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SASKATCHEWAN ELOCUTION AND DEBATE ASSOCIATION
ASSOCIATION D’ELOCUTION ET DES DEBATS DE LA SASKATCHEWAN

                       Child Labour

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                labour.

                    Research prepared by Janessa Weir
                                Winter 2009
                          www.saskdebate.com
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3

What is Child
Labor?
Child labor is work that harms children
or keeps them from attending school.
Around the world and in the U. S.,
growing gaps between rich and poor in
recent decades have forced millions of
young children out of school and into
                                                    Child labor can be found in
work. The International Labor
Organization estimates that 246 million             nearly every industry
children between the ages of 5 and 17
currently work under conditions that are            Agriculture
considered illegal, hazardous, or
extremely exploitative. Underage                    Nearly 70% of child labor occurs in
children work at all sorts of jobs around           agriculture, fishing, hunting, and
the world, usually because they and their           forestry. Children have been found
families are extremely poor. Large                  harvesting:
numbers of children work in commercial
                                                       •   bananas in Ecuador
agriculture, fishing, manufacturing,                   •   cotton in Egypt and Benin
mining, and domestic service. Some                     •   cut flowers in Colombia
children work in illicit activities like the           •   oranges in Brazil
drug trade and prostitution or other                   •   cocoa in the Ivory Coast
traumatic activities such as serving as                •   tea in Argentina and Bangladesh
soldiers.                                              •   fruits and vegetables in the U.S.

Child labor involves at least one                   Children in commercial agriculture can
of the following characteristics:                   face long hours in extreme temperatures,
                                                    health risks from pesticides, little or no
    •   Violates a nation’s minimum age laws        pay, and inadequate food, water, and
    •   Threatens children’s physical, mental,      sanitation.
        or emotional well-being
    •   Involves intolerable abuse, such as child   Manufacturing
        slavery, child trafficking, debt bondage,
        forced labor, or illicit activities
                                                    About 15 million children are estimated
    •   Prevents children from going to school
    •   Uses children to undermine labor
                                                    to be directly involved in manufacturing
        standards                                   goods for export, including:

                                                       •   Carpets from India, Pakistan, Egypt
Where does most child labor
                                                       •   Clothing sewn in Bangladesh;
occur?                                                     footwear made in India and the
                                                           Philippines
                                                       •   Soccer balls sewn in Pakistan
                                                       •   Glass and bricks made in India

                                                                                                 3
4

   •   Fireworks made in China, the            “Unconditional Worst Forms” of
       Dominican Republic, El Salvador,        Child Labor
       Guatemala, India, and Peru
   •   Surgical instruments made in Pakistan
                                               8.4 million children are involved in work
                                               that, under any circumstance, is
Mining and Quarrying
                                               considered unacceptable for children,
                                               including the sale and trafficking of
Child laborers suffer extremely high
                                               children into debt bondage, serfdom, and
illness and injury rates in underground
                                               forced labor. It includes the forced
mines, opencast mines, and quarries.
                                               recruitment of children for armed
Children as young as 6 or 7 years old
                                               conflict, commercial sexual exploitation,
break up rocks, and wash, sieve, and
                                               and illicit activities, such as producing
carry ore. Nine-year-olds work
                                               and trafficking drugs.
underground setting explosives and
carrying loads. Children work in a range
of mining operations, including:               Causes of Child
   •
   •
       Gold in Colombia
       Charcoal in Brazil and El Salvador
                                               Labor
   •   Chrome in Zimbabwe
   •   Diamonds in Cote d’Ivoire               Child labor persists even though laws
   •   Emeralds in Colombia                    and standards to eliminate it exist.
   •   Coal in Mongolia                        Current causes of global child labor are
                                               similar to its causes in the U.S. 100 years
Domestic Service                               ago, including poverty, limited access to
                                               education, repression of workers’ rights,
Many children, especially girls, work in       and limited prohibitions on child labor.
domestic service, sometimes starting as
young as 5 or 6. This type of child labor      Poverty and unemployment levels
is linked to child trafficking. Domestic
                                               are high.
child laborers can be victims of physical,
emotional, and sometimes sexual abuse.
                                               Poor children and their families may rely
                                               upon child labor in order to improve
Hotels, Restaurants, and Retail
                                               their chances of attaining basic
                                               necessities. About one-fifth of the
Some of the work of young people in
                                               world’s 6 billion people live in absolute
this sector is considered legitimate, but
                                               poverty. The intensified poverty in parts
there are indications of considerable
                                               of Africa, Asia, and Latin America
abuse. Low pay is the norm, and in some
                                               causes many children there to become
tourist areas, children’s work in hotels
                                               child laborers.
and restaurants is linked to prostitution.
In at least one example, child hotel
workers received such low pay that they        Access to compulsory, free
had to take out loans from their               education is limited.
employers; the terms of the interest and
repayment often led to debt bondage.           Approximately 125 million children in
                                               the world do not attend school, limiting
                                               future opportunities for the children and

                                                                                           4
5

their communities. The Global                             prohibits children under 16 from
Campaign for Education estimates that                     industrial work...
                                                          but excludes agriculture.
free, quality education for all children          Bangladesh
would cost ten billion dollars, the same                  specifies a minimum age for work...
as 4 days of global military spending.                    but sets no regulations on domestic
                                                          work or agricultural work.
Existing laws or codes of conduct
are often violated.                               Workers’ rights are repressed.

