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Articles: Business | World Economy & Child labour
- Mr. T.R.Sridhar Prasad. Uppalapati.
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Millennium Development Goals and Child Labour :
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) missed the opportunity to drive forward this strategy of mainstreaming child labour within development plans. Targets and indicators within the MDG framework make no reference to the subject of child labour which is therefore less likely to feature in national Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers that shape governments' policies. Critics argue that the persistence of child labour could undermine progress towards Goals for education, HIVAIDS and gender equality. Compounding the faultlines, MDG indicators for school enrolment aim for a total of 5 years of education, far less than implied by child labour conventions.
Nevertheless, achievement of the MDG to provide universal primary education by 2015 is a key benchmark for child labour campaigners. Whilst overall prospects for this Goal are often assessed in relatively positive terms, there is correlation between those countries lagging behind and those in which child labour thrives, such as Pakistan and Nepal. The daunting call by global education campaigners for 18 million new teachers does not augur well for the elimination of child labour.
Some caution is needed in the presumption of a perfect inverse relationship between child labour and education. The availability of education alone may not be sufficient to break down the demand for child labour. Schools which levy unaffordable fees or which have insufficient teaching and classroom resources will fail to secure universal enrolment. And programmes should recognise the need for incentives for parents who will lose income from transferring their children into school.
In an implied admonition of the MDG approach, an international joint-agency group established in 2005, The Global Task Force in Child Labour and Education, explicitly aims to achieve education for all through the elimination of child labour. The approach is underpinned by a cost/benefit analysis carried out by the UN in 2003 which convincingly demonstrates the value of eliminating child labour through investment in education by reference to the long term economic benefit of a more skilled and healthy workforce.
Child Labour in Africa :
The problem of child labour is worst of all as far as the African continent is concerned. In the 2006 Report, entitled as The End of Child Labour: Within Reach, the ILO strongly emphasized the point that the proportion of children engaged in economic activities in Sub-Saharan Africa is the highest of any region.
The report on the child laborers aged between 5 – 14 states that of the 190 million children (by 2004), about 50 million engage in economic activity. 'The reasons are not difficult to find', states the report in order to address the realities behind this problem in Africa. Among the others, the problem of chronic poverty in Africa, which is expected to rise to 404 million people in 2015; the rapid population growth, which is expected to double African population in every 25 years; the HIV and AIDS epidemic, which is expected to affect 50 million people by 2010 are the main problems listed in the report.
In its recent studies, the ILO has warned that African progress towards the elimination of child labour is lagging behind other regions of the world. Sub-Saharan Africa is the greatest incidence of economically active children – 26.4 percent of all 4-14 year olds, compared to 18.8 percent for Asia and the Pacific and 5.1 per cent for Latin America. Furthermore, the African continent ranks second in absolute terms behind Asia, with it about 50 million children working.
International and Regional Efforts to tackle this menace:
In order to tackle this grave problem, there have emerged some important efforts from both regional and international bodies. However, as many experts argue such efforts still remain limited and insufficient considering the scale and importance of the issue.
With regard to regional initiatives, the African countries have been more eager to incorporate the international legal norms prohibiting child labour into their legislation. For instance, in 2006, 26 countries from West and Central Africa signed a regional agreement on child trafficking and related problems. Moreover, though remained limited, the ratification of ILO Conventions on child trafficking and labour have been tried to be made in a more promising way.
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