What is “child labour”?
“Stop Child Labour. School is the best place to work” fights child labour in all forms of work performed by children under the age of fourteen that is detrimental to their physical and psychological health and development, and interferes with attending formal, full-time education. Child labour encompasses every non-school going child irrespective of whether the child is engaged in wage or non-wage work. Child labour thus means all work that interferes with the right of the child to full-time, formal education and/or is hazardous. Small tasks performed after school at home or at a farm are thus not considered child labour.
There is however no universally accepted definition of “child labour”. Writers and speakers don’t always specify what definition they are using, and that often leads to confusion.

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Definitions of ‘child labour’
"Child labour" is, generally speaking, work for children, that harms them or exploits them in some way (physically, mentally, morally, or by blocking access to education).
But there is no universally accepted definition of ‘child labour’. International organizations, non-governmental organizations, trade unions and other interest groups use varying definitions of the term.
For instance: International conventions adopted by the United Nations and the International Labour Organization define "child" as anyone below the age of 18, and "child labour" as some types of work performed by children below age 18. And yet ILO conventions variously define the appropriate minimum age of work as age 15 or under 14 in developing nations; while, in another convention, the definition of the "worst" forms of work applies to all children under age 18. Governments, adding to the confusion, do not always use 18 as the cut-off point for defining a "child." International organizations such as Unicef, and some social scientists make a distinction between "child work" (not objectionable) and "child labour" (objectionable).
Not all work is bad for children. Some social scientists point out that some kinds of work may be completely unobjectionable. For instance, a child who delivers newspapers before school might actually benefit from learning how to work, gaining responsibility, and a bit of money. But what if the child is not paid? Then he or she is being exploited. As Unicef’s 1997 State of the World’s Children Report puts it, "Children’s work needs to be seen as happening along a continuum, with destructive or exploitative work at one end and beneficial work - promoting or enhancing children’s development without interfering with their schooling, recreation and rest - at the other. And between these two poles are vast areas of work that need not negatively affect a child’s development." Other social scientists have slightly different ways of drawing the line between acceptable and unacceptable work.
International conventions also define "child labour" as activities such as soldiering and prostitution. Not everyone agrees with this definition. Some child workers themselves think that illegal work (such as prostitution) should not be considered in the definition of "child labour." The reason: These child workers would like to be respected for their legal work, because they feel they have no other choice but to work. For further discussion of this dispute, see New Internationalist Magazine, No. 292, July 1997 issue on Child Labour.
To avoid confusion, when writing or speaking about "child labour," it’s best to explain exactly what you mean by child labour — or, if someone else is speaking, ask for a definition. This website uses the first definition cited in this section: "Child labour" is work for children under age 18 that in some way harms or exploits them (physically, mentally, morally, or by blocking children from education).

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What is a child?
International conventions define children as aged 18 and under.
Individual governments may define "child" differently, according to different ages or other criteria.
"Child" and "childhood" are also defined differently in different cultures — and the definition is not necessarily by delineated by age. Social scientists point out that children’s abilities and maturities vary so much that defining a child’s maturity by calendar age can be misleading. For a discussion, see Jo Boyden, Birgitta Ling, William Myers, "What Works for Working Children" (Stockholm: Radda Barnen and Unicef, 1998), pp 9-26.

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How many ‘child labourers’ are there?
An estimated 250 million child workers, between the ages of 5 and 14, work part-time and full-time, according to the ILO. But he ILO admits that this number does not include children — especially millions of girl children -- who work at home and are not paid.
Unicef’s State of the World’s Children Report says only that although the exact number is not known, it is surely in the hundreds of millions.
More information about who child labourers are, where they live, and new statistics on the total number can be found on www.ilo.org; also, the US Dept. of Labour’s By The Sweat and Toil of Children, Vol. VI: An Economic Consideration of Child Labour.

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Do poor families need the extra income?
It appears in practice that child labour is generally not needed to help families survive. Child labourers usually contribute very little to the income and well-being of a family. Poverty does therefore not have to be an obstacle for attending regular daytime education.
‘The poverty argument doesn’t hold’, says Shantha Sinha, director of the MV Foundation in India. ’If you ask if extremely poor and desperate people send their children to work, then the answer is of course: yes. Generally, it is however not true that the poorest children are the first ones to drop out of school. There is a legion of schools in small villages where the poorest children do attend whereas their richer friends are at work.’
‘Arguments that are based on the ‘harsh reality’ of poverty and the importance of a child’s contribution to a family income are therefore hostile to a child and an impediment to their development.’
Naturally it can not be denied that the loss of income and additional costs of education can be a problem for a family at first. According to the MV Foundation, the families that do send their children to school are not becoming any poorer. Most parents are capable and willing to compensate for the lost income as soon as the school has proved to function adequately.
Moreover it turns out that parents can demand a higher income from their employers when large groups of ‘cheap’ children are no longer available. Especially women – often with a lower income than men – can demand higher wages and better working hours when they no longer have to compete with their children on the labour market.
It can therefore be said that education is ultimately the only way to break out of the cycle of poverty.

