Abolition Of Child Labour Research Articles

Child labour, school attendance and orphaned children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

This article contributes to the stock of scientific knowledge by showing the effect of orphan status on child labour and school attendance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). While the abolition of child labour is undeniably one of the major tasks assigned to the International Labour Organization (ILO) when it was founded, child labour remains a severe problem worldwide. In many parts of the world, especially in developing countries, children do not have access to school. Instead of ending up in school, millions of children are forced to engage in child labour in income-generating and non-income-generating activities. Little researchers have yet made it possible to obtain simultaneous information on child labour, school attendance and orphaned children. This paper describes the research that tries to make such a connection. Data used is from the out-of-school children and adolescents (OOSC-DRC-2012) survey organised by the Ministry of Primary, secondary and Vocational Education. Using a bivariate probit econometric model and testing the endogeneity with an instrumental variables approach, funding of the analysis supports the assumption of a significant negative relationship between child labour and school attendance. The result shows also that being orphaned reduces a child's likelihood of school attendance and increases the probability of entering the labour market. It is underlined that most children are present in non-income-generating than income-generating activities.

Current Status of Internalizing International Labor Standards on the Prevention, Removal and the Case in Vietnam

Objective: The article researches on the internalization of international labor standards on the prevention and abolition of child labor in Vietnam's labor law, thereby pointing out similarities, differences and improvements child labor law. Method: To conduct research on the issue of internalizing international labor standards on the prevention and abolition of child labor, the author uses a combination of social science and legal science methods such as methods. legal analysis methods, methods of comparison, deductive, inductive, statistical, commentary to achieve research objectives. Results: Through assessing the situation of internalizing international labor standards on the prevention and abolition of child labor in Vietnamese law, the author proposes a group of solutions to improve the legal framework on labor. Children meet the requirements set out in the current period.

Colonial Exceptions: The International Labour Organization and Child Labour in British Africa, c.1919–40

From 1919, the International Labour Organization sought to improve protections for workers globally. Concurrently, the organization was dominated by colonial powers whose economies relied on the exploitation of colonized workers. This article explores how the International Labour Organization navigated this contradictory situation during the interwar period, focussing on its approach to child labour in British Africa. The introduction of a universal minimum employment age and the abolition of child labour were founding goals of the International Labour Organization. However, colonial powers wanted to maintain the extensive employment of children and the use of child labour in their colonies. Britain used its influence within the International Labour Organization to promote racialized constructions of childhood and to pluralize working children’s rights in International Labour Organization instruments. While the International Labour Organization’s tripartite structure did also provide a forum through which colonial labour practices could be challenged, Britain and its supporters ultimately succeeded in constructing a two-tier system of international labour law which rendered colonized children less protected than children in the industrialized West. In creating colonial exceptions, the International Labour Organization pursued and promoted a hierarchical and exclusionary form of internationalism. Overall, the article provides new insights into the development of the International Labour Organization and its legislation, as well as broader histories of childhood and of internationalism.

Urban Child Labor in Bangladesh: Determinants and Its Possible Impacts on Health and Education

(1) Background: A significant proportion of child laborers are compelled to work in exploitative environments, and experience both deteriorating health and financial loss. The present study sought to determine the factors affecting child labor and the characteristics of their working environment. (2) Methods: A questionnaire survey was conducted with 80 child laborers aged 5 to 17 years. Alongside descriptive statistics, a newly devised technique known as the Influencing Causes Index (ICI) was administered and tested. (3) Results: The demographic findings reveal that most child laborers are young children (12–14 years) and 32.5% of child laborers have never attended school. The thorough assessment of determinants reflects that not only poverty but schooling expenses and a lack of access to opportunities in primary schools are also the top-ranked push factors to trigger children towards labor. Around 72.5% of children work for over 8 h a day. A significant proportion of participants received no leave, training, or access to hygiene facilities. The existing pattern of employment and working conditions resulted in musculoskeletal pain and dermatological infections among child laborers (p < 0.05). (4) Conclusions: This research suggests that income measures for households and an education program for both children and parents would expedite the abolition of child labor.

