Rights and Wrongs of Children's Work

4. Child Work and Poverty: A Tangled Relationship

was based not only on the poor ratification record of Convention 138 during the past quarter-century,17 but also on the realization that “a prevailing intellectual climate favored prioritization within the world-wide movement” (Fyfe, 2007, 26). The new Convention—the most swiftly and widely ratified Convention in the ILO’s history—requires its members to “take immediate and effective measures to secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labor as a matter of urgency,” and defines these “worst forms” in two ways. First are the socalled unconditional worst forms including slavery and similar practices, forced recruitment of children in armed conflict, and the use of children in prostitution , pornography, or illicit activities (see chapter 8). Second are the so-called hazardous forms. Work is considered “hazardous” for children when the work, “by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.” The ratifying members are required to define this last category of “hazardous forms” themselves and to report them to the ILO. The Convention’s accompanying Recommendation 190 (1999) provides guidelines on the “hazardous forms,” which we discuss in chapter 8. Abolitionist and Regulatory Approaches to Distinguishing between More Harmful and Less Harmful Work The Convention thus follows more or less the definition of harmful child work in the UNCRC. In our view, Convention 182 is a very important step, not so much for the details of its definition of harmful work in the Convention and Recommendation (about which many questions could be raised, and further debate is still needed),18 but simply for the international recognition it provides for the principle that it is both necessary and possible to distinguish between more and less intolerable and harmful forms and relations of children’s work, and therefore to focus intervention on the most serious forms of abuse. Convention 182 furthermore offers the possibility for opening dialogue between diverse global and national actors, particularly between NGOs and the international agencies, in what had previously been a polarized field of debate and intervention (Fyfe 2007: 75).19 Compared to Convention 138, the “Worst Forms” Convention can more easily accommodate views of children as holders of rights and as agents, as well as a broader view incorporating the macro-political economy of development, which sometimes gets lost in “child-centered” perspectives. This broader view reminds us of the two fundamental historic tasks of policies and interventions in the area of children’s work (B. White, 2005, 321): first, the urgent, universally accepted and so far largely unachieved goal of eliminating harmful forms and conditions of children’s work (as now firmly established in UNCRC article 32, and ILO Convention 182), and second, promoting the historic shift from work to school as the main (but not necessarily the only) activity of all children. The achievement of this second task is not realized by regulation or prohibition of children’s work, but by provision of universal compulsory RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF CHILDREN’S WORK 62 education and the commitments of governments to the large investments necessary to make quality education available to all. Although the principle of differentiating between intolerable and benign forms of children’s work may now seem self-evident to many readers, it is one that is still opposed by many national and international agencies and, until recently, would have been opposed by the ILO itself. Many organizations remain entrenched in a rather rigid abolitionist stance inspired by ILO Convention 138. This is articulated as a general principle, for example, in the mission statement of the EU-based “Stop Child Labor” campaign: ALL CHILD LABOR IS UNACCEPTABLE The Convention on the Rights of the Child along with a host of other international agreements unequivocally affirm the right of all children to live in freedom from exploitation. Approaches to the issue have tended to prioritize and segregate solutions to different types of child labor depending on certain categories. . . . The Stop Child Labor campaign believes that such distinctions, while helping to cast a spotlight on the worst abuses, tend to be too narrow in their focus and offer only partial solutions. Efforts to eliminate child labor should focus on all its forms, preferably aiming at all children in a certain community.20 This imposition of homogeneity on all child work situations is quite different from the position adopted by the Save the Children Foundation, which in our view, provides a more balanced, reasonable, and practical...