Child Labor: The Causes, Consequences, and What's Being Done About It

by Annie

3/19/98 (slightly outdated, but still very informative on the issues)

Part I: A look at the worldwide issues affecting children

Part II: The Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in November 1989

 

Intro

Many positive things have been accomplished recently in development like a wider range of access to immunization, safe water, education, and childhoods. At the same time, however, many children are victims of global changes such as: new free markets, new political systems and new rights of people to speak, act or associate freely, and of nations to determine their own destiny.

Part I

Many of the children are victims of the post Cold-War. By mid-1993, the rape of Bosnian women by Serbian forces led to the births of hundreds of babies, nearly all of whom face life as outcasts. On top of 18 million refugees, post-Cold War upheavals have led to the displacement of about 25 million people within their own countries. At least half in both categories are children, according to the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children in New York. Often they don't have the recognition as refugees because they're supposedly protected by a government. Due to problems from societal breakdowns, UNICEF spent $170 million in 1992 on humanitarian aid in more than 50 states--the most since the post-World War II emergency and three times the 1990 level.

Economic reforms are leading to less stability in the society, affecting the children most of all. After declining for decades, the frequency of child labor is again on the increase, particularly in the developing world. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that one in four children between the ages of 10 and 14 now work in Third World countries. The total is in the hundreds of millions.

New freedoms have contributed to the problem. In socialist systems, the state organized work and excluded children. Now, free markets and private employers try to get the cheapest labor. With the state's role diminished, and no social protection or legislation in place, because many countries in transition still haven't finished new constitutions or basic reforms, child labor is growing. Children are a product of the breakdown of family support systems that come with population growth and migration to cities. As grim as life was in many villages, at least children had an extended family to rely on and a traditional way of life that gave meaning to their existence.

The negative affects of technology were displayed with the 1993 birth in Moldova of a baby with two heads, two hearts, two lungs, two spinal cords but one set of limbs. Doctors blamed it on radiation from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster in neighboring Ukraine. Doctors in the area reported up to a 30% increase in birth defects as well. Because technology now discerns gender, children elsewhere don't have a chance at life; thousands of Chinese and Indian women abort female fetuses in societies favoring boys.

The AIDS pandemic, spread globally in a relatively short time thanks to modern transportation, is both killing children and creating orphans. Among the offspring of HIV-positive pregnant women, one out of three babies is likely to be infected and eventually die of AIDS; two will be orphaned when the mothers die. Uganda has produced 1.5 million AIDS orphans in the past decade. A UNICEF report, estimates nearly 10 million children will be orphaned by AIDS by 2000--a prediction some experts now believe to be conservative.

The dangers grow as nations both big and small engage in economic and social triage. In 1993, for example, Washington eliminated aid to 21 states, many where children endure the worst conditions.

As numbers grow, public sympathy lessens and backlash widens. "Street children are automatically regarded as criminal suspects by many law officers and are often subjected to harassment, threats or violent attacks," Amnesty International reported.

According to SAPA-AP, REPORT LONDON (March 1997), forty million children live on the streets. Twelve million children die each year before the age of 5, mostly from preventable diseases. Some 250 million are forced to labor for long hours and low pay. "As if those horrors weren't enough," says one British human rights group, "2 million children have died in wars over the past decade, 6 million have been seriously injured or disabled and almost 30 million have become refugees."

Index on Censorship compiled statistics from a number of agencies, including the U.N. Children's Fund, the British charity Save the Children and the Children's Defense Fund of the United States.

