Key challenges in ethical trade: Report on the ETI Biennial Conference 2003
Chapter 11
What role for the private sector in preventing, identifying and remedying
child labour?
Of all the issues covered by labour codes, child labour is probably the best-known and the subject of most concern to consumers. Yet for a variety of reasons child labour is difficult to detect. Moreover, even when it has been effectively detected, identifying and implementing solutions that have positive, long-term benefits for the children and their families is a real challenge. This workshop aimed to explore the role of companies in preventing, identifying and remedying child labour, and to provide concrete examples of what companies are doing. It describes the experiences of the Peace Trust [12] (India), the All Pakistan Federation of Labour, Gunteks Tekstil (Turkey) and the International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), ILO.
11.1 Definition of child labour
Child labour refers to any work by a child or young person younger than the age(s) specified in the definitions below, which does not comply with the provisions of the relevant ILO standards, or is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's or young person's education, or to be harmful to the child's or young person's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.
Child: Any person less than 15 years of age unless local minimum age law stipulates a higher age for work or mandatory schooling, in which case the higher age shall apply. If however, local minimum age law is set at 14 years of age in accordance with developing country exceptions under ILO Convention No. 138, the lower will apply.
Young person: Any worker over the age of a child as defined above and under the age of 18.
11.2 Where is child labour found?
Child labour is widespread. In Pakistan alone, the International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (ILO-IPEC) estimated that in 1996 there were 3.3 million children involved in child labour. One UK retailer estimates that half a million children work for their suppliers' subcontractors.
Since child labour became an international concern in the early 1990s, efforts have been made to address the problem. Often, as in the case of Pakistan, these efforts have had some success in reducing the presence of child labour in the organised (that is, unionised) sector, particularly in the first tier of the supply chain. However, these initiatives have tended to have little impact on the presence of child labour in sub-contracted levels of the supply chain and in small industries that do not attract the law or code enforcement. Rather than being reduced, child labour appears to be moving further down the supply chain to less secure and less regulated areas of employment.
11.3 Why does child labour continue to be pervasive?
Child labour is both a result of and a contributing factor to the cycle of poverty. Because employers can pay children less than adults, and because children are less likely to complain about poor conditions, employing children can be an attractive proposition for many employers. Often this can have the effect of reducing employment opportunities for adults. In many cases, work can prevent the children from going to school and gaining the skills they need to secure better employment as adults.
Conversely, poverty is also a root cause of child labour. Low adult wages, high unemployment and ill health often give parents little choice but to send their children to work rather than to school.
11.4 The challenges of identifying child labour
For sourcing companies and other external organisations, identifying child labour in many developing countries can be problematic. For a start, in many societies, people may not know their exact age. Moreover, employers and workers are generally aware that auditors will be looking for child labour, as both national law and company codes tend to emphasise this issue. Since both employers and child workers themselves may want to protect their jobs, they can become quite adept at concealing the issue. For child workers, practices such as using fake identity cards or those belonging to elder siblings are not uncommon.
Many sourcing companies have therefore found that identifying child labour effectively requires the co-operation of local trade unions and NGOs. The latter, however, are often hesitant to provide sourcing companies with information that might result in negative consequences, such as the cancellation of orders resulting in lost employment.
11.5 The challenges of remedying child labour
The experience of sourcing companies has highlighted the risks of poorly thought-out strategies to eliminate child labour. As mentioned above, efforts targeted at removing child labour from the first tier of the supply chain have often simply led the children to seek and gain employment further down the chain. Worse still, there are examples of children removed from work at factories or farms ending up working as prostitutes.
To prevent these problems and achieve real benefits for ex-child workers requires longterm commitment and co-operation with a wide range of local stakeholders, from government departments and trade unions to schools and community groups. This poses a real challenge for sourcing companies and suppliers alike, but the examples in the following section show that it can be done.
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