Even when laws or codes of conduct                Workers’ abilities to organize unions
exist, they are often violated. For               affect the international protection of core
example, the manufacture and export of            labor standards, including child labor.
products often involves multiple layers           Attacks on workers’ abilities to organize
of production and outsourcing, which              make it more difficult to improve labor
can make it difficult to monitor who is           standards and living standards in order to
performing labor at each step of the              eliminate child labor. For example, in
process. Extensive subcontracting can             2001, 10,000 workers were fired and
intentionally or unintentionally hide the         4,000 workers were arrested as a result
use of child labor.                               of their union activity, according to the
                                                  International Confederation of Free
Laws and enforcement are often                    Trade Unions.
inadequate.
                                                  The global economy intensifies the
Child labor laws around the world are             effects of some factors.
often not enforced or include exemptions
that allow for child labor to persist in          As multinational corporations expand
certain sectors, such as agriculture or           across borders, countries often compete
domestic work. Even in countries where            for jobs, investment, and industry. This
strong child labor laws exist, labor              competition sometimes slows child labor
departments and labor inspection offices          reform by encouraging corporations and
are often under-funded and under-                 governments to seek low labor costs by
staffed, or courts may fail to enforce the        resisting international standards. Some
laws. Similarly, many state governments           U.S. legislation has begun to include
allocate few resources to enforcing child         labor standards and child labor as criteria
labor laws.                                       for preferential trade and federal
                                                  contracts. However, international free
National Laws Often Include                       trade rules may prohibit consideration of
                                                  child labor or workers’ rights.
Exemptions
                                                  The effects of poverty in developing
Examples                                          countries are often worsened by the large
                                                  interest payments on development loans.
Nepal
        minimum age of 14 for most work...        The structural adjustments associated
        plantations and brick kilns are exempt.   with these loans often require
Kenya                                             governments to cut education, health,
                                                  and other public programs, further

                                                                                                5
6

harming children and increasing pressure         global “race to the bottom” increases
on them to become child laborers.                poverty while lowering labor standards.
                                                 Since the 1980’s, incomes of the richest
Debt and Child Welfare                           20% of the population in nearly every
                                                 nation have grown, while incomes of the
The example of Sub-Saharan Africa                middle and lower classes have stagnated
                                                 or declined. There are 300 million more
While debt payments soar,                        people in extreme poverty today than 10
        Sub-Saharan Africa pays $40 million in   years ago.
        debt each day.
Educational opportunities are few...
        40% of Sub-Saharan African children      These workers sew at a maquila, or
        receive no education                     sweatshop in Central America. Many
And getting fewer.                               Central Americans have been trafficked
        In the 1990’s, the number of children    into forced labor situations, including
        entering primary schools fell in 17      sweatshops, where they toil under harsh
        African countries.
                                                 conditions of indentured servitude.

Global Economy                                   Free Trade Rules
The many factors that lead to child labor        Most child labor occurs because children
occur on a global scale. Although                and families are poor and lack options
countries may agree on the importance            for education or income. Many factors
of labor standards, in practice, many            affect poverty, but international agencies
obstacles to the enforcement of child            are increasingly paying attention to trade
labor standards remain. These obstacles          policy as a key factor. The 2003 UN
include global competition, free trade           Human Development Report, for
rules, and the structural adjustment             example, identifies “unfair trade rules”
policies attached to international               as one of four key obstacles to economic
development loans.                               progress in poor countries.

Global Competition                               Many poor countries rely heavily on
                                                 exports of primary commodities, which
                                                 have suffered from declining prices as
As multinational corporations expand
                                                 global competition has increased and
across borders, countries often compete
                                                 markets have tightly concentrated with a
with each other for jobs, investment, and
                                                 few firms dominating key sectors. For
industry. International competition
                                                 example: world coffee prices hit 100-
sometimes slows child labor reforms by
                                                 year lows in 2002-2003. These
encouraging corporations and
                                                 extremely low prices depressed
governments to seek low labor costs by
                                                 economies in parts of Central America
resisting enforceable international
                                                 and Africa that depend on coffee
standards and repressing trade union
                                                 exports, and child labor in some regions
activism.
                                                 reportedly increased.
Many labor unions and other
organizations are concerned that this            Debt and Structural Adjustment

                                                                                           6
7

Poor countries often face staggering                    Such structural adjustment policies can
interest payments on development loans                  intensify the conditions, such as poverty
from the World Bank and the                             and inadequate education funding, that
International Monetary Fund. These                      lead to child labor. For example, debt is
loans often require the countries to                    one factor, in addition to war and
follow the policies of structural                       disease, that may lower school
adjustment programs: deregulation,                      attendance in Sub-Saharan Africa (where
opening trade and financial markets to                  48 million children under 14 work).
global competition, weakening labor                     While Sub-Saharan Africa pays $40
laws or enforcement, privatizing                        million on debt each day, 40% of its
government jobs, and cutting                            children receive no education. In the
government spending on public health                    1990’s, the number of children entering
programs and education.                                 primary schools declined in 17 African
                                                        countries.

http://www.childlaborphotoproject.org/childlabor.html

WHAT IS "CHILD LABOR"?                                  paid? Then he or she is being exploited.
                                                        As Unicef’s 1997 State of the World’s
"Child labor" is, generally speaking,                   Children Report puts it, "Children’s
work for children that harms them or                    work needs to be seen as happening
exploits them in some way (physically,                  along a continuum, with destructive or
mentally, morally, or by blocking access                exploitative work at one end and
to education).                                          beneficial work - promoting or
                                                        enhancing children’s development
BUT: There is no universally accepted                   without interfering with their schooling,
definition of "child labor". Varying                    recreation and rest - at the other. And
definitions of the term are used by                     between these two poles are vast areas of
international organizations, non-                       work that need not negatively affect a
governmental organizations, trade                       child’s development." Other social
unions and other interest groups. Writers               scientists have slightly different ways of
and speakers don’t always specify what                  drawing the line between acceptable and
definition they are using, and that often               unacceptable work.
leads to confusion.
                                                        International conventions also define
Not all work is bad for children. Some                  "child labor" as activities such as
social scientists point out that some                   soldiering and prostitution. Not everyone
kinds of work may be completely                         agrees with this definition. Some child
unobjectionable — except for one thing                  workers themselves think that illegal
about the work that makes it                            work (such as prostitution) should not be
exploitative. For instance, a child who                 considered in the definition of "child
delivers newspapers before school might                 labor." The reason: These child workers
actually benefit from learning how to                   would like to be respected for their legal
work, gaining responsibility, and earn a                work, because they feel they have no
bit of money. But what if the child is not              other choice but to work. For further
                                                        discussion of this dispute, see New

                                                                                                 7
8

Internationalist Magazine, No. 292, July      nature is hazardous to their safety,
1997 issue on Child Labor.                    physical or mental health, and moral
                                              development. Moreover, some 8.4
To avoid confusion, when writing or           million children were engaged in so-
speaking about "child labor," it’s best to    called 'unconditional' worst forms of
explain exactly what you mean by child        child labor, which include forced and
labor — or, if someone else is speaking,      bonded labor, the use of children in
ask for a definition. This website uses       armed conflict, trafficking in children
the first definition cited in this section:   and commercial sexual exploitation." --
"Child labor" is work for children under      see "Every Child Counts"
age 18 that in some way harms or              (www.ilo.org/public/english/
exploits them (physically, mentally,          standards/ipec/simpoc/others/globalest.p
morally, or by blocking children from         df)
education).
                                              Unicef’s State of the World’s Children
                                              Report says only that although the exact
                                              number is not known, it is surely in the
WHO IS A "CHILD"?                             hundreds of millions.

