By Ashish Joshi
Child labour, as per the United Nations, is the involvement of any child in any activity or occupation that, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm their health, safety, or morals. It is a product of an array of numerous socio-economic forces, a brake on sustainable development, and a huge question mark to the idea of a just society. A recent report from the International Labour Organization reports that at least 64 million girls and 88 million boys work as child labourers globally. Out of these 152 million children, more than 72 million work in hazardous conditions. In addition to this, almost 70 million children work in more acceptable employment conditions, taking the total children involved in employment or labour of some form to almost 220 million globally.
Statistics of the report
United Nation’s Target 8.7 for sustainable development shoots at a global eradication of child labour by the year 2025. The recent report shows that significant progress has been made in that direction since the year 2000 when ILO first started monitoring child labour statistics. A fall of almost 94 million in children involved in child labour has been recorded. Optimistic as it may sound, but at the current rates which show a declining trend, by 2025 we would still be left with over 50 million child labourers across the world.
The early and mid-2000s was a period when we took strides globally in our attempt at eradicating child labour, but 2008 onwards (since the economic slowdown) our foot seems to be off the gas at least in terms of the results. Some countries in Africa have even reported a net increase in child labour during the period of 2012-2016. Africa and Asia remain at the top of the world in terms of the domestic fraction (20% and 7.5% respectively) and the net number of children working as child labourers. Nine out of every ten child labourers belong to one of these two continents. An array of socio-economic factors in these countries forms a breeding ground for poverty and child labour and we need an urgent breakthrough in the current set of policies adopted by these countries if we are to eradicate child labour from the face of this planet. Despite the numbers, child labour cannot be entirely seen as a third world problem. European and American countries with a relatively high per capita income to record close to 5 percent of kids being exposed to child labour.
The gender difference
The report further states that agriculture at 71 percent has the biggest share of child labour engagement across the world while industries and service sectors follow it up at 12 and 17 percent respectively. It also points out that boys are at a greater risk of being exposed to child labour as compared to girls, and this gap only widens with age. Apart from differing physical attributes, another key reason for such an observation is that girls are more involved in less visible and therefore under-reported areas like domestic services in private households and house chores, which are not taken into account in such studies. Although there are still a huge 23 million more boys than girls involved in child labour, the period of 2012-2016 has observed a narrowing in this gap. During this period, the decline in child labour amongst boys was at a rate almost twice than that of girls.
Further, both the genders are exposed to different forms of risks as a part of their engagement. Due to the difference in physical attributes, both the genders work differently even in the same work environment. Boys are more involved with sharp tools, electronic machinery, and harmful chemicals exposing them to risks of cuts, burns, poisoning, and other injuries. Girls are more often involved in supportive roles like carrying weight and supplying raw materials, which heightens their chances of musculoskeletal injuries and sexual abuse.
Nature of the struggle
Our image of child labour involves a definite place for a third-party employer, but the findings of the report suggest that children working for third-party employers are not the typical reality but rather an exception. More than two-thirds of all children in child labour work as contributing family labourers. A lot of them also work in family enterprises. Therefore, understanding and addressing family reliance on child labour is critical in terminating it. Another huge challenge in this domain is the eradication of forced child labour which is often illicit in nature and backed up by criminal gangs. Almost 1 million children are forcefully exposed to sexual exploitation and another 3 million forced into other forms of labour. Forced labour often involves a greater hazardous and traumatic risk and thus requires immediate and strict action from the international community.
Inability to escape
About 68 percent of the children working as child labourers manage to attend school, but the studies show that education and working certainly cannot be considered compatible for children. The time and energy put into work often result in a compromise on efforts required to redeem the maximum benefits out of education. As a result, these children show a poor track record of attendance and thus underperform in schools and often end up dropping out of school at a very young age.
The report further talks about a roadmap that is required to escalate the decline in Child labour to meet the 2025 target. Rapid urbanization, economic informality, criminal gangs and poor socio-economic conditions are a few of the factors responsible for child labour and thus it requires a dynamic multi-policy response.
Need of the hour
There is a need to expand free and quality public education. Quality education prepares an individual for social and professional competency and thus investment in public educational infrastructure and quality teachers is critical. There is a need to build and extend social protection systems such as public employment programs, health protection, unemployment protection, and income security. More than 70 percent of the world’s population does not have access to such elements of social security. There is a need of strict labour market policies and regulations against child labour. Market and government must provide youth with employment and entrepreneurial opportunities, vocational training, job search training and support, etc. The government needs to ensure a legal architecture which is consistent with the International Labour standards.
We still have gaps in our methods of collecting data on child labour. We do not take into account more broad and indirect parameters like urbanization, migration, climate change, etc. into consideration. Further, there is also a need to categorize the recorded data based on the hazardous nature of work to better formulate regional plans of action.
The ILO global estimates of child labour tell a story both of real progress and of a job unfinished. They show a dramatic decline in child labour over the 16 years since the ILO began monitoring child labour in 2000 and yet we have fallen short of our goal of eradicating all hazardous forms of child labour by 2016. The estimates rightly indicate that the pace of decline has slowed considerably in the last four years. If we are to meet the 2025 targets or more importantly build a world where every child is born with a right to grow to the fullest of his potential, the international community needs to come together with a firm resolution. The world needs to act in cooperation and partnership to tackle the issue of child labour. The investment in the present have to be huge undoubtedly but the returns in the future would be incalculable.
Featured Image Source: ILO in Asia and the Pacific via Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND
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