Report Child Labour - Essay Example

The last five are classified as the "worst forms" under the ILO Convention 182. (ILO 2002). The sheer enormity of the problem is mind boggling - It was estimated (UNICEF, 2005), that the global child labour force was for 5-14 and 15-17 were over 211 million and 141 million resp., of which over 97% were from the developing world. More than 180 Million children below 18 were involved in the "worst forms" of child labour. In the 43 countries of the world with an annual income of $500 or less per person, the percentage of children in child labour is usually between 30% and 60%, whilst in countries where income is between $500 and $1000 the percentage of child labourers drops to between 10% and 30%.

They form a vicious circle, poverty giving rise to labour and labour perpetuating poverty. There are many causes of child labour. In developing countries, it is most often the need for additional income felt by both the parents and the child. Sometimes the child may work for only board and lodge in order to learn the trade as apprentices from a relative/ family friend. The family as an economic unit may also expect the child to chip in with its contribution at the shop, farm or small factory.

Family breakdowns and natural calamities force children to take on the role of one or both parents to support themselves and their siblings. Trafficked children do not have the luxury of choice and very likely end up crossing borders illegally to be sold into the sex trade. It is also actively pursued by employers, since the children are cheap and obedient and can be easily coerced to work without benefits for low/no wages in the absence of adequate legal framework and infrastructure to determine the true age of children.

In developed countries, children seek employment to secure financial independence from their parents. UNICEF, ILO, most NGOs and governments believe that child labour is exploitative and should be discouraged, since they perpetuate poverty. A contrary view is held by employers and sometimes parents in the developing countries, who genuinely believe that the local population benefits from this economic activity as their families would have suffered more in the absence of this activity. John Blundell (Blundell of the Institute of Economic Affairs who believes wholly in the efficacy of the free market argues: Child labour is not the modern invention of "globalisation".

All farming has always used children. Scotland's school summer holidays exist not so everyone can fly down to the Spanish Costas, but so children are free to help with the harvest. To learn rural skills was the reality of education in most of human history. In more urban areas, the young would learn other appropriate skills. I believe that working in scruffy factories in Manila or Nairobi is an opportunity for the people involved. Making fashion garments or chic trainers for eventual sale on Princes Street offers far greater benevolence than the humbugging of overseas aid.

Aid is famously described as a device by which the poor people in the West fund the rich of the Third World. But free trade in shirts transfers money from the rich