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Child Labour

Child labour deprives children of their childhood and is harmful to their development. Worldwide, agriculture is the largest employer of child labour, with most working in rural areas and informal economies to help support their families due to poverty and lack of access to schools. India has the highest number of child labourers, many of whom work in agriculture at young ages due to unemployment, large families, poverty, and lack of parental education. During the Industrial Revolution, there was rapid increase in child labour exploitation in factories and mines. Today, key causes of child labour include poverty, lack of access to education, demand for cheap labour, cultural factors, lack of strong laws and enforcement.

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Devika Ragesh
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126 views

Child Labour

Child labour deprives children of their childhood and is harmful to their development. Worldwide, agriculture is the largest employer of child labour, with most working in rural areas and informal economies to help support their families due to poverty and lack of access to schools. India has the highest number of child labourers, many of whom work in agriculture at young ages due to unemployment, large families, poverty, and lack of parental education. During the Industrial Revolution, there was rapid increase in child labour exploitation in factories and mines. Today, key causes of child labour include poverty, lack of access to education, demand for cheap labour, cultural factors, lack of strong laws and enforcement.

Uploaded by

Devika Ragesh
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CHILD LABOUR

About Positives Negatives Claims Doubts Further-research

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
exploitation of children through any form of work that interferes with their ability to attend
regular school, and is mentally, physically, socially, and morally harmful.

Worldwide agriculture is the largest employer of child labour. The vast majority of child
labour is found in rural settings and informal urban economies; children are predominantly
employed by their parents, rather than factories. Poverty and lack of schools are considered
the primary cause of child labour.

In 2015, the country of India is home to the largest number of children who are working
illegally in various industrial industries. Agriculture in India is the largest sector where many
children work at early ages to help support their family. Many of these children are forced to
work at young ages due to many family factors such as unemployment, large families,
poverty, and lack of parental education. This is often the major cause of the high rate of child
labour in India.

History
Child labour has existed to varying extents throughout history. During the 19th and early 20th
centuries, many children aged 5–14 from poorer families worked in Western nations and
their colonies alike. These children mainly worked in agriculture, home-based assembly
operations, factories, mining, and services such as news boys – some worked night shifts
lasting 12 hours. With the rise of household income, availability of schools and passage
of child labour laws, the incidence rates of child labour fell.

Globally the incidence of child labour decreased from 25% to 10% between 1960 and 2003,
according to the World Bank. Nevertheless, the total number of child labourers remains high,
with UNICEF and ILO acknowledging an estimated 168 million children aged 5–17
worldwide were involved in child labour in 2013.

Child labour in preindustrial societies


Child labour forms an intrinsic part of pre-industrial economies. In pre-industrial societies,
there is rarely a concept of childhood in the modern sense. Children often begin to actively
participate in activities such as child rearing, hunting and farming as soon as they are
competent. In many societies, children as young as 13 are seen as adults and engage in the
same activities as adults
The work of children was important in pre-industrial societies, as children needed to provide
their labour for their survival and that of their group. In pre-industrial societies, there was
little need for children to attend school. This is especially the case in non-literate societies.
Most pre-industrial skill and knowledge were amenable to being passed down through direct
mentoring or apprenticing by competent adults.

Industrial Revolution
With the onset of the Industrial Revolution in Britain in the late 18th century, there was a
rapid increase in the industrial exploitation of labour, including child labour. Britain
industrial cities grew from small villages to cities. these cities drew in the population that was
rapidly growing due to increased agricultural output. This process was replicated in other
industrialising countries.

Early 20th century


In the early 20th century, thousands of boys were employed in glass making industries. cause
eye trouble, lung ailments, heat exhaustion, cuts, and burns. Since workers were paid by the
piece, they had to work productively for hours without a break. 

National Child Labor Committee


International Labour Organization (ILO)

Causes of Child Labour


Unemployment levels are high.
Curse of poverty
Poor children and their families may rely upon child labour to improve their chances of
attaining necessities. More than one-fourth of the world's people live in extreme poverty.
International Labour Organization (ILO) suggests poverty is the greatest single cause behind
child labour. For impoverished households, income from a child's work is usually crucial for
his or her own survival or for that of the household. Income from working children, even if
small, may be between 25 and 40% of the household income.

Access to compulsory, free education is limited.


Lack of meaningful alternatives, such as affordable schools and quality education, according
to ILO, is another major factor driving children to harmful labour. Children work because
they have nothing better to do. Many communities, particularly rural areas where between 60
and 70% of child labour is prevalent, do not possess adequate school facilities. Even when
schools are sometimes available, they are too far away, difficult to reach, unaffordable or the
quality of education is so poor that parents wonder if going to school is worth it.

Existing laws or codes of conduct are often violated.


Macroeconomics
Macroeconomics causes encouraged widespread child labour across the world, over most of
human history. They suggest that the causes for child labour include both the demand and the
supply side. While poverty and unavailability of good schools explain the child labour supply
side, they suggest that the growth of low-paying informal economy rather than higher paying
formal economy is amongst the causes of the demand side. Other scholars too suggest that
inflexible labour market, size of informal economy, inability of industries to scale up and lack
of modern manufacturing technologies are major macroeconomic factors affecting demand
and acceptability of child labour.

Laws and enforcement are often inadequate.


Child labor laws around the world are often not enforced or include exemptions that allow for
child labor to persist in certain sectors, such as agriculture or domestic work. Even in
countries where strong child labor laws exist, labor departments and labor inspection offices
are often under-funded and under-staffed, or courts may fail to enforce the laws. Similarly,
many state governments allocate few resources to enforcing child labor laws.

National Laws Often Include Exemptions


Examples
Nepal
minimum age of 14 for most work...
plantations and brick kilns are exempt.

Workers’ rights are repressed.


Cultural
The global economy intensifies the effects of some factors.
As multinational corporations expand across borders, countries often compete for jobs,
investment, and industry. This competition sometimes slows child labor reform by
encouraging corporations and governments to seek low labor costs by resisting international
standards.
The effects of poverty in developing countries are often worsened by the large interest
payments on development loans. The structural adjustments associated with these loans often
require governments to cut education, health, and other public programs, further harming
children and increasing pressure on them to become child laborers.

Debt and Child Welfare


The example of Sub-Saharan Africa
Though the region receives $10 billion in aid per year, it loses more than $14 billion in debt
payments annually, according to Media Global.
In Malawi, the country spends 40% of its GDP to repay foreign creditors, while only 15% of
GDP is spent on healthcare and education combined.

curse of poverty
lack of educational resources
Social and economic backwardness
Addiction
disease or disability
The lure of cheap labour
Family tradition
Discrimination between boys and girls.
Biggeri and Mehrotra  research reference

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