Tomorrow, Tuesday June 12 is World Day Against Child Labour, (WDACL). It is observed worldwide to raise awareness of the plight of child labourers world-wide. Hundreds of millions of girls and boys around the world are affected. This year, the WDACL and the World Day for Safety and Health at Work (SafeDay) shine a spotlight on the global need to improve the safety and health of young workers and end child labour.
In many developed countries, children have never had it so good, with access to education, health care, the internet and much more. But millions more are facing unprecedented upheaval. More than 50 million children have been uprooted from their homes due to conflict, poverty and climate change while millions more face violence in their communities. According to the UN, around 263 million children do not attend school and last year nearly six million children under five died from mostly preventable diseases.
Today, throughout the world, around 215 million children work, many full-time. They do not go to school and have little or no time to play. Many do not receive proper nutrition or care. They are denied the chance to be children. More than half of them are exposed to the worst forms of child labour such as work in hazardous environments, slavery or other forms of forced labour, illicit activities including drug trafficking and prostitution, as well as involvement in armed conflict.
Many of these children are forced to work in plantations, mines, factories, as domestic slaves and as prostitutes. They perform exhausting work for many hours in a row, often in unhealthy and hazardous conditions. The work is physically, psychologically and morally harmful for children.
Poverty often leads to child labour. Parents regard their children as additional sources of income. War, migration and discrimination against minorities also results in child labour. The common belief is that child labour is ‘normal’. True, not all of us can look back on our childhood as the most joyous time of our lives. The more privileged among us are perhaps unaware that millions of children in our own nation as well as in many undeveloped countries elsewhere are subjected to untold hardships from the time they come squealing into the world. Their parents too in many parts of the universe struggle with their own problems such as lack of health care, financial insecurity and abuse.
Globally over 1.5 billion people live in countries that are affected by conflict and violence. At the same time, around 200 million people are affected by disasters every year. A third of them are children. A significant proportion of the 168 million children engaged in child labour live in areas affected by conflict and disaster. The World Day Against Child Labour this year will focus on the impact of conflicts and disasters on child labour.
As the world strives to achieve the elimination of child labour by 2025, on this World Day Against Child Labour, let’s join forces to end child labour in areas affected by conflict and disaster! Child labour and forced labour in conflicts and humanitarian settings will be discussed at the IV Global Conference on Child Labour in Buenos Aires, November 14 to16 2017.
Considerable differences exist between the many kinds of work children do. Some are difficult and demanding, others are more hazardous and even morally reprehensible. Children carry out a very wide range of tasks and activities when they work. Not all work done by children should be classified as child labour that is to be targeted for elimination. Children’s or adolescents’ participation in work that does not affect their health and personal development or interfere with their schooling, is generally regarded as being something positive.
This includes activities such as helping their parents around the home, assisting in a family business or earning pocket money outside school hours and during school holidays. These kinds of activities contribute to children’s development and to the welfare of their families. They provide them with skills and experience and help to prepare them to be productive members of society during their adult life.
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. Or work interferes with their schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school while obliging them to leave school prematurely. It also includes 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 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.
There are almost 100,000 child workers in Sri Lanka, with girls working mostly as domestic helpers in towns and boys doing agricultural work in the villages. Schooling is a distant dream for many children, a survey by the Labour and Trade Union Relations Ministry shows, with 13.9 per cent of the child labour population being aged five to 14 years – the period when school attendance is compulsory.
Anything you do to support kids and parents can help reduce the stress that often leads to abuse and neglect. By educating yourself – and others – you can help your community prevent child abuse and neglect from happening in the first place. The behaviour of children may signal abuse or neglect long before any change in physical appearance. Get involved. Advocate for services to families. Help to establish parenting groups in your community. Ask your community leaders, clergy, library and schools to develop services to meet the needs of healthy children and families. If you suspect or are aware of abuse or neglect may be occurring, report it. UNICEF estimates that over half of the 35,000 child sex workers in Sri Lanka are boys. Does this not sound the alarm that we are increasingly on the way to earning the shameful reputation of becoming a nation of perverts, pederasts and paedophiles? It is because of our silence that these depravities will continue. All Sri Lankan voices should be heard to boom with outrage against such abuse of our children. Remember that our children should be considered more precious resources than the nation’s gold reserves. [email protected]
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