Child labour
The term child labour has many definitions by different scholars. According to Suda(2011) the term child labour refers to when children is working in any type of work that is dangerous and harmful to children’s health or the work hinders their education. For Moyi (2011) child labour refers to low wages, long hours, physical and sexual abuse. According to Edmonds and Pavcnik (2005) child labour is viewed as a form of child labour abuse, when children work in bad conditions and hazardous occupations.
The meaning of the term of child labour also varies among organizations, ILO argues that child labour is difficult to define. It depends on the type of the job and, if the age is under eighteen and if the job intervenes the children’s education and development (ILO: 2004). A child, according to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) 1989 refers to a person under the age of eighteen. The World Bank assumes that child labour can do serious threat to long-term national investment. Furthermore, according to UNICEF the problem of child labour can have more bad consequences besides all the concerns of investment or its relation to economic activity (ILO, 2013; Weston, 2005).
Bhat (2010) asserts that the definition of child labour is not simple because it includes three difficult concepts to define, which are “child”, “work” and “labour”. He claims that the term of childhood can be defined by age but in some societies, people cease to be a child at different ages. The onset of puberty occurs at different ages for different people. Therefore in the Article 1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the ILO Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, 1999 (No. 182) defines a child who is under the age of eighteen years (Bhat, 2011). The definition of child labour differs among societies, for example in Africa and Asia they do not consider the work of fifteen years old person as a child labour, they view child labour as a good task that children learn skills from work. They distinguish between child labour and child work, where child work is considered to be a part of the children’s training to be responsible adults while child labour is thought to be exploitative (Omokhodion & Odusote, 2006).
Not all work that children does is severe, according to ILO reports (2002) if a work does not hinder children’s schooling or do not affect their health physically and mentally, then it is generally not categorized as child labour. For instance helping parents at home, looking after siblings or working for pocket money after school hours and during holidays. Also Aqil (2012) assumes that not all work that children do can harm their health or considered as exploitative but it depends on what kind of work they are involved in and how many hours they work. It also depends on work conditions, or environment. However Weston (2005) argues that any work children do, can be damaging to their health because the work can be abusive, exploitative or hazardous and it can influence their health. Omokhodion and Odusote (2006) argued that any work that children does outside home is classified as child labour. According to them working outside home is usually exposed to environmental hazards which may affect their health and safety.
During the beginning of the industrial revolution children were forced to work around family farms, in factories, tending crops or preparing food. They work in industries and their conditions of work were very dangerous and often deadly. At that time, the industry preferred children to work because children provided cheap labour and more malleable workers (Basu et al. 1999). In 1833 and 1844 the first legislation came to ban child labour. It implied that children should not work, and the idea was to remove all children from labour which interfered with school. However many children continued to be involved as child labour which was prohibited by law (Bhat 2011).
Indeed child labour was almost completely reduced from the developed world, however currently, child labour still continues to rise in developing countries because of rapid population growth, high rates of unemployment, inflation, poverty, malnutrition, bad leadership, corruption and low wages (Bass, 2004). Child labour is taking place everywhere in the world particularly in low income countries and these children are working in all sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, manufacturing, fishing, construction, domestic service street vending etc. In addition to that children are normally unregistered as employers and working in very poor and dangerous conditions without social protection. (Serwadda-Luwaga, 2005)
The incidence of child labourers throughout the world is difficult to verify because of the lack of reliable statistics of child labour. The reason is that the governments usually do not collect current data regarding child labour, and many child labourers are invisible (Das, 2012). Although reliable data is not available, ILO has estimated the number of child labourers in 2008 were 215 million boys and girls aged between five to seventeen years worldwide, with 115 million of them working in hazardous jobs (Aqil, 2012).
2.1.1 Rural and urban child labour
Child labour has been a complex rural problem, as well with children helping out in the farm with their families. The vast majority of child labour is involved in agriculture. On the other hand agricultural sector is the mainstay of developing countries economy, particularly in Africa. (Baker,2008).Generally, throughout the world rural children were more likely to be engaged in economic labour activities compared to urban children, because poverty is more prevalent in rural areas especially among those who depend on agriculture(Akarro& Mtweve, 2011). Poor rural families considers making their children work in farms, may increase household’s income (Serwadda-Luwaga,2005). Rickey (2009) points out that many rural areas lack basic services such as electricity and access to drinking water. In such cases their children must fetch water especially girls, who are more involved in housework.
Child labour also exists in cities. According to World Bank, child worker is typically a sign of urban poverty in many countries, and special in Sub-Saharan Africa. Urban children usually are involved in domestic work or sales. Their working conditions are very poor, unhealthy and crowded. They work for long hours with very low wage or no wage. Girls are usually the most vulnerable; they are typically trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation in urban centres such as Mumbai, Calcutta and New Delhi (Baker, 2008). They face many problems due to poverty. Poor urban children are at particular risk of many problems such as lack of education, healthcare and social protection (Baker, 2008). Urban children attend more to school than rural children. Urban areas provide better educational access, quality and infrastructure than rural areas. For poor rural children living far off from school, transportation cost often becomes a challenging affair for their families (Hueble, 2008). According to Edmonds (2007) rural children work more and for longer hours than urban regions. Regarding attendance, due to limited access to school rural children are more likely to be involved in child labour. Moreover, urban and rural areas differ in the terms of how schooling and child labour are related. Education levels are generally very low among children in rural areas.
2.1.2 Types of child labour
Child labourers are involved in many different forms of works, which include risks and hazards. These children are vulnerable to physical pain and injury particularly being exposed to health hazards (Levison& Murray, 2005). According to ILO (2012) the vast majority of child labour is involved in hazardous occupations such as agriculture, mining, manufacture, construction bonded child labour, domestic work and fishing. Environmental and occupational conditions can impact on the health and development of the children. Children working in different sectors such as agriculture, factories, domestic labour, sex workers and carrying out their illicit activities, migrant labourers, and on the streets as vendors etc. The effect of job and activities can vary from a country to a country. Also working conditions, ages and gender of children involved in the differences too (O’Donnell et al., 2002). According to Amon et al., (2012) mainly child labourers in Sub-Saharan Africa and in Southeast Asia are involved in the worst forms of child labour , which persists such as child trafficking, bonded child labour, child domestic work, hazardous child labour, etc. More than 90 percent of working children in hazardous jobs which are exposed to chemicals, and dangerous tools.
