Of all the shocking realities of our time, one thing is most sobering—today, half of those living in extreme poverty are children who constitute an important part of the most vulnerable populations in the world! Unfortunately, this horrendous fact impels these dear ones to fend for themselves, or rather be put to work beyond their age too early. According to the Sustainable Development Goal target 8.7, child labour should have been eradicated in all its form by 2025. However certain, hopeful or realistic this goal might have sounded when it was proposed, today, the rate at which child labour is proliferating, especially in the so-called third world countries, whether underdeveloped or developing, is a different ball game. Ironically, instead of winding down or better still coming to a halt, child labour seems to be just beginning as recent data suggest that nearly 1 in 5 children engage in labours that are considered to be detrimental to their health, growth and development in 2025, the very year the child labour sustainable ‘eradication’ goal was set to be realised! As an adult, if you work, you surely know how uneasy it is to keep an employment in this demanding world, but have you ever thought about how much more challenging that will be for a minor who has very little know-how and perhaps neither physical nor mental nor emotional capabilities a job demands? If you are as well objective, you will agree that child labour is truly indecorous!
To set the record straight before moving further, this article is neither meant to be judgemental about those who are victims of child labour or exploitation in one form or another, nor is it meant to frighten those who are not. On the contrary, it is a “wake up call”, not just to the woes and existential angst that come with child labour, but to a timely, and yet essential action against this social problem, knowing the world is at the precipice of destroying its children, the most invaluable assets that John F. Kennedy, 35th president of the United States of America, referred to as “…the living messages we send to a time we will not see.”—our future.
Child Labour—What Does It Really Mean?
As a global phenomenon, child labour is quite eclectic. According to the most widely accepted international human rights treaty in history, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, “children have the right to be protected from work that is likely to be hazardous or interfere with the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.” In the same vein, the research work entitled “Child labour: causes, consequences and policies to tackle it” which was published by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, described child labour as the employment of children in any work that deprives them of a normal childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, or that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful and can deny them the ability to make the best use of their potentials at present and for future inclusive and sustainable growth. However, child labour should not be confused for “children in employment”. Across the globe children engage in work, paid or unpaid, that are not considered detrimental to their schooling, health or development. Some partake in home chores while others even help their parents in their businesses and sometimes get paid for their services, still others partake in small jobs to earn pocket money outside school hours or when school is not in session. And according to the International Labour Organisation, this “can be a normal part of growing up in a rural environment” when the child is between the ages of 13 and 15, as long as the work neither prevents them from schooling nor stunts their normal development. Helping around the house, in a safe way that does not prevent children from going to school or developing can also be an important part of childhood. However, child labour surfaces when children engage in work they are too young to take up, or the work can put their overall health, growth and development in danger. Really, according to the International Labour Organisation, whether or not particularly forms of “work” can be labeled “child labour” depends on the child’s age, the type of work performed, the hour requirement, the condition under which it is performed and the objectives pursued by individual countries. Of course, the aforementioned descriptions vary from one country to another, as well as among the sectors within a country.
Child Labour Today— a Pandemic of Exploitation
You might be surprised to know that in the bid to make the products imported into the advanced nations from less advanced but industrious countries dead cheap, child labour is being really exploited, with the developed countries being the sole benefactors and sometimes the dictators of the trade or exchange in this regard. For those who prefer makeup products with shimmers, they know how beautiful it may make them look or even feel. However, it may saddens you that the shimmering in your makeup, usually gotten from a group of silicate natural minerals that form in layered structure, has a dark side to it—one that clouds over the more essential dreams and aspirations of children— and prevents their potentials from ‘shimmering’ with success, so to speak. The shimmering in your makeup is produced from a mineral called Mica, a natural ingredient in beauty products whose property of heat and electrical resistance gives the product a glow preferred by many. Mica is also used in products like paint, insulation and even toothpaste but in recent years it is used mainly in beauty products, with 18% of the mined mica being used in the cosmetic and care industry due to a growing demand for glowing radiant shimmer. The majority of the world’s Mica comes from India, and in 2016, the Thompson Reuters Foundation reported that it was being mined by children, at costs that could even lead to their deaths! So, next time, before you put that layer of shimmer on your cheeks, you should keep in mind that it might have been mined by an innocent child that is now buried in the bowel of the earth at Jharkhand, India, while mining what makes you look beautiful for less than a quarter of a dollar a day
“Made in Bangladesh”— does that sound familiar? Perhaps, we could also talk about the leather shoes that you men so much love. Elegant shoes can give men desired style, class, confidence and comfort, and leather shoes have been described by sioux-shop.co.uk as “breathable, heat-insulating, stretchy, tearproof and abrasion-resistant and acts as a barrier against moisture evaporation.” According to Karl Lagerfeld, the German fashion designer and photographer, the discussion of fur is childish in a meat-eating world, where leather is worn for shoes and coats and even handbags— truly, leather leads in the fashion industry! But while leather may seem graceful and beautiful, the man-power used in its production consists of children, due to one predominant factor— cheap labour. So, when you pick up a pair of ‘Made-in-Italy-loafers’ in a shoe store, keep in mind that it could actually have been crafted by the nimble, more precise fingers of a ten-year-old boy in Dhaka, Bangladesh, some 9,743 kilometers away from the place they are said to have been made!
Of course, it is not your fault— you never knew— and even if you did, you were no part of the bargain. But, now, a couple of soul-searching questions come to the fore and linger on— who, if any, are to take the blamed for this widespread juvenile problem? What effects does it have on the welfare of children? What should we all do to curb child labour, henceforth? These and more will be considered in the next article.
Written By: Tunde Ojerinola