Africa is the continent where children learn about war. Uganda, Burundi, Zaire, Somalia, Angola, Mozambique, Liberia and Sudan have all experienced civil wars in which children as young as 7 have been coerced into fighting. In the turbulent west African state of Liberia, one-third of soldiers are believed to be children. "Biddable, frightened, dependent, they make excellent killers." Today, an estimated quarter of a million children under the age of eighteen serve in government forces or armed opposition groups around the world. Children as young as eight are sometimes forcibly recruited, coerced, or induced to become soldiers. Their inexperience makes them particularly vulnerable to injury and death. Manipulated by adults, children are drawn into violence that they are too young to resist, while they are too young to appreciate and cope with its consequences. In the central African country of Rwanda, ethnic conflict has separated 100,000 children from their parents. Most are between 2 and 8 years old. Child labor is widespread in Africa, particularly in agriculture. An estimated 12 million children work in populous Nigeria.

But Asia has the most child labor, where one quarter of the world's children live. Some feel that becoming a newly industrialized country is destroying the social fabric of this society. And the kids are paying the highest price. Preteen labor is illegal in Thailand, but kids work in shoe factories, gas stations or fisheries, even heavy labor. Many are homeless. Sniffing glue and paint thinner is now chronic in this age group. At least 5 million Thai children, beginning at age 7, now work, according to the executive director of Bangkok's Human Resources Institute. More than 60 percent of Thai mothers also work. The issue is not just age, but conditions and pay. In Thailand, girls work 12-hour days in textile shops. They earn as little as 5 cents for sewing on 100 buttons, or 10 cents for wrapping 100 silk flower stems.

In Indonesia, 2.4 million children between ages 10 and 14 work. Along China's eastern provinces, many children have left school for jobs in new factories. The problem was illustrated in a 1992 fire at a fireworks factory: most of 20 workers killed were between 9 and 14 years old

In India alone, 44 million children work, the ILO estimates. One of four Indian workers is under age 14. They have between 60 and 115 million child workers. In Madras, a young girl, about twelve years old worked as a bonded laborer with her father and sister. The father digs and mixes mud and the girls make bricks, thousands of bricks each day. They had taken on debt several years before when their mother had died and money was needed to pay the funeral expenses.

. One byproduct is a growing class of uneducated outcasts who prey on the system to survive. The magnitude is numbing. In Latin America, a record 40 million children are abandoned or homeless. Seven million are in Brazil, according to the World Health Organization. Youngsters living on the streets of Latin America are increasingly targeted by vigilantes; in 1992, six street children were murdered every day in Colombia. In Brazil, nearly half of children live below the poverty line. In 1993, eight Brazilian boys, ages 11 to 17, were shot in cold blood in Rio de Janeiro. Four police officers were arrested for their murders. Since 1990, about 4,600 street children have been killed in Brazil. In 1991 alone, about 2,800 children were murdered in Colombia. Children reportedly constitute 18 percent of Brazil's work force. In Brazil, treated as "expendable," child slaves worldwide often get dangerous jobs. Education or prospects of betterment are nonexistent.

Britain's Child Poverty Action Group says one in three now lives in poverty, compared with one in 10 in 1979.

Both Latvian and Russian children now beg on Riga's streets. They didn't have beggars in the past. In the Communist days, the state took care of everyone," One citizen added. "Now it's everyone for himself."

The problem of child labor has an even darker side. In the late 20th Century, 200 million child laborers work in slavery, forced child labor or debt bondage, an ILO study reported. Slave raiders in Asia, Africa and Latin America kidnap or buy children into lifelong bondage. Slaves as young as 6 work up to 18 hours a day. Pakistan has up to 7.5 million children in modern slavery. In India, several million children between ages 5 and 14 are in "chronic bondage" in agriculture, a million in construction, brick-making and quarry work, and several hundred thousand in carpet and jewelry industries.

The most common form of slave labor is child prostitution. India reportedly has up to 400,000 child prostitutes, Brazil a quarter of a million, the Philippines 60,000 and Sri Lanka 30,000, many sold by families or trapped by debt bondage. In Thailand, at least 800,000 girls, some as young as 8, work as prostitutes.

