INTERNATIONAL CHILD AND YOUTH CARE NETWORK

4 DECEMBER 2000
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A children's view of a political hot potato

Child labour — so?

‘We say "yes" to work, "no" to exploitation; "yes" to work, "no" to abuses; "yes" to work, "no" to social exclusion,‘ intoned Ana Maria Catin Torrentes (17), of the Movement of Working Children and Adolescents in Nicaragua.

Romaine Dieng, from the West African Movement of Working Children and Youth, needed no conference to tell her the causes of child labour. "The economic crisis, the impact of structural-adjustment programs, unemployment, lack of education, widespread injustice, the chasm between rich and poor, the failure of governments t support working children, and the lack of protection for such children – both girls and boys," were among those she reeled off.

The many existing laws and conventions guaranteeing children’s well-being had yet to produce any great improvement for the world’s more than 250 million child workers, suggested the children’s representatives. There are laws aplenty – what is lacking is the political will ž

For children well schooled in the duplicity of the adult world, promises by politicians of antipoverty and rehabilitation measures are to be weighed not in words but actions. In the mean tirne, education without work wouldn’t wash. "There is no point offering us quality education if you deny us work," said Lakshmi Basrur, of Bhima Sangha, a working children’s union in Karnatuka, India. "Our families' survival depends on our working until a time comes when children need not work. Till then, they should have access to dignified work and good quality but appropriate education, as well as time for leisure.

Even with intolerable forms of labour, the young delegates were concerned about the implementation of global bans. Children, might be displaced into even worse circumstances such as prostitution and crime, or be at greater risk of abandonment. Each situation had to be taken case by case and the children in such work fully consulted and listened to before bans were applied, argued Lakshmi.

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Children have always worked. But the nature of their work has changed according to the social conditions of the time – and so has our notion of "childhood". In peasant societies children have always participated in the working life of the family – on a seasonal basis in agriculture and more constantly in domestic tasks.

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