BUILDING A GLOBAL ALLIANCE AGAINST CHILD LABOUR & FORCED LABOUR
ILO – International Labour Organization – http://www.ilo.org/ipec/facts/lang–en/index.htm
http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/comment-analysis/WCMS_421016/lang–en/index.htm
While heads of state were delivering their speeches at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York in September 2015, the ILO convened a small meeting with partners to talk business: How can the global community achieve target 8.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which calls for an end of all forms of forced labour, modern slavery and child labour by 2025? How is this target connected to the other SDGs? How will the necessary resources be mobilized to ensure that commitment leads to action?
DEFINING CHILD LABOUR
INDIA – GIRL CHILD BRICK WORKER – EXTREME POVERTY
Photo Kay Kermush
The term “child labour” is often defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development.
It refers to work that:
- is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and
- interferes with their schooling by:
- depriving them of the opportunity to attend school;
- obliging them to leave school prematurely; or
- requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work.
In its most extreme forms, child labour involves children being enslaved, separated from their families, exposed to serious hazards and illnesses and/or left to fend for themselves on the streets of large cities – often at a very early age. Whether or not particular forms of “work” can be called “child labour” depends on the child’s age, the type and hours of work performed, the conditions under which it is performed and the objectives pursued by individual countries. The answer varies from country to country, as well as among sectors within countries.
The agriculture sector comprises activities in agriculture, hunting forestry, and fishing.
The industry sector includes mining and quarrying, manufacturing, construction, and public utilities (electricity, gas and water).
The services sector consists of wholesale and retail trade; restaurants and hotels; transport, storage, and communications; finance, insurance, real-estate, and business services; and community as well as social personal services.
The worst forms of child labour
While child labour takes many different forms, a priority is to eliminate without delay the worst forms of child labour as defined by Article 3 of ILO Convention No. 182:
(a) all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict;
(b) the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or for pornographic performances;
(c) the use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties;
(d) work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.
Labour that jeopardises the physical, mental or moral well-being of a child, either because of its nature or because of the conditions in which it is carried out, is known as “hazardous work”.
Significant progress has already been achieved in recent decades, as declining numbers of child labour suggest, but the challenge is nevertheless daunting:
- 21 million people are victims of forced labour, 5.5 million of whom are children
- the illicit profits generated by forced labour and modern slavery amount to at least US$ 150 billion a year
- and 168 million children are still in child labour, 85 million of them in hazardous work and other worst forms of child labour, while 83 million are simply too young to be working.
The underlying root causes of child labour and forced labour are often related to violations of other fundamental rights. Hundreds of millions of people suffer from discrimination in the world of work, while half of the world’s population lives in countries that have not ratified either of the ILO’s two Conventions protecting freedom of association and collective bargaining .
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