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Child labour refers to the
exploitation Exploitation may refer to: *Exploitation of natural resources *Exploitation of labour **Forced labour *Exploitation colonialism *Slavery **Sexual slavery and other forms *Oppression *Psychological manipulation In arts and entertainment * Exploit ...
of children through any form of work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such
exploitation Exploitation may refer to: *Exploitation of natural resources *Exploitation of labour **Forced labour *Exploitation colonialism *Slavery **Sexual slavery and other forms *Oppression *Psychological manipulation In arts and entertainment * Exploit ...
is prohibited by legislation worldwide, although these laws do not consider all work by children as child labour; exceptions include work by child artists, family duties, supervised training, and some forms of work undertaken by
Amish The Amish (; pdc, Amisch; german: link=no, Amische), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsatian origins. They are closely related to Mennonite churche ...
children, as well as by indigenous children in the Americas. Child labour has existed to varying extents throughout history. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, many children aged 5–14 from poorer families worked in
Western nations The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.
and their
colonies In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...
alike. These children mainly worked in agriculture, home-based assembly operations, factories, mining, and services such as news boys – some worked night shifts lasting 12 hours. With the rise of household income, availability of schools and passage of
child labour law Child labour laws are statutes placing restrictions and regulations on the work of minors. Child labour increased during the Industrial Revolution due to the children's abilities to access smaller spaces and the ability to pay children less wages ...
s, the incidence rates of child labour fell. In the world's poorest countries, around one in four children are engaged in child labour, the highest number of whom (29 percent) live in sub-saharan Africa. In 2017, four African nations ( Mali,
Benin Benin ( , ; french: Bénin , ff, Benen), officially the Republic of Benin (french: République du Bénin), and formerly Dahomey, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the north ...
, Chad and
Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau ( ; pt, Guiné-Bissau; ff, italic=no, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫 𞤄𞤭𞤧𞤢𞥄𞤱𞤮, Gine-Bisaawo, script=Adlm; Mandinka: ''Gine-Bisawo''), officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau ( pt, República da Guiné-Bissau, links=no ) ...
) witnessed over 50 percent of children aged 5–14 working. Worldwide agriculture is the largest employer of child labour. The vast majority of child labour is found in
rural In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are describ ...
settings and informal
urban Urban means "related to a city". In that sense, the term may refer to: * Urban area, geographical area distinct from rural areas * Urban culture, the culture of towns and cities Urban may also refer to: General * Urban (name), a list of people ...
economies An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the p ...
; children are predominantly employed by their parents, rather than factories. Poverty and lack of schools are considered the primary cause of child labour. Globally the incidence of child labour decreased from 25% to 10% between 1960 and 2003, according to the World Bank. Nevertheless, the total number of child labourers remains high, with UNICEF and
ILO The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and ol ...
acknowledging an estimated 168 million children aged 5–17 worldwide were involved in child labour in 2013.


History


Child labour in preindustrial societies

Child labour forms an
intrinsic In science and engineering, an intrinsic property is a property of a specified subject that exists itself or within the subject. An extrinsic property is not essential or inherent to the subject that is being characterized. For example, mass ...
part of pre-industrial economies.Diamond, J., The World Before Yesterday In
pre-industrial societies Pre-industrial society refers to social attributes and forums of political and cultural organization that were prevalent before the advent of the Industrial Revolution, which occurred from 1750 to 1850. ''Pre-industrial'' refers to a time before ...
, there is rarely a concept of childhood in the modern sense. Children often begin to actively participate in activities such as
child rearing Parenting or child rearing promotes and supports the physical, emotional, social, spiritual and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood. Parenting refers to the intricacies of raising a child and not exclusively for a bi ...
, hunting and farming as soon as they are competent. In many societies, children as young as 13 are seen as adults and engage in the same activities as adults. The work of children was important in pre-industrial societies, as children needed to provide their labour for their survival and that of their group. Pre-industrial societies were characterised by low productivity and short
life expectancy Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, current age, and other demographic factors like sex. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth ...
; preventing children from participating in productive work would be more harmful to their welfare and that of their group in the long run. In pre-industrial societies, there was little need for children to attend school. This is especially the case in non-literate societies. Most pre-industrial skill and knowledge were amenable to being passed down through direct mentoring or
apprenticing Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...
by competent adults. File:Mill Children in Macon 2.jpg, Child labourers, Macon, Georgia, 1909 File:Child Labor in New Jersey United States 1923.jpg, Children working in home-based assembly operations in United States (1923). File:Abolish child slavery.jpg, Two girls protesting child labour (by calling it child slavery) in the 1909 New York City Labor Day parade. File:Arthur Rothstein (American, 1915-1985). Child Labor, Cranberry Bog, 1938.jpg,
Arthur Rothstein Arthur Rothstein (July 17, 1915 – November 11, 1985) was an American photographer. Rothstein is recognized as one of America's premier photojournalists. During a career that spanned five decades, he provoked, entertained and informed the Americ ...
, ''Child Labor, Cranberry Bog'', 1939.
Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown ...


Industrial Revolution

With the onset of the Industrial Revolution in Britain in the late 18th century, there was a rapid increase in the industrial exploitation of labour, including child labour. Industrial cities such as
Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
, Manchester, and Liverpool rapidly grew from small villages into large cities and improving
child mortality Child mortality is the mortality of children under the age of five. The child mortality rate, also under-five mortality rate, refers to the probability of dying between birth and exactly five years of age expressed per 1,000 live births. It en ...
rates. These cities drew in the population that was rapidly growing due to increased agricultural output. This process was replicated in other industrialising countries. The Victorian era in particular became notorious for the conditions under which children were employed. Children as young as four were employed in production factories and mines working long hours in dangerous, often fatal, working conditions. In
coal mine Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...
s, children would crawl through tunnels too narrow and low for adults. Children also worked as errand boys,
crossing sweeper A crossing sweeper was a person working as a street sweeper who would sweep a path ahead of people crossing dirty urban streets in exchange for a gratuity. This practice was an informal occupation among the urban poor, primarily during the 19th ...
s, shoe blacks, or selling matches, flowers and other cheap goods. Some children undertook work as
apprentice Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...
s to respectable trades, such as building or as
domestic servant A domestic worker or domestic servant is a person who works within the scope of a residence. The term "domestic service" applies to the equivalent occupational category. In traditional English contexts, such a person was said to be "in service ...
s (there were over 120,000 domestic servants in London in the mid-18th century). Working hours were long: builders worked 64 hours a week in the summer and 52 hours in winter, while servants worked 80-hour weeks. Child labour played an important role in the Industrial Revolution from its outset, often brought about by economic hardship. The children of the poor were expected to contribute to their family income.Barbara Daniels,
Poverty and Families in the Victorian Era
In 19th-century Great Britain, one-third of poor families were without a
breadwinner The breadwinner model is a paradigm of family centered on a breadwinner, "the member of a family who earns the money to support the others." Traditionally, the earner works outside the home to provide the family with income and benefits such as h ...
, as a result of death or abandonment, obliging many children to work from a young age. In England and Scotland in 1788, two-thirds of the workers in 143 water-powered
cotton mill A cotton mill is a building that houses spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton, an important product during the Industrial Revolution in the development of the factory system. Although some were driven ...
s were described as children. A high number of children also worked as prostitutes. The author
Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...
worked at the age of 12 in a blacking factory, with his family in
debtor's prison A debtors' prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt. Until the mid-19th century, debtors' prisons (usually similar in form to locked workhouses) were a common way to deal with unpaid debt in Western Europe.Cory, Lucinda"A Histo ...
.. Child wages were often low, the wages were as little as 10–20% of an adult male's wage. Karl Marx was an outspoken opponent of child labour, saying British industries "could but live by sucking blood, and children’s blood too", and that U.S. capital was financed by the "capitalized blood of children". Letitia Elizabeth Landon castigated child labour in her 1835 poem ''The Factory'', portions of which she pointedly included in her 18th Birthday Tribute to Princess Victoria in 1837. Throughout the second half of the 19th century, child labour began to decline in industrialised societies due to regulation and economic factors because of the Growth of
trade unions A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits (s ...
. The regulation of child labour began from the earliest days of the Industrial Revolution. The first act to regulate child labour in Britain was passed in 1803. As early as 1802 and 1819 Factory Acts were passed to regulate the working hours of
workhouse In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse' ...
children in factories and cotton mills to 12 hours per day. These acts were largely ineffective and after radical agitation, by for example the "Short Time Committees" in 1831, a Royal Commission recommended in 1833 that children aged 11–18 should work a maximum of 12 hours per day, children aged 9–11 a maximum of eight hours, and children under the age of nine were no longer permitted to work. This act however only applied to the textile industry, and further agitation led to another act in 1847 limiting both adults and children to 10-hour working days.
Lord Shaftesbury Earl of Shaftesbury is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1672 for Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Baron Ashley, a prominent politician in the Cabal then dominating the policies of King Charles II. He had already succeeded his fa ...
was an outspoken advocate of regulating child labour. As technology improved and proliferated, there was a greater need for educated employees. This saw an increase in schooling, with the eventual introduction of
compulsory schooling Compulsory education refers to a period of education that is required of all people and is imposed by the government. This education may take place at a registered school or at other places. Compulsory school attendance or compulsory schooling ...
. Improved technology, automation and further legislation significantly reduced child labour particularly in western Europe and the U.S.


