Trafficking Child Beggars in Southeast Asia [Photograph]

The young child in the photograph sits on a walkway in Jakarta, Indonesia, a victim of trafficking for the purpose of begging. Trafficking of women and girls for prostitution has been a well-known phenomenon in Southeast Asia, but trafficking for begging on the streets is a more recent trend. Children of poor, often rural, families are being captured at the borders, or parents are deceived into thinking their children will receive opportunities in the cities.

Children caught begging illegally by police in Bangkok, Thailand, are returned to Cambodia, some to waiting parents, others to charities or local government agencies. Others find their way back to urban streets. In the worst cases, children are mutilated so as to elicit sympathy. Officials note that children trafficked to a foreign country are even more vulnerable due to language and customs differences, as well as increased discrimination. They are even less likely than indigenous children to know how to seek help.

The chart reveals International Labour Organization (ILO), International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), and UNICEF data for the year 2000 on trafficking of over a million children annually, and some 250,000 for the Asia Pacific region. Efforts to combat child trafficking include improving law enforcement and border controls, but perhaps the most effective work is at the community level.

World History Archives, http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/54/index-aea.html by the Institute for Global Communications (IGC) Tides Center http://www.igc.org/ from "A new kind of trafficking: Child beggars in Asia," World of Work, no. 26, 1998; Chart from IPEC: Every child counts: New global estimates on child labour, Geneva, ILO, April 2002, in Training manual to fight trafficking in children for labour, sexual and other forms of exploitation / International Labour Office, International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC). - Geneva: ILO, 2009 – page 34 at http://www.unicef.org/protection/index_exploitation.html (accessed March 15, 2010). Annotated by Susan Douglass.

Child Labor at La Rinconada [Photograph]

This photograph is of a boy between 6-10 years of age who works in the La Rinconada gold mine in the mountainous region of Peru. La Rinconada is the highest gold mine in the world, 5,500 meters above sea level in the Andes, and under a glacier, and its camp is populated by about 20,000 people who live under economically exploitative and impoverished conditions. The boy seen here works as a quimbalatero, or stone crusher, who quarries ore from gold-bearing rocks by striking them with a heavy hammer.

The image was taken as documentation of child labor by a photographer for the International Labour Organization (ILO) for its International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) project. According to ILO definitions, unacceptable types of child labor are those that can be harmful to physical and mental development, to children’s dignity, and of a kind that “deprives children of their childhood.” Such child labor should be eliminated if it is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; if it interferes with their schooling by preventing them from attending school, obligates them to leave school prematurely, or requires excessively long and heavy work so as to compromise children's ability to attend school or learn effectively. Mining work such as this meets the criteria as harmful because it exposes child workers to hazards of extreme cold, is physically demanding, and provides no protection for their eyes and hands. Children in mining camps are routinely exposed to mercury poisoning in so-called “artisanal mines,” family mining operations in which whole families are employed, sometimes including toddlers. Such operations often produce tiny amounts of gold by quarrying flakes from large quantities of rock, bringing in very little income for the expense in time and toxic exposure.

A recent ILO Global Report "The end of child labor: Within reach" published in 2006 showed that Latin American and Caribbean countries have experienced declining numbers of child laborers. Projects such as Bolsa Familia in Brazil offers families financial incentives to send their children to school, in addition to citing employers who exploit children, and educating parents and older children on the hazards of child labor. The number of children at work in the region has fallen by two-thirds, with just 5 percent of children now engaged in unsatisfactory child labor. The IPEC project in La Rinconada works to help families access health, education, and nutrition services, and to address working conditions for adults in the mines.

Photograph by E. Gianotti, "La Rinconada child crushing gold-bearing rocks," International Labour Organization (ILO), Peru 1999 at <a class="external" href="http://www.ilo.org/dyn/media/mediasearch.fiche?p_id=384&p_lang=en">http://www.ilo.org/dyn/media/mediasearch.fiche?p_id=384&p_lang=en </a>(accessed January 22, 2010). Annotated by Susan Douglass.