In 1995, The Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Project charged that substantial numbers of the children confined by the state of Louisiana in its four post-adjudication correctional facilities are regularly physically abused by guards, were improperly kept in isolation for long periods of time, and were improperly restrained by handcuffs.

According to one report, the children have become so accustom to physical abuse in their lives that they almost expect it from the guards. The children reported being hit with handcuffs, brooms and radios and being slapped and kicked. They can complain to the superintendent, but the children have seen guards rip up their complaints or find that their complaints are never passed along.

Neither Louisiana nor the Federal government has established mandatory standards for the conditions in which children may be confined in correctional facilities by the state. The Federal Department of Justice, Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division, has a mandate to enforce the constitutional rights of children confined in correctional facilities but it has consistently under-used its authority.

Human Rights Watch is a nongovernmental organization established in 1978 to monitor and promote the observance of human rights in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and the Middle East. The Children's Rights Project was established in 1994 to monitor human rights abuses against children throughout the world.

More juvenile offenders sit on death row in the United States than in any other country in the world, according to the Human Rights Watch. Nine juvenile offenders whose crimes were committed when they were under the age of eighteen have been executed in the United States since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Furthermore, executions of juvenile offenders are on the rise in the United States -- four of the nine were executed during the last six months of 1993.

Such executions are increasingly rare outside the United States. More than seventy countries that retain the death penalty by law have abolished it for offenders under eighteen. In 112 nations, the execution of minors is prohibited by treaty or legislation. The United States has faced strong international condemnation for executing juveniles. Juveniles tend to be less capable of controlling their emotions, less mature in their judgment and sense of responsibility, less capable of seeing the consequences of their actions and more vulnerable to influences by others. If it is illegal for a juvenile to buy alcohol, cigarettes, join the army, marry without parental consent, and gamble in most states because they need protection and are not thought to be totally responsible for their actions, then the criminal laws should reflect the same ideas.

Starting on January 17, 1998, a Global March against Child Labor began winding its way through Asia, Africa, Latin America, North America and Europe. The Global March is a combination of marches and bus caravans linked with an extensive program of local demonstrations and advocacy campaigns. For 250 million children around the world, childhood is lost to grinding labor, often in dangerous and degrading circumstances and for wages that adults would not accept. It is an international alliance of many groups and individuals concerned with eradicating child labor. It aims to mobilize worldwide efforts to protect and promote the rights of all children, especially the right to receive a free, meaningful education and to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be damaging.

The dates for local marches:

(outdated now)

May 2 Los Angeles, CA

May 3 San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico

To participate, call or write or send an e-mail to:

Global March Against Child Labor/U.S. Coordinating Committee

733 15th Street, NW, Suite 920 Washington, DC 20005

Tel: (202) 347-3817, Fax: (202) 347-4885

E-mail: children@globalmarch-us.org

Part II

The Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in November 1989 is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history. It makes member states legally accountable for their actions towards children. The Convention was opened for signature in January 1990 and came into force seven months later. The Convention has been ratified by 191 governments. The other two governments are the United States and Somalia (which has no internationally recognized government).

Of course, it is seen as a huge step towards human/child rights progress by many groups. The Convention states, among other things, that every child has the right to life. Countries shall ensure child survival and development to the maximum. Under the Convention, primary education shall be free and mandatory, and discipline in school should respect the child's dignity. The Convention also recognises the right of children ''to be heard.''

The language of the Convention clearly indicates that it is intended to set standards for governmental policies regarding children. The Convention does not provide for investigations or prosecutions against parents or guardians. The difference between this century and its predecessors is that children now have a real opportunity to voice their ideas on how to make the world a better, safer and more equitable place for themselves.

Article 3 of the Convention states that the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration in all judicial and administrative actions concerning children, and that a child capable of forming his or her own views shall have the opportunity to be heard in judicial and administrative proceedings. By being a party to the Convention governments such as the United States agree not to pass any laws or take any action that go against the treaty.