Early 20th century

In the early 20th century, thousands of boys were employed in glass making industries.
Glass making Glass production involves two main methods – the float glass process that produces sheet glass, and glassblowing that produces bottles and other containers. It has been done in a variety of ways during the history of glass. Glass container ...
was a dangerous and tough job especially without the current technologies. The process of making glass includes intense heat to melt glass (). When the boys are at work, they are exposed to this heat. This could cause eye trouble, lung ailments, heat exhaustion, cuts, and burns. Since workers were paid by the piece, they had to work productively for hours without a break. Since furnaces had to be constantly burning, there were night shifts from 5:00 pm to 3:00 am. Many factory owners preferred boys under 16 years of age. An estimated 1.7 million children under the age of fifteen were employed in American industry by 1900. In 1910, over 2 million children in the same age group were employed in the United States. This included children who rolled cigarettes, engaged in factory work, worked as bobbin
doffer A doffer is someone who removes ("doffs") bobbins, pirns or spindles holding spun fiber such as cotton or wool from a spinning frame and replaces them with empty ones. Historically, spinners, doffers, and sweepers each had separate tasks that wer ...
s in textile mills, worked in coal mines and were employed in canneries.
Lewis Hine Lewis Wickes Hine (September 26, 1874 – November 3, 1940) was an American sociologist and muckraker photographer. His photographs were instrumental in bringing about the passage of the first child labor laws in the United States. Early life ...
's photographs of child labourers in the 1910s powerfully evoked the plight of working children in the American south. Hine took these photographs between 1908 and 1917 as the staff photographer for the
National Child Labor Committee The National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) was a private, non-profit organization in the United States that served as a leading proponent for the national child labor reform movement. Its mission was to promote "the rights, awareness, dignity, well ...
.


Household enterprises

Factories and mines were not the only places where child labour was prevalent in the early 20th century. Home-based manufacturing across the United States and Europe employed children as well. Governments and reformers argued that labour in factories must be regulated and the state had an obligation to provide welfare for poor. Legislation that followed had the effect of moving work out of factories into urban homes. Families and women, in particular, preferred it because it allowed them to generate income while taking care of household duties. Home-based manufacturing operations were active year-round. Families willingly deployed their children in these income generating home enterprises. In many cases, men worked from home. In France, over 58% of garment workers operated out of their homes; in Germany, the number of full-time home operations nearly doubled between 1882 and 1907; and in the United States, millions of families operated out of home seven days a week, year round to produce garments, shoes, artificial flowers, feathers, match boxes, toys, umbrellas and other products. Children aged 5–14 worked alongside the parents. Home-based operations and child labour in Australia, Britain, Austria and other parts of the world was common. Rural areas similarly saw families deploying their children in agriculture. In 1946, Frieda S. Miller – then Director of the United States Department of Labor – told the International Labour Organization that these home-based operations offered "low wages, long hours, child labour, unhealthy and insanitary working conditions".


21st century

Child labour is still common in many parts of the world. Estimates for child labour vary. It ranges between 250 and 304 million, if children aged 5–17 involved in any economic activity are counted. If light occasional work is excluded, ILO estimates there were 153 million child labourers aged 5–14 worldwide in 2008. This is about 20 million less than ILO estimate for child labourers in 2004. Some 60 percent of the child labour was involved in agricultural activities such as farming, dairy, fisheries and forestry. Another 25% of child labourers were in service activities such as retail, hawking goods, restaurants, load and transfer of goods, storage, picking and recycling trash, polishing shoes, domestic help, and other services. The remaining 15% laboured in assembly and manufacturing in informal economy, home-based enterprises, factories, mines, packaging salt, operating machinery, and such operations. Two out of three child workers work alongside their parents, in unpaid family work situations. Some children work as guides for tourists, sometimes combined with bringing in business for shops and restaurants. Child labour predominantly occurs in the rural areas (70%) and informal urban sector (26%). Contrary to popular belief, most child labourers are employed by their parents rather than in manufacturing or formal economy. Children who work for pay or in-kind compensation are usually found in rural settings as opposed to urban centres. Less than 3% of child labour aged 5–14 across the world work outside their household, or away from their parents. Child labour accounts for 22% of the workforce in Asia, 32% in Africa, 17% in Latin America, 1% in the US, Canada, Europe and other wealthy nations. The proportion of child labourers varies greatly among countries and even regions inside those countries. Africa has the highest percentage of children aged 5–17 employed as child labour, and a total of over 65 million. Asia, with its larger population, has the largest number of children employed as child labour at about 114 million. Latin America and the Caribbean region have lower overall population density, but at 14 million child labourers has high incidence rates too. Accurate present day child labour information is difficult to obtain because of disagreements between data sources as to what constitutes child labour. In some countries, government policy contributes to this difficulty. For example, the overall extent of child labour in China is unclear due to the government categorizing child labour data as "highly secret". China has enacted regulations to prevent child labour; still, the practice of child labour is reported to be a persistent problem within China, generally in agriculture and low-skill service sectors as well as small workshops and manufacturing enterprises. In 2014, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a '' List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor'', where China was attributed 12 goods the majority of which were produced by both underage children and indentured labourers. The report listed electronics, garments, toys, and coal, among other goods. The Maplecroft Child Labour Index 2012 survey reports that 76 countries pose extreme child labour complicity risks for companies operating worldwide. The ten highest risk countries in 2012, ranked in decreasing order, were: Myanmar, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, DR Congo, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Burundi, Pakistan and Ethiopia. Of the major growth economies, Maplecroft ranked Philippines 25th riskiest, India 27th, China 36th, Vietnam 37th, Indonesia 46th, and Brazil 54th, all of them rated to involve extreme risks of child labour uncertainties, to corporations seeking to invest in developing world and import products from emerging markets.