International conventions define children     More information about who child
as aged 18 and under.                         laborers are, where they live, and new
                                              statistics on the total number can be
Individual governments may define             found on www.ilo.org; also, the US
"child" according to different ages or        Dept. of Labor’s By The Sweat and Toil
other criteria.                               of Children, Vol. VI: An Economic
                                              Consideration of Child Labor.
"Child" and "childhood" are also defined
differently by different cultures. A          ( http://www.dol.gov/)
"child" is not necessarily delineated by a
fixed age. Social scientists point out that   For more information about
children’s abilities and maturities vary      individual child laborers, see stories
so much that defining a child’s maturity      produced by Child Labor and the
by calendar age can be misleading. For a      Global Village: Photography for
discussion, see Jo Boyden, Birgitta Ling,     Social Change.
William Myers, "What Works for
Working Children" (Stockholm: Radda
Barnen and Unicef, 1998), pp 9-26.
                                              WHERE DO CHILD
WHO ARE CHILD LABORERS?                       LABORERS LIVE?
AND HOW MANY ARE
THERE?                                        61% in Asia, 32% in Africa, and 7% in
                                              Latin America, 1% in US, Canada,
In 2000, the ILO estimates, "246 million      Europe and other wealthy nations In
child workers aged 5 and 17 were              Asia, 22% of the workforce is children.
involved in child labor, of which 171         In Latin America, 17% of the workforce
million were involved in work that by its     is children. The proportion of child

                                                                                         8
9

laborers varies a lot among countries and     Unicef’s 1997 State of the World’s
even regions inside those countries. See      Children Report says "The growth of the
Child Labour: Targeting the Intolerable,      service sector and the quest for a more
Geneva, 1998, p. 7; and other ILO             flexible workforce in industrialized
publications.                                 countries, such as the United Kingdom
                                              and the US, have contributed to an
"In Africa, one child in three is at work,    expansion of child labour."
and in Latin America, one child in five
works. In both these continents, only a       "Hundreds of thousands" of children
tiny proportion of child workers are          work in US agriculture, according to a
involved in the formal sector and the         report by Human Rights Watch
vast majority of work is for their            published in June 2000. See
families, in homes, in the fields or on the   http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/frmwr
streets." -- Unicef’s 1997 State of the       kr/.
World’s Children Report
                                                                          Back to Top

                                              WHAT DO CHILD LABORERS
IS THERE CHILD LABOR IN                       DO?
THE UNITED STATES?
                                              Work ranges from taking care of animals
Yes, if you are talking about "child          and planting and harvesting food, to
labor" as defined by the US law. The          many kinds of small manufacturing (e.g.
Fair Labor Standards Act sets the             of bricks and cement), auto repair, and
minimum working age as 15, with some          making of footwear and textiles. (See a
exceptions. For a copy of the Fair Labor      list in US Dept. of Labor, By the Sweat
Standards Act, see the US Dept. of            & Toil of Children, Vo. V: Efforts to
Labor’s Employment Standards                  Eliminate Child Labor, Appendix C.
Administration of the Wage and Hour           http://www.dol.gov
Division,
http://www.elaws.dol.gov/flsa/docs/flsa-      A large proportion of children whom the
child-pubs.htm.                               ILO classifies as child laborers work in
                                              agriculture.
In the United States: An estimated
290,200 children were unlawfully              See Child Labour: Targeting the
employed in 1996. Some — it’s not clear       Intolerable (1998) "Every Child Counts"
how many — were "older teens working          (2002) and other ILO publications
a few too many hours in after-school          (http://www.ilo.org).
jobs." About 59,600 were younger than
age 14, and some 13,100 worked in             More boys than girls work outside their
garment sweatshops, according to an           homes. But more girls work in some
Associated Press series on child labor        jobs: for instance, as domestic maids.
published in December 1997. (Available        Being a maid in someone’s house can be
on www.igc.org, by searching for "child       risky. Maids typically are cut off from
labor" on IGC sites and IGC member            friends and family, and can easily be
sites.)

                                                                                       9
10

physically or sexually abused by their      HOW WAS CHILD LABOR
employers.                                  REDUCED IN TODAY’S
                                            DEVELOPED COUNTRIES?
Note: Less than 5% of child laborers
make products for export to other           Four main changes took place:
countries. Sources for this statistic
include Unicef’s State of the World’s          1. economic development that raised
Children Report 1997.                             family incomes and living standards
                                               2. widespread, affordable, required
                                                  and relevant education
                                               3. enforcement of anti-child labor laws
                                                  (along with compulsory education
WHY SHOULD WE CARE?                               laws)
                                               4. changes in public attitudes toward
Many children in hazardous and                    children that elevated the
                                                  importance of education
dangerous jobs are in danger of injury,
even death.
                                            Sources of information about the history
                                            of include Hugh Cunningham and Pier
Beyond compassion, consider who
                                            Paolo Viazzo, eds, Child abour in
today’s children will become in the
                                            Historical Perspective, 1800-1985: Case
future. Between today and the year 2020,
                                            Studies from Europe, Japan and
the vast majority of new workers,
                                            Columbia (Florence: Unicef, 1996).
citizens and new consumers — whose
                                            Other sources of information about
skills and needs will build the world’s
                                            history — and controversies about which
economy and society — will come from
                                            of the four elements were most
developing countries. Over that 20-year
                                            important, are listed on the site
period, some 730 million people will
                                            www.childlabor.org.
join the world’s workforce — more than
all the people employed in today's most
developed nations in 2000. More than 90
percent of these new workers will be
from developing nations, according to       WHAT ARE SOME "MYTHS"
research by Population Action               OR MISUNDERSTANDINGS
International. How many will have had       ABOUT CHILD LABOR?
to work at an early age, destroying their
health or hampering their education?        Unicef lists four "myths":

                                               1. It is a myth that child labor is only a
                                                  problem in developing countries.
                                                  "But in fact, children routinely work
HOW CAN ORDINARY                                  in all industrialized countries, and
PEOPLE HELP REDUCE                                hazardous forms of child labour can
                                                  be found in many countries. In the
CHILD LABOR?                                      US, for example, children are
                                                  employed in agriculture, a high
Learn about the issue. Support                    proportion of them from immigrant
organizations that are raising awareness,         or ethnic-minority families. A 1990
and providing direct help to individual           survey of Mexican-American
                                                  children working in the farms of New
children.

