Globalisation and Child Labour

Globalisation and Child Labour

Ongoing research is being carried out on the subject of child labour.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century child labour has once again
become a significant topic on campaign and research agendas. Trade Unions,
NGO's, the ILO, UNICEF and various social movements are actively involved in
campaigns against the continuing abuse of child workers across the globe.
The problem is substantial. According to the ILO in 1996 73 million children
between the age of 10 and 14 work in the world. According to Boyd (1994) the
figures are greater - at least one in four children between the ages of 10
and 14 work in the 'Third World', she suggests:
Children constitute about 18 per cent of Brazil's workforce. An estimated 12
million children work in Nigeria. But the highest number of child workers is
to be found in the countries of Asia. India has an estimated 44 million
working children; Pakistan's estimates range from 7.5 million to 10 million
child labourers. In Indonesia conservative estimates claim that almost 3
million children work (1994: p.155).
Recognising the inadequacy of their own figures, the ILO in 1998 suggested
there were in the region of 120 million child workers working full-time in
the 'developing' world and a further 130 million working part-time (ILO
1998b) - though UNICEF (1997) suggest 400 million may be nearer the
appropriate level. The figures 'hide' the reality of the work children are
expected to perform. The figures mask the story of millions of children
working in terrible conditions. Workers such as "Alfredo" a 13-year-old boy
from Northern Portugal who works everyday from 8 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. breaking
stones, or 8 year old "Fatima" who lives on the Nile delta and works at
night (starting at 1 a.m.) picking jasmine, or "Sanji" the 8 year old carpet
worker from North-East India who was forced to work 16 hours a day, or the
young Taiwanese girls who work in a canning factory in two 12 hour shifts
and sleep above the factory in conditions akin to the 'prentice houses' of
nineteenth century Britain (Hobbs & McKechnie 1997, Prachankhadee et al.
1979).
But child labour is not just a 'Third World' problem. It is estimated that
approximately 800,000 children labour on farms across the USA. These are not
children working for their parents on small family farms but: "[children] in
California, Arizona, Washington state and Texas.employed as cheap labour in
the billion-dollar agricultural industry" (Walsh, 2000: p24). There is
sometimes a romantic image attached to farm work. It may be hard, but it is
healthy, conducted in the open and in the sun - it is 'good honest toil'.
But Walsh's description depicts the reality of child farm work, by
describing "Juan's" experience:
As the sun heats the fields, the dew evaporates, to be replaced by clouds of
dust. By 7 a.m., his eyes will be weeping and raw from the sulphurous
pesticides in the soil. As the sulphur finds its way into his lungs, he will
become dizzy and nauseated. Even for an adult, it would be an inhumanely
cruel ordeal. But Juan is nine years old (2000:p24).
In Britain it is estimated that 2 million children under the age of 16 are
working. The children work in a range of jobs - from newspaper and milk
delivery to factory work - but what they have in common is that they are
overwhelmingly employed because they are cheap (Lavalette 1994, 1999, Hobbs
& McKechnie 1997 , Pond & Searle 1991). The growing awareness of the scale
and problem of child labour has motivated a number of campaigns to control
the problem. For some writers child labour is essentially a problem of
pre-capitalist social relations, of underdevelopment (see e.g. Mehta et al.
1985). As Fyfe argues: "The transition to industrial capitalism has been
associated...with a long-term decline in child employment" (1989: p4). On
this scenario, the eradication of child labour in the 'advanced' countries
offers the model for newly industrialising countries to follow.
It is suggested that the democratising process and development of modern
society controlled child labour and thus, in the newly developing world it
will be controlled by the further expansion and development of capitalism.
This perspective however is flawed. First, it exaggerates the degree to
which child labour has been 'eradicated' in the advanced countries (Hobbs
and McKechnie 1997). Secondly, while child labour was significantly altered
and marginalized at the end of the nineteenth century this was for some very
specific historical reasons that will not be easily - or automatically -
repeated (Lavalette 1999). Finally, they ignore the degree to which the
child labour problem is more deeply ingrained within other general social
problems such as poverty, inequality and the global exploitation of the poor
by the major multi-national corporations.
A second take on the argument is presented by a number of researchers and
writers influenced by the 'children's rights agenda'. A number of writers
and NGO's suggest that 'western' concerns with child labour ignore local
cultural practices and concerns (Newbery 2000). This has led some NGO's to
raise the demand for a children's right to work. In short their position is
that the conditions of labour should be improved, rather than the work
activity stopped. Some child workers take this position, Save the Children
have the following quote from child worker Khalid Hussain (15) on their
website homepage (www.oneworld.org):
The reasons I stitch footballs is because my parents cannot afford the cost
of my education.If there were a ban on child labour, most of the people in
my village would go hungry.
Yet as Susan George notes: "Child labour.drives down wages and replaces
adults.The practice perpetuates poverty. the 'right to work' may mean
accepting inhuman conditions in order to survive" (1999: p176).
An alternative approach has been to pressurise governments to adopt labour
standards, a strategy followed by the ILO since its inception in 1919.
Although it has had some success, government adoption of ILO conventions and
their actually operationalisation are two different matters. Indeed both the
USA and Britain are signatories to ILO child labour regulations, yet both
continue to have a substantial child labour problem (Hobbs & McKechnie 1997;
Greenberger and Steinberg 1986). The international trade union movement (see
ICFTU 1996) has worked with the ILO, but it also favours 'social clauses'.
The attempt to get MNC's and exporters to the advanced economies to
guarantee that workers employed in their business/country have produced
their goods while working under agreed minimum standards. Yet this has left
the unions vulnerable to incorporation within broadly protectionist economic
campaigns. As Green notes:
The most notorious example of this took place .[when] following threats by
the US Congress to pass legislation preventing the import of products from
Bangladesh made by children under 14.an estimated 50,000 children.were
forced to exchange their jobs in relatively clean, hygienic textile
factories for lower-paid jobs breaking bricks or collecting garbage...[or
they disappeared]. On a recent visit to Bangladesh, I could find almost no
trade unionist or NGO who supported the threatened boycott, and the
suspicion was widespread that the action owed more to the desire to protect
US jobs in the garment industry from foreign competition than to any genuine
concern with children's lives (1999: pp.26/27).
Each of these strategies also takes place in a context: a global capitalist
system, increasing 'Third World' debt and structural adjustment programmes.
The strategies and solutions have to avoid becoming 'social policy blue
prints' - the question of 'enacting' the strategies is crucial.

http://www.gseu.org.uk/projects/childlab.htm

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Well, Jean, here is your link.

As to prove that George Bush only pays lipservice
regarding childlabor. Interesting right Jean?

Now please apologize like a real gentleman for calling
me a liar in the other thread

Kind Regards,
Barbarossa