OPINION
Working children deserve something better
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that 90 million
children between eight and 15 years old work in the labour forces of
developing countries. Worldwide, the figure is higher.
They often labour under hazardous conditions, handling poisonous
chemicals, inhaling noxious fumes and hauling excessive weights. They
are usually overworked, underfed and underpaid — if they are paid at
all. Because child labour means cheap labour, the young are often the most
employable in developing and recession-plagued economies. The director
of a medium-size textile enterprise in Bangladesh admitted without
hesitation that 70 per cent of his employees are between the ages of 13
and 17.
'They provide the same productivity as adults,' he said. 'But for a
fraction of the cost.' Children, of course, are unlikely to organise or complain to the
authorities when they are overworked and underpaid. They are not aware
of their legal rights. They don't question long hours and dire working
conditions. Instead, most are grateful to be working at all.
In Asia and the Pacific, children routinely work endless hours, sleep
on factory floors and subsist on scanty rations. Young Indian factory
workers who fail to follow instructions are sometimes branded with
red-hot iron rods and some teenage Thai prostitutes are disciplined by
having acid thrown in their faces.
For thousands of South American, Caribbean and African children
rented out as maids and houseboys, there is no recourse when they are
overworked, beaten and raped. As an official of Kenya's Child Welfare
Society conceded: 'There is little we can do to help when a child is
ill-treated unless the case becomes known to us or the police.'
Even when an employer is reasonable, working conditions may still
prove dangerous. Children in Central America harvest crops sprayed with
pesticides. Colombian children squeeze through the narrowest shafts of
coal mines. Thai children toil in unventilated factories, working with
glass heated to 1,500 deg C. Indian children inhale large doses of
sulphur and potassium chlorate to fashion flammable powder into matches.
Youthful glassmakers in Brazil breathe toxic silicone and arsenic fumes.
Sometimes, the physical damage from such labour is permanent.
Brazilian, Colombian and Egyptian youngsters who work in brickyards
often suffer irreparable spinal damage from carrying heavy loads.
Generally, children who spend long hours in factories often enter their
teens with permanently deformed limbs.
If they live that long. Thousands of children don't. In India, safety
conditions are so neglected in many factories, numerous children have
died in electrical fires and chemical explosions. Laws exist to protect children from hazardous conditions in many
occupations, but they are seldom enforced. The agricultural sector — the
largest employer of children — is particularly difficult to oversee.
There is little that officials can do to monitor or modify children's
workloads on large farms or small family enterprises.
In fact, parents often appear to be the harshest taskmasters. Indian
fathers still sometimes repay debts by committing their children to
bonded labour. Pakistani parents occasionally maim their children to
make them beguiling beggars.
The ILO contended that children suffer greatly when they are forced
to perform as 'small adults'. 'The child's creativeness and ability to transcend reality are
blunted and his whole mental world is impoverished,' stated one ILO
report.
The young worker doesn't learn how to play, or read and write. Worse,
he smokes and, in the Caribbean, he drinks rum to keep going, as he
doesn't have enough to eat.
In 1973, an ILO convention called for a worldwide minimum working age
of 15. In 10 years, only 27 of the ILO's 150 member nations ratified that
convention. Several more countries have laws that set the minimum work
age between 12 and 16, but the ILO cautions that few countries 'have
what could be considered a comprehensive prohibition of dangerous work
for young children', and that even fewer have measures to protect young
persons from moral degradation.
Since laws are not the answer to child labour, many experts propose
compulsory education as a means to curb it. But education laws have
proved elusive too. In practically all impoverished societies, parents
place wages above education. As a result, the percentage of dropouts is
rising at an alarming rate. A recent study by United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation shows that in
developing countries, up to 60 per cent of children do not complete
primary school.
Relief agencies agree the total abolition of child labour is an
unrealistic goal. So, for millions of such children, the future holds
little promise or hope. Working children are entitled to something
better, whether they know it or not.
Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri, Emeritus professor at India's University
Grants Commission, is a former professor of international relations at
Oxford University and Research Coordinator at the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute.
By Satyabrata Chowdhuri
10 February 2004
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/commentary/story/0,4386,233948,00.html
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