                                                                                      10
11

      York state showed that almost half        Poverty is widely considered the top
      had worked in fields still wet with       reason why children work at
      pesticides and over a third had
      themselves been sprayed."
                                                inappropriate jobs for their ages. But
   2. It is a myth that child labor will only   there are other reasons as well -- not
      disappear when poverty disappears.        necessarily in this order:
      Hazardous labor can, and should be
      eliminated by even the poorest               1. family expectations and traditions
      countries.                                   2. abuse of the child
   3. It is a myth that most child laborers        3. lack of good schools and day care
      work in sweatshops making goods              4. lack of other services, such as
      for export. "Soccer balls made by               health care
      children in Pakistan for use by              5. public opinion that downplays the
      children in industrialized countries            risk of early work for children
      may provide a compelling symbol,             6. uncaring attitudes of employers
      but in fact, only a very small               7. limited choices for women
      proportion of all child workers are
      employed in export industries -
      probably less than 5 per cent. Most       "The parents of child labourers are often
      of the world’s child labourers            unemployed or underemployed,
      actually are to be found in the           desperate for secure employment and
      informal sector - selling on the          income. Yet it is their children - more
      street, at work in agriculture or         powerless and paid less - who are
      hidden away in houses – far from
      the reach of official labour              offered the jobs. In other words, says
      inspectors and from media scrutiny."      UNICEF, children are employed because
   4. It is a myth that "the only way to        they are easier to exploit," according to
      make headway against child labour         the "Roots of Child Labor" in Unicef’s
      is for consumers and governments          1997 State of the World’s Children
      to apply pressure through sanctions
      and boycotts. While international         Report.
      commitment and pressure are
      important, boycotts and other             The report also says that international
      sweeping measures can only affect         economic trends also have increased
      export sectors, which are relatively      child labor in poor countries. "During
      small exploiters of child labour.
      Such measures are also blunt              the 1980s, in many developing countries,
      instruments with long-term                government indebtedness, unwise
      consequences that can actually            internal economic policies and recession
      harm rather than help the children        resulted in economic crisis. Structural
      involved."                                adjustment programmes in many
                                                countries accentuated cuts in social
(Source: Unicef State of the World’s            spending that have hit the poor
Children’s Report, 1997, "Four Myths            disproportionately. " Although structural
about Child Labor,"                             adjustment programs are being revised
http://www.unicef.org/sowc97/)                  to spare education from deep cuts, the
                                                report says, some countries make such
                                                cuts anyway because of their own, local
                                                priorities. In many countries public
WHAT CAUSES CHILD LABOR                         education has deteriorated so much, the
TODAY?                                          report declared, that education itself has
                                                become part of the problem — because
                                                children work to avoid going to school.

                                                                                           11
12

This conclusion is supported by the work                3. Social services — that help children
of many social scientists, according to Jo                 and families survive crises, such as
                                                           disease, or loss of home and shelter
Boyden, Birgitta Ling, and William                      4. Family control of fertility — so that
Myers, who conducted a literature search                   families are not burdened by
for their 1998 book, What Works for                        children
Working Children (Stockholm: Radda
Barnen, Unicef, 1998).                              The ILO’s International Programme for
                                                    the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC)
Children do some types of low-status                has explored many programs to help
work, the report adds, because children             child laborers. See IPEC documents on
come from minority groups or                        the www.ilo.org site.
populations that have long suffered
discrimination. " In northern Europe, for           The 1989 Convention on the Rights of
example, child labourers are likely to be           the Child calls for children to participate
African or Turkish; in Argentina, many              in important decisions that will affect
are Bolivian or Paraguayan; in Thailand,            their lives.
many are from Myanmar. An
increasingly consumer-oriented culture,             Some educators and social scientists
spurring the desire and expectation for             believe that one of the most important
consumer goods, can also lead children              ways to help child workers is to ask their
into work and away from school."                    opinions, and involve them in
                                                    constructing "solutions" to their own
Other sources: Child Labor: Targeting               problems. Strong advocates of this
the Intolerable, published by ILO,                  approach are Boyden, Myers and Ling;
Geneva, 1998. ILO information                       Concerned for Working Children in
available using: www.ilo.org.                       Karnataka, India; many children’s
                                                    "unions" and "movements," and the Save
                                                    the Children family of non-governmental
                                                    organizations.

                                                    More information about the need for
WHAT ARE SOME                                       families to have affordable access to
SOLUTIONS TO CHILD                                  methods to control their fertility can be
LABOR?                                              found in many analyses of the role of the
                                                    "demographic transition" in economic
Not necessarily in this order:                      development. See Rodolfo Bulatao, The
                                                    Value of Family Planning Programs in
   1. Increased family incomes                      Developing Countries ( Santa Monica,
   2. Education — that helps children               CA: Rand, 1998),
      learn skills that will help them earn a       http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/M
      living                                        R978/

   Work isn't always grim: a brother and sister helping to make panama hats in San Antonio de

                                                                                                12
13

  Work damages many children.                 morning or after seven in the evening.
  But it can help others, as Chris            Often such work is actively encouraged
          Brazier explains.                   so that a child can gain experience of the
                                              'real world' of work and commerce.
http://www.newint.org/issue292/k
                                              The standard view would be that while
          eynote.html                         this kind of harmless work for pocket
                                              money certainly takes place, there is no

