Child labour laws and initiatives

Almost every country in the world has laws relating to and aimed at preventing child labour.
International Labour Organisation has helped set international law, which most countries have
signed on and ratified.
According to ILO minimum age convention (C138) of 1973, child labour refers to any work
performed by children under the age of 12, non-light work done by children aged 1214, and
hazardous work done by children aged 1517. Light work was defined, under this Convention, as
any work that does not harm a child's health and development, and that does not interfere with
his or her attendance at school. This convention has been ratified by 135 countries.
The United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990, which was
subsequently ratified by 193 countries.
[72]
Article 32 of the convention addressed child labour, as
follows:
...Parties recognise the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from
performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education, or to
be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.
[4]

Under Article 1 of the 1990 Convention, a child is defined as "... every human being below the
age of eighteen years unless, under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier."
Article 28 of this Convention requires States to, "make primary education compulsory and
available free to all."
[4]

Three countries that have not ratified the 1990 Convention are Somalia, South Sudan and
the United States.
[73][74]

In 1999, ILO helped lead the Worst Forms Convention 182 (C182),
[75]
which has so far been
signed upon and domestically ratified by 151 countries including the United States. This
international law prohibits worst forms of child labour, defined as all forms of slavery and
slavery-like practices, such as child trafficking, debt bondage, and forced labour, including
forced recruitment of children into armed conflict. The law also prohibits use of a child for
prostitution or the production of pornography, child labour in illicit activities such as drug
production and trafficking; and in hazardous work. Both the Worst Forms Convention 182
(C182) and the Minimum Age Convention (C138) are examples of international labour
standards implemented through the ILO that deal with child labour.


The United States has passed a law that allows Amish children older than 14 to work in
traditional wood enterprises with proper supervision.
In addition to setting the international law, the United Nations initiated International Program on
the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) in 1992.
[76]
This initiative aims to progressively
eliminate child labour through strengthening national capacities to address some of the causes of
child labour. Amongst the key initiative is the so-called time bounded program countries, where
child labour is most prevalent and schooling opportunities lacking. The initiative seeks to
achieve amongst other things, universal primary school availability. The IPEC has expanded to
at least the following target countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia,
Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, El Salvador, Nepal, Tanzania,
Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Philippines, Senegal, South Africa and Turkey.
Targeted child labour campaigns were initiated by the International Programme on the
Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) in order to advocate for prevention and elimination of all
forms of child labour. The global Music against Child Labour Initiative was launched in 2013 in
order to involve socially excluded children in structured musical activity and education in efforts
to help protect them from child labour.
[77]

Exceptions granted
In 2004, the United States passed an amendment to the Fair Labour Standards Act of 1938. The
amendment allows certain children aged 1418 to work in or outside a business where machinery
is used to process wood.
[78]
The law aims to respect the religious and cultural needs of
theAmish community of the United States. The Amish believe that one effective way to educate
children is on the job.
[6]
The new law allows Amish children the ability to work with their
families, once they are past eighth grade in school.
Similarly, in 1996, member countries of the European Union, per Directive 94/33/EC,
[8]
agreed
to a number of exceptions for young people in its child labour laws. Under these rules, children
of various ages may work in cultural, artistic, sporting or advertising activities if authorised by
competent authority. Children above the age of 13 may perform light work for a limited number
of hours per week in other economic activities as defined at the discretion of each country.
Additionally, the European law exception allows children aged 14 years or over to work as part
of a work/training scheme. The EU Directive clarified that these exceptions do not allow child
labour where the children may experience harmful exposure to dangerous
substances.
[79]
Nonetheless, many children under the age of 13 do work, even in the most
developed countries of the EU. For instance, a recent study showed over a third of Dutch twelve-
year-old kids had a job.
[80]

More laws vs. more freedom
These (child labour) state laws were not enforced.
Often the children themselves and their parents,
who wanted the money or could see no way to
survive without it - resisted. Federal legislations
were passed, but were declared unconstitutional
by the Supreme Court. Only in 1938 did child
labour laws become a reality.
Smithsonian, on child labour in early 20th century
United States,
[81]

Scholars disagree on the best legal course forward to address child labour. Some suggest the
need for laws that place a blanket ban on any work by children less than 18 years old. Others
suggest the current international laws are enough, and the need for more engaging approach to
achieve the ultimate goals.
[82]

Some scholars suggest any labour by children aged 18 year or less is wrong since this encourages
illiteracy, inhumane work and lower investment in human capital. Child labour, claim these
activists, also leads to poor labour standards for adults, depresses the wages of adults in
developing countries as well as the developed countries, and dooms the third world economies to
low-skill jobs only capable of producing poor quality cheap exports. More children that work in
poor countries, the fewer and worse-paid are the jobs for adults in these countries. In other
words, there are moral and economic reasons that justify a blanket ban on labour from children
aged 18 years or less, everywhere in the world.
[83][84]



Child labour in Bangladesh.
Other scholars suggest that these arguments are flawed, ignores history and more laws will do
more harm than good. According to them, child labour is merely the symptom of a greater
disease named poverty. If laws ban all lawful work that enables the poor to survive, informal
economy, illicit operations and underground businesses will thrive. These will increase abuse of
the children. In poor countries with very high incidence rates of child labour - such as Ethiopia,
Chad, Niger and Nepal - schools are not available, and the few schools that exist offer poor
quality education or are unaffordable. The alternatives for children who currently work, claim
these studies, are worse: grinding subsistence farming, militia or prostitution. Child labour is not
a choice, it is a necessity, the only option for survival. It is currently the least undesirable of a set
of very bad choices.
[85][86]



Nepali girls working in brick factory.
These scholars suggest, from their studies of economic and social data, that early 20th century
child labour in Europe and the United States ended in large part as a result of economic
development of formal regulated economy, technology development and general prosperity.
Child labour laws and ILO conventions came later. Edmonds suggests, even in contemporary
times, incidence of child labour in Vietnam has rapidly reduced following economic reforms and
GDP growth. These scholars suggest economic engagement, emphasis on opening quality
schools rather than more laws, and expanding economically relevant skill development
opportunities in the third world. International legal actions, such as trade sanctions increase child
labour.
[82][87][88][89]

"The Incredible Bread Machine" a book published by "World Research, Inc." in 1974:
"Child labor was a particular target of early reformers. William Cooke Tatlor wrote at the time
about these reformers who, witnissing children ar work in the factories, thought to themselves:
'How much more delightful would have been the gambol of the free limbs on the hillside; the
sight of the green mead with its spangles of buttercups and daisies; the song of the bird and the
humming bee...' But for many of these children the factory system meant quite literally the only
chance for survival. Today we overlook the fact that death from starvation and exposure was a
common fate before the Industrial Revolution, for the pre capitalist economy was barely able to
support the population. Yes, children were working. Formerly they would have starved. It was
only as goods were produced in greater abundance at lower cost that men could support their
families without sending their children to work. It was not the reformer or the politician that
ended the grim necessity for child labor; it was capitalism."