“There is no greater violence than to deny the dreams of our children.”— Kailash Satyarthi

Disappointingly, World Day Against Child Labour passed without much attention. Observed on June 12, the day is intended to serve as a catalyst for the growing worldwide movement against exploitation of children for labour.

Many of us tend to have a narrow definition of child labour, believing that the term refers to children who work in factories all across Asia in hot and unbearable conditions. However, child labour is much more complex. The International Labour Organization defines child labour as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential, and their dignity, which is harmful to physical and mental development. It refers to work that is mentally, physically, socially, and morally harmful to children and/or interferes with their schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school, forcing them to leave school prematurely, or requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as a person under 18 years of age. The International Labour Organization (ILO) launched the first World Day Against Child Labour in 2002 as a way of highlighting the plight of working children.

Africa ranks highest among regions both in the percentage of children in child labour (one-fifth) and the absolute number of children in child labour (72 million). Asia and the Pacific rank second highest in both these measures — seven per cent of all children and 62 million in absolute terms are involved in child labour in this region.

Africa, Asia, and the Pacific regions together account for almost nine out of every 10 children being exploited for labour worldwide. The remaining child labour population is divided among the Americas (11 million), Europe and Central Asia (six million), and the Arab States (one million).

In terms of incidence, five per cent of children are involved in child labour in the Americas, four per cent in Europe and Central Asia, and three per cent in the Arab States.

The percentage of children involved in child labour is highest in low-income countries, while nine per cent of all children in lower middle-income countries and seven per cent of all children in upper middle-income countries are involved. Statistics on the absolute number in each national income grouping indicate that 84 million are being exploited, two million of whom live in high-income countries.

In Jamaica, a Child Labour Unit was established by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, which collaborates with other local organisations as well as its international counterparts in working toward the elimination of child labour. The Child Care and Protection Act of 2004, part 2, section 34 (1) to section 39 clearly restricts employment of children under 15 years. The legislation in Jamaica makes it illegal to employ children who are less than 13 years; however, it permits light work between ages 13 and 15 years. A Youth Activity Survey conducted in 2002 indicated that over 16,000 children were engaged in labour.

SOCIAL PROTECTION NEEDED

The 2022 theme for World Day Against Child Labour is ‘Universal Social Protection to End Child Labour’. The day is designated to bring awareness of the need to increase investments in social protection systems and schemes, establish solid social protection floors, and protect children from child labour.

While significant progress has been made in reducing child labour over the last two decades, progress has slowed over time, and it has even stalled during the period 2016-2020. Today, 160 million children are still being exploited, some as young as five years old.

Government social protection systems are essential to fighting poverty and vulnerability and eradicating and preventing child labour. Social protection is both a human right and a potent policy tool to prevent families from resorting to child labour in times of crisis. However, as of 2020 and before the COVID-19 crisis took hold, only 46.9 per cent of the global population were effectively covered by at least one social protection benefit, while the remaining 53.1 per cent, as many as 4.1 billion people, were left wholly unprotected. Coverage for children is even lower. The UN adds that nearly three quarters of children, 1.5 billion, lacked social protection.

Significant progress toward ending child labour requires increased investment in universal social protection systems as part of an integrated and comprehensive approach to tackling the problem. Now is the time to add your voice to the worldwide movement against child labour.

THE WAY FORWARD

Let us not fool ourselves, child labour is child abuse. There is no justification for the practice.

Consumers should be hypervigilant in identifying and boycotting those products which are made with the labour of children. Those who engage in and are supportive of child labour should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Children should be in school receiving an education, not around machines sewing or dancing on poles for the entertainment of disgusting men.

Unfortunately, the novel coronavirus has, in many ways, contributed to an increase in child labour, given the displacement in the education of millions of children worldwide. Many children of the working class have not returned to school and have been encouraged by adults to seek employment in order to put food on the table. We see daily these boys, who should be in school, wiping windscreens at stop lights.

Girls are disproportionately engaged in child labour, given that, historically, females work in the domestic sphere. The responsibility to financially care for a family is not that of a child. Too many of us are short-sighted and in the long term our children suffer the consequences.

Government, the private sector, and civil society ought to join resources in order to eradicate this scourge on humanity. Child labour is wrong.

In the words of Grace Abbott, an early advocate for child labour regulations in the US, child labour and poverty are inevitably bound together, and if you continue to use the labour of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labour to the end of time.

Wayne Campbell is an educator and social commentator with an interest in development policies as they affect culture and/or gender issues. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or waykam@yahoo.com