Business Communication ================================= Child Labour INTRODUCTION Who is a Child?

I nter national conventions define children as aged 18 and under. I nd iv idual governments may define "child" according to different ages or other criteria."Child" and "childhood" are also defined differently by different cultures. A"child" is not necessarily delineated by a fixed age. Social scientists point outthat childs abilities and maturities vary so much that defining a child's maturity by calendar age can be misleading. Child Labor Child labor is the employment of children at regular and sustained labor. "Childlabor" is; generally speaking, work for children that harm them or exploits them in so me way physically, mentally, morally, or by blocking access toeducation. UN IC EF defines chil d labor as work that exceeds a min imum number of hours, depending on the age of a child and on the type of work. Suchwork is considered harmful to the child and should therefore be eliminated.There is no universally accepted definition of child labor. Varying definitionso f t h e t e r m a r e u s e d b y i n t e r n a t i o n a l o r g a n i z a t i o n s , n o n g o v e r n m e n t a l organizations, trade unions and other interes t groups . Writers and s peakersd o n ' t a l w a y s s p e a k w h a t d e f i n i t i o n t h e y a r e u s i n g a n d t h a t o f t e n l e a d s t o confusion. Fig. 1.2.1 Children working CAUSES OF CHILD LABOR Children start work when they are too young, or take on work that is hazardous,for man y reasons . Children in developing countries do so because they andtheir families need the extra income. Indeed, many end up working unpaid for their employers in exchange for their board and lodging. In contrast, children in 1

Business Communication ================================= Child Labour ind ustriali zed countri es , seek work for quite diff erent reasons, us ually t o establish financial independence from their parents. Here we focus on children who ar e driven into the world of work by poverty. H owever, even for p oo r families there are decisions to make about what work children should take on. Parents rarely wish to expose their children to danger, but m a y s e e n o alternative. All too often, both parents and young people are unaware of the risks involved. The main causes or reasons for creating child labor OVER POPULATION: Most of the Asian and African countries are overpopulated. Due to limited resources and more mouths to feed, Children are employed in various forms of work. ILLITERACY: Illiterate parents do not realize the need for a proper physical, emotional and cognitive development of a child. As they are uneducated, they do not realize the importance of education for their children. POVERTY: Many a time poverty forces parents to send their children to hazardous jobs.Although they know it is wrong, they have no other alternative as they need themoney. URBANIZATION: The Industrial Revolution has its own negative side. Many a time MNC's andexport industries in the developing world employ while workers, particularly inthe garment industry. UNEMPLOYMENT OF ELDERS: Elders often find it difficult to get jobs. The industrialists and factory ownersfind it profitable to employ children. This is so because they can pay less andextract more work. They will also not create union problem. ORPHANS: Children born out of wedlock, children with no parents and relatives, often donot find anyone to support them. Thus they are forced to work for their ownliving. WILLINGNESS TO EXPLOIT CHILDREN: This is at the root of the problem Even if a family is very poor; the incidenceof child labor will be very low unless there are people willing to exploit thesechildren. FAMILY BACKGROUND: Families break down for many reasons, leaving the household short of income.Sometimes divorce leaves one parent looking after more children than she or hecan afford to feed. Divorce is sometimes brought about by domestic violence,which also directly drives children to leave home when they are still young.The death of either parent precipitates economic disaster for many