Causes

International Labour Organization (ILO) suggests poverty is the greatest single cause behind child labour. For impoverished households, income from a child's work is usually crucial for his or her own survival or for that of the household. Income from working children, even if small, may be between 25 and 40% of the household income. Other scholars such as Harsch on African child labour, and Edmonds and Pavcnik on global child labour have reached the same conclusion. Lack of meaningful alternatives, such as affordable schools and quality education, according to ILO, is another major factor driving children to harmful labour. Children work because they have nothing better to do. Many communities, particularly rural areas where between 60 and 70% of child labour is prevalent, do not possess adequate school facilities. Even when schools are sometimes available, they are too far away, difficult to reach, unaffordable or the quality of education is so poor that parents wonder if going to school is really worth it.


Cultural

In European history when child labour was common, as well as in contemporary child labour of modern world, certain cultural beliefs have rationalised child labour and thereby encouraged it. Some view that work is good for the character-building and skill development of children. In many cultures, particular where the informal economy and small household businesses thrive, the cultural tradition is that children follow in their parents' footsteps; child labour then is a means to learn and practice that trade from a very early age. Similarly, in many cultures the education of girls is less valued or girls are simply not expected to need formal schooling, and these girls pushed into child labour such as providing domestic services.


Macroeconomics

Biggeri and Mehrotra have studied the macroeconomic factors that encourage child labour. They focus their study on five Asian nations including India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines. They suggest that child labour is a serious problem in all five, but it is not a new problem. Macroeconomic causes encouraged widespread child labour across the world, over most of human history. They suggest that the causes for child labour include both the demand and the supply side. While poverty and unavailability of good schools explain the child labour supply side, they suggest that the growth of low-paying informal economy rather than higher paying formal economy is amongst the causes of the demand side. Other scholars too suggest that inflexible labour market, size of informal economy, inability of industries to scale up and lack of modern manufacturing technologies are major macroeconomic factors affecting demand and acceptability of child labour.


By country


Colonial empires

Systematic use of child labour was common place in the colonies of European powers between 1650 and 1950. In Africa, colonial administrators encouraged traditional kin-ordered modes of production, that is hiring a household for work not just the adults. Millions of children worked in colonial agricultural plantations, mines and domestic service industries. Sophisticated schemes were promulgated where children in these colonies between the ages of 5–14 were hired as an apprentice without pay in exchange for learning a craft. A system of Pauper Apprenticeship came into practice in the 19th century where the colonial master neither needed the native parents' nor child's approval to assign a child to labour, away from parents, at a distant farm owned by a different colonial master. Other schemes included 'earn-and-learn' programs where children would work and thereby learn. Britain for example passed a law, the so-called Masters and Servants Act of 1899, followed by Tax and Pass Law, to encourage child labour in colonies particularly in Africa. These laws offered the native people the legal ownership to some of the native land in exchange for making labour of wife and children available to colonial government's needs such as in farms and as ''picannins''. Beyond laws, new taxes were imposed on colonies. One of these taxes was the
Head Tax A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. Head taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments fr ...
in the
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
and
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
colonial empires. The tax was imposed on everyone older than 8 years, in some colonies. To pay these taxes and cover living expenses, children in colonial households had to work. In southeast Asian colonies, such as Hong Kong, child labour such as the '' Mui Tsai'' (妹仔), was rationalised as a cultural tradition and ignored by British authorities. The
Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock co ...
officials rationalised their child labour abuses with, "it is a way to save these children from a worse fate." Christian mission schools in regions stretching from Zambia to Nigeria too required work from children, and in exchange provided religious education, not
secular education Secular education is a system of public education in countries with a secular government or separation between religion and state. An example of a secular educational system would be the French public educational system, where conspicuous reli ...
. Elsewhere, the Canadian Dominion Statutes in form of so-called Breaches of Contract Act, stipulated jail terms for uncooperative child workers. Proposals to regulate child labour began as early as 1786.


Africa

Children working at a young age has been a consistent theme throughout
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
. Many children began first working in the home to help their parents run the family farm. Children in Africa today are often forced into exploitative labour due to family debt and other financial factors, leading to ongoing poverty. Other types of domestic child labour include working in commercial plantations, begging, and other sales such as boot shining. In total, there is an estimated five million children who are currently working in the field of agriculture which steadily increases during the time of harvest. Along with 30% of children who are picking coffee, there are an estimated 25,000 school age children who work year round. What industries children work in depends on whether they grew up in a rural area or an urban area. Children who were born in urban areas often found themselves working for street vendors, washing cars, helping in construction sites, weaving clothing, and sometimes even working as exotic dancers. While children who grew up in rural areas would work on farms doing physical labour, working with animals, and selling crops. Many children can also be found working in hazardous environments, with some using bare hands, stones and hammers to take apart CRT-based televisions and computer monitors. Of all the child workers, the most serious cases involved street children and trafficked children due to the physical and emotional abuse they endured by their employers. To address the issue of child labour, the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child Act was implemented in 1959. Yet due to poverty, lack of education and ignorance, the legal actions were not/are not wholly enforced or accepted in Africa. Other legal factors that have been implemented to end and reduce child labour includes the global response that came into force in 1979 by the declaration of the International Year of the Child. Along with the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations, these two declarations worked on many levels to eliminate child labour. Although many actions have been taken to end this epidemic, child labour in Africa is still an issue today due to the unclear definition of adolescence and how much time is needed for children to engage in activities that are crucial for their development. Another issue that often comes into play is the link between what constitutes as child labour within the household due to the cultural acceptance of children helping run the family business. In the end, there is a consistent challenge for the national government to strengthen its grip politically on child labour, and to increase education and awareness on the issue of children working below the legal age limit. With children playing an important role in the African economy, child labour still plays an important role for many in the 20th century.


Australia

From European settlement in 1788, child convicts were occasionally sent to Australia where they were made to work. Child labour was not as excessive in Australia as in Britain. With a low population, agricultural productivity was higher and families did not face starvation as in established industrialised countries. Australia also did not have significant industry until the later part of the 20th century, when child labour laws and compulsory schooling had developed under the influence of Britain. From the 1870s, child labour was restricted by compulsory schooling. Child labour laws in Australia differ from state to state. Generally, children are allowed to work at any age, but restrictions exist for children under 15 years of age. These restrictions apply to work hours and the type of work that children can perform. In all states, children are obliged to attend school until a minimum leaving age, 15 years of age in all states except Tasmania and Queensland where the leaving age is 17.


Brazil

Child labour has been a consistent struggle for children in Brazil ever since Portuguese colonization in the region began in 1500. Work that many children took part in was not always visible, legal, or paid. Free or slave labour was a common occurrence for many youths and was a part of their everyday lives as they grew into adulthood. Yet due to there being no clear definition of how to classify what a child or youth is, there has been little historical documentation of child labour during the colonial period. Due to this lack of documentation, it is hard to determine just how many children were used for what kinds of work before the nineteenth century. The first documentation of child labour in Brazil occurred during the time of indigenous societies and slave labour where it was found that children were forcibly working on tasks that exceeded their emotional and physical limits. Armando Dias, for example, died in November 1913 whilst still very young, a victim of an electric shock when entering the textile industry where he worked. Boys and girls were victims of industrial accidents on a daily basis. In Brazil, the minimum working age has been identified as fourteen due to constitutional amendments that passed in 1934, 1937, and 1946. Yet due to a change in the
dictatorship A dictatorship is a form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, which holds governmental powers with few to no limitations on them. The leader of a dictatorship is called a dictator. Politics in a dictatorship are ...
by the military in the 1980s, the minimum age restriction was reduced to twelve but was reviewed due to reports of dangerous and hazardous working conditions in 1988. This led to the minimum age being raised once again to 14. Another set of restrictions was passed in 1998 that restricted the kinds of work youth could partake in, such as work that was considered hazardous like running construction equipment, or certain kinds of factory work. Although many steps were taken to reduce the risk and occurrence of child labour, there is still a high number of children and adolescents working under the age of fourteen in Brazil. It was not until recently in the 1980s that it was discovered that almost nine million children in Brazil were working illegally and not partaking in traditional childhood activities that help to develop important life experiences. Brazilian census data (PNAD, 1999) indicate that 2.55 million 10- to 14-year-olds were illegally holding jobs. They were joined by 3.7 million 15- to 17-year-olds and about 375,000 5- to 9-year-olds. Due to the raised age restriction of 14, at least half of the recorded young workers had been employed illegally, which led to many not being protected by important labour laws. Although substantial time has passed since the time of regulated child labour, there are still many children working illegally in Brazil. Many children are used by drug cartels to sell and carry drugs, guns, and other illegal substances because of their perception of innocence. This type of work that youth are taking part in is very dangerous due to the physical and psychological implications that come with these jobs. Yet despite the hazards that come with working with drug dealers, there has been an increase in this area of employment throughout the country.


