Child labour re-surfaced as an international issue in the 1990s but first became an issue in the 1980s. Children were seen working instead of attending schools. This necessitated a series of initiatives and rational advocacy by non-governmental agencies, media, the United Nations (UN), trade associations, and academics calling for an urgent stop to the use of child labour in production. Some of the critics against child labour were agitating for support against abuse of child rights, while some were calling for the liberation and rehabilitation of children from all sorts of suffering, and raising parental awareness about sending their children to school rather than work. Some theorists have postulated that violation of child rights through child labour is so damaging that working children can suffer from major growth impairment, constant occupational diseases in their youth, and some have no basic or adequate education to be useful to their society and the world at large, thereby becoming a threat to society. Research has shown that whole industries in some developing countries depend on child labour, which recently necessitated the bill that prohibited the importation of goods produced wholly or partly by child labour into the United States (US)
There is no doubt that child labour is a very complex phenomenon fixed in various social, economic, and cultural characteristics of the people where it exists. Proponents of its cancellation have observed child labour as a critical moral predicament and a harsh barrier to protecting the future of a nation and the world, as one of the most destructive, immoral and dishonourably cruel practices. Child labour in whatever form is seen to be a phenomenon associated with poverty, social and environmental circumstances, income inconsistency, debt and lack of educational opportunities rather than preferences of guardians/parents and lack of enforcement of legal instruments meant to protect children.
The definition of child varies according to individual criteria set by both international and regional institutions identifying children to be eighteen and under. The UN defines a child as every human being below eighteen years of age. The issue of child labour according to various studies confirmed correlations with gross domestic product (GDP) and prosperity of the economy and has its roots in poverty. This has resulted in the unethical practice declining in developed countries rather than developing ones. The decline was also as a result of additional factors such as the use of high information technology in the workplace, high production capacity, good living standards and high literacy rates. These factors resulted in the reduction of requirement for unskilled labour and a total reduction in the supply of underage labour. Child labour is known as ‘children working in both the formal and informal economic sectors, in legal work and illegal occupations such as bonded labour, slavery, soldiering and prostitution’. Child labour is a system where young children are being overworked or deprived of their rights such as health care or education. UNICEF argued that from one angle the work might be beneficial, enhancing, or promoting the child’s physical, moral, mental and social development but could also be harsh or brutal. Millions of children have been found engaged in hazardous work in harmful conditions, putting their lives at risk because of such issues as health, education, and social improvement.
The former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, opined that “child labour has serious consequences that stay with individuals and with society for longer than the years of childhood. Young workers not only face dangerous working conditions. They face long-term physical, intellectual, and emotional stress. They face an adulthood of unemployment and illiteracy”. Any work that harms or exploits children in any way; physically, mentally, morally, or serves as a barrier to education is nothing more than child labour. The term ‘child labour’ could also be referred to all employment activities of underage children. It is not only defined in terms of the activities involved but also the long-term consequences for the persons involved. If a child labourer is under a condition of servitude of paying off debt the Human Rights Watch report branded that as bonded labour. Underage labourers engage in job activities that are unprotected, with no fringe benefits attached, and no sick leave etc. and are not protected from any on-the-job accident, with deplorable working conditions.
In reality there is no exact pragmatic finding that proclaimed work to be dangerous to children. In most rural areas work is known as a traditional activity of childhood which transformed into skills and knowledge acquisition. Various scholars have argued that children’s growth and development through work is better and condemned activities that are risky to their existence in form of hard labour. The term ‘child work’ has different meanings to different societies and differs with cultural, social, and economic factors. In rural areas of developing countries, child work is regarded as a better and quality form of training than formal education because rural dwellers believe children learn better and faster by doing the work themselves. Also on-the-job training like apprenticeships is regarded by them as economically useful, at the same time providing skill development for the child in the future. Therefore, work is an important means of teaching and socialising children. The controversial use of children for manufacturing work or labour has become an ethical and moral issue with various ethically principled actors commenting on the practice.
Emerging arguments on the child labour/work is so enormous and varies. In fact the goods produced in developing countries with wholly or partly by child labour do indirectly involve the practice within the Western states .This occurs in that the firms owned and registered in the West do subcontract some work to firms or individual workers in developing countries that engage the practice. The moral assessment of the practice is that goods produced by the Western states companies’ agents in the developing countries can create inconsistency with current standards and values proclaimed by the West itself.
In the United Kingdom (UK) any imported goods of such practices that engage a child in labour in the production wholly or partly of the goods is regarded as ‘proceeds of crime’. The Proceeds of Crime Acts 2002 forbids any goods produced anywhere, that involved wholly or partly child labour, to be illegal in the UK. For example, footballs stitched by child labour in Bangladesh or India are proceeds of crime in the UK. This is because the use of child labour in the UK is illegal and prohibited (Law, 3 July 2003). Some analysts claimed that the global legislation of child labour by the international body should have been an individual position of national governments rather than the global outlawing of such practice. This position, according to the sponsors, would have depended only on internal political resolution because socio-economic conditions in poor developing countries are different from developed economies.
OLANREWAJU USMAN