Child Labor in Domestic Service by Gender [Chart]

The chart shows the proportion of male and female child laborers between the ages of 5 and 14 who are engaged in domestic work for third-party households. As the note on the chart indicates, only those countries in the data sample of 16 nations where domestic work could be distinguished from other kinds of work are featured in this chart. The sixteen sample countries included in the chart were based on nationally representative household surveys conducted between 1999 and 2007. The data comes from a study IPEC Statistical Information and Monitoring Programme on Child Labour (SIMPOC). (Geneva, ILO, 2009). The sample countries and the dates of data in the survey were Colombia (2001), Ecuador (2006), El Salvador (2001), Guatemala (2006), Burkina Faso (2006), Malawi (2002), Mali (2005), Senegal (2004), Cambodia (2001), Mongolia (2002), Philippines (2001), Sri Lanka (1999), Azerbaijan (2005), Kyrgyzstan (2007), Turkey (2006) and Ukraine (1999).

Domestic work includes housekeeping, such as: cleaning, cooking, washing, fetching supplies, and child care. Domestic work for an employer in a third-party household is considered by experts to be among the worst forms of child labor. Children, and especially girls, are often isolated in the household and invisible to others. Reports of abuse are frequent, but much abuse remains out of the public eye. Such children are often given up to other families because of their parents' inability to care for them. Children's earnings are sometimes given over to the person who contracted them through an agent or relative.

Data from the surveys show that while the vast majority of child domestic workers are girls, boys are also subjected to sexual abuse. The primary source text from Ecuador is typical of such stories gleaned by social workers and NGO's from work with children who escape or are removed from such situations.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) established the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) in 1992 with the goal of eliminating child labor. For statistical purposes, a child is considered to be involved in child labour under the following classification: (a) children 5-11 years of age who did at least one hour of economic activity or at least 28 hours of domestic work during the week preceding the survey, and (b) children 12-14 years of age who did at least 14 hours of economic activity or at least 28 hours domestic work during the week preceding the survey. Whether or not particular forms of "work" can be called "child labor" depends on the child's age, the type and hours of work performed, the conditions under which it is performed and the objectives pursued by individual countries.

IPEC classifies acceptable and unacceptable types of child labor. Acceptable work includes children helping parents around the home, earning pocket money after school and on holidays, and even helping in a family business. Such activity is viewed as beneficial to children's development and socialization. Unacceptable child labor, in contrast, is harmful to physical and mental development, to children's dignity, and "deprives children of their childhood." Child labor should be eliminated if it is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; if it interferes with their schooling by preventing them from attending school, obligates them to leave school prematurely, or requires excessively long and heavy work as to compromise children's ability to attend school or learn effectively.

"World Day 2009: Give girls a chance: End child labour," International Labour Organization, http://www.ilo.org/ipec/Campaignandadvocacy/WDACL/WorldDay2009/lang--en/index.htm (accessed November 2, 2009). Annotated by Susan Douglass. Text from IPEC: Girl child labour in agriculture, domestic work and sexual exploitation: Rapid assessments on the cases of the Philippines, Ghana and Ecuador (Geneva, ILO, 2004), cited in "Give girls a chance: Tackling child labour, a key to the future," International Labour Office, p. 27. (accessed November 2, 2009). Annotated by Susan Douglass.

Child Labor Statistics by Gender and Sector [Chart]

The chart shows the employment sectors for male and female child laborers from age cohorts 5-14 and 15-17. The information is drawn from national child labor surveys in sixteen sample countries. It is based on nationally representative household surveys conducted between 1999 and 2007. The data comes from a study IPEC Statistical Information and Monitoring Programme on Child Labour (SIMPOC). (Geneva, ILO, 2009). The sample countries and the dates of data in the survey were Colombia (2001), Ecuador (2006), El Salvador (2001), Guatemala (2006), Burkina Faso (2006), Malawi (2002), Mali (2005), Senegal (2004), Cambodia (2001), Mongolia (2002), Philippines (2001), Sri Lanka (1999), Azerbaijan (2005), Kyrgyzstan (2007), Turkey (2006) and Ukraine (1999).

