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child
labour,What needs to be done? by Sabin Dewan
The international community has the funds to provide free
primary education-a necessary tool to combat child labour.
It is merely a question of budgeting priorities. In fact,
according to the World Watch Institute, the annual
expenditure on perfume is $15 billion while achieving
universal literacy would only need an annual investment of
$5 billion.
In papers prepared for the 1997 International Conference on
Child Labour, it was revealed that child labour can best be
combated through:
• Better access to education
• Social awareness and activism
• The rehabilitation of child labourers
• Legislation and proper enforcement child labour laws
In turn, governments need to devote resources to education
so that:
• Schooling is compulsory, of good quality and relevance,
and is of little or no cost to poor families.
Success Story: In 1994, Malawi made primary education free.
From one academic year to the next, enrolment increased by
roughly 50 percent, and more of the new students were female
than male.
Some initiatives that can be effective in combating child
labour:
Improving child labour legislation and laws
Many countries have national child labour laws that
establish a minimum age for work and regulate working
conditions. These laws tend to be effective in combating
child labour abuses in the formal sector (the sector of the
economy which lawfully employs people and pays taxes) in
urban areas. However legal protection for child labourers
does not extend beyond the formal sector to the kinds of
work children are most involved in, such as agriculture and
domestic service.
In addition, labour laws in many countries do not cover
factories employing less than ten people. The carpet
industry in Pakistan, for example, is largely a cottage
industry, deliberately organized in this way to avoid labour
laws. It is, therefore, important to extend protection so
that laws cover the main places where children work.
Enforcement of child labour legislation and laws
Lack of enforcement is the key obstacle to combating child
labour. Laws cannot be effective if they are not enforced.
Increasing quality, relevance and access to education
Education is the key to ending the exploitation of children.
If an education system is to attract and retain children,
its quality and relevance must be improved as well. Children
who attend school are less likely to be involved in
hazardous or exploitative work. They are also more likely to
break out of cycles of poverty. According to UNICEF, for
every year of quality education that a child receives, their
adult earning potential increases by a worldwide average of
10 per cent.
The main obstacle to achieving universal primary education
is the inability and/or the unwillingness of governments to
provide quality educational facilities for poor children in
rural areas and in city shantytowns.
Evidence from around the world has shown that poor families
are willing to make sacrifices to send their children to
school when it is economically and physically accessible.
With children in school, their unemployed adult relatives
may take their places in the workforce.
The focus should not just be on education of children.
Emphasis should also be on education programs for adults,
especially women. Evidence shows that there is an inverse
relationship between adult literacy rates and the incidence
of child labour in the long run. Educated adults have fewer
and better-educated children.
Vocational training
Vocational education and training for older child labourers
plays an important role in combating child labour by giving
them the skills to make better decisions.
Equality for women and girls
The social welfare of children is strongly linked to the
social and economic position of women. A commitment to
women's equality must be part of the commitment to end child
labour because when a woman's income improves, so too does
the situation of her children. Women need access to decent
jobs and good childcare.
Women invest in their children's food, water, housing,
clothing, and schooling. This is why the campaign to abolish
child labour cannot be separated from women's struggles for
recognition, decision-making power, autonomy, equality with
men, a fair division of paid and unpaid work, and other
measures to end poverty and domestic violence.
Replace child workers with adults
Because so many families depend on their children's income
to survive, long term solutions are needed that will not
plunge families further into poverty. Replacing child
workers with their parents (who may be unemployed) would
actually increase a family's income because adults are more
highly paid.
Research carried out in the hand-made carpet industry shows
that the cost of replacing children with adults in factories
only adds about 4% to the price of a carpet.
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