Post 10: CHILD LABOUR

Recent ILO’s valuations suggest that about 217.7 millions of minors (between 5 and 17 years old) are involved in child labour around the world. Around 122.3 millions of children are economically operative in Asia and in the Pacific area.

Depending on researches, in South Eastern Asia there is the highest rate of child labour and there aren’t signals of potential developments,  thanks to the level of poverty, the lack in educational systems, and social traditions.  Children are employed, above all, in agricultural activities, in the production of small objects, in works on the street (Thailand), or in the fish market (Indonesia). These jobs have consequences on the life of children, on their health, and on their education (they robe of fundamental time for  going to school).  The wages are usually insignificant and the places where they work are in general unhealthy.

In these countries, children can work until 12 hours a day. Emergency situations come to lights in Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh. In the Philippines, the 60% of children has work conditions that can provoke acute diseases.  The bodies of little boys, not yet fully grown, are seriously damaged by the hard work and the transportation of heavy materials. Little girls are more helpless: they can be victims of sexual exploitation, forced prostitution, or unwanted pregnancies.   

We can distinguish between:

• ·         Domestic labour, where children are exploited by their own relatives inside their home and fields
• ·         Forced labour, i.e. every kind of activity, carried out under threats. Because of the debts of their parents, in India 15 millions of children are forced to work, and the same happens in Pakistan and Nepal. Children became slaves.

The necessity of eliminate the child labour in this area collects nowadays a lot of consents. Some national projects in support of international programmes have been implemented, while regional organizations have launched programmes against human trafficking and child labour.

An important instrument of protection of children is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by 193 countries. 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”.

Michael Massarutto