Reflections on some developments in Higher Education in India

A structure of social norms, the right kinds of laws, and the right kinds of governance structures are more crucial in economic development of a country than getting economic policies right. Cultural norms are not hard-wired, as many would like to believe. They change, along with changing incentives and changing atmospheres. Contrary to the understanding that persuasion of self-interest in best for the society and economy, trust plays a key role in societal development. Societies which can trust one another can cut many more deals, transactions, businesses because you can rely on the other side, and those societies begin to flourish. At the same time good laws play key role in fostering economic development. The relationship between abolition of child labour and increasing adult wages illustrates the point

L’OIT, les normes et l’histoire

Cette contribution retrace l’histoire de l’Organisation internationale du Travail (OIT), aujourd’hui une agence spécialisée de l’ONU, à travers son activité principale : l’élaboration, l’adoption et l’application des normes internationales du travail. L’OIT est une organisation tripartite où les normes internationales du travail sont négociées entre les représentants des gouvernements, des travailleurs et des employeurs. L’article analyse les débuts d’une législation internationale du travail au XIX e siècle, le contexte spécifique de la création de l’OIT comme institution tripartite en 1919 et l’impact qu’ont eu sur son action normative le paradigme des droits de l’homme, la guerre froide, la décolonisation et, finalement, la mondialisation sous les auspices du néo-libéralisme. Les conséquences sociales, économiques et politiques de cette dernière ont contribué à déclencher une crise profonde de l’action normative qui se traduit notamment par une difficulté croissante des constituants de l’OIT à négocier des compromis.

Status of International Labour Standards in Brick Kiln Industry of Pakistan

This research article attempts to investigate "State of Implementation of International Labour Organization (ILO) Labour Standards in Brick Kiln Industry of Pakistan". Based on qualitative methods, this research/investigation has tried to understand different processes and mechanisms through which the government of Pakistan is fulfilling its international obligation i.e., provision of Core Labour Rights to the workers of brick kiln industry in the country. From all its Conventions, ILO has picked 8 Conventions and grouped them under four most basic human rights as which include Conventions 87 and 98 as "The right to organize and engage in collective bargaining", Conventions 100 and 111 as "The right to equality at work", Conventions 138 and 182 as "The abolition of child labour" and Conventions 29 and 105 as "The abolition of forced labour". To investigate the state of implementation of ILO Labour Standards, six districts were chosen from four provinces of Pakistan. Through focused group discussions and in-depth interviews, data was collected from brick kin workers, brick owners, labour activists, trade unionists, labour lawyers and officials of the labour departments.

A Century of Striving for Social Justice

This year the International Labour Organisation celebrated its centenary at the annual conference in June, drawing around 7500 delegates, advisers and visitors, with Theresa May amongst the heads of state and government who attended. During the year there have been events around the world as member States have applauded the ILO’s work and its centenary project on The Future of Work. But here at home the centenary has been little noticed, even by the trade union movement. The ILO is not high on our domestic agenda and perhaps been seen primarily as a route of solidarity activity. Given the importance of the ILO as the UN specialised agency for work and labour matters, this is somewhat surprising. The ILO represents the international dimension of union and worker rights and employment policy. I have been extremely fortunate to be a regular visitor to the ILO in Geneva, first representing the TUC in the Committee on the Application of Standards for some years, and now a member of the Governing Body and the Committee on Freedom of Association. The centenary seems to be a good time to look at whether the ILO offers us some avenues and opportunities that we could utilise further. It seems to have been different 100 years ago, as it has been said that the structure of the ILO was a British construction. Many of the founding ideas and principles emerged from British and Irish trade unions. Perhaps the most fundamental of these, that labour should not be regarded merely as a commodity or article of commerce, was first advanced by Irish economist John Kells Ingham at the British Trades Union Congress of 1880 held in Dublin. This guiding principle of respect for the human dignity of the labour force informed the other eight founding principles: freedom of association, decent wages and equitable conditions of employment, weekly working limits, abolition of child labour, equal pay for work of equal value, and a labour inspection system which included women’s voices. The principles were aimed even in 1919 at achieving social justice for universal peace, recognising that ‘conditions of labour exist involving such injustice, hardship and privation to large numbers of people as to produce unrest so great that the peace and harmony of the world are imperilled’. That mission of social justice has not changed and has been reaffirmed in this year’s centenary declaration just as it was in the Constitution and the Declarations since that time. Most importantly, the mission is one to which the three constituents, the Government group, the Employers’ Group and the Workers’ Group, have all signed up, throughout the life of the ILO, although of course there will be differences about what this means in reality. Nevertheless the ILO’s work: the body of standards, the technical assistance provided to States, the policy development and research work, is all directed towards promoting social justice through human and labour rights, and sets an international framework for our domestic provisions. ILOStandardsandtheSupervisorySystem The ILO is probably best known in the UK for its body of international labour standards. The decisions of the Committee on Freedom of Association have refined and clarified the meaning of the principles, so we know for example that the blanket ban on solidarity action and the overly complex regulation of industrial action are all aspects of our law which are challengeable. However it is rare for a complaint to made by Uk trade unions through the ILO’s ‘supervisory system’ that monitors and regulates State compliance. The supervisory system can seem somewhat opaque and difficult to navigate, although in practice it is not complex to use. There are essentially two routes for allegations that member States are not meeting their international obligations: the ‘regular’ supervisory process or use of one of the ‘special’ procedures. The former is a process of public discussion of whether the State has met its obligations, which takes place in the annual conference Committee on the Application of Standards (CAS). It is an opportunity for us to air concerns and call the government to account in front of its peers. The ‘special’ procedures allow individual unions as well as confederations to press specific allegations about violations...