'C    hild labour'. I wonder what image
                                              dangerous 'child labour' in the North.
                                              The same view would be likely to
                                              maintain that work done by children in
those two words conjure up in your            the South is more often than not
mind. My guess is that it will bring forth    hazardous and exploitative.
two images in parallel. On the one hand
the children of Victorian Britain locked      Actually both these statements are
in their dark satanic mills as the            untrue and examining why will show
Industrial Revolution took hold. On the       that 'child labour' is altogether more
other, children from India or Pakistan        complex and less clear-cut an issue than
today, also chained to looms and forced       is normally supposed.
to endure harrowing conditions. And
against these nightmarish images are          North...Examples of hazardous child
probably counterposed the children of         labour can unfortunately still be found in
Western societies, freed from the             most rich countries and their incidence
necessity of work, enjoying free              is probably increasing rather than
education and free play.                      decreasing. The reason this kind of child
                                              work is largely removed from public
Yet if we are not careful these potent        notice or that a blind eye is turned
images will lead us into a blind alley        towards it is that it takes place largely
one marked 'complacency'. People in the       within ethnic-minority or immigrant
rich world tend to assume that child          groups. In the US, for example,
labour, like slavery, is something that       immigrant children, usually of Hispanic
was abolished in the rich world about a       origin, routinely take part in agricultural
century ago and that it only exists now in    work, especially at harvest time; in
developing countries and this certainty       Britain they are more likely to be South
leads them to feel they can preach from       Asian children doing piece-work at
the moral high ground to poorer               home or in garment sweatshops; in
countries still locked in their medieval      Greece they are likely to be of gypsy or
castles of ignorance and backwardness.        Albanian origin.
Of course children still routinely work in    There is one highly damaging variety of
rich countries but few people see it as       work, though, which is extremely visible
exploitative that a child should be           and is rife in all rich countries: child
employed, for example, to deliver             prostitution. It is illegal but the laws tend
newspapers for an hour or two each day        not be enforced and the economic and
even if they are paid less than adult rates   social conditions that produce it go
and local child-labour laws are infringed     unchallenged. And somehow nobody
by their working before seven in the

                                                                                        13
14

ever conceives of it as a form of child        dusk every day, severely stunting their
labour.                                        growth during formative years. Social
                                               activists in the area find it hard to work
No-one, however, could read Paula's            because of the strong mafia-like control
Story, in which a child prostitute from        that the carpet-loom owners have on the
Middlesbrough, England, talks about her        area.'1
life, and still maintain that hazardous
child labour does not occur in the rich        The continued existence of working
world. Paula has every bit as bleak a life     conditions like these is a deep stain on
as the child workers from the Third            human civilization and any action to
World interviewed elsewhere in the             eliminate child labour has to concentrate
magazine and far less control of her           first and foremost on cases like these.
own destiny than most of them.
                                               Yet it is vital to recognize that the
People in the industrialized world and         majority of work done by children in the
the media that represent them have a           Third World is neither so hazardous nor
perfect right to scream from the rooftops      so exploitative. This is why the term
about the iniquities of hazardous child        'child labour' is too explosive and
labour. But they need to look inside their     negative to be applied to all work by
own houses as well as towards the              children. It is insulting to children whose
distant shores.                                lives are being ruined by hard labour to
                                               lump them into the same category as
: Most of the world's hazardous and            those who help out in the family shop for
exploitative child labour, it is true, takes   a couple of hours after school.
place in the South. At its most extreme it
is a modern form of slavery, from the          Indeed, some kinds of child work are
children forced to labour on the sugar-        useful, positive contributions to child
cane estates of north-east Brazil to those     development. The idea that childhood
the Burmese military government has            should be an entirely work-free zone is a
ordered to work on a new railroad. In the      luxurious and rather sentimental Western
Indian subcontinent this virtual slavery       idea. Work for a few hours a day that
is institutionalized in the shape of           contributes to the family's well-being
'bonded' child labour, which sees              whether by performing domestic duties
children as young as eight or nine             or helping in the family fields is more
pledged by their parents to employers in       likely to foster a child's development
payment of a debt.                             than to damage it.

One of the most notorious examples of          And between the two extremes of
bonded child labour is the carpet              positive and negative child work in a
industry of the Indian state of Uttar          grey area less susceptible to cut-and-
Pradesh where, according to a recent           dried judgment as to whether it is
study, thousands of children in the carpet     exploitative or damaging come the vast
industry are 'kept in captivity, tortured      majority of children's occupations in all
and made to work for 20 hours a day            their multiplicity and diversity. Children
without a break. Little children are made      haul water and collect firewood. They
to crouch on their toes, from dawn to          deliver newspapers and tea. They take

                                                                                        14
15

care of younger siblings. They work on         confrontation with European labour
the streets washing windshields, shining       ministers and trade unionists over child
shoes or selling cigarettes. They can be       labour in Amsterdam and second to their
found in sweatshops or in their family's       own 'manifesto'
sewing room. They are servants in the
homes of the better-off .                      Their message is clear and simple
                                               enough: they wish to assert their own
If we treat all work by children as            right to work in non-exploitative
equally unacceptable we are trivializing       conditions. Given that they are forced to
the issue and making it less likely that       make their way in a brutal world which
we will be able to root out the most           will offer them no alternative, this is
damaging forms of child labour: blanket        entirely understandable. We can't simply
condemnation helps no-one.People in            tell them to wait until the glorious day
the rich world consider work by their          when all child labour is abolished and
own children to be acceptable when it is       their material and spiritual needs are
performed for pocket money to buy              more nearly provided for. There has to
computer games. It would be thoroughly         be an interim strategy of protection.
bizarre if Westerners who allowed their
own children to work for pocket money          We should listen to them carefully but
to buy compact discs should seek to            that does not have to mean that we have
outlaw child work in the Third World           to accept as given a world in which they
which is often driven by a poor family's       must work to survive. On the contrary,
desperate need. In every country, rich or      we should keep in clear mental view a
poor, it is the nature and conditions of       world in which children like these will
children's work which determines               have options, in which they will have the
whether or not they are exploited not the      chance to develop to their full potential
plain fact of their working.                   and redouble our efforts to bring that
                                               world into being.
Into this middle territory neither entirely
negative nor entirely positive falls the       So what action should we take to combat
work of many of the children covered in        child labour? The current media furore
this issue. Ask most of them and they          in the West about child labour makes
will tell you very clearly that they want      people want to leap into action. And the
to work and that the last thing they want      most natural weapons to reach for are
is for Westerners to take away their           understandably boycotts or trade
livelihood by means of legal bans or           sanctions these are often, after all,
consumer boycotts. They are even               tactics which this magazine would
getting themselves organized                   favour, in response, for example, to
movements of working children are              gross human-rights abuses.
springing up all over the Majority
World, from the famous street children         But, like aid programs, anti-child-labour
of Brazil to the less celebrated domestic      initiatives must adapt to local conditions.
servants of French West Africa. This is        All attempts to cure Third World
such an interesting development that we        problems are doomed to do more harm
have given over five pages of this issue       than good if they are designed in the air-
to their views: first to an account of their   conditioned offices of Western capitals.

