Slavery
What is child labour?
What is good about children working…
Some types of work can make a useful, positive contribution to a child's development:
- Work can help children learn about responsibility
- Develop particular skills that will benefit them and the rest of society
- Be a vital source of income that helps to sustain children and their families.
What is bad about children working…
However, across the world, millions of children do extremely hazardous work in harmful conditions, putting their health, education, personal and social development, and even their lives at risk. These are some of the circumstances they face:
- Full-time work at a very early age
- Dangerous workplaces
- Excessive working hours
- Subjection to psychological, verbal, physical and sexual abuse
- Obliged to work by circumstances or individuals
- Limited or no pay
- Work and life on the streets in bad conditions
- Inability to escape from the poverty cycle - no access to education
How big is the problem?
The International Labour Organization estimates:
- there are 218 million working children aged between 5 and 17 (2006)
- 126 million are estimated to work in the worst forms of child labour -- one in every 12 of the world's 5 to 17 years olds (2006)
- 74 million children under 15 are in hazardous work (2006)
- 8.4 million children are in slavery; including trafficking, debt bondage and other forms of forced labour, child soldiers, prostitution, pornography and other illicit activities (2002)
- Girls are particularly in demand for domestic work
- Around 70 per cent of child workers carry out unpaid work for their families
A person becomes a bonded labourer when his or her labour is demanded as a means of repayment for a loan. The person is then tricked or trapped into working for very little or no pay, often for seven days a week.
Credit: Shakil Pathan/Anti-Slavery International
Former child bonded labourer, India.
Credit: Georgina Cranston/Anti-Slavery International