Britain

Many factors played a role in Britain's long-term economic growth, such as the industrial revolution in the late 1700s and the prominent presence of child labour during the industrial age. Children who worked at an early age were often not forced; but did so because they needed to help their family survive financially. Due to poor employment opportunities for many parents, sending their children to work on farms and in factories was a way to help feed and support the family. Child labour first started to occur in England when household businesses were turned into local labour markets that mass-produced the once homemade goods. Because children often helped produce the goods out of their homes, working in a factory to make those same goods was a simple change for many of these youths. Although there are many counts of children under the age of ten working for factories, the majority of children workers were between the ages of ten and fourteen. Another factor that influenced child labour was the demographic changes that occurred in the eighteenth century. By the end of the eighteenth century, 20 percent of the population was made up of children between the ages of 5 and 14. Due to this substantial shift in available workers, and the development of the industrial revolution, children began to work earlier in life in companies outside of the home. Yet, even though there was an increase of child labour in factories such as cotton textiles, there were large numbers of children working in the field of
agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
and domestic production. With such a high percentage of children working, the rising of illiteracy, and the lack of a formal education became a widespread issue for many children who worked to provide for their families. Due to this problematic trend, many parents developed a change of opinion when deciding whether or not to send their children to work. Other factors that lead to the decline of child labour included financial changes in the economy, changes in the development of technology, raised wages, and continuous regulations on factory legislation. In 1933 Britain adopted legislation restricting the use of children under 14 in employment. The
Children and Young Persons Act 1933 The Children and Young Persons Act 1933 (23 & 24 Geo.5 c.12) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It consolidated all existing child protection legislation for England and Wales i ...
, defined the term "child" as anyone of compulsory school age (age sixteen). In general no child may be employed under the age of fifteen years, or fourteen years for light work.


Cambodia

Significant levels of child labour appear to be found in Cambodia. In 1998, ILO estimated that 24.1% of children in Cambodia aged between 10 and 14 were economically active. Many of these children work long hours and Cambodia Human Development Report 2000 reported that approximately 65,000 children between the ages of 5 to 13 worked 25 hours a week and did not attend school. There are also many initiative and policies put in place to decrease the prevalence of child labour such as the United States generalized system of preferences, the U.S.-Cambodia textile agreement, ILO Garment Sector Working Conditions Improvement Project, and ChildWise Tourism.


Ecuador

An Ecuadorean study published in 2006 found child labour to be one of the main environmental problems affecting children's health. It reported that over 800,000 children are working in Ecuador, where they are exposed to heavy metals and toxic chemicals and are subject to mental and physical stress and the insecurity caused by being at risk of work-related accidents. Minors performing agricultural work along with their parents help apply pesticides without wearing protective equipment.


India

In 2015, the country of India is home to the largest number of children who are working illegally in various industrial industries. Agriculture in India is the largest sector where many children work at early ages to help support their family. Many of these children are forced to work at young ages due to many family factors such as unemployment, large families, poverty, and lack of parental education. This is often the major cause of the high rate of child labour in India. On 23 June 1757, the English East India Company defeated
Siraj-ud-Daula Mirza Muhammad Siraj-ud-Daulah ( fa, ; 1733 – 2 July 1757), commonly known as Siraj-ud-Daulah or Siraj ud-Daula, was the last independent Nawab of Bengal. The end of his reign marked the start of the rule of the East India Company over Beng ...
, the Nawab of Bengal, in the
Battle of Plassey The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757, under the leadership of Robert Clive. The victory was made possible by the defection of Mir Jafar, w ...
. The British thus became masters of east India (Bengal, Bihar, Orissa) – a prosperous region with a flourishing agriculture, industry and trade. This led to many children being forced into labour due to the increasing need of cheap labour to produce large numbers of goods. Many multinationals often employed children because that they can be recruited for less pay, and have more endurance to utilise in factory environments. Another reason many Indian children were hired was because they lack knowledge of their basic rights, they did not cause trouble or complain, and they were often more trustworthy. The innocence that comes with childhood was utilised to make a profit by many and was encouraged by the need for family income. A variety of Indian social scientists as well as the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have done extensive research on the numeric figures of child labour found in India and determined that India contributes to one-third of Asia's child labour and one-fourth of the world's child labour. Due to many children being illegally employed, the Indian government began to take extensive actions to reduce the number of children working, and to focus on the importance of facilitating the proper growth and development of children. International influences help to encourage legal actions to be taken in India, such as the Geneva Declaration of the Right of Children Act was passed in 1924. This act was followed by The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 to which incorporated the basic human rights and needs of children for proper progression and growth in their younger years. These international acts encouraged major changes to the workforce in India which occurred in 1986 when the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act was put into place. This act prohibited hiring children younger than the age of 14, and from working in hazardous conditions. Due to the increase of regulations and legal restrictions on child labour, there has been a 64 percent decline in child labour from 1993 to 2005. Although this is a great decrease in the country of India, there is still high numbers of children working in the rural areas of India. With 85 percent of the child labour occurring in rural areas, and 15 percent occurring in urban areas, there are still substantial areas of concern in the country of India. India has legislation since 1986 which allows work by children in non-hazardous industry. In 2013, the Punjab and Haryana High Court gave a landmark order that directed that there shall be a total ban on the employment of children up to the age of 14 years, be it hazardous or non-hazardous industries. However, the Court ruled that a child can work with his or her family in family based trades/occupations, for the purpose of learning a new trade/craftsmanship or vocation.


Iran

In Isfahan province, the Iranian Department of State Welfare (''behzisti'') keeps a database of the scanned retina irises of a number of working street kids, and have put "child friendly" measures in place to support them, reduce the social harm from their presence, and improve their quality of life.


Ireland

In post-colonial Ireland, the rate of child exploitation was extremely high as children were used as farm labourers once they were able to walk, these children were never paid for the labour that they carried out on the family farm. Children were wanted and desired in Ireland for the use of their labour on the family farm. Irish parents felt that it was the children's duty to carry out chores on the family farm.


Japan

Though banned in modern Japan, ''shonenko'' (child labourers) were a feature of the Imperial era until its end in 1945. During World War II labour recruiting efforts targeted youths from Taiwan (Formosa), then a Japanese territory, with promises of educational opportunity. Though the target of 25,000 recruits was never reached, over 8,400 Taiwanese youths aged 12 to 14 relocated to Japan to help manufacture the Mitsubishi J2M Raiden aircraft.