households.Families also lose their livelihood as a result of natural disasters and humancrises that leave people destitute and force children to start earning. 2 Business Communication ================================= Child Labour ind ustriali zed countri es , seek work for quite diff erent reasons, us ually t o establish financial independence from their parents. Here we focus on childrenwho are d riven into the world of work by poverty. H owever, even for p oo r families there are decisions to make about what work children should take on.P a r e n t s r a r e l y w i s h t o e x p o s e t h e i r c h i l d r e n t o d a n g e r , b u t m a y s e e n o alternative. All too often, both parents and young people are unaware of therisks involved. The main causes or reasons for creating child labor OVER POPULATION: Most of the Asian and African countries are overpopulated. Due to limitedresources and more mouths to feed, Children are employed in various forms of work. ILLITERACY: Illiterate parents do not realize the need for a proper physical, emotional andcognitive development of a child. As they are uneducated, they do not realizethe importance of education for their children. POVERTY: Many a time poverty forces parents to send their children to hazardous jobs.Although they know it is wrong, they have no other alternative as they need themoney. URBANIZATION: The Industrial Revolution has its own negative side. Many a time MNC's andexport industries in the developing world employ while workers, particularly inthe garment industry. UNEMPLOYMENT OF ELDERS: Elders often find it difficult to get jobs. The industrialists and factory ownersfind it profitable to employ children. This is so because they can pay less andextract more work. They will also not create union problem. ORPHANS: Children born out of wedlock, children with no parents and relatives, often donot find anyone to support them. Thus they are forced to work for their ownliving. WILLINGNESS TO EXPLOIT CHILDREN: This is at the root of the problem Even if a family is very poor; the incidenceof child labor will be very low unless there are people willing to exploit thesechildren. FAMILY BACKGROUND:

Families break down for many reasons, leaving the household short of income.Sometimes divorce leaves one parent looking after more children than she or hecan afford to feed. Divorce is sometimes brought about by domestic violence,which also directly drives children to leave home when they are still young.The death of either parent precipitates economic disaster for many households.Families also lose their livelihood as a result of natural disasters and humancrises that leave people destitute and force children to start earning. 2 Business Communication ================================= Child Labour DISCRIMINATION AGAINST MINORITY GROUPS: Some children also leave school and start work earlier than others because of their origin or identity. In Latin America, indigenous children start work first.In South Asia, the caste system determines that children from dalit families(who have low status in the caste hierarchy) or adivasi (tribal or indigenous)communities start work first or do not attend school at all. NIMBLE FINGERS: In the country with the largest number of child labourers in the world, India,adults justify the involvement of children in certain jobs on the grounds thatonly they have the nimble fingers which enable them to give special attentionto detail. Some sorts of work, they argue, cannot be performed by adults. Thisis just one of many myths used to jus tify the numbers of children wor kingtoday, myths which offer largely spurious arguments but strike a chord withlocal public opinion and come to be believed because they are repeated so often. INADEQUATE LAWS: More than 130 countries have signed an international convention saying thatchildren may not work full-time before 14 or 15 years of age. How ever, insome of the countries concerned, laws on this are confusing or vague and notenforced. There are particular difficulties w hen laws are in co ns is tent for example, one dictating that children must remain in school until they are 12,while another decrees that they may not start work until 14: the inconsistency isalmost bound to precipitate children into the labour market before they reachthe legal minimum age POOR INFRASTRUCTURE: Another factor is the practical difficulty of establishing a childs actual age incountries where the infrastructure may not be in place for e.g. systematic birthregistration. This can disadvantage children in many ways law enforcers arehampered because they do not have the means to absolutely establish the agesof e.g. teenagers, and, without appropriate documentation, young people mayalso be denied access to state services such as schools. THE ROLE OF EDUCATION:

