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| by Shane Parkhill, age 16, Stratford Central S.S., Ontario, |
Jul 12, 2004 |
There are two forms of child labour: harmful child labour and non-harmful child labour. Non-harmful child labour is essential to the survival of some families, and it involves children doing non-dangerous activities such as selling fruit or jewellery on city streets — much as our children might sell lemonade. However, instead of running down to the corner store to gorge on as much candy as 10 cents a glass can get you, these children use their profits to pay for tuition, school supplies, transportation, and food. Non-harmful child labour is typically part-time, thus not interfering with a child’s education, but aiding the process. It is in fact safe, productive, and often necessary. Where North American youth might flip burgers for minimum wage so that they can afford that new CD, impoverished children seize the limited opportunities available to them to pay for an education. Children frequently choose this form of labour so that they might enjoy other activities at school. Harmful child labour, on the other hand, is not safe, and often prevents a child from ever receiving any form of education. All of my future references to child labour refer to this form, the exploitative level of existence to which some children are forced to stoop.
Child Labour — A Global Problem
First and foremost, a Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written in 1948. Child labour and its many forms are found to violate almost every article in the charter, but exceptionally so in articles 1, 4, 5, 23 and 26.
The general public knows very little about the terrors of child labour. What’s worse is that out of those who do know, most ignore it. The fact is, child labour is real. It happens every day. In fact, some children work 12 hours every day, for as little as 2 cents an hour. It is not one factory on one island somewhere; it’s everywhere. Statistics show that there are between 60 and 115 million working children in India alone (Badiwala). Globally, approximately 250 million children aged 5 to 14 are active economically. Of those, approximately 50 million aged 5 to 11 face hazardous conditions.
Child labour is not just kids sewing Nike symbols onto your new Shocks, either; child labour can be not only ruthless, but disgusting. Children are treated as expendable, as a means to an end, rather than as a beautiful end in themselves. Children are put to work as armed soldiers, servants, workers in hazardous environments, and even as prostitutes, sex slaves, and objects of pornography. Child labour is a global problem.
So far, all of the labour I’ve mentioned is paid labour, however dismally. There are worse cases: cases of children in slavery. The most prominent scenario is that of a child’s parents selling them away. Poverty and child labour go hand in hand, and families faced with poverty have hardly any options when it comes to sources of money. The only route they have is to trade services to the local “moneylenders” that charge immense interest rates of up to 900 percent. Typically, the only services they can trade are those of their children, so the children work off the debt. However, as bonded workers, these children make less money than the rapidly compounding interest rates on their parents’ loans, and are therefore perpetually trapped in slavery as debt accumulates. There are an estimated 20 million bonded labourers worldwide.
Once forced into slavery, these children are sold and traded with other countries, and forced to work in dangerous conditions, such as in sweatshops, on construction sites, with dangerous chemicals, and in other hazardous environments. These workers are subject to physical and verbal abuse by all who surround them, and are given no rights. Children as young as 7 years old are forced into prostitution, where, in addition to disease, they are subject to mental trauma. This is not just from the nature of their jobs, either; they receive a great deal of mental abuse from both clients and owners. As many as 2 million people per year are trafficked in this manner.
Luckier children end up as domestic servants. Meals and shelter are provided, but at great expense. Large numbers of girls under 17, approximately 10 percent of the whole child labour force, work in households as domestic servants. They are forced to live in an environment in which they face abuse of all kinds.
Perhaps the worst effect of child labour is that it keeps children out of school. Every child has the right to an education, and in fact it is a requirement to go to school. If children are working, they are not being educated. Even when children are not forced to work, they can’t afford not to. Children are working to support their family.
Efforts to Stop Child Labour
There are countless efforts to stop child labour worldwide, most of which are directed at public awareness. Organizations like CIDA, Human Rights Watch, Global March, and countless coalitions create reports to inform the public about child labour, suggest courses of action, and provide examples. These reports motivate other people to take up the movement and stand against child labour. Other such organizations initiate and support movements that help children in need.
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