The Netherlands

Child labour existed in the Netherlands up to and through the Industrial Revolution. Laws governing child labour in factories were first passed in 1874, but child labour on farms continued to be the norm up until the 20th century.


Soviet Union and Russia

Although formally banned since 1922, child labour was widespread in the Soviet Union, mostly in the form of mandatory,
unpaid work Unpaid labor or unpaid work is defined as labor or work that does not receive any direct remuneration. This is a form of non-market work which can fall into one of two categories: (1) unpaid work that is placed within the production boundary of ...
by schoolchildren on Saturdays and holidays. The students were used as a cheap, unqualified workforce on ''kolhoz'' (collective farms) as well as in industry and forestry. The practice was formally called "work education". From the 1950s on, the students were also used for unpaid work at schools, where they cleaned and performed repairs. This practice has continued in the Russian Federation, where up to 21 days of the summer holidays is sometimes set aside for school works. By law, this is only allowed as part of specialised occupational training and with the students' and parents' permission, but those provisions are widely ignored. In 2012 there was an accident near the city of Nalchik where a car killed several pupils cleaning up a highway shoulder during their "holiday work", as well as their teacher, who was supervising them. Out of former Soviet Union republics Uzbekistan continued and expanded the program of child labour on industrial scale to increase profits on the main source of Islam Karimov's income, cotton harvesting. In September, when school normally starts, the classes are suspended and children are sent to cotton fields for work, where they are assigned daily quotas of 20 to 60 kg of raw cotton they have to collect. This process is repeated in spring, when collected cotton needs to be hoed and weeded. In 2006 it is estimated that 2.7 million children were forced to work this way.


Switzerland

As in many other countries,
child labour in Switzerland Child labour in Switzerland was a fact in rural areas to the 1960s, at least tolerated by the Swiss authorities referring to the so-called '' Verdingkinder'', as up to 100,000 children were needed as cheap workers mostly on farms the decades before ...
affected among the so-called '' Kaminfegerkinder'' ("chimney sweep children") and children working p.e. in spinning mills, factories and in agriculture in 19th-century Switzerland, but also to the 1960s so-called ''
Verdingkinder Verdingkinder, "contract children",GypsyYeniche origin, so-called ''
Kinder der Landstrasse Kinder der Landstrasse (literally: Children of the Country Road) was a project of the Swiss foundation Pro Juventute, active from 1926 to 1973. The focus of the project was the assimilation of the itinerant Yenish people in Switzerland by forci ...
'', etc. – and sent to live with new families, often poor farmers who needed cheap labour. There were even ''Verdingkinder'' auctions where children were handed over to the farmer asking the least money from the authorities, thus securing cheap labour for his farm and relieving the authority from the financial burden of looking after the children. In the 1930s 20% of all agricultural labourers in the
Canton of Bern The canton of Bern or Berne (german: Kanton Bern; rm, Chantun Berna; french: canton de Berne; it, Canton Berna) is one of the 26 cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. Its capital city, Bern, is also the ''de facto'' capital of Switzerland. ...
were children below the age of 15. Swiss municipality guardianship authorities acted so, commonly tolerated by federal authorities, to the 1960s, not all of them of course, but usually communities affected of low taxes in some Swiss cantons Swiss historian Marco Leuenberger investigated, that in 1930 there were some 35,000 indentured children, and between 1920 and 1970 more than 100,000 are believed to have been placed with families or homes. 10,000 ''Verdingkinder'' are still alive. Therefore, the so-called ''
Wiedergutmachungsinitiative The Swiss children coercion reparation initiative ( German: ''Wiedergutmachungsinitiative'') was a Swiss federal popular initiative to change the federal constitution, which was launched in April 2014. Summary In April 2014, the collection of ...
'' was started in April 2014. In April 2014 the collection of targeted at least authenticated 100,000 signatures of Swiss citizens has started, and still have to be collected to October 2015.


United States

Child labour laws in the United States are found at the federal and state levels. The most sweeping federal law that restricts the employment and abuse of child workers is the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Child labour provisions under FLSA are designed to protect the educational opportunities of youth and prohibit their employment in jobs that are detrimental to their health and safety. FLSA restricts the hours that youth under 16 years of age can work and lists hazardous occupations too dangerous for young workers to perform. Under the FLSA, for non-agricultural jobs, children under 14 may not be employed, children between 14 and 16 may be employed in allowed occupations during limited hours, and children between 16 and 17 may be employed for unlimited hours in non-hazardous occupations. A number of exceptions to these rules exist, such as for employment by parents, newspaper delivery, and child actors. The regulations for agricultural employment are generally less strict. States have varying laws covering youth employment. Each state has minimum requirements such as, earliest age a child may begin working, number of hours a child is allowed to be working during the day, number of hours a child is allowed to be worked during the week. The United States Department of Labor lists the minimum requirements for agricultural work in each state. Where state law differs from federal law on child labour, the law with the more rigorous standard applies. Individual states have a wide range of restrictions on labor by minors, often requiring work permits for minors who are still enrolled in high school, limiting the times and hours that minors can work by age and imposing additional safety regulations.


Child labour laws and initiatives

Almost every country in the world has laws relating to and aimed at preventing child labour. International Labour Organization 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 12–14, and hazardous work done by children aged 15–17. 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 171 countries. The United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990, which was subsequently ratified by 193 countries.United Nations Treaty Collection.
Convention on the Rights of the Child
''. Retrieved 21 May 2009.
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.
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, a majority is attained earlier." Article 28 of this Convention requires States to, "make primary education compulsory and available free to all." 195 countries are party to the convention; only two nations have not ratified the treaty, Somalia and the United States. In 1999, ILO helped lead the Worst Forms Convention 182 (C182), 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 the 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 (C182) and the Minimum Age Convention (C138) are examples of
international labour standards International labour law is the body of rules spanning public and private international law which concern the rights and duties of employees, employers, trade unions and governments in regulating Work (human activity) and the workplace. The Interna ...
implemented through the ILO that deal with child labour. In addition to setting the international law, the United Nations initiated International Program on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) in 1992. 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 programme 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 The International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) is a programme that the International Labour Organization has run since 1992. IPEC's aim is to work towards the progressive elimination of child labour by strengthening national ...
(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.


Exceptions granted

In 2004, the United States passed an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The amendment allows certain children aged 14–18 to work in or outside a business where machinery is used to process wood. The law aims to respect the religious and cultural needs of the
Amish The Amish (; pdc, Amisch; german: link=no, Amische), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsatian origins. They are closely related to Mennonite churche ...
community of the United States. The Amish believe that one effective way to educate children is on the job. 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, 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 the 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. 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, the most common being babysitting.


