Child labor continues to be a public health problem worldwide. Several studies have focused on the...

CHILD LABOR

Child labor continues to be a public health problem worldwide. Several studies have focused on the health status of working children and the effects of child labor on

their psychological development and educational attainment. These studies

have highlighted the effects of child labor.

Perception and practice of child labor amongparents of school-aged children in Ibadan,

southwest Nigeria.

Methods A cross-sectional study was carried out in an urban community in Ibadan, southwest Nigeria. Questionnaires were administered to parents of school-aged

children. Results A total of 473 parents were interviewed. They were aged between 23 and

56 years, mean 37.9 years. Thirty-nine per cent of parents indicated that they thought their school-aged children should work. More women than men, those from polygamous homes and those with lower educational status held this view.

Reasons given for wanting their children to work were to supplement family income, 45%, to gain experience, 35% and to help in family business, 10%.


southwest Nigeria.

Parental factors associated with practice of child labor were polygamous marriage, low educational status, unskilled or partly

skilled occupation and large family size. Seventeen per cent of parents with working children were not satisfied with their

children’s work conditions and complained of low earnings, long working hours, work on school days and unsafe work

environment. Measures suggested to control child labor include addressing the issue of household poverty, public enlightenment

about the ills of child labor and free education up to junior secondary level.


southwest Nigeria.

The phenomenon of child labor is thought to be driven by poverty which is believed to be the root cause. The dynamics of child labor in

the community involves parents, employers and the children themselves. Published works on child labor comprise mainly of surveys among working children. Some studies have focused on

children’s views of child Labor, but few have reported parents’ views. While some studies suggest that many children work willingly, others

report that children took up economic activities at the instance of their parents. The role of parents was highlighted in a school-based

study in Ibadan which reported that 81% of working children indicated that it was their parents’ idea that they should work. Therefore, any intervention to control this problem must take

cognizance of the role of parents, for many of whom child labor constitutes a source of much needed extra income.

Perceptions of child labor amongworking children in Ibadan, Nigeria.

The adverse effects of child labor on the children’s psychological development continue to raise concerns about this public health

problem worldwide. Several views have been presented by child health authorities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international agencies. Few studies have focused on the children themselves. This

study sought to determine working children’s perspective of child labor, its benefits and disadvantages and the working children’s perceptions of

themselves, and their aspirations for the future.


A cross-sectional study was carried out among working children in a large market in Ibadan, south-west Nigeria. Questionnaires were administered to all

consenting children.Results A total of 225 children, 132 females and 93 males, participated in the

survey. Their age range was 8–17 years. A total of 103 respondents (46%) were currently in school while 117 (52%) were out of school. Five respondents (2%)

had never attended school. A total of 104 (46%) thought that children should not work. However, when asked about the benefits of working, 81 working children (36%) felt that work provided a source of income for them, 52 (23%) indicated that it was a way of helping their parents and 39 (17%) thought it was part of their training to be responsible adults. Bad company, ill health and road traffic

accidents were the perceived ill effects of child labor. The majority of the children interviewed were aspiring towards artisan trades and very few towards

professional or office jobs. A total of 106 (47%) children perceived themselves as less fortunate than their peers. Fifty-five children (24%) thought that child

labor was a sign of deprivation .


Child labor has been the subject of public healthdiscourse especially in countries with poor economies.

Some authorities have distinguished betweenchild labor and child work, where child work is

considered to be part of the children’s training tobe responsible adults and child labor is thought

to be exploitative . In the traditionalNigerian setting, child work is regarded as trainingcritical to healthy social and moral upbringing of

the child. In recent times, however, there has been changes in the nature and scope of work that children do.

Asthenopia (eyestrain) in workingchildren of gem-polishing

industries.

Child labor is among one of the major problems of developing countries today. According to ILO estimates, there are 351.7

million economically active children in the world (210.8 million aged between 5 and 14 and 140.9 million aged 15 to 17). Nearly

170 million of these children are involved in hazardous work (111 million aged 5_14; 59 million aged 15_17; The Global Occupational Health Network, 2005). In India, according to 1991 census, out of a

total population of 838.6 million, working children were 11.28 million, which was 1.34% of the total population. Though there

has been a decline both in absolute numbers as well as in percentage terms over a decade still the numbers are considerable

(Ministry of Labor, 2002).


industries.

The informal economy harbors most child labor and since it is not recognized or protected under the legal and regulatory

frameworks, informal workers have a high degree of vulnerability. The informal economy is spread across all

economic sectors and may be closely linked to formal sector production, for example, in situations where formal sectors

outsource work to the informal economy (International LaborOrganization, 2002). Working children are exposed to toxic and

deadly chemicals in workplaces. Besides, hard labor leadsto the deformation of young bodies. Young workers, at the same time, are under constant physical, intellectual, and

emotional stress. Moreover, most of them experience verbal and physical abuse (International Labor Organization, 2002).


industries.

