Social protection key tool in fight against child labour
Children’s labour entails both benefits and harm that should be assessed at the local level. PHOTO | REUTERS
What you need to know:
- World Day against Child Labour was established by ILO in 2002 as a way to foster campaigns and activism against children being forced to undertake bad forms of labour
Kilmarnock, UK. The world is pulling material and functional resources from across the globe to ensure that the social protection system for children is widely in place. There are many children to be rescued from the shackles of oppressive labour, undue for their age and maturity; and there are many more to be protected not to fall into the same.
In 2002, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) established the World Day against Child Labour as a way to foster campaigns and activism against children being forced to work. The ILO Conventions Number 138 and Number 182 directly address this matter. The former makes clear the minimum age for work, and the latter puts a stop to ‘worst forms of child labour’. The World Day against Child Labour is marked annually every June 12.
According to ILO guidelines, what is specifically referred to as Recommendation No 190, worst forms of child labour include hazardous work, work which exposes children to physical, psychological or sexual abuse; work underground, underwater, at dangerous heights or in confined spaces; work with dangerous machinery, equipment and tools or carrying heavy loads; exposure to hazardous substances, agents or processes, or to temperatures, noise levels or vibrations damaging to health; work for long hours, night work, and unreasonable confinement to the premises of the employer.
This description is an eye-opener as regards the severity of the problem globally. The aim is however, not only to rescue children who are being forced into child labour, but to also rectify structural and systemic influence. The social and governing system in place have huge influence in the involvement of people in productive activities.
Also Read: Big families linked to child labour
Where the education system is dysfunctional there are chances of both seepage and waste of both the actual and potential human resource invested in it. These people, who are ideally for the other system, as in this case education, can hardly fit into other parastatals effortlessly.
Children may feel moved to work in order to save their impoverished families from starvation and lack, to cater for basic needs, or to help pay for their schooling as the case may be. Yet, this should not be, as the legislation agreed and adopted by many States globally condemns and prohibits such forms of labour among children.
Article 2.3 of Convention No 138 states that the minimum age, “shall not be less than the age of completion of compulsory schooling and, in any case, shall not be less than 15 years.
What do experts say?
Frances Gunn is Service manager for Children’s Services and a PhD student in the Centre for Child Wellbeing and Protection in Stirling University, Scotland UK, and a seasoned child safeguarding officer. In her opinion, child labour has existed throughout history in many different forms, however, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) article 32 outlines that governments must protect children from work that is dangerous or might harm their health. If a child is therefore made to engage in labour, this has potential to negatively impact on development, health, safety and wellbeing in several different ways.
More broadly though, the body of evidence underpinning child development is clear on the importance of both imaginative and structured play in supporting brain development and again, this is supported by UNCRC article 31 which notes that every child has the right to play and relax.
Ms Gunn is points out that one consequence of children engaging in extreme labour is the reduction of the possibility of them attending and benefitting from formal education. Lack of formal education is well documented to have significant short and long term impacts for children, in that, as children it reduces the possibility of forming healthy peer relationships, and as adults, lack of formal education impacts on future earning potential.
In line with other experts, Ms Gunn acknowledges that child labour is a difficult issue to tackle, and highlights the need for community based peer mentorship initiatives to increase awareness among both adults and children regarding the dangers of child labour.
The global uptake
This year, the World Day against Child Labour has been anticipated by ‘a week of action against child labour’ which lasted from 3rd through 12th of June 2022. Globally, according to the interactive map provided by ILO (as per 10th of June) there was comparably a huge decrease in activism this year as compared to last year, 2021, especially in Africa. Tanzania had no marking in the interactive statistic-based map that any activity is taking place at all.
On the Tanzanian situation, it will be sheer ignorance to say the problem does not exist. Some children are forced to graze animals, while denied schooling, young girls are employed as domestic servants, and many brought to cities or even taken abroad for unexplainable and dangerous involvements.
However, the Bureau of International Labour Affairs, which operates under the US department of labour, records findings that Tanzania is among the states that have children involved in worst forms of child labour “including mining, quarrying, and domestic work”, and also that there are gaps in the legal framework and enforcement of laws related to child labour, among others insufficiency of labour inspectors as weighed against the size of Tanzania’s labour force. This is a sign that there is a lot of work to be done in both structures as well as policies for the good of the future generation.