A Century of Striving for Social Justice

This year the International Labour Organisation celebrated its centenary at the annual conference in June, drawing around 7500 delegates, advisers and visitors, with Theresa May amongst the heads of state and government who attended. During the year there have been events around the world as member States have applauded the ILO’s work and its centenary project on The Future of Work. But here at home the centenary has been little noticed, even by the trade union movement. The ILO is not high on our domestic agenda and perhaps been seen primarily as a route of solidarity activity. Given the importance of the ILO as the UN specialised agency for work and labour matters, this is somewhat surprising. The ILO represents the international dimension of union and worker rights and employment policy. I have been extremely fortunate to be a regular visitor to the ILO in Geneva, first representing the TUC in the Committee on the Application of Standards for some years, and now a member of the Governing Body and the Committee on Freedom of Association. The centenary seems to be a good time to look at whether the ILO offers us some avenues and opportunities that we could utilise further. It seems to have been different 100 years ago, as it has been said that the structure of the ILO was a British construction. Many of the founding ideas and principles emerged from British and Irish trade unions. Perhaps the most fundamental of these, that labour should not be regarded merely as a commodity or article of commerce, was first advanced by Irish economist John Kells Ingham at the British Trades Union Congress of 1880 held in Dublin. This guiding principle of respect for the human dignity of the labour force informed the other eight founding principles: freedom of association, decent wages and equitable conditions of employment, weekly working limits, abolition of child labour, equal pay for work of equal value, and a labour inspection system which included women’s voices. The principles were aimed even in 1919 at achieving social justice for universal peace, recognising that ‘conditions of labour exist involving such injustice, hardship and privation to large numbers of people as to produce unrest so great that the peace and harmony of the world are imperilled’. That mission of social justice has not changed and has been reaffirmed in this year’s centenary declaration just as it was in the Constitution and the Declarations since that time. Most importantly, the mission is one to which the three constituents, the Government group, the Employers’ Group and the Workers’ Group, have all signed up, throughout the life of the ILO, although of course there will be differences about what this means in reality. Nevertheless the ILO’s work: the body of standards, the technical assistance provided to States, the policy development and research work, is all directed towards promoting social justice through human and labour rights, and sets an international framework for our domestic provisions. ILOStandardsandtheSupervisorySystem The ILO is probably best known in the UK for its body of international labour standards. The decisions of the Committee on Freedom of Association have refined and clarified the meaning of the principles, so we know for example that the blanket ban on solidarity action and the overly complex regulation of industrial action are all aspects of our law which are challengeable. However it is rare for a complaint to made by Uk trade unions through the ILO’s ‘supervisory system’ that monitors and regulates State compliance. The supervisory system can seem somewhat opaque and difficult to navigate, although in practice it is not complex to use. There are essentially two routes for allegations that member States are not meeting their international obligations: the ‘regular’ supervisory process or use of one of the ‘special’ procedures. The former is a process of public discussion of whether the State has met its obligations, which takes place in the annual conference Committee on the Application of Standards (CAS). It is an opportunity for us to air concerns and call the government to account in front of its peers. The ‘special’ procedures allow individual unions as well as confederations to press specific allegations about violations...

A study related to laws and implementation of abolition of child labour

Child labour deprives children of their childhood and is harmful for their physical and mental development. In order to identify, prosecute and stop child labour the government has made numerous efforts. In 1986, Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act was passed which prohibited the employment of children below the age of 14 years in 83 hazardous occupations. In July 2016 the parliament passed the Child Labour(Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act 2016. This act amends the Child Labour( Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986 by widening its scope against child labour and provides for stricter punishment for violations. This act calls for a complete ban on child labour, so that children can obtain compulsory primary education under RTE. In this paper an attempt has been made to critically analyze the various aspects of Child Labour(Prohibition and Regulation) Act.