                                                                                       15
16

And, despite the extra emotive power,         hearts and minds, that expands their
the battle against child labour is no         horizons beyond the gate marked
exception.                                    'drudgery'.

Who would oppose, for example, the            The world needs to recover its passion
notion that employers in Bangladesh's         for providing decent, relevant education
garment industry should be barred from        for all children instead of accepting that
using children's labour? Surely we're on      educational provision will suffer death
safe ground here this is hardly the stuff     by a thousand public-spending cuts in
of which heavy-handed development             the rich world as well as the poor.
disasters are made. Wrong: when
children (most of them girls) were            Education needs much more of our
expelled from the garment factories as a      money; it also needs our creative
result of US pressure in 1993 their           thinking about how to develop schools
families' poverty drove them to more          relevant to the needs of actual and
desperate avenues of employment on            potential child workers. When a child
the streets, in smaller, more hazardous       says, like Assane from Senegal on Page
workshops, or even, some claim, to            14, that he will run a mile if you try and
prostitution. The full fascinating story of   put him in school, he is partly reflecting
this episode the implications of which        the inadequacy of the current
have fundamentally altered the approach       educational provision. Schools in the
to child labour of the key UN agencies        Third World are all too often forbidding
is told by a Bangladeshi journalist on in     and inappropriate, and can seem to
the article Thank you, Mr Harkin, sir!.       children as much like a prison as some
                                              of the working environments we so
It is clear that any program of               decry. Sudhir, an 11-year-old from Kone
eliminating child labour which does not       in southern India, testifies to that: 'In
provide reasonable alternatives for the       school, teachers would not teach well. If
child workers it ousts which simply           we asked them to teach us alphabets,
casts them out of a workplace they had        they would beat us. They would sleep in
only entered due to extreme poverty is        the class. If we asked them about a small
dumping on them from the moral high           doubt, they would beat us and send us
ground an avalanche of negative               out. Even if we did not understand, they
consequences.                                 would not teach us. So I dropped out of
                                              school.'2
But the goal clearly has to be to stop
children entering exploitative work in        Schools must teach useful skills, that are
the first place, which is why education is    seen as relevant by both children and
bound to be the key to any serious            parents. They need to be more flexible
onslaught on child labour. We need an         and adapt to local children's
education system in the developing            circumstances, for example by adjusting
world as different from the current one       their time-table to the seasonal farming
as the sun is from the moon one that is       calendar. The Escuela Nueva program in
properly resourced and valued, that           Colombia is a fine example of a state-
reaches the poorest children not just in      school system which has adapted
terms of geography but in terms of            successfully to the needs of rural people

                                                                                      16
17

achieving better results and far fewer        'The poorest people in the world pay the
drop-outs as a result, as well as             greatest price,' Jamaica's Health
enhancing its students' self-esteem.3         Minister, Peter Phillips, once said about
                                              the breaking of developing countries'
Education of this empowering kind can         social and educational provision on the
help prevent a child from being trapped       wheel of structural adjustment. 'But that
by an exploitative employer and, after        was the price of the international
all, it is exploitation rather than poverty   agencies. We made all the noise in the
alone which generates child labour. If        world. None of our appeals had any
there were no employers prepared to           effect. We do not live in a world in
exploit children, there would be no child     which morality takes precedence.' Child
labour. Children are more easily              labour makes it clearer than any other
intimidated, less likely to organize in       issue: it's time to move morality to the
trade unions and can be paid much less.       fore. *
This allows employers to put their
products on the market at the cheapest
possible prices thereby undercutting any
company which offers decent wages and         FOOTNOTES: 1 Neera Burra, Born to Work:
                                              Child labour in India OUP Delhi 1995. 2
conditions to adults. In an increasingly      Concerned for Working Children, Education:
globalized economy the scramble for           Views of the working children, Gramashrama,
competitiveness is even more crazed,          India 1995. 3 UNICEF, The State of the World's
which is one reason why pious                 Children1997.
condemnations of child labour by
enthusiasts for free trade and
globalization in Washington seldom play
to great applause in the Majority World.

                                                          consequences
  Thank you,                                    for the children of Bangladesh, as
                                                      Shahidul Alam reports.

  Mr Harkin,                                  No. No photographs. Saleha is scared.
                                              Many a time she has hidden under
                                              tables, been locked up in the toilet, or
     sir!                                     been sent to the roof in the scorching sun
                                              for two or three hours. It happens
                                              whenever foreign buyers enter the
http://www.newint.org/issue292/thank.ht       factory. She knows she is under-age, and
                  m                           doesn’t want photographers messing
                                              things up – she needs the job. The whole
                                              industry has suddenly become sensitive.
   When US Senator Tom Harkin                 Owners want their factories open. The
 proposed a boycott of the products           workers want their jobs. The special
           of child labour,                   schools for former child labourers want
 Western campaigners applauded.               aid money. No photographs.
     But there were unforeseen

                                                                                          17
18

Neither Saleha nor any of the other child      had supported her and her grandmother
workers I have interviewed have ever           but now they must both depend on
heard of Senator Tom Harkin. All they          relatives.
know is that pressure from the US,
which buys most of Bangladesh’s                Other children have had no alternative
garments, has resulted in thousands of         but to seek new kinds of work. When
them losing their jobs at a stroke.            UNICEF and the ILO made a series of
                                               follow-up visits they found that the
According to a press release by the            children displaced from the garment
garment employers in October 1994:             factories were working at stone-crushing
‘50,000 children lost their jobs because       and street hustling – more hazardous and
of the Harkin Bill.’ A UNICEF worker           exploitative activities than their factory
confirms ‘the jobs went overnight’.            jobs.

