Child Labor

Background

Children have rights to learn, play, getting love from their parents, get formal education, informal education, try something new, adventuring, or just doing simple activities like have a picnic with their family, playing in the beach with their friends, or even take a nap in a soft mattress with their angel’s smile, it is what we are seeing in common or maybe expect that in fact all those things are really happen. But in other world, far from our logic, there are some children who are live under pressure. They are forced to work, spending their playing time in the factory as a blue collar worker, leaving their school to get some money for feeding their selves or maybe their family too. Their rights as a child are being stolen by people who do not have sense of sociality, capitalize who only think that making money is the most important thing. Without any poor, they give the children heavy job which an adult usually do.

These economic and social problems can be worse because it can give negative impact to education, health of children, and could shatter their future in order to pursue a better living. Therefore, we must do something to eliminate the child labor in the world, especially in Indonesia.

Who are child labor?

On a study of child labor[1], the definition of this term becomes clear as the ILO’s Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) states that:

The minimum age for entry into employment should not be less than the age of completion of compulsory schooling, and not less than 15 years, or 14 in the case of countries “whose economy and educational facilities are insufficiently developed” (Article 2, paragraphs 3 and 4.) Accordingly, work that interferes with this education, either through direct substitution or through excessive hours, is prohibited.

This statement explains that child labor is children less than 14 years old who is working more than 14 hours per week, because ILO’s Minimum Age Convention also state that 12-14 years old child who is working not exceeds than 14 hours per week, not in hazardous work and also doesn’t disturb their attendance to school can’t be called as child labor. What the fact is thousands of children around the world who less than 14 years old has working in hazardous work.

Table 1 Number of children in hazardous work by region, ages 5 to 14 (in thousands)

Region	Hazardous work
Transitional countries	-
Asia and Pacific	5.078
Latin America	4.587
Sub-Saharan Africa	751
North Africa and Middle East	420
Global	10.836

Source: International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor, 2004

This table shows us how large number of children who work in hazardous area. Hazardous work by children is any activity or occupation which, by its nature or type, has, or leads to, adverse effects on the child’s safety, health (physical or mental), and moral development[2]. These jobs are usually in formal sector likes mining industry, construction, agriculture, the rattan and wood furniture, garment,

footwear, food processing, toy, and fishing, where children are not pursued to have a high skill or high education, but only with the power capital, they can work there as labor. The rest are working in the informal sector such as selling newspapers, shining shoes, and scavenging.

From the table above, we also can see that the biggest number of child labor in hazardous area comes from Asia and Pacific, and the second comes from Latin America. It proves that more than a half children in the world who work in hazardous area are they who comes from developing countries which do not have any strong law and regulation to protect their citizen particularly women and children. It indicates that the government in developing countries has not noticed their citizen’s right yet, especially children under 14 years old to be free from any pressure of work.

Graph 1 Children aged 5–14 engaged in child labour (%), by region (1999-2008)

Source: UNICEF SOWC 2010

* Excludes Nigeria
** Excludes China
*** Excludes Nigeria and China

In graph 1 above, we can see that almost 40% children in Africa are engaged in child labor because they live in remote areas where it is so hard to find school or any public facilities. They choose to work in order to help their parents. But most of them are not work in hazardous area (see table 1) as many countries in Africa is known as under developed countries that the government don’t have enough money to notice their citizen especially children, so that child labor in this area is not very controversial because it is a common issue.

While in developing countries in Asia, child labor is very controversial as the government prohibits firm to engage children as labor, so that the number of child labor is not too big, only about 12%. But in fact for example Indonesia, we can find child labor in everywhere, in the street, market, factory, and absolutely in remote areas where they work in mining industry or the rattan and wood furniture. So actually the number of children who worked in hazardous area in Asia is bigger than Africa.

People often think why do those children want to become labor in their age, is it passion? Or they are forced by the condition of their family. In fact, most of them work because they need money to live. They are part of the poor who live under absolute poverty line which is 1 US dollar per day (PPP). While other is more miserable because of forced and bonded labor, armed conflict, prostitution and pornography, and illicit activities as unconditional worst forms of child labor, those children must work.

Being labor is absolutely influencing children’s educational attainment

Universal primary education, the second Millennium Development Goal (MDG), is crucial to the achievement of an increase in living standards throughout the developing world[3]. The children who work as labor in any kind of firm especially in hazardous area where they spending so much time to work, they absolutely have no time anymore to go to school, to get education from formal institutions. It means they lose their chance to fix their living, whereas the government’s program has allowed them to get free education in every public elementary school.

We know that education is important for people to get a good job. If you want to achieve high position in your firm, ensure that you also have appropriate skill to raise that chair. The benefits of education have been established by numerous studies. A report by the U.S. Department of Labor[4] (2000) summarizes more than 160 studies which show that children, in countries at all levels of development, benefit more over the course of their lifetime if they choose school over work. The benefits of increased education include higher wages as an adult, less dependence on social welfare, increased savings, a reduced crime rate, increased political participation, a lower fertility rate, better health, and a higher life expectancy. At the macroeconomic level, the increased productivity and higher income of educated workers are likely to promote economic growth, as the experience of countries with a well-educated work force has shown.