More laws vs. more freedom

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. Some scholars suggest any labour by children aged 18 years or less is wrong since this encourages illiteracy, inhumane work and lower investment in human capital. These activists claim that child labor 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. 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. 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 the economic development of the formal regulated economy, technology development and general prosperity. Child labour laws and ILO conventions came later. Edmonds suggests, even in contemporary times, the 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. '' The Incredible Bread Machine'', a book published by "World Research, Inc." in 1974, stated:


Incidents


Cocoa production

In 1998, UNICEF reported that Ivory Coast farmers used enslaved children – many from surrounding countries. In late 2000 a BBC documentary reported the use of enslaved children in the production of
cocoa Cocoa may refer to: Chocolate * Chocolate * ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree * Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao'' * Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter an ...
– the main ingredient in
chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civi ...
– in West Africa. Other media followed by reporting widespread child slavery and
child trafficking Trafficking of children is a form of human trafficking and is defined by the United Nations as the "recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, and/or receipt" kidnapping of a child for the purpose of slavery, forced labour and exploitation. ...
in the production of cocoa. In 2001, the
US State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nat ...
estimated there were 15,000 child slaves cocoa, cotton and coffee farms in the Ivory Coast, and the Chocolate Manufacturers Association acknowledged that child slavery is used in the cocoa harvest. Malian migrants have long worked on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast, but in 2000 cocoa prices had dropped to a 10-year low and some farmers stopped paying their employees. The Malian counsel had to rescue some boys who had not been paid for five years and who were beaten if they tried to run away. Malian officials believed that 15,000 children, some as young as 11 years old, were working in the Ivory Coast in 2001. These children were often from poor families or the slums and were sold to work in other countries. Parents were told the children would find work and send money home, but once the children left home, they often worked in conditions resembling slavery. In other cases, children begging for food were lured from bus stations and sold as slaves. In 2002, the Ivory Coast had 12,000 children with no relatives nearby, which suggested they were trafficked, likely from neighboring Mali,
Burkina Faso Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to th ...
and Togo. The cocoa industry was accused of profiting from child slavery and trafficking. The European Cocoa Association dismissed these accusations as "false and excessive" and the industry said the reports were not representative of all areas. Later the industry acknowledged the working conditions for children were unsatisfactory and children's rights were sometimes violated and acknowledged the claims could not be ignored. In a BBC interview, the ambassador for Ivory Coast to the United Kingdom called these reports of widespread use of slave child labour by 700,000 cocoa farmers as absurd and inaccurate. In 2001, a voluntary agreement called the Harkin-Engel Protocol, was accepted by the international cocoa and chocolate industry to eliminate the worst forms of child labour, as defined by ILO's Convention 182, in West Africa. This agreement created a foundation named International Cocoa Initiative in 2002. The foundation claims it has, as of 2011, active programs in 290 cocoa growing communities in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, reaching a total population of 689,000 people to help eliminate the worst forms of child labour in cocoa industry. Other organisations claim progress has been made, but the protocol's 2005 deadlines have not yet been met.


Mining in Africa

In 2008, Bloomberg claimed child labour in copper and
cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, pro ...
mines that supplied Chinese companies in Congo. The children are ''creuseurs'', that is they dig the ore by hand, carry sacks of ores on their backs, and these are then purchased by these companies. Over 60 of Katanga's 75 processing plants are owned by Chinese companies and 90 percent of the region's minerals go to China. An African NGO report claimed 80,000 child labourers under the age of 15, or about 40% of all miners, were supplying ore to Chinese companies in this African region.
Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
alleged in 2016 that some cobalt sold by Congo Dongfang Mining was produced by child labour, and that it was being used in lithium-ion batteries powering electric cars and mobile devices worldwide. BBC, in 2012, accused Glencore of using child labour in its mining and smelting operations of Africa. Glencore denied it used child labour, and said it has strict policy of not using child labour. The company claimed it has a strict policy whereby all copper was mined correctly, placed in bags with numbered seals and then sent to the smelter. Glencore mentioned being aware of child miners who were part of a group of artisanal miners who had without authorisation raided the concession awarded to the company since 2010; Glencore has been pleading with the government to remove the artisanal miners from the concession. Small-scale
artisanal mining An artisanal miner or small-scale miner (ASM) is a subsistence miner who is not officially employed by a mining company, but works independently, mining minerals using their own resources, usually by hand. Small-scale mining includes enterprises ...
of gold is another source of dangerous child labour in poor rural areas in certain parts of the world. This form of mining uses labour-intensive and low-tech methods. It is informal sector of the economy. Human Rights Watch group estimates that about 12 percent of global gold production comes from artisanal mines. In west Africa, in countries such as Mali – the third largest exporter of gold in Africa – between 20,000 and 40,000 children work in artisanal mining. Locally known as ''orpaillage'', children as young as six years old work with their families. These children and families suffer chronic exposure to toxic chemicals including mercury, and do hazardous work such as digging shafts and working underground, pulling up, carrying and crushing the ore. The poor work practices harm the long-term health of children, as well as release hundreds of tons of mercury every year into local rivers, ground water and lakes. Gold is important to the economy of Mali and Ghana. For Mali, it is the second largest earner of its export revenue. For many poor families with children, it is the primary and sometimes the only source of income.


Meatpacking

In early August 2008, Iowa Labour Commissioner David Neil announced that his department had found that
Agriprocessors Agriprocessors was the corporate identity of a slaughterhouse and meat-packaging factory based in Postville, Iowa, best known as a facility for the glatt kosher processing of cattle, as well as chicken, turkey, duck, and lamb. Agriprocesso ...
, a kosher
meatpacking The meat-packing industry (also spelled meatpacking industry or meat packing industry) handles the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of meat from animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock. Poultry is gener ...
company in
Postville Postville is a village in Allamakee and Clayton counties in the U.S. state of Iowa. It lies near the junction of four counties and at the intersection of U.S. Routes 18 and 52 and Iowa Highway 51, with airport facilities in the neighboring c ...
which had recently been raided by
Immigration and Customs Enforcement The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ICE's stated mission is to protect the United States from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration tha ...
, had employed 57 minors, some as young as 14, in violation of state law prohibiting anyone under 18 from working in a meatpacking plant. Neil announced that he was turning the case over to the state Attorney General for prosecution, claiming that his department's inquiry had discovered "egregious violations of virtually every aspect of Iowa's child labour laws." Agriprocessors claimed that it was at a loss to understand the allegations. Agriprocessors' CEO went to trial on these charges in state court on 4 May 2010. After a five-week trial he was found not guilty of all 57 charges of child labour violations by the Black Hawk County District Court jury in Waterloo, Iowa, on 7 June 2010.


GAP

A 2007 report claimed some GAP products had been produced by child labourers. GAP acknowledged the problem and announced it is pulling the products from its shelves. The report found that GAP had rigorous social audit systems since 2004 to eliminate child labour in its supply chain. However, the report concluded that the system was being abused by unscrupulous subcontractors. GAP's policy, the report claimed, is that if it discovers child labour was used by its supplier in its branded clothes, the contractor must remove the child from the workplace, provide them with access to schooling and a wage, and guarantee the opportunity of work on reaching a legal working age. In 2007, The New York Times reported that GAP, after the child labour discovery, created a $200,000 grant to improve working conditions in the supplier community. GAP created strong relationships with developing countries to help prevent child labor and find solutions; GAP would conduct interviews and reach out to their 100,000 employees worldwide to get insight into how they feel about GAP's work environments. This survey concluded with a 68 percent response rate, and 77 percent of respondents considered GAP a great environment to work in. GAP's corporate responsibility has allowed them to strengthen their stockholder relationships and be known as one of the fast fashion industry's best companies, with a great image representing a responsible firm.


H&M and Zara

In December 2009, campaigners in the UK called on two leading high street retailers to stop selling clothes made with cotton which may have been picked by children.
Anti-Slavery International Anti-Slavery International, founded as the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1839, is an international non-governmental organisation, registered charity and advocacy group, based in the United Kingdom. It is the world's oldest intern ...
and the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) accused H&M and Zara of using cotton suppliers in Bangladesh. It is also suspected that many of their raw materials originates from Uzbekistan, where children aged 10 are forced to work in the fields. The activists were calling to ban the use of Uzbek cotton and implement a "track and trace" systems to guarantee an ethical responsible source of the material. H&M said it "does not accept" child labour and "seeks to avoid" using Uzbek cotton, but admitted it did "not have any reliable methods" to ensure Uzbek cotton did not end up in any of its products.
Inditex Industria de Diseño Textil, S.A. (Inditex; , ; ) is a Spanish multinational clothing company headquartered in Arteixo, Galicia, in Spain. Inditex, the biggest fast fashion group in the world, operates over 7,200 stores in 93 markets worldwide ...
, the owner of Zara, said its code of conduct banned child labour.