The statistics provide a more detailed picture of global child labor than what had been available previously. The chart shows that the majority of children were employed in agriculture, a significant portion employed in services, which can include everything from shoe-shining and windshield washing to street vending and hauling. A minority of child laborers are employed in shops, craft production and manufacture, which can include construction, mining, quarry work and the like, all hazardous jobs for children.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) established the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) in 1992 with the goal of progressively eliminating child labor, through research, building countries' capacity to deal with the problem, and promoting a worldwide movement to combat child labor. For statistical purposes, a child is considered to be involved in child labor under the following classification: (a) children 5-11 years of age who did at least one hour of economic activity or at least 28 hours of domestic work during the week preceding the survey, and (b) children 12-14 years of age who did at least 14 hours of economic activity or at least 28 hours domestic work during the week preceding the survey. Whether or not particular forms of "work" can be called "child labor" depends on the child's age, the type and hours of work performed, the conditions under which it is performed and the objectives pursued by individual countries.

IPEC classifies acceptable and unacceptable types of child labor. Acceptable work includes children helping parents around the home, earning pocket money after school and on holidays, and even helping in a family business. Such activity is viewed as beneficial to children's development and socialization. Unacceptable child labor, in contrast, is harmful to physical and mental development, to children's dignity, and "deprives children of their childhood." Child labor should be eliminated if it is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; if it interferes with their schooling by preventing them from attending school, obligates them to leave school prematurely, or requires excessively long and heavy work as to compromise children's ability to attend school or learn effectively. The most extreme forms of unacceptable child labor include enslavement or bonded labor, separation from their families, exposure to hazards and illness, or being forced onto the streets of large cities to sleep and work for a living.

"World Day 2009: Give girls a chance: End child labour,"International Labour Organization, http://www.ilo.org/ipec/Campaignandadvocacy/WDACL/WorldDay2009/lang--en/index.htm (accessed November 2, 2009). Annotated by Susan Douglass.

Child Labor Statistics by World Region [Chart]

The chart shows summative data for several world regions and types of countries on the subject of child labor. The figures refer to the percentage of children 5-14 years of age involved in child labor, meaning as a percentage of the total population of children in a country or region. The complete chart, showing all reporting countries can be accessed at http://www.childinfo.org/labour_countrydata.php. For statistical purposes, a child is considered to be involved in child labor under the following classification: (a) children 5-11 years of age who did at least one hour of economic activity or at least 28 hours of domestic work during the week preceding the survey, and (b) children 12-14 years of age who did at least 14 hours of economic activity or at least 28 hours domestic work during the week preceding the survey.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) established the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) in 1992 with the goal of progressively eliminating child labor, through research, building countries' capacity to deal with the problem, and promoting a worldwide movement to combat child labor. Whether or not particular forms of "work" can be called "child labor" depends on the child's age, the type and hours of work performed, the conditions under which it is performed and the objectives pursued by individual countries.

IPEC classifies acceptable and unacceptable types of child labor. Acceptable work includes children helping parents around the home, earning pocket money after school and on holidays, and even helping in a family business. Such activity is viewed as beneficial to children's development and socialization. Unacceptable child labor, in contrast, is harmful to physical and mental development, to children's dignity, and "deprives children of their childhood." Child labor should be eliminated if it is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; if it interferes with their schooling by preventing them from attending school, obligates them to leave school prematurely, or requires excessively long and heavy work as to compromise children's ability to attend school or learn effectively. The most extreme forms of unacceptable child labor include enslavement or bonded labor, separation from their families, exposure to hazards and illness, or being forced onto the streets of large cities to sleep and work for a living.

Statistical chart from United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) at <a class="external" href="http://www.childinfo.org/labour_countrydata.php">http://www.childinfo.org/labour_countrydata.php</a>; information on definitions of child labor from International Labour Organization and the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour at <a class="external" href="http://www.ilo.org/ipec/facts/lang--en/index.htm">http://www.ilo.org/ipec/facts/lang--en/index.htm</a> (accessed November 2, 2009). Annotated by Susan Douglass.