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Why is child labour hazardous?
Child labour deprives children of their childhood and future. It interferes with the child’s right to rest and play and can moreover endanger the child’s health. Many child labourers are so-called ‘nowhere’ children, they are neither enrolled in school nor registered as child labourers. They are therefore hardly visible to the outside world and fall outside the protective environment that a school can provide.
Without education children are moreover pre-destined to become illiterate labourers without an opportunity to develop their full potential. Child labour thus keeps the vicious cycle of poverty and ignorance in place.

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Why is education so important?
Education is the key to poverty reduction and full citizenship. Quality education provides children with dignity, offers them a possibility to think, make choices and form their own opinion. Educated children have learned to defend themselves and claim their rights. Education is the foundation to a better life.
Education moreover enhances sustainable development, the building of a democratic society and improves health conditions. The education of girls especially gives a high return in terms of improvement of health, family planning and the well-being of whole families. Moreover women that have attended schools make extra effort to ensure an education for their children as well.
The importance of basic education for all children is expressed in the combined mandate of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Child Labour Conventions 138 and 182 of the International Labour Organisations (ILO) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aimed at the realisation of basic education for all children (boys and girls) by the year 2015. The international community thus agreed that education is a life skill and a basic right for all children.

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How can child labour be eliminated?
The elimination of child labour is interlinked with the provision of full-time, formal and quality education provide free to all. Many children do not have a choice but to work because there is no (well-functioning) educational system available or because they are not stimulated to attend education. During the Industrial Revolution it was possible to eliminate child labour in Europe due to a combined mandate of prohibiting child labour and implementing compulsory education. This should also happen in developing countries.
However, the discussion on Education for All is often held without consideration of the fact that child labour is a huge obstacle for a large number of children to attend school. Building schools and improving the quality of education is therefore not enough. It is also essential to take a more active approach towards child labour (including child domestic labour) by developing specific strategies, to be able to mainstream all children under the age of fourteen into schools.
Governments are responsible for the educational system and they should take up this responsibility. It is not only important that quality education is offered to children already in school. It is important that programmes for basic education in developing countries include a strategy that is mainstreaming working and other non-school-going children below the age of fourteen into formal, full-time education.
Likewise it is essential to establish a norm that work must never be an impediment for children to attend basic daytime education. As long as the community is accepting that children work instead of going to school, child labour and low school participation will not be eradicated.

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Why do girls need special attention?
Two thirds of all children that are not going to school are girls. The work that they perform is often hardly visible, e.g. in ones own or someone else’s household (domestic child labour). This work is denying these girl children their right to education.
The backward position of girl children is a consequence from the belief that girls do not need to be educated because they will become housewives anyway. In some communities girl children drop out of school early because of child marriages. Moreover girl children are often taken out of school because it is considered inappropriate and dangerous to walk long distances to school.
At the moment there is fortunately more attention for the arrears of girls in their participation at basic education. This should however be tied to an equal attention for the ‘hidden’ work of girls that is often the largest obstacle to their participation at full-time education.

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What is the most important reason for children to work instead of attending schools?
Child labour is not just a matter of poverty. Apart from the income of the family other factors play an important role in the decision of parents to send their children to school or to work. Experience from India shows that the exclusion of certain groups, existing social norms, tradition, parental ignorance, indifference from the government and no education system (or a badly run education system) are the main determinants for parents not to send their children to school. According to Shantha Sinha, director of the MV Foundation, child labour exists in communities where:

• there is no tradition to send children to schools and little social pressure to be able to do so;
• existing social norms accept child labour, parents do not have an alternative and employers take advantage of the situation;
• the educational system does not want to register and educate poor, lower class children;

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Why is there a general focus on eliminating only the worst forms of child labour?
The ruling idea is still that child labour is a consequence of poverty and necessary for a family to survive. This results in the belief that two important values clash: the right to education and the right to survival. Consequently the latter is considered preferable from the presumption that poverty makes it impossible for children to attend regular daytime education.
Immediate elimination of all forms of child labour is not possible in the short term, according to the poverty argument. A direct ban on all forms of child labour would endanger the survival of poor families. Complete elimination of all forms of child labour can, according to the poverty argument, only be realised when poverty has diminished worldwide.
Organisations that work from the perspective of the poverty argument are therefore prioritising on the prevention and exploitation of the worst forms of child labour: slavery, forced labour, trafficking, prostitution and pornography, the use of children in drug and/or other illicit activities. The elimination of other ‘acceptable’ forms of child labour – that can also be an important obstacle to attend full-time education – is for them merely a long term goal.

