Child labour is one of the most widespread ways in which the rights of children and adolescents are violated in Latin America. Several million more girls and boys are at risk of child labour due to the effects of COVID-19.
Foto: Tyler Lagalo
The deterioration of social indicators and particularly in the labour market means that children and adolescents bear the highest cost of poverty and that in many cases they provide substitute or complementary labour to cover the needs of their households.
The complexity of the phenomenon responds to multiple factors and particularities. Among the former we recognise mainly economic, political and cultural factors. Among the particularities we can distinguish the “invisibility” of child and adolescent labour linked to hidden activities such as domestic work within and outside the home, or that carried out in production for self-consumption, among others. Also, the growing “tolerance or naturalisation” of the problem that reproduces ideas associated with the inevitability of poverty or the educational value of work (learning by doing), and finally, the “denial” by those who hire children and resist the social or legal sanction.
Generally, child labour is defined as any economic activity and/or survival strategy, paid or not, carried out by girls and boys below the minimum age for admission to employment or work, or who have not completed compulsory schooling or who have not reached the age of 18 if it is hazardous work. This exists within the framework of the doctrine of comprehensive protection of rights established by the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, in compliance with ILO Convention No. 138 on Minimum Age for Admission to Employment and No. 182 on Worst Forms of Child LaborTarget 8.7 of the United Nations 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals[1].
However, the conceptualisation of child labour has been changing and is not homogeneous, there have been different ways of regulating and legislating on it at any moment in history. Mainly, the debates on the definition of the problem have revolved around its scope and the ways to intervene.
A first approach to child labour equates it to adult work and therefore with the forms of protection that should be considered. However, the participation of children and adolescents in economic and non-economic activities competes with schooling and the full enjoyment of their rights. Early integration into the world of work clearly competes with retention and performance in school, affecting school achievement and future possibilities for obtaining quality jobs. Child labour fuels the vicious cycle of poverty.
In some countries, intense domestic tasks that are carried out inside the home and compete with rest and adequate schooling due to their extensive hours are also considered to be child labour. This child labour differs from domestic work carried out in the homes of third parties or employers, with or without pay. It also includes girls who are adolescent mothers and those who replace their mother in caring for younger siblings and carrying out other domestic tasks when she goes out to work.
Warning!
The global fight against child labour has stalled since 2016, global progress in combating child labour has slowed for the first time in 20 years. Added to this is the impact of COVID-19, which threatens to continue eroding global progress in the fight against child labour unless urgent poverty alleviation measures are taken.
Currently, more than 160 million girls, boys and adolescents work around the world; 8.2 million in Latin America and the Caribbean and 3.8 million in Europe. Almost half of the children and adolescents in the world – 79 million – carry out hazardous work that directly endangers their health, safety and moral development. Most of the children in child labour do it in their own family unit. Child labour is more frequent among boys than among girls at all ages, although with a higher female prevalence in domestic activities. These data emerge from the new Global Report on Child Labor: Global estimates 2020, trends and the road forward by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and UNICEF[2].
Several million more girls and boys are at risk from COVID-19. There will be an increase of 9 million girls, boys and adolescents who work if governments do not react immediately to the effects of the pandemic. The economic crisis unleashed by COVID-19 has revealed the enormous fragility of the living conditions of workers and their families (high informality, unemployment, low wages and job insecurity).
A fairer and more equitable reconstruction
Child labour can only be eradicated with more and better public policies and by calling on all actors to exercise a responsible and proactive role that implies greater adherence to the law.
Post-pandemic economic and productive recovery policies cannot ignore the prevention and eradication of child labour and the protection of adolescent labour. This is why it is a priority to promote a model for the protection of rights and for its implementation to be coordinated with economic development, wealth redistribution, decent work for adults, care and social inclusion. This is the main framework for dealing with the problem.
Macroeconomic policies thus contribute both to the recovery in employment and the quality of employment and to the strengthening of the social security and protection systems in countries.
The European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan highlights the importance of ensuring children’s access to services, such as early childhood education and care, and the goal of lifting at least 5 million children out of poverty by 2030. Commitments recently signed at the Porto Summit (May 2021). On the other hand, in June this year the Child Guarantee for Vulnerable Children was approved to guarantee for children in need: “a) effective and free access to high-quality early childhood education and care, education and school activities, healthy food at least every school day, and health care; b) effective access to healthy food and adequate housing.”
In Latin America, work has been done on expanding income support measures for poor families, increasing the formalisation of employment, strengthening the areas of oversight committed to control and sanction, engaging and seeking the commitment of unions and employers in the fight against child labour. Establishing new tools such as: the incorporation of clauses in collective bargaining, union co-responsibility agreements in matters of social security and regulations on working conditions for agricultural, cyclical and seasonal workers, specific mechanisms to address the risks associated with child labour in national and global supply chains.
On the other hand, at the intersection of work inside and outside the home and the care crisis, the absence or insufficiency of childcare and education spaces is seen as having greater urgency. Solving this problem is essential so that we can think in terms of promoting and protecting the rights of children and adolescents as well as gender equality, since access to child care and education spaces (adequate, accessible and nearby) prevents the responsibility for ‘taking care’ of younger siblings (or dependent relatives) falling on older siblings, with a prevalence in girls and adolescents.
Recent advances in the formalisation of domestic work constitute a starting point to also regularise the situation of adolescent girls who work in the homes of third parties. This implies identifying, prohibiting and eradicating forms of domestic work that, due to their nature or the circumstances in which they are practised, could harm their health and safety.
In short, the challenges are many and varied, but they are all important.
The European Union EUROsociAL+ programme has been supporting Latin American countries to improve their public policies on labour formalisation (Peru, Dominican Republic), the consolidation of care systems (Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Paraguay and Uruguay), the formalisation of work in private homes (Peru) and on the eradication of child labour (Ecuador and Peru).
[1] SDG Target 8.7. To take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end contemporary forms of slavery and human trafficking and ensure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including the recruitment and use of child soldiers. Also, by 2025, to put an end to child labour in all its forms.
[2] https://data.unicef.org/resources/child-labour-2020-global-estimates-trends-and-the-road-forward/
Article prepared by Virginia Tedeschi, Southern Cone Technician, Social Policies Area, European Union EUROsociAL+ Programme. Lawyer (UBA), Master in Public Policies and Gender (PRIGEPP/FLACSO)
