Comprehend the child labor (1/2)

Your Corporate Social responsibility Partner

For the coming two months,we have decided to talk of a very sensitive topic: the child labor. It could be very simple: Child labor is not acceptable. But to provide relevant interpretation, we have to think further.

One can't judge as equivalent a factory hiring a worker of 15 years and 50 weeks and a mine using children of 10 years old in the narrowest gallery. There are many existing situation between these two extreme cases. We will describe and comment some, the most frequently seen. We won't comment the often mistaken case of children seen in factories/workshops, but not working here.

We still have to comment the case of the child of 15 years and 50 weeks old. This case is very frequent, especially in China. We, as western people, understand the world as following status: Child up to 16 years old, minor up to 18, and so on up to a very old person. On the contrary in Asian culture, the world is seen as a flux, a human being evolving from birth to death progressively. Thus even if the refusal of child labor is understood, the refusal of a worker of 15 years old and 50 weeks makes no sense, and then such implementation is difficult. That also means you can't assess the risk of such workers being hired just by checking attending workers, but by reviewing with the factory if the importance of birth date for western customer is well understood, otherwise you check a status only and not a risk.

A second case we want to talk about is the temporary jobs. This notion is to be taken cautiously as it could lead to many abuses. We have however to consider differently the case of a child working all the year long and the one of a child working a short period during school holidays. In the first case, it is obviously an abuse, while in the second it could happen the child benefits also of the situation (position in the community, experience...) without compromising his development and his studies. However, we have to warn here the factories on the risks resulting of such practice (exceptional temporary work). Such children have, most of the time, close relationship with the factory as their parents are working there or by acquaintance. It is then often forgotten it is child labor and can't be accepted by their customers. We will talk next month of action to undertake while child labor is discovered.

We now have to talk of the child labor, apart of the above exceptions. The child is working regularly or at least enough to endanger his studies or his development. It is the case of children hired on full-time basis in factories or workshops, but also the one of children working from home on regular basis or working in seasonal (but long or frequent enough) activities as agriculture. There is no doubt there. The employer is aware of using children workers, even if some consequences may not be fully understood. We won't rank the worse situation, as each case is specific and must be handle as such. But we want to stress an important difference. A child working in a factory (and maybe even a migrant) won't be looked after by his family. On the contrary for an equivalent age and job a child working in a family workshop will be protected of most abuse, especially the abuse of authority. It is frequent in many developing countries young female children are sent in towns to work as maid in some families. (Maroc Hebdo news) Abuses are then frequent. This kind of abuse is less known in factories where young children are less and not alone. However the risk of abuse of authority is the same and has to be taken into account while assessing the case.

Finally, we can't conclude this article without reminding two points:

- Child labor has many faces and not all can be told here.

- If child labor is not acceptable, the situation of children in the streets is even worse, and to continue with Moroccan links, you can refer to UNESCO website and to the one of the NGO Bayti.