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Why is it so important to eliminate all forms of child labour?
An approach that is not aimed at eliminating all forms of child labour (but merely the worst forms) often results in ad hoc solutions, the replacement of one group of children by another and continuance of the problem. Such an approach does not result in the protection of all children from economic exploitation, hazardous work and work that impedes with participation to education.
Because poverty is not the main determinant of child labour, it is through an integrated education and child labour policy in developing countries and in donor countries possible to also offer poor children full-time education and to fight all forms of child labour that are detrimental to a child’s development and/or are an obstacle to a child’s education.
Child labour is a problem that can be solved by concerted action, political will and financial resources. The poverty argument can therefore never be an obstacle to each child’s right to formal, full-time and quality education.

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Do parents realise the importance of education?
Not all parents are aware of the importance of education. Some parents, following tradition, consider work a more natural activity than going to school. It is therefore important to create a social norm that child labour is unacceptable and that children belong in regular daytime schools. Once traditional values have been broken, parents want their children to go to school. Experiences from India show that even the poorest families are then well aware of the changes education are offering their children to get out of the vicious cycle of poverty and ignorance.
It has shown that these parents make enormous sacrifices in time and money to ensure that their children go to and stay in schools, after these schools have proved to be of a certain quality and accessible. They no longer want their children to work. Instead of worrying about the lost income they invest more in their children from the belief that education is the means to offer them a better future ultimately.

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Isn’t child labour normal in non-Western cultures?
In Western countries child labour used to be the norm too. The elimination of all forms of child labour in Western countries succeeded because people made an effort to go against the ruling beliefs about child labour. Nowadays, these efforts are made by organisations like the MV Foundation in India. The MV Foundation is an Indian organisation with an Indian board and staff. They are fighting child labour and promoting education because they believe in what is best for India's children. It can therefore not be said that a Western idea or belief is imposed on them.
Almost all countries in the world, Western and non-Western countries signed the Convention on the Rights of a Child (CRC). The elimination of child labour and the right to education is important for all children, wherever they were born.

Is a combination of child labour and education an option?
Education is a child’s birth right, work the responsibility of adults.
Accepting children to work long days in combination with non-formal and part-time education is contributing to the discrimination of these children and a denial of their rights. Alternative education opportunities for working children do not create a norm that child labour is unacceptable and that children should attend formal and full-time education. Offering a combination of education and work leads even more to an adverse effect; it gives a message that child labour and not attending formal education is indeed acceptable.
Non-formal and part-time education is a second-hand choice and of inferior level than the average formal school. The rather good name that alternative educational systems sometimes have is a mere consequence of a few relatively good projects of private donor organisations. It is however forgotten that such systems can never replace a well-functioning formal educational system. Moreover alternative educational systems are used as a convenient device for governments not to take responsibility in offering formal and full-time education.
Non-formal and part-time education for working children should only be offered as a bridge towards the formal system. Permanent alternative education for working children should never be supported. When these systems are supported it should always be clear that there is no other option, for the moment, and there should always be a strategy in place that is mainstreaming these non-formal educational systems or their students into full-time and formal education.
The sometimes low or even bad quality of formal education is no valid reason to set up alternative educational systems for working children. It is then required to contribute to the improvement of the quality of these educational systems so that governments can make their commitments on education a reality.

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How does the MV Foundation in India tackle child labour?
The MV Foundation (MVF), an organisation form the South Indian state Andhra Pradesh, is working with community groups, parents, teachers, employers and civil servants to get children out of work and into school. The MVF programme is based on the principles: ‘every child out of school is a child labourer’ and ‘all children should attend formal, full-time education’. The problem of child labour is tackled by the MVF in the following steps:
The process starts with the creation of a norm that child labour is unacceptable and that children should go to regular daytime schools. Awareness is created on the risks of child labour and the assets of education. The whole community is involved in this process. By door-to-door visits or in a theatre people are encouraged to take the children out of work and send them to schools.
- During information meetings it is showed to the parents that there are other, better solutions than child labour for additional family income than child labour. Parents are supported in their search for these alternatives.
- Children that have never been to school are prepared by the MVF, in special transition schools, for the regular formal educational system where the children are mainstreamed into groups that match their age.
- Children, parents, employers, teachers and civil servants are motivated to improve the neglected public educational systems and to make them accessible for children that used to work. Finally, the MVF provides extra teaching staff or it takes other measures in order to take care of the capacity and logistic problems resulting from an increased demand for education.

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What results have the MVF programmes achieved?
The results of the MVF programme are encouraging. Thanks to the work of the MV Foundation 260,000 children are currently going to school.

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What does ‘School is the best place to work’ want from the government and the European Union?
’School is the best place to work’ is calling on governments to:
1. Create a coherent policy on the elimination of child labour linked to the provision of full-time, formal education for all children up to 14 years of age.
2. Ensure that European Union members work together to allocate at least 8% of Overseas Development Aid to formal primary education, including strategies to integrate all out-of school children into the education system...
3. Make provisions in Overseas Development aid to ensure that girls and young children from vulnerable groups (including those living in absolute poverty) are integrated into the formal school system.

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