Saturday, 3 March 2012

Organization Approaches Towards Child Labour


Child labour is a serious global issue that demands immediate action. The world currently holds around 215 million children labourers, more than half of which are involved in work in hazardous environments, illicit activities like drug trafficking and prostitution and involvement in armed conflicts. According to the International Labour Organization’s 2010 report, 115 million children under 18 are involved in hazardous work such as handling chemicals, carrying heavy loads, mining and enduring long hours (International Labour Organization). The many severe health and safety risks are particularly harmful to young labourers who absorb toxic material into their bloodstream more rapidly and require more sleep than adults. According to statistics, the child labour market is mainly concentrated in the Asia/Pacific region, which contains the highest number of children labourers of over 120 million, and Sub Saharan Africa, which holds the highest proportion of child labourers of around 25% of all children (International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF)). These research and reports have urged certain governments and groups to recognize the need to face the issue of child labour. Organizations such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) have been formed to drive the formulation and implementation of plans to control, and hopefully eliminate, this removal of the rights of children. However, do the actions of these organizations effectively combat these enormous statistics and shocking reality?


A child carries unbaked bricks to a kiln at a brick factory in Raichak, India (Shaw)

Through my research, I have formulated two general anti-child labour groups: large, government-driven organizations and independent, “people-driven” groups. ILO is the most prominent example of the former. The goal of their International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour created in 1992 is to “strengthen the capacity of countries to deal with the problem” and “promote a worldwide movement to combat child labour”. It is the largest programme of its kind globally with operations in 88 countries and an annual expenditure that exceeds $60 million (International Labour Organization). However, its plans of action are very broad. Convention No. 182 on the worst forms of labour encourages members to take “immediate and effective measures to secure the…elimination…of child labour” and to “design and implement programmes of action” without any exact structure, guidelines or timeframes. It recognizes the need for effective elimination of child labour through immediate and comprehensive action, to support free basic education for these children and to provide rehabilitation and social integration following their disassociation from the labour market. The convention then goes on to define the term “the worst forms of child labour”, such as “work which…is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children” and “all forms of slavery…such as the sale or trafficking of children…and forced or compulsory labour” (International Labour Organization). Although it recognizes the issue, this convention hardly does anything to deal with control or elimination of the issue. There lacks a direct effect on child labour and a demanding push for governments to take stronger and stricter action towards it. In numerous countries, child labour is still too commonly accepted and not legally threatened enough to be facing extinction. However, I will give IPEC this: their programs do raise awareness of the issue and place it in national development agendas more effectively than any other organization currently.



Ghlam-Mafus, 16, has been working for 8 years as a blacksmith apprentice in Kabul (Chung)

On the other side of the spectrum, Butterflies, a smaller, non-government organization in India, takes a “non-institutional approach” by working directly with street and working children. They hold monthly meetings where children and organization members discuss issues and find collective solutions, thus allowing direct communication and promoting democratic principles in that every person has a right to an opinion and the principle of freedom of expression. These discuss ion have influenced the forming of other groups organized by the children themselves, such as the newspaper Child Worker’s Voice. In response to statistics showing an increase in education and resulting decrease in child labour, Butterflies formed their Chalta Firta School, a mobile education programme which moves from community to community to teach children basic education like mathematics and reading. Their mantra of the Mobile Education is “If the Children cannot come to the school, let us take this school to them”. Although this is not the best quality of education, it would further promote the obtainable reality for the children to seek an educational path and obtaining a better, healthier life than the one many past child labourers have led. Butterflies also promotes children to attend a formal school; however, this proved difficult due to the organization’s limited influence. Out of the estimated 4,000,000 working children in Delhi (where the organization is focused in), out of which at least 45,000 children are living on the street with no adult support and financially self-supporting for food and other necessities, only 50 children have been admitted to formal schools through this organization. Another program Butterflies organize is a health care program consisting of two parts. The first is a project where a mobile health van visits certain areas on a weekly basis to provide medical treatment. The second is the health education curriculum, where children learn to better protect themselves from diseases, maintain a nutritional diet and give first-aid treatment (Butterflies Child Rights). Given Butterflies’ limited budget and the impossibility of it to always be accessible for medical treatment, I think their health care program is a very good idea as it provides easier access to treatment as well as allows the children to be able to treat themselves/others and avoid sickness. The organization is mainly focused in Delhi, lacking the resources and government power ILO possesses to develop and spread further. Thus, unlike ILO, it directly affects child labour and has immediate results in their fight against cruel treatments and conditions in child labour. Having said that, the magnitude of their results is limited as organizations like Butterflies hold only so much power and resources, something that ILO, through their large international influence, possesses.


Butterflies Mobile Education programme (Butterflies Child Rights)

Something I found very amusing was the Butterflies’ Elimination of Child Labour webpage. It spoke of the Government of India enacting the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act in 1986 against child labour in hazardous industries and condition regulations and later coming out with a notification banning a portion of domestic child labour. It then states, and it is simply too entertaining to reword, “It is easy to pass an order outlawing child labour; however, formulation of any plan for rehabilitation as well as guidelines and standards for rescue has been completely ignored by the government” (Butterflies Child Rights). Put bluntly and pointedly, this is in essence the dilemma in tackling the issue. Child labour is an issue that is recognized and fairly well-known, and many organizations have responded to the severity of the issue, however its statistics still remain bafflingly high. It is because of the approach organizations take. If larger-scaled, government-influencing groups like ILO and smaller groups which work directly with child labourer populations for immediate results like Butterflies combine, the progress towards the elimination of the worst forms of child labour would move much more quickly and effectively.



Sources:
Butterflies Child Rights. n.d. Electronic. 3 March 2012. http://www.butterflieschildrights.org/home.php
Chung, Chien-min. Afghan Child Labor. n.d. Electronic. 5 March 2012.
International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF). Dutch fail to get issue of child labour on G8 agenda. 24 June 2008. Electronic. 3 March 2012. http://www.laborrights.org/stop-child-labor/news/11615
International Labour Organization. Child Labour. n.d. Electronic. 3 March 2012.
—. "Convention No 182." Convention Concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour. Geneva, 1999. Electronic. http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ilc/ilc87/com-chic.htm
—. International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC). n.d. electronic. 2 March 2012. http://www.ilo.org/ipec/lang--en/index.htm
Shaw, Jayanta. Child Labor Banned in India. 28 October 2010. Electronic. 5 March 2012.



Written by: Melissa

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