Silk weaving

A 2003 Human Rights Watch report claimed children as young as five years old were employed and worked for up to 12 hours a day and six to seven days a week in the silk industry. These children, HRW claimed, were bonded
child labour in India A significant proportion of children in India are engaged in child labour. In 2011, the national census of India found that the total number of child labourers, aged –14 to be at 10.12 million, out of the total of 259.64 million children i ...
, easy to find in Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. In 2010, a German news investigative report claimed that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) had found up to 10,000 children working in the 1,000 silk factories in 1998. In other locations, thousands of bonded child labourers were present in 1994. After UNICEF and NGOs got involved, the child labour figure dropped drastically after 2005, with the total estimated to be fewer than a thousand child labourers. The report claims the released children were back in school.


Primark

In 2008, the BBC reported that the company
Primark Primark Stores Limited (; trading as Penneys in the Republic of Ireland) is an Irish multinational fast fashion retailer with headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. It has stores across Europe and in the United States. The Penneys brand is not us ...
was using child labour in the manufacture of clothing. In particular, a £4 hand-embroidered shirt was the starting point of a documentary produced by
BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
's ''
Panorama A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...
'' programme. The programme asks consumers to ask themselves, "Why am I only paying £4 for a hand embroidered top? This item looks handmade. Who made it for such little cost?", in addition to exposing the violent side of the child labour industry in countries where child exploitation is prevalent. As a result of the BBC report, Royal Television Society awarded it a prize, and Primark took immediate action and fired three Indian suppliers in 2008. Primark continued to investigate the allegations for three years, concluding that BBC report was a fake. In 2011, following an investigation by the
BBC Trust The BBC Trust was the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) between 2007 and 2017. It was operationally independent of BBC management and external bodies, and its stated aim was to make decisions in the best interests of ...
's Editorial Standards Committee, the BBC announced, "Having carefully scrutinised all of the relevant evidence, the committee concluded that, on the balance of probabilities, it was more likely than not that the
Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...
footage was not authentic." BBC subsequently apologised for faking footage, and returned the television award for investigative reporting.


Eliminating child labour

Concerns have often been raised over the buying public's moral complicity in purchasing products assembled or otherwise manufactured in
developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agree ...
with child labour. However, others have raised concerns that
boycott A boycott is an act of nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organization, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict so ...
ing products manufactured through child labour may force these children to turn to more dangerous or strenuous professions, such as prostitution or agriculture. For example, a UNICEF study found that after the Child Labor Deterrence Act was introduced in the US, an estimated 50,000 children were dismissed from their garment industry jobs in
Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
, leaving many to resort to jobs such as "stone-crushing, street hustling, and prostitution", jobs that are "more hazardous and exploitative than garment production". The study suggests that boycotts are "blunt instruments with long-term consequences, that can actually harm rather than help the children involved." According to Milton Friedman, before the Industrial Revolution virtually all children worked in agriculture."Some authors such as conservative Nobel economist Milton Friedman claim that child labour actually decreased during the industrial revolution. He argues that before the industrial revolution almost all children were working in agriculture(...)" During the Industrial Revolution many of these children moved from farm work to factory work. Over time, as real wages rose, parents became able to afford to send their children to school instead of work and as a result child labour declined, both before and after legislation. British historian and socialist
E. P. Thompson Edward Palmer Thompson (3 February 1924 – 28 August 1993) was an English historian, writer, socialist and peace campaigner. He is best known today for his historical work on the radical movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in ...
in ''
The Making of the English Working Class ''The Making of the English Working Class'' is a work of English social history written by E. P. Thompson, a New Left historian. It was first published in 1963 by Victor Gollancz Ltd, and republished in revised form in 1968 by Pelican, after w ...
'' draws a qualitative distinction between child domestic work and participation in the wider (waged) labour market. Further, the usefulness of the experience of the industrial revolution in making predictions about current trends has been disputed. Social historian Hugh Cunningham, author of ''Children and Childhood in Western Society Since 1500'', notes that: :Fifty years ago it might have been assumed that, just as child labour had declined in the developed world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, so it would also, in a trickle-down fashion, in the rest of the world. Its failure to do that, and its re-emergence in the developed world, raise questions about its role in any economy, whether national or global. According to Thomas DeGregori, an economics professor at the
University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...
, in an article published by the
Cato Institute The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries.Koch Indus ...
, a libertarian think-tank operating in Washington D.C., "it is clear that technological and economic change are vital ingredients in getting children out of the workplace and into schools. Then they can grow to become productive adults and live longer, healthier lives. However, in poor countries like Bangladesh, working children are essential for survival in many families, as they were in our own heritage until the late 19th century. So, while the struggle to end child labour is necessary, getting there often requires taking different routes—and, sadly, there are many political obstacles. The
International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour The International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) is a programme that the International Labour Organization has run since 1992. IPEC's aim is to work towards the progressive elimination of child labour by strengthening national ...
(IPEC), founded in 1992, aims to eliminate child labour. It operates in 88 countries and is the largest program of its kind in the world. IPEC works with international and government agencies, NGOs, the media, and children and their families to end child labour and provide children with education and assistance. From 2008 to 2013, the
ILO The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and ol ...
operated a program through IPEC entitled "Combating Abusive Child Labour (CACL-II)". The project, funded by the European Union, contributed to the Government of Pakistan by providing alternative opportunities for vocational training and education to children withdrawn from the worst forms of child labour. Periodically, governments, employers' and workers' organisations have met in global conference to assess progress and remaining obstacles and to agree measures to eliminate the worst forms of child labour by 2016: first in Oslo (1997), followed by: The Hague (2010); Brasilia, 8–10 October 2013;
Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South Am ...
, 14–16 November 2017; and most recently Durban, South Africa, 15–20 May 2022. Between 2000 and 2012, progress was made against child labor but the elimination of its worst forms was not accomplished. Under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda, UN Member States, employers' and workers' organizations, and civil society organizations are required to work together to eliminate child labor by 2025, forced labor, modern slavery and human trafficking by 2030. Thus, the ILO established Alliance 8.7 as a global partnership. In January 2021, the ILO published the Child Labour Global Estimates 2020 in collaboration with UNICEF. According to the report child labor decreased by 38% from 246 million in 2000 million to 152 million in 2016. Due to COVID-19 pandemic the number of children in child labor increased by 9 million.


Statistics


Potential positives

The term child labour can be misleading when it confuses harmful work with employment that may be beneficial to children. It can also ignore harmful work outside employment and any benefits children normally derive from their work. Domestic work is an example: all families but the rich must work at cleaning, cooking, caring, and more to maintain their homes. In most families in the world, this process extends to productive activities, especially herding and various types of agriculture, and to a variety of small family businesses. Where trading is a significant feature of social life, children can start trading in small items at an early age, often in the company of family members or of peers. Work is undertaken from an early age by vast numbers of children in the world and may have a natural place in growing up. Work can contribute to the well-being of children in a variety of ways; children often choose to work to improve their lives, both in the short- and long-term. At the material level, children's work often contributes to producing food or earning income that benefits themselves and their families; and such income is especially important when the families are poor. Work can provide an escape from debilitating poverty, sometimes by allowing a young person to move away from an impoverished environment. Young people often enjoy their work, especially paid work, or when work involves the company of peers. Even when work is intensive and enforced, children often find ways to combine their work with play. While full-time work hinders schooling, empirical evidence is varied on the relationship between part-time work and school. Sometimes even part-time work may hinder school attendance or performance. On the other hand, many poor children work for resources to attend school. Children who are not doing well at school sometimes seek more satisfactory experience in work. Good relations with a supervisor at work can provide relief from tensions that children feel at school and home. In the modern world, school education has become so central to society that schoolwork has become the dominant work for most children, often replacing participation in productive work. If school curricula or quality do not provide children with appropriate skills for available jobs or if children do nor have the aptitude for schoolwork, school may impede the learning of skills, such as agriculture, which will become necessary for future livelihood.