The controversial bill, the ‘Child Labor       ‘It is easier for the boys to get jobs
Deterrence Act’, had first been                again,’ Moyna complains, pointing to
introduced in 1992. A senior                   ex-garment boys who have jobs in
International Labour Organization (ILO)        welding and bicycle factories. Girls
official has no doubt that the original bill   usually stay at home, doing household
was put forward ‘primarily to protect US       work and looking after smaller children;
trade interests’ – Tom Harkin is               many end up getting married simply to
sponsored by a key US trade union, and         ease money problems.
cheap imports from the Third World
were seen as undercutting American             Rethinking
workers’ jobs. ‘When we all objected to        In the wake of the mass expulsion of
this aspect of the Bill,’ says the ILO         child garment workers it was plain that
official, ‘which included a lot of             something had gone very wrong.
resistance in the US, the Bill was             UNICEF and the ILO tried to pick up the
amended, the trading aspect was toned          pieces. After two years of hard talking
down, and it was given a humanitarian          with the garment employers they came
look.’ It was when it was reintroduced         up with a Memorandum of
after these amendments in 1993 that the        Understanding. This guaranteed that no
Bill had its devastating impact in             more children under 14 would be hired,
Bangladesh.                                    that existing child workers would be
                                               received into special schools set up by
The child workers themselves find it           local voluntary organizations and would
particularly hard to interpret the US          receive a monthly stipend to compensate
approach as one of ‘humanitarian               them for the loss of their wages.
concern’. When asked why the buyers
have been exerting such pressure against       Some garment owners feel that, instead
child labour, Moyna, a ten-year-old            of doing a deal, they should have called
orphan who has just lost her job,              the US bluff and continued employing
comments: ‘They loathe us, don’t they?         young children. ‘We export 150 million
We are poor and not well educated, so          shirts a year to the US,’ says one. ‘The
they simply despise us. That is why they       K-mart $12 shirt would have cost $24.
shut the factories down.’ Moyna’s job          Bill Clinton would have lost his job.’

                                                                                       18
19

As of now 10,547 of the estimated             Taking home 2,200 taka ($52) a month
50,000 children have been registered,         (with overtime) Sabeena, at 13, is now
and of these 8,067 have enlisted in           the main breadwinner in the family. She
school. Most weren’t registered initially,    is lucky to have work, though she would
as few garment owners admitted having         rather study. She laughs when I talk of
children working in their factories. Many     her going to school. She has mouths to
lost their jobs before the registration       feed, and to give up her job for a 300-
process began. Unregistered children,         taka-per-month stipend for going to
regardless of their age or their schooling,   school simply wouldn’t make sense.
are not admitted into the scheme.             Besides, the special schools only teach
                                              up to Grade Five. The better students,
Saleha is tall for her age. Though in her     who have studied that far, find they have
factory there are quite a few under-age       neither jobs nor seats in the school. So
children, in most factories children that     Sabeena’s studies begin at around eleven
look small are no longer taken. This is       at night, with a paid private tutor,
what Moyna and Ekram and the other            usually by candlelight. At seven in the
children repeatedly say: ‘We didn’t           morning she has to leave for work.
make the size.’ In a country where births     Seven days a week.
are not registered there is no way of
accurately determining a person’s age.        Money is a key concern even for those
Children with good growth keep their          children who have been received into the
jobs. Children who look smaller, perhaps      special schools. At the school run by the
because they are malnourished, do not.        Bangladesh Rural Advancement
                                              Committee (BRAC) in Mirpur, the
The reliance on size rather than age          children gather round a worker doing the
means that many children are still at         rounds. ‘When do we get paid, sir?’ they
work in the factories – and many have         keep asking.
no inclination to take up a place in one
of the special schools. Take Sabeena.         Despite the promises, not a single child
Her factory is colourful with tinsel when     that I have interviewed has received the
I visit and many of the girls have glitter    full pay they are owed. In some cases
on their faces. It is the Bangla New Year     field workers, eager to improve their
and Eid all in one and they are               admission rates, have promised
celebrating. Sabeena proudly shows me         considerably more than the stipulated
the machine she works on. She is almost       300 taka ($7) per month. In others,
14 and, like Saleha, big for her age. She     unfounded rumours have created
has been working at a garment factory         expectations that the schools cannot
ever since she finished Grade Five,           meet.
about 18 months ago. Until then,
schooling was free. There was no way          Shahjahan (pictured on the facing page)
her parents could pay for her to go to        was one of the lucky ones admitted to a
school and, with her father being poorly,     BRAC school. The 300 taka per month
Sabeena needed to work to keep the            is a small sum for him too, but he works
family going.                                 in a tailoring shop from nine till eleven
                                              in the morning, and again from two-
                                              thirty in the afternoon till ten at night.

                                                                                      19
20

He doesn’t complain. Though the                The notion that a garment employer
scheme does not encourage it, he feels         might be helping children by allowing
he is getting the best of both worlds: free    them to work may seem very strange to
schooling, including a stipend, as well as     people in the West. But in a country
paid work and a potential career.              where the majority of people live in
                                               villages where children work in the
A strange question                             home and the fields as part of growing
Did they like working in garment               up, there are no romantic notions of
factories? The children find this a            childhood as an age of innocence.
strange question. They earned money            Though children are cared for, childhood
because of it, and it gave them a certain      is seen as a period for learning
status that non-working children did not       employable skills. Children have always
have. They put up with the long hours.         helped out with family duties. When this
The exceptions remind me that it is            evolves into a paid job in the city neither
children we are talking about. ‘I cried        children nor their families see it as
when they forced me to do overtime on          anything unusual. In poor families it is
Thursday nights,’ says Moyna. ‘That            simply understood that everyone has to
was when they showed Alif Laila                work.
(Arabian Nights) on TV.’
                                               The money that children earn is
Child workers are popular with factory         generally handed over to parents, who
owners. ‘Ten- to twelve-year-olds are          run the household as best as they can.
the best,’ says Farooq, the manager of         Most parents want their children to go to
Sabeena’s factory. ‘They are easier to         school. But they also feel that schooling
control, not interested in men, or movies,     is a luxury they cannot afford. The
and obedient.’ He forgets to mention that      garment industry has increased the
they are not unionized and that they           income of working-class families in
agree to work for 500 taka ($12) per           recent years and this has also led to a
month when the minimum legal wage              change in attitudes. Many middle-class
for a helper is 930 taka.                      homes now complain that it is difficult
                                               to get domestic ‘help’ as working-class
Owners see Tom Harkin as a well-               women and children choose to work in
meaning soul with little clue about the        garment factories rather than as servants.
realities of garment workers’ lives. ‘As a     This choice – made on the grounds not
student, I too hailed the Bill,’ says Sohel,   just of better economics, but of greater
the production manager at Captex               self-respect – is one many children have
Garments. ‘I was happy that someone            lost because of the Harkin Bill.
was fighting for children’s rights. But
now that I work in a factory and have to       The US is wielding power without
turn away these children who need jobs,        responsibility. A nation with a history of
I see things differently. Sometimes I take     genocide and slavery, and a reputation
risks and, if a child is really in a bad       for being a bully in international politics,
way, I let them work, but it is                suddenly proclaims itself a champion of
dangerous.’                                    people’s rights, but refuses to make
                                               concessions over the rates it will pay.
                                               The dollar price-tags on the garments

