Rights and Wrongs of Children's Work

List of Figures and Tables

the highest quality that society can provide, protect children’s access to work that doesn’t impede their access to education, and link work more closely to education by treating work as an educational tool in a positive sense. Since this book is about children and work, we should explain how we use these terms. We consider “work” in a broad sense of activities performed to achieve a purpose, usually to satisfy a need and often under some kind of necessity , whether or not they are performed for payment or other rewards. As explained in later chapters we do not find the common distinction between “child work” and “child labor” helpful, and we avoid the term “child labor” unless quoting from sources that do use it. We also recognize the truth of arguments that school work is a form of work. In our use of the term “children” we follow current international conventions to include all persons below the age of eighteen; because this broad age group comprises people of widely different competence, needs, and interests, we refer to the specific ages of those we are discussing where this is relevant, and generally distinguish between “adolescents ” and “younger children” (in chapter 5, we argue that it is not possible to precisely define stages in child development that can be applied across societies and cultures). Finally, to prevent any possible misunderstanding we want to clarify our standpoint at the outset. We condemn the exploitation and abuse of child workers : this requires more urgency than it presently holds on national and international agendas. We support the right of all children to free education, of as good quality as society can afford, and consider this also a matter requiring greater priority than it presently receives. We support the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, including the right of all children under eighteen to “protection from economic exploitation and from any work which, by its nature or the way in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children” (article 32). But we also recognize the value, and in some cases the necessity, of work as part of growing up, and the reality that a “workless” childhood free of all responsibilities may not be a good preparation for adult life for children in any society and any social class. PREFACE xv ...