Shaper of the New Deal

As the nation debates once again proposals to guarantee health insurance for everyone, a new biography of Frances Perkins reminds us of just how long the argument has been going on. In 1933, when Franklin Roosevelt offered Perkins the job of secretary of labor, she proposed an agenda that was to become the backbone of the New Deal: unemployment insurance, hours and wages legislation, abolition of child labor, social security, and national health insurance. Famously, all but the latter were to be won and even more. Now, even as the American labor movement leads the uphill battle for some form of public health insurance, it is fighting for its own life. The Magna Carta of labor—the Wagner Act of 1935 that Perkins did not particularly support—has run its course, and the unions want a successor law to clear the field for them.

The Movement for the Abolition of Child Labour as an Example of a Transnational Network Movement

With the advent of a global network society, movements and social organisations acquire a new place and space in development. A wide range of actors, including international nongovernmental organisations and transnational coalitions, are reacting in a variety of ways to new domestic and global challenges. Separated from traditional social movements, such as trade unions, new forms of collective action have emerged on the international scene which can be described as ‘transnational network movements’. This paper discusses the differences in ideology, practice, and organisation between traditional social movements and these new network movements, using the movement for the abolition of child labour as an example. The history of this movement, the actors involved and its repertoire of actions illustrate clearly that transnational network movements are very dynamic and open environments in which a wide variety of national and international organisations and movements, as well as institutions, corporations and individuals, can choose their own level of involvement whilst managing to develop a certain social power.

Education for all. A welfare-improving course for Africa?

In this paper, we argue that the case for universal compulsory education for sub-Saharan Africa might have been overstated. We capture the African situation through a heterogeneous-agent model, in which high costs of education relative to income and the skill premium cause the economy to stagnate in a low steady state with minimal educational attainment. We calibrate the model to available data from the sub-Saharan African countries to study education policies. We find that a tax and in-kind subsidy scheme that effectively redistributes resources from households with lower ability children to those with higher ability children outperforms enrollment-maximizing policies such as the abolition of child labor and compulsory education.

(Inter)nationale Arbeitsstandards — Einblicke in Theorie und Empirie

Arbeitsstandards sollen menschenwurdige Arbeitsbedingungen fur abhangig Beschaftigte gewahrleisten. Mit diesem Auftrag wurde die INTERNATIONALE ARBEITSORGANISATION bereits 1919 gegrundet. Seit den 1990er Jahren konzentriert sich die ILO auf «Kernarbeitsstandards», das sind Verbot von Kinderarbeit, von Zwangsarbeit, Gewahrleistung von Vereinigungs- und Tariffreiheit und Nicht-Diskriminierung. Wahrend Handels- und Wettbewerbstheorien zu eng fur eine Analyse von Arbeitsstandards erscheinen, bietet die Institutionenokonomik eine belastbare Basis. Standards bilden Zugangsregelungen fur einen Klub. Der Wohlfahrtseffekt eines solchen Klubs hangt davon ab, ob es sich um ein- oder ausschliesende Zugangsregeln handelt. Empirische Arbeiten finden Kernarbeitsstandards zumeist positiv korreliert mit Offenheitsindikatoren, bzw. Globalisierung. Allerdings besteht Forschungsbedarf, bessere Indikatoren (fur Arbeitsstandards) zu entwickeln.

Policies to Free a Trapped Economy: The Case of Sub-Saharan Africa

In this paper, we argue that the condition of education and the economy of the low performing sub-Saharan African countries can be characterized as a stagnant steady state -- a trap. We present a simple heterogeneous-agent model in which high costs of education relative to income and the skill premium can cause the economy to be trapped in such a steady state with minimal educational attainment. We calibrate the model to available data from the sub-Saharan African countries to study policies that could potentially free these trapped economies and set them on a path to a higher steady state. We find that a tax and subsidy scheme that redistributes resources at the trap from poor households with lower ability children to those with higher ability children can pry the economy out of the trap, thus freeing it from dependence on foreign aid in order to achieve the same goal. In addition to the direct cost, a portion of the indirect cost also needs to be subsidized. Moreover, such a policy outperforms the abolition of child labor and the institution and enforcement of compulsory education laws when expenditure neutral welfare comparisons are made.