                                                                                        20
21

produced in some factories suggest a        difference will these two or three years
vast profit being made at the US end.       in school make to these children? In
The buyers claim that what they pay for     three years, the helper could have been
the garments is determined by ‘market       an operator, with better pay and more
forces’. The garment owners make the        savings. Even if the manufacturers keep
same claim with regard to the conditions    their word and give them back their jobs
of employment for their workers. Both       at the end of their schooling, the
are simply justifying their own version     Memorandum children will hardly be
of exploitation – and to address child      better off, while their peers will have
labour without addressing exploitation is   gotten on with their careers. We have
to treat the symptom, not the disease.      spent millions of dollars on 8,000
                                            children. The money itself could have
The garment-industry experience has led     transformed their lives. This is an
to an active debate amongst                 experiment by the donors, and the
development workers and child-rights        Bangladeshi children have to pay.’
activists. ‘What we have done here in
Bangladesh is described as fantastic,’      Shahidul Alam is a photographer, writer and
says a senior ILO worker. ‘I wonder how     activist who runs Drik Picture Library in Dhaka.
                                            The children’s names have been changed to
fantastic it really is. How much            protect them.

 THE SHOE-SHINER –                          soil and sowing rice seeds. But we didn’t
                                            produce enough and he sent me away.
      SENEGAL
                                            Uncle Demba told me that it would be
     http://www.newint.org/easier-          hard in the city. But it will be good for
    english/child_labour/assane.html        me whether or not I bring him back
                                            money one day. ‘With travel you gain
          Assane’s story                    experience,’ he said. It is good for a
                                            child to know suffering. Then I will
Assane Diallo is a 10-year-old              appreciate life when I am older. That is
shoe-shine boy in Ziguinchor, the           the Toucouleur way.
capital of Senegal’s southern region.
Like hundreds of other children from        Of course I was scared to leave but I also
the north of Senegal, he has fled not       wanted to go. I am proud that he has sent
war, but a bad agricultural policy.         me. I hope I make lots of money. I hope
The French Government is trying to          I can come back to my village and give
get the Toucouleur people to grow           all my relatives presents. And I’ll be
rice. But their Futa Toro region is too     wearing jeans and sneakers. I already
dry and the result is that the              have this nice T-shirt .
Toucouleur, traditionally nomadic
cattle herders, are becoming more           In the village I just wore rags.
impoverished.                               Sometimes there wasn’t enough food to
                                            eat. We worked very hard but there was
I come from the village of Bronkagne in     never enough rain. And rice needs lots of
the Futa Toro. I used to work for my        rain. Still, we Toucouleur always find a
Uncle Demba cultivating rice, tilling the   way to survive. If we can’t make money
                                            from farming then we go out and

                                                                                          21
22

become traders. That is what my family           [Senegal’s capital] and bring back
wants me to do.                                  broken shoes which we younger boys
                                                 repair for them. I have already begun
I already did it last year. I went to the        helping to repair shoes and my friends
town of Bakel for three months between           are impressed at how fast I am learning.
the sowing and harvesting seasons. I
sold baobab and bissap juice on the              So my fourth step will be repairing shoes
street for a market woman. I came back           and my fifth step will be to be a shoe
to Brokagne with new clothes and gave            trader like the older boys. But when I go
my uncle money. He was very happy                to Dakar I won’t just bring back broken
with me. That’s why he wanted me to go           shoes. I will bring all sorts of things.
again this year.                                 That is how I will get rich.

My aim in life is to be a big trader. As         I don’t need to go school. What can I
my father died when I was a baby, Uncle          learn there? I know children who went to
Demba inherited his land instead. So             school. Their family paid for the fees
now his sons will inherit it from him, not       and the uniforms and now they are
me. That is why I must be a trader. I            educated. But you see them sitting
want to travel to Bangkok and bring              around. Now they are useless to their
back textiles and jewellery to sell here.        families. They don’t know anything
Then with the profits I will open my own         about farming or trading or making
store. That is what we Toucouleur do. If         money. Even though I have never been
you go to any town in Senegal you will           to school, I can count and quickly give
find us with our little stores. My friend’s      the correct change. I also know how to
uncle has a big store in New York.               bargain with customers and always make
                                                 a profit.
I am now on the third step to my life
goal. The first step was working for my          The only thing I need to learn is to read
uncle cultivating rice. The second step          and write. But I have started. People
was selling drinks on the street. Now the        from ENDA [a Dakar-based agency]
third step is being a shoe-shine boy. It is      teach me and my friends every Tuesday
not easy. You have to find people who            evening. That’s good because it doesn’t
look like they have a little extra cash and      mess up our work schedule.
convince them that they need their shoes
shined. And sometimes they won’t pay             My friends told me that a white woman
you. They say ‘Oh, I don’t have the              came to talk to them once and told them
change, I’ll pay you next time,’ and you         it is bad that children have to work. She
never see them again. They also won’t            said she would put them all in school but
pay if you get any shoe polish on their          she never came back, and I am glad. If
socks.                                           anyone tries to put me in school I will
                                                 run away. I wouldn’t be making any
That’s why I don’t want to do this for           money. Then I would be ashamed ever
long. I want to learn how to repair shoes.       to go back to my village.
Then I can work for the older boys who
are shoe traders. They go to Dakar               Assane was interviewed by David Hecht.

Published on Thursday, March 16, 2000 in the Washington Post

                                                                                          22
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