If we measure about costs and benefits of getting high education for example as college graduated, maybe we could see that cost of going to college is bigger than working after graduate from senior high school. You must pay for the tuition fee, books, and many other costs for your college. But, they who work directly after graduated, get job and being paid faster than you. Nevertheless, the one who has just graduated from college will be paid higher than them who work for years but still have no skills, as figure 1 illustrates alternative earnings streams.

Earning Stream B

Figure 1 Alternative Earnings Streams[5]

	Earning Stream A

This curve explains how the educated people (B) receive higher income than others who have worked for a long time (A). In the beginning, when they are 18 years old, college student do not have income at all even they get loss from paying cost of study in university. But, they are who directly work will receive income so that A curve is higher than B curve. But after B graduated from university at 22, they are entering labor force and start to receive income. B’s income are increasing faster and reaches A curve until both are looking of. Start from that point, B’s income is moving fast leaving A, then it deliver gross benefits for B. It means the future value of getting high education is bigger than future value of directly work. That curve figures us how important the education is. Bigger the number of child labor means more children are facing the dark future whereas they are new generation to develop our county.

Figure 2: Potential Relationships between Hours of Work (H) and Educational Attainment[6]

				No work
			Work

Source: Child labour, education and health: A review of the literature, ILO, 2008

In figure (a), hours of work is not assessed to influence education attainment, it is not generally plausible. It is included because it reflects the most common empirical approach to child labor/education studies. While in figure (b), at the beginning work has no effect to education attainment, but after H* the attainment starts to decrease. In figure (c) we can see that before work the capability of this child is above the average but after work the education attainment is going down and until H* the capability is declining under the average.

Those figures above, show us that in a certain point (H*) hours of work will influence the education attainment of children. The problem is where is the point? Phoumin and Fukui’s research (2006) from Cambodia locate the turning point, where additional work has a negative educational effect, from 15-16 hours[7]. While children who work exceed 14 hours per week are categorized as child labor. In sum, the education attainment of child labor is absolutely decreasing as the additional hours to work increase.

Children’s healthy are declining since they work as labor

There are several ways to measure the work–health relationship. One can compare the overall health status of child workers to an appropriate reference group. A second approach, perhaps the most common among researchers with a background in the health sciences, is to identify exposures associated with work activities and environments, but this second step is far less common. Third, one can document the record of injuries and illnesses child workers have experienced at work or as a result of it[8].

The third way to measure the work-health relationship is the most common happen in the real life. There are several factors cause decrease the health of child labor[9], they are:

First, the work accident usually happens because the worker has no experience to use machine. Of course child can be categorized as ‘new comers’ in working area, therefore they have no enough skill to operate the machines. While, their ‘senior’ is rarely give them training or tell them how to use the machine correctly. In addition, their characteristic as children is usually careless and not to be careful. Thus, it causes many children are easily to get injured in factory.

Second, the condition of working area could threaten children’s muscular-skeletal development. Because of hard working and doing same activities repeatedly all the time, children can’t move freely which causes their muscular-skeletal doesn’t develop optimum. It makes they have small body with muscle like an adult. It usually happens in child labor who works in blue collar job such as construction, mining industry, or agriculture.

Third, children have different pattern of sleep compare to adult. They need sleep 9 to 11 hours per day, nevertheless adult only need 6 to 8 hours per day. Loss of sleep may influence their health because they will be easy to be infected by any virus. Lack hours of sleep is also disturbing their psychology as they are susceptible to get stress, difficult to concentrate, and also may impair school performance.

Fourth, the risk of children who work in hazardous area is greater than adult who do the same job. For example, if children who work in mining industry are contaminated by lead, it can reduce their hormonal and neurological development, such as IQ, mood and personality. Therefore the developed countries have campaigned against using of leaded gasoline and paint. But in the developing countries, where most of child labor works, has not done the campaign yet.

In table 2 we can see the estimated impacts of lead exposure in child labor as worker in ceramic factory, scavengers and street vendors. It is very surprise that potential loss of IQ is very big. See also table 3, there are some comparisons about contents of mercury exposures between non working children who live around gold mining area and the child workers in gold mining industry. The table shows that the differences between child workers is very significant than non working child. They are contaminated mercury tens of times compare to non working child.