Children who receive little or no school education miss out on the knowledget h a t c a n c r e a t e o p t i o n s f o r t h e m l a t e r i n l i f e . W i t h o u t i t , t h e y m a k e l e s s contribution as adults and are more exposed to ex ploitation and abus e. N otattending school is consequently both a cause and effect of child labour.T h e s h o r t c o m i n g s o f e x i s t i n g s c h o o l s y s t e m s r e m a i n a m a j o r f a c t o r t h a t pushes children on to the labour market when they are too young. Sendingchildren to school does not come without a cost. In many countries, parents still pay a fee for their children to attend primary school, as well as buying booksand providing a school uniform. For a poor family these are significant costs,alongside the lack of income for the household while a child is at school. 3 Business Communication ================================= Child Labour Historical Background The majority of the worlds children do some work every day, usually in thefo rm of hous ehold chores or an after s chool job, which develop skills and as e n s e o f r e s p o n s i b i l i t y . H o w e v e r , a c c o r d i n g t o t h e I n t e r n a t i o n a l Labor O r g a n i z a t i o n ( I L O ) t h e h a r s h r e a l i t y i s t h a t 390 million child-workersworldwide are involved in activities that are either hazardous, excess ive or where their employers exploit them. Inevitably, the emotional, physical and psychological effects for these children can be extremely damaging and suchwork leaves little or no time for play or school.The rise of the factory s ystem in the nineteenth century led to w id es preademployment of children as cheap laborers. In United States, child labor wasuncontroversial in the colonial period, as children worked on family farms or would enter into trade apprenticeships between ages 10 and 14. Educationalreformers in the mid-nineteent h cen tury pressed for leg is la tion that wouldestablish wage minimums and school attendance requirements. These efforts atthe social protection of children were stymied by the influx of southern ande a s t e r n E u r o p e a n i m m i g r a n t s , t h e p a t c h w o r k q u a l i t y o f A m e r i c a n s t a t e legislation and the pow erful interes ts who sought, for economic r easo ns , toconfine the protective legislation. Child labor grew such that by 1900, 18 percent of 10-15 year olds the official figure of 1.75 million were employed.One-quarter of southern cotton mill employees were under 15 half of thesec h i l d r e n w e r e u n d e r 1 2 . A f t e r t h e C i v i l W a r , t h e a v a i l a b i l i t y of naturalresources, new inventions, and a receptive market combi

n e d t o f u e l a n industrial boom. The demand for labor grew, and in the late 19th and early 20thcenturies many children were drawn into the labor force. Factory wages wereso low that children often had to work to help support their families. Businessesliked to hire children because they worked in unskilled jobs for lower wagesthan adults, and their s mall hands made them more adept at h an dling small parts and tools.By the early 1900s many Americans were calling child labor "child slavery"a n d w e r e d e m a n d i n g a n e n d t o i t . T h e y a r g u e d t h a t l o n g h o u r s o f w o r k deprived children of the opportunity of an education to prepare themselves for a better future. Instead, child labor condemned them to a future of illiteracy, poverty, and continuing mis ery. The National Child Labor Committee wasorganized in 1904 to address th e problem. In 1904 a group of progres sivereformers founded the National Child Labor Committee, an organization whosegoal was the abolition of child labor. The organization received a charter fromCongress in 1907. It hired teams of investigators to gather evidence of childrenworking in harsh conditions and then organized exhibitions with photographsand statistics to dramatize the plight of these children. Along with numerousstate child labor groups , the movemen t "pioneered the techniques of mas s politi cal action, including inves tigations by experts , the widesprea d use of photography to dramatize the poor conditions of children at work, pamphlets,leaflets and mass mailings to reach the public and sophisticated lobbying. The 4 Business Communication ================================= Child Labour n umber of children under the age of 15 who worked in industrial jobs f or wages climbed from 1.5 million in 1890 to 2 million in 1910.These efforts resulted in the establishment in 1912 of the Children's Bureau asa f e d e r a l i n f o r m a t i o n c l e a r i n g h o u s e . I n 1 9 1 3 t h e C h i l d r e n ' s B u r e a u w a s transferred to the Department of Labor. When Congress passed federal childl a b o r l a w s i n 1 9 1 6 a n d 1 9 1 8 , t h e y w e r e d e c l a r e d u n c o n s t i t u t i o n a l b y t h e Supreme Court.By 1920 the number of child laborers was cut to nearly half of what it had beenin 1910. Child labor opponents managed to press for Congressional passage of a constitutional amendment authorizing federal child labor legislation in 1924church groups and farm organizations prevented ratification. But Child labor came under the international spotlight in the 1990s.For the first time the industrialized worlds diplomats and economists starteddis cuss ing why v as t n umber s of children w er e working rather than beingeducated, and wh at should be done about it. The focus was on developing countries. This new attention to an old issue was largely due to worries raised by people in indus trialized countri es such as the United K ingdom. Trad eunionists, politicians and campaigners for social justice voiced concern that jo bs w ere disappearing rapidly as businesses switched production

