The Social Evil of Child Labour

Child labor condemns millions of children around the world to a life of servitude. Children aged less than 18 years bear a heavy burden, comprising 40 to 50 per cent of all forced labour victims globally. Children born, unwanted, to the world of poverty brought up in the conditions where joy and happiness is a rare commodity - humiliation is their primary teacher, left with scars that shape their future. Watching other children's activity in their way to school under the protection of their families - street children in turn are left wandering in the streets of perpetual abuse. The street children - these unwanted, excluded, unknown entities with no human identity. Elements of negligence and ignorance of the society and state. They grow up carrying the burden of heavy responsibilities on their shoulder to feed the family. At early ages, destiny forces shape their behaviour to act as adult and work like one. When you look at their feature you see a tired man in a small defigurated body - they cant afford to enjoy the childhood innocense. As little as seven with no access to education, they fall into gangs and crime, in the hands of those of the underground world - are introduced to drugs and other illegal works. Often they are put to sell drugs to provide for their addicted parents.

Child workers in worst form of working condition are forced into labour - lacking any protective measures. For their weakness in being a child, physically and mentally, they are exposed to oppressive conditions, incapable to secure their lost rights. Conventions and drafts of laws circulate between myriad of national and international official desks filled with words with no action or at times for political interests. In South Africa, the Office of the Rights of the Child in the Presidency is three years late in submitting a progress report on children’s rights to the United Nations -- tainting the country's image as a human rights champion. Child rights activists have slammed the office for failing to submit the report, which was due in 2002 as part of South Africa’s ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. In Russia more than 30,000 children and teenagers are reported missing every year. Many fall prey to traffickers. Another 5,000, living hand-to-mouth in the streets, are also an easy mark. Ratification and implementation of the UN Convention on Transnational Organised Crime, which in addition to containing Firearms Protocol also contains a Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, could be part of the response to address the trafficking of women and children as sex workers. The biggest deterioration in the newly globalised economy, in sectors such as the sex industry, agriculture, construction and domestic service. Increased concern about organised crime has led to a new international protocol against people-trafficking. Last year, trade unionists from a range of countries met in Cameroon to discuss issues including slavery and abduction, forced domestic labour and the sex trade.


To end cruelty against children is an ambitious goal, which we cannot achieve alone unless we work in partnership with other professionals and the public. The sharing of knowledge and information about child protection is a key part of this. It’s one of the most important ways we can bring about changes in law, policy and general attitudes towards children. Every day, all over the world children are bought and sold, imported and exported like consumable things. Children are forced to be soldiers, prostitutes, sweatshop workers, servants. Children who have lost their parents and are deprived of their primary caregiver are directly exposed to unprotected environment. As many as one in eight Togolese children are sent away from home to work, a study of child labour in the West African state suggests. They travel across borders, to as far away as Liberia, Cameroon or Gabon. One surprise is that children still go, despite the fact that other youngsters have come home sick, unhappy and often still destitute, the boys telling stories of exploitation on agricultural plantations, many girls pregnant as the result of rape, some even infected with Aids. In Eastern Europe alone, almost 1.5 million children live in public care. In Iran approximately 2 million children work or are engaged in some form of child labour.

Most forced labour today is still exacted in developing countries where older forms of forced labour are sometimes transmuting into newer ones, notably in a range of informal sector activities. Where child labor has been banned they are often held uninformed and hidden without any legal protection. This is the cause of additional deprivation from acquiring sufficient wages. Employers capitalize on the docility of the children recognizing that these laborers cannot legally form unions to change their conditions. They are put to work for minimal pay and long hours. The measures taken by the governments often is limited to close down the factories that used child labor. But the policy will do no good for the child who is compelled to cope with poverty and deprivation, bullied and abused physically and mentally. States are bound to take effective action in poverty alleviation measures and combatting abusive elements out of the life of children.

Lack of protection and proper law affect children in many different ways. They are deprived from primary care and remain illiterate, unhealthy and impoverished - facing an intimidating future. They are the direct victim of sustained high levels of inquality, poverty and vulnerability out of the negligence of officials and ineffective planning by misuse of public budget. In under developed countries opportunity for primary and secondary level of education in rural areas particularly of girl child is yet to be solved. Traditional factors such as rigid cultural and social roles in certain countries further limit educational attainment and increase child labor. She is not as free as her brother to walk far from home to attend school. Child labor is especially prevalent in rural areas where the capacity to enforce minimum age requirements for schooling and work is lacking.Africa and Asia together account for over 90 percent of total child employment. In rural areas in Iran, girl children are 15% more prone to malnutrition and marginalized due to traditional norm of men eating first before other members of the family. Girls have to cope with what is left on the table, if any. A recent official census points out to the increasing number of mal nurtured children in the country and its adverse effects on the child physical condition, leaving children shorter than average for the most part. The situation of women as head of households is also vulnerable. School-aged children, too, often pay the price. Some working mothers can only cope with their double duties by taking their eldest daughters out of school to look after younger children, but the girls lose their chances of a more skilled job in the future. In Morocco, 80 per cent of women with older children had taken daughters under 14 out of school to do so – no wonder that many eventually follow their mothers into the factories.

Working together with relevant government bodies, local NGOs and traditional charities is encouraged to assist the families to create protective environment and provide basic primary needs of children. These children are deprived of the simple joys of childhood, relegated instead to a life of drudgery. However, there are problems with the obvious solution of abolishing child labor. First, there is no international agreement defining child labor. Countries not only have different minimum age work restrictions, but also have varying regulations based on the type of labor. This makes the limits of child labor very ambiguous. Most would agree that a six year old is too young to work, but whether the same can be said about a twelve year old is debatable. Until there is global agreement which can isolate cases of child labor, it will be very hard to abolish. There is also the view that work can help a child in terms of socialization, in building self-esteem and for training (Collins 1983). The problem is, then, not child labor itself, but the conditions under which it operates (Boyden 1991).

Table 1:
Distribution of Economically Active Children under 15 Years of Age
(percent of total world child labor)


Region 1980 1985 1990
Africa 17.0 18.0 21.3
Americas 4.7 5.6 na
Asia 77.8 75.9 72.3
Europe 0.3 0.2 0.1
Oceania 0.2 0.2 0.2

Source: ILO 1993
Note: na...not available


Nasrin Azadeh

1)Trading Away Our Rights, make trade fair, Oxfam, 2004
2)Collins, J.L. 1983. "Fertility Determinants in a High Andes Community." Population and Development Review 9,1: 61-75.
3)ILO (International Labour Office). 1993. Bulletin of Labour Statistics 1993-3. Geneva.
4)World Bank, CHILD LABOR: ISSUES, CAUSES AND INTERVENTIONS
5)Child Labour Inquiry, http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Library/9175/inquiry1.htm
6)Global March Against Child Labour, http://www.globalmarch.org/