Introduction
Child labour can be described any form of economic improving activity for children under the age of 12 depending on the individual state that compromises the child’s right to health, quality education and all work which would compromise the normal growth of the child.
The rights of the child under the United Nations convention on the rights of the child have not been described per se but it has left such description to particular states to come up with their own descriptions.
A review of the child labour and experience reveals four highly generalised lines of thinking that can be thought to amount to child labour.
The Labour Market Perspective
This perspective is governed by the Trade unions, industrial and employers associations who maintain that it is the responsibility of the state to keep children out of the work place until they are of the recommended age of working. They are of the view that once a child is below the minimum age he should not be allowed at the work place their reason is that employment is for adults its pressure and stress are evils which the child can not withstand.
The labour market perspective view children as completely innocent and ignorant of the world and completely unable to recognise their own interests.
Human Capital Perspective
This perspective looks at the consequences of employing children in the overall career development including the capacity and potential of every child depending on the upbringing thus if a child is employed and unable to be educated it is detrimental to the child and if a child is to work instead of going to school it is then child labour. I consider where a child would work over school holidays as not to amount to child labour.
Social Responsibility Perspective
This perspective looks at child labour in the social context rather than economic development. It defines child labour as work which exploits, alienates or opposes children and separates them from society’s normal protection. Such exclusion result from government neglect of the poor and inadequate social compassion and responsibility.
Child Centered Perspective
This has its origin from section 3 of the convention on the rights of the child which states;
“In all action concerning children, the best interest of the child shall be a primary consideration”
The perspective considers what the child says and if the child is of the view that the work given to him amount to child labour then that is child labour.
The worst form of child labour includes;
- All forms of slaver e.g. sell and trafficking of children
- Procuring and offering children for prostitution
- Procuring and offering a child for illicit activities e.g. for the production and trafficking of drugs.
- Work which by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out,
Is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of the child.
Causes Of Child Labour
Some of the demand factor for child labour includes;
- Socio economic status; the economic statue of a country if very low will encourage child labour.
- Pressure from culture where people from certain cultures do not value the rights of children and go to the extend of encouraging the child o get in activities that amount to child labour.
- Extreme source of poverty and an example would include Bangladesh where due to poverty children have been forced out of school to the working sector.
- Most countries in Africa due to the increase if AIDs most adults in the family have past away living children with no one to take care of them and this has led to such children becoming victims of child labour.
- Dysfunctional families have also due to neglect led to the increase of child labour.
- In countries like Somalia children have fallen prey of armed conflict where at an age as early as 8 years children have been trained and are competently able to use fire arms.
Child Labour In Brazil
Statistics on child labour in Brazil has shown that despite the presence of laws that have been passed to curb child labour in the country, child labour is still so rampant in the country.
Brazil has over 5000 children who are working illegally and who are said to be between the ages of 7 and 12 years of age and receiving a salary of 25 reais which is about 22.30 pounds a month. The main cause of child labour in Brazil includes;
- Poverty; in the country half of the families cannot afford three meals a day and it has been due to this high rate of poverty that has encouraged children to get in to the working sector in search of livelihood.
- Unemployment; the high rate of unemployment has led to many children opting for any source of money which includes prostitution and drug trafficking.
- Economic self interest of the companies; many companies have realised what cheap and easy labour children can provide and have taken advantage of this and resorted to employing children.
- Social cultural beliefs have also discouraged children from attending school and instead encouraged them to look for easy opportunity of making money.
Child labour Bangladesh
The degree of child labour in Bangladesh depicts the extend to which poverty can affect the rights of children. Due to lack of education and social protection children in Bangladesh have been left under the mercies of factory production and backstreet workshop employers who have come to realise that children are a cheap and flexible source of labour and have no one to fight for them.
According to UNICEF’s Asian child labour report[1999], there are forty industries in Bangladesh which use child labour often under hazardous conditions and with little regard to health and safety. In many cases children have been injured while involved in underground mining, in maritime work and while operating or cleaning machinery in motion. Child workers are regularly exposed to dangerous level of dust, glass, fumes, heat and noises.
In the country a number of children have been forced with hardly any salary or fixed salary the employer only promising a better job in future.
In such industries the majority of children are unable to write or read meaning they have not been to school or nor have they learned anything from home. Such children are thus not able to recognise their rights today as children and in future as adults.
At the place of work children are exposed to all sorts of violence which range from verbal abuses and physical abuses.
Children are also exposed to immoral adult behaviour which they risk copying into their adulthood.
Research has shown that at the age of 10 a child in the said country can completely be asked by his parents to leave school and look for work, to this parents have also taken advantage where they use children to work in order to feed the rest of the family.
Although there are laws that govern the rights of a child in such a country, such laws have merely become paper laws due to lack of enforcement and the government as much as it is aware of the in human activities that children have been subjected to it has taken no step whatsoever to ensure that such activities are done away with.
Recommendations
The international labour organisation has been of the view that to confront child labour governments must strive to introduce free and compulsory basic education so that instead of children staying at home due to school fees are encouraged to attend school.
Governments should offer some assistance where the family is too large and the parents are unable to meet the costs of the children. In china the government has discouraged overproduction by putting forth sanctions that ensure the rate of birth is low hence manageable to the family on the contrary in South Africa the government has come up with a child support fund that assist up to six children and this has discouraged high rate of birth.
Civic education; this entails educating the society on the effect of child labour and the rights of the child and mobilising the society to totally reject child labour and exploitation.
Another solution is to allow children to work in circumstances that do not violate their rights under this approach children should not be excluded from the work place but the working conditions should be improved to accommodate them.
Bibliography
Article: In Brazil, Working 10-Hour Days, a Kid Can Earn $1.50 a Week.