f ro m thein du striali zed world to dev eloping countries wher e labor cos ts w er e muchlower.Simultaneously, organizations in developing countries sounded the alarm whenthey saw children working longer and longer hours not only producing goodsfor export, but also providing a cheap and malleable workforce for the localeconomy. As more attention was given to the work children were performing,so the statistics about the numbers involved became more startling. In the early1990s, the number of children between 5 and 14 in full-time employment had been 100 million but by 1996 it was 120 million. HOW MANY CHILD LABOUR ARE THERE? The ILO estimates, "246 million child workers aged 5 and 17 were involved inchild labor, of which 171 million were involved in work that by its nature ishazardous to their safety, physical or mental health, and moral development.Moreover, some 8.4 million children were engaged in so-called 'unconditional'worst forms of child labor, which include forced and bonded labor, the use of children in armed conflict, trafficking in children and commercia l sex u alexploitation."However, it decreased into 218 million or roughly 11 percent in 2004.This only means that the international action done world wide was able to fightchild labor and has been very effective in its course of actions. 5 Business Communication ================================= Child Labour Myths on Child Labor According to UNICEF (1997), there are four myths that surround the issue of child labor and these are the followings: C hild Labor is only a problem of developing countries found in theregion of Africa, Asia and Latin America. This may be expected due tothe prevailing economic conditions of these countries, still pockets of child labor can be found in highly industrialized countries such as USetc. Child Labor will never be eliminated until poverty disappears. UNICEF points out that child labor should be eliminated interdependently of p o v e r t y . E v e n t h e p o o r e s t c o u n t r i e s s h o u l d d o t h e i r b e s t s o a s t o decrease the number of child labor cases. Child laborers only work on export industries. Only a small portion of child labor cases work in export industries, only about 9%. Most childw o r k e r s c a n b e f o u n d i n t h e i n f o r m a l s e c t o r s o f s o c i e t y , o u t i n t h e streets, work in agriculture or hidden in every home far from the eyesof labor inspectors.

The only way to eliminate child labor is for the g o v e r n m e n t a n d consumers to pose sanctions and boycotts. This will not really help at alland will just make the problem worst. Likewise, it doesnt give a hugeimpact since portions of child labor cas es are found in that sector . Acomprehensive strategy that supports and develops local initiatives and provides alternatives is the only proper seen by UNICEF should be donein order to combat child labor. FACTS & FIGURES OF CHILD LABOR IN ASIA ANDWORLDWIDE According to estimates by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in their report of June 2006, the numbers of children working aged 5 to 14 is: Globally 190 million In Asia 122 million In sub-Saharan Africa 50 million. In fact 26 percent of allchildren work here In Latin America 5 million. In the rest of the world 13 million. A cr oss Africa , ther e are an estimated 80 million child workers, a number that could rise to 100 million by 2015. 6 Business Communication ================================= Child Labour Conclusion As we all know that child labor is a major problem in all over the world today.I t i s n o t o n l y p r e v a i l i n g i n d e v e l o p i n g c o u n t r i e s b u t a l s o i t i s a c u r s e d i n developed countries. If we talk about Pakistan then the child under the age of 15 or may be less is engaged in labor work. The main problem for this is thelack of education and lower income level of the people. N o d o u b t , child labor in United States also a dynamic problem but if wecompare it with other countries it is less than those. The main reason for flourishing the child labor in the Pakistan is the instability of p o l i t i c a l environment. The numbers of family members are more than the income level.For the better eradication of this problem is the government support. Becausegovernment should arranged such steps on international level through whichthis type of curs e could be removed or minimized. B ut, this is not only theg o v e r n m e n t r e s p o n s i b i l i t y , w e a s a c i t i z e n s h o u l d f o r w a r d o u r s

