Mahmood, 12, makes drums for washing machines in a Cairo workshop. (Petros Giannakouris/Associated Press)
Some younger than 14 years old, they toil under perilous conditions in industries that value their tiny hands for work in glass-blowing, farming and knotting carpet threads.
They represent the estimated 12.6 million child labourers in modern India, the country boasting the largest population of children in the world. Most child labourers are migrant workers sent by families who depend on the young ones to earn wages. Some are bonded labourers working almost as slaves to pay off debt accrued by their parents.
India is coming under great pressure to take action to end its grave child labour problem, which is more extensive than in any other country. The government is now set to ban child domestic workers on Oct. 10, 2006, under its Child Labour Act, making it illegal to hire children under 14 in the home. Employers who break the law can now be punished with up to two years imprisonment.
While the Indian government estimates there are currently 12.6 million child labourers in India, some NGOs believe the figure is closer to 40 million. Leading international children's rights guardians are appealing to the Indian government to expand its new ban further to also include youths up to 18 years old.
Child Labour Convention
Child labour usually means work that is done by children under the age of 15 (14 in some developing countries) that restricts or damages a child's physical, emotional, social and/or spiritual growth. This also includes blocking access to education. Light work that doesn't interfere with education is permitted from the age of 12 years, under the International Labour Organization's Convention 138.The convention calls for the abolishment of the "worst forms" of child labour, defined as:All forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom, forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict; The use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography, for pornographic performances, or for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs; and work that is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.
The International Program on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) launched in 1992 in partnership with six countries — India, Brazil, Kenya, Turkey and Thailand.
But the problem is not only limited to the developing world. The Human Rights Watch World Report 2001 described common incidences of child labour that still exist in the United States, where more than 300,000 children worked as hired labourers on commercial farms, "frequently under dangerous and gruelling conditions."
Human Rights Watch found that young farm workers who were exposed to risks of pesticide poisoning, injuries and illnesses had accounted for eight per cent of working children in the United States, but suffered 40 per cent of the work-related deaths. These children would often work 12-hour shifts, sometimes beginning at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m., and had no access to toilets or hand-washing facilities, according to the report.
Decline in child labourers
In May 2006, the Geneva-based International Labour Organization reported a decline in the number of child labourers for the first time. Between the years 2000 and 2004, the number of workers under the age of 18 fell to 218 million from 246 million. It was an 11 per cent decline.
"The end of child labour is within our reach," ILO Director General Juan Somavia said.
Child labour globally
A 2000 ILO global estimate listed the incidence of child labour by region as follows:Asia: 150 million (or 61 per cent)Africa: 71.3 million (or 29 per cent)Latin America: 19.7 million (eight per cent)U.S., Europe, Canada and other wealthy countries: 2.5 million (one per cent)
The most dramatic drop was seen in Latin America and the Caribbean, where the number of children classed as "child labourers" went down by two-thirds. About five per cent of children there are working.
The number of children and youths aged between five and 17 employed in hazardous work dropped by 26 per cent, to reach 126 million in 2004 as opposed to 171 million in the previous estimate. Among younger child labourers aged five to 14, this drop was even more pronounced at 33 per cent, the report says.
In Asia, despite a drop of about five million since 2000, there are still 122 million working children making up 64 per cent of the worldwide total. The number of child workers (defined as between the ages of five and 14) in Asia fell to 122.3 million in 2004. The number could go up because of the December 2004 tsunami and the earthquake that rocked Pakistan in October 2005.
The causes of child labour are complex, but key problems are that too many people can't afford school fees, or they send their kids to work in the streets, fields and factories because they find it difficult to survive without the extra income. As a result, millions of children engage in "unconditional" forms of child labour, including forced and bonded labour (working as a slave to pay off debt), armed conflict and the sex trade.
The ILO report, entitled The End of Child Labour: Within Reach, attributed the reduction in child labour to increased political will and awareness.
More than 30 countries have set a target to abolish child labour by the year 2016.