The gem-polishing industry at Jaipur, India, is aninformal sector industry, which employs substantial

proportion of children. The unofficial figure gatheredfrom the gem-polishing unit owners suggest that

approximately 0.2 million people are employed in thisindustry of which about 20,000 are children. In this

industry, the waste materials of organized sectors arepurchased by the parents as raw material for the cottage

industry and which is then passed through variousprocesses to make a final product to be sold in the market.

The issues of child labor, its causes and potential remedies have receivedconsiderable attention in academia and features prominently in the policy papers of pertinent institutions such as the United Nations and the World Bank.1 This note looks at how international labor market integration

affects child labor.

Labor Market Integration and Its Effect on Child Labor


The proposed framework for the analysis is a two-country version of the basic model proposed in the seminal paper by Basu and Van (1998) which has been quite influential in the academic discussion of the economics of

child labor and of related policies.


1For a general survey covering the wide spectrum of issues related to child labor, see Edmonds (2008). A narrower account of theoretical and

empirical work on the economics of child labor is provided by Basu (1999).M. Gärtner (*) Institute of Economics, School of Economics and Political

Science, University of St. Gallen, Bodanstrasse 1, 9000 St. Gallen, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected]

The emotional labor of caring about looked-after children

This paper is an exploration of data collected as part of a study looking at the participation of looked-after children in decision-making processes in an

English context. Although the research was principally interested in decision-making processes from the child’s perspective, it was recognized that the addition of the social worker’s voice offered further contextual richness in

shedding light on the world of the looked-after child and the procedures that determine the way in which decisions are made about their present and

future.


Social workers are responsible for the initial assessment and ongoing monitoring and evaluation of the child’s progress and development

(Department of Health 1989). They are also the gatekeepers of the child’s progress throughout their time in the care of the local authority. They are required to help looked after children achieve their potential and to assist them in their recovery from whatever traumas precipitated the reception

into care.


The emotional needs of the social worker were an important factor to be taken into account when considering the development of effective relationships with looked-after children. Furthermore, I wanted to investigate if addressing these needs would facilitate amore participative and collaborative decision-making process that

was enriching for both social worker and child.

Assembling Webs of Support: Child Domestic Workers in India

Ethnographic and qualitative interview data with Muslim child domesticworkers, their families and employers to investigate the social ties

between young workers and their employers. Our analysis shows that working-class families use children’s domestic work with middle-class families as part of a web of resources to protect them from economic

shocks and to enable them to afford to meet the cost of social obligations. We show that in this particular context, a town in Uttar Pradesh in north India, hiring domestic workers locks employers into relations of social

obligation with their employees and their families.


Our study focuses specifically on Muslim households. The research was carried out by qualitative semi-structured interviews

with six child domestic workers, their families and employers, supplemented by ethnographic data, conducted in the main town

of a district in Uttar Pradesh in 2008. The ethnographic data consisted of field notes of observation, and conversations with

both participants and non participants in employers’ homes and the wider neighborhood. The analysis offered in this paper draws

on the entire corpus of data. The study participants were identified from an initial contact with one family’s domestic worker whose daughter was herself a domestic worker.


The work that girls do in their employer’s homes is sweeping and washing the floors, dusting surfaces and washing dishes. Generally, other household tasks are

done by the adult women in the household. Childcare is done by the child’s mother and other women relatives. If a worker does not come to work then her tasks are left until her return, with the exception of washing dishes as this has to be done every day. The tasks that girls have to do in their employer’s homes are

rather limited. The majority of tasks are done in these middle-class homes, as they are in working-class homes, by the daughter-in-law (who generally lives with her husband’s mother) and unmarried daughters if they are not in school.

Perception and practice of child labor among. Ibadan, Nigeria : 304–308.

Gärtner, Manfred. Labor Market Integration and Its Effect. Gallen, Switzerland: 2011. 165–170.

Perceptions of child labor among. Ibadan, Nigeria: Blackwell Publishing Ltd,, 2006. 281–286.

Saha, Asim. Asthenopia (eyestrain) in working. Jaipur, India,

The emotional labor of caring about looked-after children. Lecturer, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, Devon, UK: 2010. pp 483–491 .

Wasiuzzaman, Shaziah. Assembling Webs of Support: Child. 24. London, UK: CHILDREN & SOCIETY, 2010. 282–292 .

Child labor continues to be a public health problem worldwide. Several studies have focused on the...

Documents

Transcript of Child labor continues to be a public health problem worldwide. Several studies have focused on the...