A coalition of right-wing groups and conservative religious organizations are preventing the U.S. Senate from ratifying the treaty, which is perplexing to some because the U.S. made various proposals which were incorporated in to the final Convention,'' Becker said.

Jesse Helms, the right-wing conservative Senator from the state of North Carolina, is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the opposition is strong. The U.S. signed the Convention in February 1995, but until and unless the Senate ratifies it, the treaty will not have legal force in the United States. Helms has declared: ''I am convinced that the treaty forces its way into the relationship of a parent and child, and should not be considered in federal legislation, let alone international treaties.'' He also joined 24 other Senators in co- sponsoring legislation asking the U.S. President not to submit this ''very unwise treaty to the Senate for ratification.''

 

Some feel it has been misinterpreted as ''the most dangerous attack on parents' rights in the history of the United States,'' and ''the ultimate program to annihilate parental authority.'' Some of the right wing groups have also denounced the Convention as ''the most insidious document ever signed by an American president.'' The materials published by these organizations depict the Convention as ''a radical, dangerous document that will guarantee unlimited government interference in family life.''

It also raises issues relating to state rights versus federal rights. In the U.S., most parents want to have the last word on issues relating to children. The treaty also focuses on two sensitive issues: abortion and capital punishment. While the Convention prohibits the use of the death penalty for persons under the age of 18, the U.S. Supreme Court has set the constitutional threshold for executions at age 16. Meanwhile, Article 6 declares that every child has ''an inherent right to life'' while the preamble calls for ''appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.''

Helms and a coalition of about 10 or 15 right wing groups - including the John Birch Society, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, the Rutherford Institute and the Christian Coalition - are now lined up against a group of more than 350 NGOs who are relentlessly fighting for ratification.

These NGOs include Amnesty International, American Red Cross, U.N. Association of USA, Children of the Earth, U.S. Committee for the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), Pearl S. Buck Foundation, Children's Defense Fund and the American Bar Association. The opponents of the Convention hold the necessary political clout to successfully lobby the Senate against ratifying it.

The Convention seems doomed - as far as the United States is concerned. But is it really such a good thing? In many governments who have signed, the evils it promised to remedy have worsened. The convention has become something of a sham and is violated systematically by many countries. No countries violate it more energetically than those that were quickest to sign. Reports pour out daily - on female circumcision, land mines, and prostitution.

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights drafted an Optional Protocol to the Convention that would raise the minimum age for participation in armed conflict from 15 to 18. The only country that has refused to accept 18 as the minimum age at which a young person can take part in hostilities is the United States. The United States favors a minimum age of 17 because it accepts 17-year-old volunteers into the armed forces. However, the United States has stated that "individuals under 18 are not stationed in combat situations." In reality, United States military practices do not differ significantly from the new standards to be established by the Optional Protocol.

By not signing the treaty, and not agreeing on the Optional Protocol, the U.S. could be denying basic protections to all the world's children. On the other hand, once the government steps into an area and gives people the "right" to something, it can just as easily take it away. I don't know whether the Convention on the Rights of the Child is really agreed upon for the sake of the children or to make a county look good in the eyes of the rest of world. It seems to me that in this country, we don't need any more government intervention or "help". I also don't want to lose any rights, or parental privileges that I think I deserve in a Democratic system. At the same time, something should be done about all the horrors I have learned about while doing this paper.

If an international treaty isn't the answer, then maybe just an economic slowdown is necessary. If people realized that life is short, money is food, but experiences and learning are happiness then they wouldn't step all over people while climbing the corporate ladders. This would allow two things: People would "need" less stuff and production could slow a bit lessening the waste as well. Secondly, if profit wasn't the main goal and there was less production and destruction of resources then people could work less and get paid more, have more time to spend with their families, and help replenish the environment to boot. That's just a theory of mine, and it would work if the social concepts of importance would just make a U-Turn and corporations weren't allowed to keep the profit at the top.