Table 2 Estimated impacts of lead exposure in child labor

Activity	Source	Mean blood lead in ìg/dl	Potential loss of IQ
Ceramic workers (Ecuador)	Harari and Cullen (1995)	70.2	17.6
Scavengers (Philippines)	Torres (1991)	28.4	7.1
Street vendors (Philippines)	Martins (1996)	17.8	4.5

Source: Ide and Parker (2005)

Table 3 Ratio of mean mercury exposures/expressions relative to controls, gold mining

Test	Nonworking children in vicinity	Child workers
Urine	17.6	81.6
Urine (creatinine)	26.2	104.3
Blood	1.9	4.2
Hair	1.8	3.3
Symptoms of Intoxication (Indonesia)	0	8%
Symptoms of Intoxication (Zimbabwe)	29%	55%

Source: Bose-O’Reilly et al. (2008)

These cases proves that working for children is giving negative impact for their health, although in the short run the effect may be invisible, but in the long run it could be a complicated sickness which could threaten their future. Consequently, it is very important to tell them how bad the impact of being child labor and realize them to get out from labor rim. Of course, we also must help them to get back their rights as children, to get education and being health.

Proposed policy recommendation to eliminate child labor

As we know that being child labor means shattering their future in order to pursue a better living. Although it has been prohibited by ILO, the practice still happens in every single part in the world. Therefore, several recommendations for eliminating child labor must be applied. They are:

Firstly, we have to reduce poverty since the main reason of being child labor is to get money. We can decrease poverty by several ways, such as create more jobs, keep low inflation rate, giving subsidies, etc.

Secondly, having family planning program is important in developing countries where population is going rapidly. Most of child labor comes from large family while the parent only has low income. Thus the children are forced to work in order to complete their daily needs. In Indonesia, we already had this program, it is called Keluarga Berencana or KB. With small member of family, usually consists of two until three children, parent could complete its basic needs like foods, clothes, and shelter without any help from their child as worker.

Thirdly, education to everyone. It is very important to educate people especially, in this case, the parent. Because parent is first people which have a first relation with the children. By teaching parent how important education and health for their child, they could understand about the risks that can bear down upon them and then do not let them to work in their age.

Fourthly, education truly free is the major step to reduce child labor. Providing all children with access to education is every government’s responsibility, as well as a practical response to preventing child labor. Free, compulsory, relevant and good-quality education services are essential[10]. By this free program, parents aren’t doubt to send their child to school, because it doesn’t spending much money, but the children could get a lot of benefits from being a student and get formal education, as figure 1 shows us before.

Fifthly, by giving subsidies or cash transfer to the poor household. In Indonesia we know it as Bantuan Langsung Tunai or BLT. For some household, Rp100.000,- per month maybe means nothing, but for the poor one, it is means lot. By this amount of money, they can fix their living, buying enough food, clothes, or getting milk for their baby. It is helpful and reduces parents’ forcing to their child as being worker.

Sixthly, laws and regulations against child labor must be in place and rigorously enforced by governments[11]. As a law country, this way is expected to reduce child labor because the one who violates it, will be punished by state. But in can’t work without high awareness from the citizen itself. For example, although Indonesia has applied this law for many years, there are still many child labor in everywhere even in public space. Therefore the rigidity of law and regulation is very important.

Seventhly, beside formal education from school, giving non-formal education to children is also useful. This program can develop children’s skill so that if they want to enter labor force in adequate age, they don’t only have education, but also special skill which can be an added value for them. The form of non-formal education can be anything, such as training to make handcraft, sewing, embroider, mechanics, etc.

Eighthly, last but not least communication relationship between child and parents is the most important thing. By building good communication, sense of loving and belonging will increase and it can block the pressure to allow children work as labor since the parents know that it can give negative effect to their child. Undeniable, that strong relationship between child and parents can get of best of everything in this world.

Conclusion

Being child labor is a choice for them who live under poverty and any other pressure. Nevertheless, thousands children in the world are engaged of being child labor. Even one in six children in developing countries is engaged in child labor[12]. They have no other choice to keep their living without any help from others.

We have known the consequences of being child labor. It can decrease the educational attainment in school and it can also damage children’s healthy. Therefore, we must do something to get out children from the labor rim. By apply several ways to reduce child labor in our country, it is expected that the number of child worker start to reduce and as the time goes by, it could be eradicated. It is very important to prepare children’s future by give them quality education and also good nutrition, so that they can achieve a better living to bring successful for our country.

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[1] A study of child labor is defined as “An Economic Study of the Costs and Benefits of Eliminating Child Labor” (International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor 2004, International Labor Office, pp. 27).

[2] Ibid., pp. 31.

[3] “Child labour and school attendance: Evidence from MICS and DHS surveys” (Seminar on child labour, education and youth employment 2008,UNICEF, pp.3)

[4] Loc. cit.

[5] Ronald G. Ehrenberg and Robert S. Smith, Modern Labor Economics, (New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2006) pp. 282.

[6] Potential Relationships between Hours of Work and Educational Attainment is defined as “Child labour, education and health: A review of the literature” (International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor 2008, International Labor Office, pp. 11).

[7] Ibid., pp. 12.

[8] Ibid., pp. 29.

[9] Ibid., pp. 31.

[10] Child Protection Information Sheet (UNICEF, 2006).

[11] Loc. cit.

[12] www.childinfo.org