Causes And Disadvantages Of Child Labour

Introduction

As defined by the ILO/Inter-Parliamentary Union (2002) child labour is:

“work that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and interferes with their schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school; by obliging them to leave school prematurely; or by requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work.”

In addition to this it is stated that in the most extreme forms of child labour:

“it involves children being enslaved, separated from their families, exposed to serious hazards and illnesses and/or left to fend for themselves on the streets of large cities – all of this often at a very early age” (ILO/Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2002)

As identified by the ILO, the majority of literature agrees that the worst forms of child labour including prostitution, trafficking, pornography, bonded labour, illicit activities and armed conflict should be subjected to a total ban. Wells (2009) agues that other forms of child labour (selling goods on the street, shoe-shining, shop work, waiting tables, child care, housework etc.) do not actually compromise children’s long-term development, particularly in relation to their future health and employment.

In this essay I hope to discuss the reasons why, in most cases, it is neither possible nor desirable to enforce a total ban on child labour in low and middle income countries. While the statement is justified for the most part, there are specific forms of child labour, as mentioned above, that it most certainly would be desirable to enforce a total ban on and I hope to discuss this

In contrast to this, however, many economists have argued that the implementation of child labour legislation, the enforcement of which is extremely difficult, is not the only, or necessarily the best way of tackling the issue.

According to Fors (2010), it is not obvious that all forms of child labour are actually harmful. In a large majority of cases it is anticipated that a total ban on child labour would lead to significant welfare losses for the families of working children. It has been suggested that children involved in child labour suffer human capital losses if their work prevents them from attending, or performing well at school. However, in many cases, it was discovered that children work in order to be able to afford to attend school (Psacharopoulos, 1997).

It also needs to be considered that working children can compensate the loss of education from not attending school with the accumulation of work experience in the in the form of learning by doing. It is evident therefore that the effect of child labour on future earnings is not always clear (Fors,