t e p s f o r elimination of this problem. We should arrange seminars on v child labor;different speeches can play a vital role in this regard. And moreover, media can play a very important role for this. Different types of ads should be shown onTV for the awareness of this problem. If we adopted such little steps than may be a small part of this curse could be eliminated.In a vivid, we can say child labor is a complex problem which demands a rangeo f s o l u t i o n s . T h e r e i s n o b e t t e r w a y t o p r e v e n t c h i l d L a b o r t h a n t o m a k e education compulsory. The West understood this a long time ago. Laws wereenacted very early to secure con tinued education for working children; andnow they have gone a step f orw ard, and required completion of at least the p r e l i m i n a r y e d u c a t i o n o f t h e c h i l d b e f o r e h e o r s h e s t a r t s w o r k . B e t t e r solutions should b e ado pted for its removal otherw is e it w ill s oon lick the pillars of the world. 18 Business Communication ================================= Child Labour Recommendations: Awareness raising activities should be arranged so that people are informedabout childrens rights to education and leisure. Microfinance programs so that families have sufficient income and can keeptheir children out of paid work. Provision of health and educational services for working children should beensured. Ensuring that children orphaned by AIDS are still accorded their rights and areequipped with skills that will help them as adults Plan works to raise awareness of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Poor people should provide such opportunities to get themselves o u t o f poverty, and prevent and stop all types of exploitation of children. Providing all children with access to education is every governme n t s responsibility, as well as a practical response to preventing child labor. Free,compulsory, relevant and good-quality education services should be given. Laws and regulations agains t child labor must be in place and rigorouslyenforced by governments should be in manner.

Civil society and media engagement can change attitudes and it can condemnchild labor. It can also helps in raising aw arenes s of its harmfu l eff ects onhealth and development will help alleviate childrens vulnerability to abuse. Relevant school curricula and vocational training programs can be adapted tostudents circumstances and will increase their school attendance. Social programs to support families in need and help them find alter native income to replace their childs employment will help prevent child labor. Suchsupport is also needed for child-headed households, orphans and childrens. To create aw arenes s on the different aspects of child labor iss ue and startcampaigns on childrens for the implementation of children's rights. Family size should be small because Poor households tend to have m o r e children, and with large families there is a greater likelihood that children willwork and have lower school attendance and completion.19 Business Communication ================================= Child Labour Governments need to devote res ources for Schooling and to provide goodquality and relevance atmosphere with no cost to poor families. B as e programming on childrens ow n perception of what cons titutes safe /harmful / age appropriate / educational labor. Target and focus integrated packages of basic services on urban poor families. Disabled children must receive priority attention due to their part i c u l a r vulnerability to exploitation in the worst forms of child labor on the streets. Expand education services to make them accessible to working children. To give priority attention to immediately eliminating the worst forms of childlabor with appropriate programs.20 Business Communication ================================= Child Labour References:

 www.unicef.org.com Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child The State of PakistansChildren 2006 http://www.sparcpk.org/publications/sopc_2006.pdf IRIN Asia Child labour still widespread in NWFPhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx? reportid=26413\ U.S Department of Labor Pakistanhttp://www.dol.gov/ILAB/media/reports/iclp/sweat/pakistan.htm YesPakistan.com staff writer Policy considerations for ending child labor inPakistanhttp://www.yespakistan.com/people/child_labor.asp http://images.google.com.pk/imgres? imgurl=http://www.hamariweb.com/Images/Articles/Labour3%252013 http://www.minnpost.com/globalpost/2009/05/15/8833/hope_for_pakistans_child_worker s http://www.sparcpk.org/news_june_need.php Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child The State of PakistansChildren 2006 http://www.sparcpk.org/publications/sopc_2006.pdf IRIN Asia Child labour still widespread in NWFPhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx? reportid=26413\ U.S Department of Labor Pakistanhttp://www.dol.gov/ILAB/media/reports/iclp/sweat/pakistan.htm YesPakistan.com staff writer Policy considerations for ending child labor inPakistanhttp://www.yespakistan.com/people/child_labor.asp http://images.google.com.pk/imgres? imgurl=http://www.hamariweb.com/Images/Articles/Labour3%252013 http://www.sparcpk.org/crs_child_labor.php http://www.minnpost.com/globalpost/2009/05/15/8833/hope_for_pakistans_child_worker s http://www.sparcpk.org/press_only_education.php http://www.sparcpk.org/news_june_need.php2