In media

* Letitia Elizabeth Landon addresses this issue in scathing terms in her poem (1835). Tis an accursed thing!''—she writes. * '' Oliver Twist'', a novel by
Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...
that was later adapted into films and into a theater production. * "
The Little Match Girl "The Little Match Girl" ( da, Den Lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne, meaning "The little girl with the sulphur-sticks", i.e. matches) is a literary fairy tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen. The story, about a dying child's dre ...
", a short story by Hans Christian Andersen that was later adapted into films and other media.


See also

*
Child abuse Child abuse (also called child endangerment or child maltreatment) is physical, sexual, and/or psychological maltreatment or neglect of a child or children, especially by a parent or a caregiver. Child abuse may include any act or failure to ...
*
Child labour in Africa Child labour in Africa is generally defined based on two factors: type of work and minimum appropriate age of the work. If a child is involved in an activity that is harmful to his/her physical and mental development, he/she is generally considere ...
* Child labour in Bangladesh *
Child labour in India A significant proportion of children in India are engaged in child labour. In 2011, the national census of India found that the total number of child labourers, aged –14 to be at 10.12 million, out of the total of 259.64 million children i ...
* Child migration *
Child prostitution Child prostitution is prostitution involving a child, and it is a form of commercial sexual exploitation of children. The term normally refers to prostitution of a minor, or person under the legal age of consent. In most jurisdictions, child pr ...
*
Child work in indigenous American cultures Child work in indigenous American cultures covers child work, defined as the physical and mental contributions by children towards achieving a personal or communal goal, in Indigenous American societies. As a form of prosocial behavior, childre ...
* Children in cocoa production *
Children's rights movement The Children's Rights Movement is a historical and modern movement committed to the acknowledgment, expansion, and/or regression of the rights of children around the world. (Not to be confused with Youth rights). It began in the early part of the ...
*
Concerned for Working Children The Concerned for Working Children (CWC) is a non-profit organisation based in Bangalore, India and known internationally for its work in empowering children to become the key protagonists in solving their own problems. While eradication of child ...
* Ethical consumerism *
History of childhood The history of childhood has been a topic of interest in social history since the highly influential book ''Centuries of Childhood'', published by French historian Philippe Ariès in 1960. He argued "childhood" as a concept was created by modern soc ...
*
International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour The International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) is a programme that the International Labour Organization has run since 1992. IPEC's aim is to work towards the progressive elimination of child labour by strengthening national ...
, IPEC * International Research on Working Children *
Kinder der Landstrasse Kinder der Landstrasse (literally: Children of the Country Road) was a project of the Swiss foundation Pro Juventute, active from 1926 to 1973. The focus of the project was the assimilation of the itinerant Yenish people in Switzerland by forci ...
, Switzerland *
Labour law Labour laws (also known as labor laws or employment laws) are those that mediate the relationship between workers, employing entities, trade unions, and the government. Collective labour law relates to the tripartite relationship between employee, ...
* Legal working age *
London matchgirls strike of 1888 The matchgirls' strike of 1888 was an industrial action by the women and teenage girls working at the Bryant & May match factory in Bow, London. Background Match making In the late nineteenth century, matches were made using sticks of popl ...
* Newsboys strike of 1899, successful strike in New York * Street children * Sweatshop * Trafficking of children *
World Day Against Child Labour The World Day Against Child Labour is an International Labour Organization (ILO)-sanctioned holiday first launched in 2002 aiming to raise awareness and activism to prevent child labour. It was spurred by ratifications of ILO Convention No. 138 ...
International conventions and other instruments: * Pilot project on Delivery of water to households far from sources of safe water
ILO Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29)

ILO Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105)

ILO Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138)

ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182)


Notes


References





* International Labour Office. (2005)
A global alliance against forced labour


ILO/SAP-FL

ILO/SAP-FL

- ILO 2007 * ttps://www.ilo.org/global/topics/forced-labour/publications/WCMS_081991/lang--en/index.htm Forced Labour: Definition, Indicators and Measurement 2004- ILO
Stopping Forced Labour 2001
- ILO * * * *


Further reading

* Baland, Jean-Marie and James A. Robinson (2000) 'Is child labour inefficient?
''Journal of Political Economy''
108, 663–679 * Basu, Kaushik, and Homa Zarghamee (2009) 'Is product boycott a good idea for controlling child labour? A theoretical investigation
''Journal of Development Economics''
88, 217–220 * Bhukuth, Augendra. "Defining child labour: a controversial debate
''Development in Practice''
(2008) 18, 385–394 * uses data from Brazil to show very strong negative effects—boys who work before age 14 earn much less as adults * Humbert, Franziska. ''The Challenge of Child Labour in International Law'' (2009) * Humphries, Jane. ''Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution'' (2010) *
ILO The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and ol ...

Investing in every child: An economic Study of the Costs and Benefits of Eliminating Child Labour
* Mayer, Gerald.
Child Labor in America: History, Policy, and Legislative Issues.
' Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 2013. * Ravallion, Martin, and Quentin Wodon (2000) 'Does child labour displace schooling? Evidence on behavioural responses to an enrollment subsidy
''Economic Journal''
110, C158-C175


History

* comparison France and Germany, with a bibliography of primary and secondary sources * * "Child Employing Industries," ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'' Vol. 35, Mar. 191
in JSTOR
articles by experts in 1910 * Goldberg, Ellis. ''Trade, Reputation, and Child Labour in Twentieth-Century Egypt'' (2004
excerpt and text search
* Grier, Beverly. ''Invisible Hands: Child Labour and the State in Colonial Zimbabwe'' (2005) * Hindman, Hugh D. ''Child Labour: An American History'' (2002) * * Humphries, Jane. ''Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution'' (Cambridge Studies in Economic History) (2011
excerpt and text search
* Kirby, Peter. ''Child Labour in Britain, 1750-1870'' (2003
excerpt and text search
* McIntosh, Robert. ''Boys in the pits: Child labour in coal mines'' (McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP, 2000), Canadian mines * * * Mofford, Juliet. ''Child Labour in America'' (1970) * Tuttle, Carolyn. ''Hard at Work in Factories And Mines: The Economics of Child Labour During The British Industrial Revolution'' (1999)


External links


Child Labor, Child Bondage, Why Children Work

Combating Child Labor
— Bureau of International Labor Affairs, U.S. Department of Labor
A UNICEF web resource with tables of % children who work for a living, by country and gender

Rare child labour photos from the U.S. Library of Congress

History Place
Photographs from 1908 to 1912
International Research on Child Labour


International Labour Organization (UN)

12 June
Concerned for Working Children
An India-based non-profit organisation working towards elimination of child labour
The OneWorld guide to child labour

The State of the World's Children – a UNICEF study

"United States Child Labour, 1908–1920: As Seen Through the Lens of Sociologist and Photographer Lewis W. Hine"
(video) * Child Labour in Chile, 1880–195
download complete text, in spanish

12 to 12 community portal
ILO sponsored website on the elimination of child labour

{{Authority control Childhood History of youth Children's rights Labor rights Ethically disputed working conditions