Child Labour
Child Labour
160 Million children are occupied in child labour worldwide
Millions of children worldwide who are engaged in child labour forcefully, and many of the are enduring the trauma of coercion, threats of punishment, lack of freedom, and educational marginalization in addition to the negative effects of dangerous working circumstances.
Defination
Generally, Child labour is described as a type of employment that is performed by too-young children, requires excessive hours, or poses a risk to a child’s health and development. It frequently impedes a child’s ability to receive an education.
According to International Labour Organization (2024), ‘The term “child labour” is often defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development.’
Child Labour Statistics
According to latest estimates from the ILO, 246 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 work as child labourers worldwide. Approximately 179 million of them are involved in the most severe kind of child labour.
Nearly one in ten children worldwide, or among 160 million children, are involved in child labour, including 97 million boys and 63 million girls.
79 million of children, or about half of all child labourers all over the world, work in hazardous jobs that jeopardize their moral development, safety, and health.
There are 222 million children working, which includes both child labour and legal types of employment.
Who are the ‘Children’?
Only the UN Child Rights Convention (UNCRC) clearly defines who is considered a child, even though all international human rights accords apply to children. According to the Article 1, a child is considered to be any human being under the age of 18.
Childhood and Adulthood both have own age limits,
- Those who are aged below 14 are called children
- From 14 to 17 aged are called adolescents
- Above 18 are called adults
Context
Child Labour is a tragic form of labour which miserably deprived of the children from the rights of education. Besides, they also lose their proper childhood due to giving labour at an early age.
The highest rate of child labor—26.2%—occurs in low-income nations. In contrast, 4.9% of children in upper-middle-income nations, 0.9% of children in upper-income countries, and 9% of children in lower-middle-income countries are encompassed with child labour.
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1989 explained that, “Childhoods continue to be cut short when children are forced to leave school, do hazardous work, get married, fight in wars or are locked up in adult prisons.”
Around 9-13% of the labour force of Bangladesh is consisting with child labourers.
The issue of child work becomes an unceasing phenomenon not only in Bangladesh but also in other countries, such as, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Brazil, Costa Rica and so on. The majority of child work can be found in Asian and Pacific regions, Sub-Saharan Africa and in Latin America.
Asian and Pacific Regions
Asia is the home to the greatest number of child labourers worldwide; with an estimated 62.1 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 are working as child workers (ILO, 2020). Approximately 7% of the children in the area are represented by this.
In many Asian countries, child labour is still a major problem that is influenced by several socioeconomic, cultural, and political factors. Despite the efforts of international organizations and governments, millions of youngsters are working in dangerous and exploitative jobs.
Regional Variance
South Asia: The largest occurrence is found in countries like India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan; these countries are frequently linked to domestic work, brick kilns, construction, and agriculture.
Southeast Asia: Mostly fishery, clothing, and agricultural sectors in nations including Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, and Myanmar are plagued by child labour issues.
East Asia: Despite having lower incidence rates, nations like China and Vietnam are facing struggle regarding child labour in the informal sectors and in rural areas.
Sub-Saharan African Regions
Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest proportion of child labourers worldwide, slightly more than 1 in 4 youngsters in sub-Saharan Africa between the ages of 5 and 17 work as children; with an estimated 48 million children aged 5–17 engaged in labour, in accordance with the recent statistics of ILO.
The bulk of child labour takes place in rural regions, where informal employment and subsistence farming are prevalent. On the other hand, Children in urban areas engage in small-scale industry, domestic chores, and street hawking.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, more than 70% of child labourers are employed in agriculture, including-
Maintaining Farming: Working on family farms that produce commodities like coffee, cocoa, and maize.
Cash Crops: Child labour plays a significant role in the production of cocoa in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.
Fishing: Around lakes and rivers, like Ghana’s Lake Volta, children labour in the fishing industry.
Besides, some child workers are involved in mining, informal economy and domestic works.
Latin America
In Latin America, children typically work in one of three economic sectors: the informal economy, industry, or agriculture. More than half of child labourers are employed in agriculture, frequently in dangerous jobs.
USA and Latin America is preferred for coffee industry. The world’s second-largest market for Honduran coffee is the United States. However, more than a million Hondurans pick, select, and prepare the coffee beans before it reaches our cups. A large number of these coffee workers are kids, working in the fields rather than attending school. Besides, in Honduras, more children work in agriculture than any other industry, with over 158,000 of them involved in child labour.
Risk Factors
Child labour is driven by a complicated web of risk factors that possibly depending on the location and situation. Some of the major risk factors are identified below:
- The likelihood of child labour is higher for boys than for girls (11.2% vs. 7.8%). There are 34 million more boys engaged in child labour than girls.
- Poverty is the greatest driver behind the child labour, especially in developing countries like Bangladesh.Most of the child labourers are living below the poverty line, especially those who have unemployed parents or those who are belonging into the lower income condition.
- When domestic duties that require 21 hours or more per week are included, the gender disparity in prevalence among children aged 5 to 14 is nearly halved
- Parents’ illiteracy is also affecting the children’s education because of their less awareness about child’s education and the malevolence about the child labour
- Street children are the worst sufferers of the tendency for cheap labour and they are at the greater risk of exploitation by the employers
- Due to the common belief that girls require less education than boys, they are frequently pulled out of school early and forced to labor at home, be sold into domestic work, or engage in sex work.
Industries
The majority of child labour—70%, or 121 million children—occurs in the agricultural sector worldwide. Other noteworthy industries are
Sector of services: 31.4 million kids
Sector of industry: 16.5 million youngsters
Over two-thirds of child labourers are contributing family workers, and the majority of child labour occurs within the family. Around 72.1% of children between the ages of 5 and 17 who are engaged in child labour work inside their own family, with the remaining 17.3% working as employees and other 10.7% working as own-account workers.
Say no to child labour and yes to education
children face while learning skills and working at automobile repair workshops. It urges employers to comply with child labour-related laws and features how relevant stakeholders can play an instrumental role in withdrawing children from child labour and bringing them to schools.
