, and in restaurants and private households. Many live like slaves According to a 1996 Human Rights Watch report, as many as fifteen million children in India are bonded laborers, paying off debts their parents or guardians have incurred. (A trek against child labor. By: Pal,