Child-labour problem not confined to Dickens era

Press, 11 October 1978, Page 2

Child-labour problem not confined to Dickens era

By .!

JAN VITEK,

“It is a matter of surprise to me that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities and strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at 10 years old, a little labouring hind . . .” This appeal to the conscience of mankind is as alarming today as it was more than a century ago when Charles Dickens wrote it.

The world’s army of working children under 15 years of age has reached the size of about the entire population of France or Great Britain: 52 million according to the latest estimate of the Bureau of Statistics and Special Studies of the International Labour Office.

About 42 million work without pay in family enterprises and particularly family agricultural plots, and about 10 million labour as wage earners in small workshops, in factories, and in the fields. Child labour is most widespread in South Asia which reports 29 million working children, followed by'Africa (10 million) East Asia (9 million) Latin America (3 million) and about 1 million are reported in more developed mar-ket-economy regions. However, the 52 million total is probably only the tip of the iceberg since in many countries children under 15 are not covered by statistical surveys. In addition, children who work and also attend school are usually not reported as “economically active.” This is about the meas-

ure of the problem the world is confronted with on the threshold of the International Year of the Child proclaimed by the United Nations for 1979.

Child labour has by no means disappeared from factories, although it is rare to find children working in the larger and more modem industrial enterprises.

An 1.L.0. survey in an industrial area in Asia has shown that children, and especially girls, constitute a great part of the workforce. Small, undernourished children are working long hours, seven days a week, for a pittance. They toil in overcrowded, poorly lighted, and badly ventilated premises.

The plants concerned make or pack bottles, cigarettes, textiles, confectionery, biscuits, and seafood. Adults in one enterprise are hiring child “helpers” either at a fraction of what they actually eam, or at piece rate. The situation is equally serious in other parts of the Third World. Legions of "economically active” children can be found in small workshops and cottage industries in the cities and villages of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. The enterprises are to a large extent family owned — but not always. Child workers there are often described as apprentices. They are in a sense; but their training tends to be slight, the work strenuous. They are treated like servants and at times do not even earn enough for a meal. Safety precautions are negligible, and children work acetylene torches and cutting and piercing tools; they have to work near furnaces, and perform other dangerous

of the International Labour Organisation

tasks. In many instances, they are beyond the reach of labour protection. Boys below the legal minimum age appear to be widely employed as casual labourers mainly on building sites in most of Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and in southern Europe. They are required to ciear debris, carry equipment and do other odd jobs for low wages, at serious risk of accident or injury.

Another largely uncontrolled occupation is domestic service where it is quite often legal to employ children, since the minimum age for it may be 12 or 13, or not prescribed at all.

In some countries it is common for children as young as 7 years — mainly girls in Central America, the Middle East and some parts of Asia — to be brought from the countryside to the cities and to be virtually sold into “service” by people who may ar may not be their parents, and where they are frequently abused.

But in the world as a whole it is agriculture that employs the bulk of the working child pop us lation. Traditionally children start work at an early age on land cultivated by their parents, and this applies not only to developing countries, but also to Western Europe and North America.

The problem with child labour is that it can hardly be legislated away, for its roots lie in abject poverty. Where social and economic conditions have improved, children go to school and child labour has virtually disappeared. So any society which wants its children to be free to learn and play must first free its entire population from fear of want.

This means ensuring basic human needs of all people. They include such essentials as food, shelter, clothing, water, education, training and provision of gainful employment.

But these are long-term goals. What can be done now?

First, working children must be protected from outright exploitation and from hazardous conditions of work which threaten their physical and mental development. They should not work at night, or carry heavy loads. Their working hours should be limited and they must have sufficient weekly rest periods and holidays. In other words, if children have to work, and some unfortunately must, society’s first obligation is to make their jobs safe, healthy, and human. This requires adequate provisions in national law — and effective enforcement — in line with the existing 1.L.0. standards. Second, the working children must receive at least basic education and training so as not to be “so easily thrown away at such an age.” Provison of educational facilities, especially development of a free compulsory education system, falls naturally under public authority. All this does not imply acceptance of child labour as a necessary evil. On the contrary, the basic i.L.O. policy objective is to stamp it out from all continents. Until this is achieved the agency is stepping up efforts to pros tect child labourers from abuse and exploitation and attacking the basic causes of their plight. More specifically, the 1.L.0. is seeking to promote wider ratification of the Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) and its full implementation. 1.L.0, specialists are carrying out an international survey on working conditions of child labourers. Its results will be published later in 1978. The 1979 International Labour Conference wil. examine the effectiveness of national anti-poverty programmes in the Third World and map new strategies for the satisfaction of basic human needs.