Labor Diplomacy: A Revitalized Aspect of U.S. Foreign Policy in the Era of Globalization

This article analyzes how and why labor diplomacy has become an important element of American foreign policy in recent years. “Labor diplomacy”—a term coined by practitioners in the Department of State—refers to the work performed principally by labor officers (also called labor attaches) at American embassies around the world and, more specifically, the advocacy and promotion of core labor standards within the context of U.S. human rights and international trade policy. The five internationally recognized core labor standards, as developed by the International Labor Organization (ILO), are: freedom of association; the right of collective bargaining; the elimination of forced labor; the effective abolition of child labor; and the elimination of discrimination in employment and occupation. The article explores the economic, political, and bureaucratic factors that contributed to the revitalization of labor diplomacy during the 1990s. These include: a growing appreciation for the linkage between labor standards and trade in the globalized economy; the Clinton administration's decision to pursue a closer relationship with the AFL-CIO, particularly after the 1997 “fast-track” debacle; and the changing bureaucratic dynamics within the Department of State. The article also reviews U.S. initiatives, both through the ILO and unilaterally, to strengthen respect for core labor standards around the world, and how these efforts have helped shape American policy toward the World Trade Organization. The article concludes with an analysis of the outcome of the recent WTO Ministerial Meeting in Seattle and a prognosis on the future of labor diplomacy.

The economic consequences of the abolition of child labour: An Indian case study

The abolition of child labour in underdeveloped countries is often held to be practically infeasible because it would entail closure of the economic activities which exist only because of access to such labour. Abolition, therefore, would reduce the earnings of poor households whose survival strategies, in the context of adult unemployment, depend on incomes derived from the practice. This article examines the child labour‐based industry of match production in India, which is concentrated in the Sivakasi‐Sattur matchbelt of Tamil Nadu. It is argued that the abolition of child labour, while reducing the excessive trading margins and changing the irrational locational structure characterising this industry, would in fact result in higher earnings for adult workers. However, it could have adverse consequences for a section of workers, which can be addressed with appropriate state action.

What's Wrong with “Negative Liberty”

On 5 January 1879, the Chicago Tribune published an interview with Karl Marx that had been conducted in London a few weeks earlier. In the course of the interview Marx clarified the platform of the International Society as it had been established at Gotha in 1875. The platform was a litany of liberal reforms: universal male suffrage in all elections, popular referenda on issues of war and peace, the abolition of a standing army matched by universal military duty, the abolition of all laws regulating the press and public assemblies, free legal counsel and jury trials, universal public education, freedom of science and religion, a progressive income tax, legal restrictions on the length of the working day, the abolition of child labor, sanitary laws guaranteeing the safety of the living and working conditions of labor, and restrictions on prison labor.

What's Wrong with "Negative Liberty": [Commentary

course of the interview Marx clarified the platform of the International Society as it had been established at Gotha in 1875. The platform was a litany of liberal reforms: universal male suffrage in all elections, popular referenda on issues of war and peace, the abolition of a standing army matched by universal military duty, the abolition of all laws regulating the press and public assemblies, free legal counsel and jury trials, universal public education, freedom of science and religion, a progressive income tax, legal restrictions on the length of the working day, the abolition of child labor, sanitary laws guaranteeing the safety of the living and working conditions of labor, and restrictions on prison labor. The fact that much of Marx's program has been implemented in the United States raises interesting questions about David Abraham's extraordinary critique of liberalism.2 By reformulating C. B. Macpherson's critique of possessive individualism, Abraham rejects-implicitly and sometimes explicitly-the more recent efforts to locate a republican or alternative to liberal individualism in the American past. To be sure, Abraham borrows from the communitarian critique of rights rhetoric, but only to show that the right of property has always trumped every serious effort to mitigate the rule of capital. The essay is in many ways a dazzling performance. It ranges broadly over two centuries, two continents, and several different bodies of scholarly literature. Yet far from collapsing into pointless erudition, the author sails through the material with a clear, al-

Progressivism and the World of Reform: New Zealand and the Origins of the American Welfare State

In this major reinterpretation of the Progressive era, Peter Coleman argues that the American welfare state had its origins in what he calls the world-wide crisis of capitalism. Here and abroad, reformers, no longer content to treat the symptoms of distress, sought to achieve social, political, and economic justice by abandoning laissez faire in favor of governmental intervention. This study thoroughly documents the external forces that shaped the American Progressive movement and shows that the reformers' agenda for change drew heavily on foreign ideas and models as well as the American reform tradition. Tracing the international cross-currents of reform ideas, Coleman demonstrates that for nearly three decades American reformers of every stripe regarded the Australasian colonies, especially New Zealand, as examples of what the United States could become. Thus inspired, American reformers worked for such goals as wage-and-hour legislation for women, abolition of child labor, workmen's compensation laws, compulsory arbitration of labor disputes, land reform, cheap loans for farmers, old-age pensions, and infant and maternal care programs. Through these and other measures that touched all aspects of the nation's life, the role of government was enlarged. By placing progressivism within an international context, Coleman deepens our understanding of a phenomenon previously seen as distinctively American, thereby clarifying both the substance and process of change in this country. He also argues that in the Progressive era can be seen the origins of the regulations and mixed economy of the modern welfare state.