New UN Report on violence against children: the workplace setting Zero tolerance for violence against children in the workplace
A new report by the United Nations on violence against children is to be transmitted to the UN General Assembly this week. One of its sections is devoted to violence as it affects children who work. According to the report, the key departure point has to be a policy of zero tolerance of violence against children who are working - whether legally or in child labour. Frans Roselaers, Director of the ILO's Department of Partnerships and Development Cooperation and member of the editorial board of the report says that although the end of child labour may be in reach, stopping violence against working children is an urgent need.
ILO Online: A global challenge to emerge from
the new report is to make workplace violence
against children more visible. Why has it not been
given higher priority?
Frans Roselaers: Violence has not, up to
now, been given much attention by programmes
against child labour. We have nonetheless
experience with many existing programmes related to
child labour in dealing with abuse and violence.
Most such programmes are multi-pronged, addressing
economic and cultural causes, the promotion of
education and alternative occupations, and social
mobilization to change attitudes towards the
acceptability of child labour.
ILO Online: Experience has shown that, where
under-age children are withdrawn from the formal
workplace, they often end up in more hazardous
informal situations…
Frans Roselaers: This happens if there
are no provisions in place to redirect the
children's lives. The range of interventions
required includes legislative and enforcement
measures, efforts with families and communities to
reduce the need for and likelihood of parents
sending boys and girls to work, removal of children
from workplaces that expose them to violence,
hazard and exploitation, and social mobilization by
civil society to promote the right of children not
to be treated with violence in the workplace, and
for all children to have access to quality
education.
ILO Online: According to the report, successful
enforcement of child labour legislation is rare...
Frans Roselaers: More than 80 per cent
of the world's children now live in countries
which have ratified the two key
ILO Conventions. Since its
adoption in 1999,
Convention No.182 targeting
the most hazardous and exploitative situations in
which children are found, has enjoyed a rapid pace
of ratification, which in turn has helped to double
the rate of ratifications now enjoyed by the
Minimum Age Convention,
No.138. This reflects a strong political
consensus and many governments have undertaken
reviews of their legislation.
On the other hand, many impediments to the enforcement of laws continue to exist: one is the lack of an effective and universal birth registration system, another is that the labour inspectorates which helped remove children from the workplace in industrializing countries in the West have generally not proved as effective in the developing world. Enforcement can only work if there are workplace regulations, inspectorates, stiff legal sanctions against the employment of under-age workers, and crack-downs on criminal activities involving children with child rehabilitation.
ILO Online: Can you give us an example where
enforcement has been effective?
Frans Roselaers: One example is the
agreement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in
May 2005 concerning the release and repatriation to
their countries of origin of 3,000 young boys
employed as camel jockeys and stable boys. This
initiative illustrates the complementary roles that
can be played by campaigning and international
organizations in bringing an end to the trafficking
and employment of children in an abusive
occupation.
Another good example is an ILO/IPEC project in Tanzania which supports an NGO that identifies children who have been suffering from physical, psychological or even sexual violence as child domestic labourers and takes them to a centre, where they undergo psychosocial counselling, attend school and receive vocational skills training. Later on, some of these children may start their own business with support from the ILO.
ILO Online: Could you explain how education and
schooling are key components of ending child
labour?
Frans Roselaers: Universal access to
schooling is a key component of ending child labour
and their exposure to violence in the work place.
Basic education should be made compulsory for both
boys and girls, including the requirement on the
state to increase educational investment. For
example, in both the Indian state of Kerala, and in
Sri Lanka, progress towards universal education was
accompanied by the departure of children from
full-time work despite little effort to implement
child labour laws.
ILO Online: ...and violence against children?
Frans Roselaers: Schooling itself
provides an opportunity for the promotion of
self-protection, non-violence and peaceful conflict
resolution.
ILO Online: What role can children play in
protecting themselves against violence?
Frans Roselaers: One of the most
important steps towards enabling children to remove
themselves from exploitative work and abuse in the
workplace is to facilitate their participation in
programmes to reduce and eliminate child labour.
Children and young people are often their own best
advocates and should be given a prominent role as
spokespersons on their own behalf, to
policy-makers, employers, trade unions,
communities, legislators, media and society at
large.
ILO Online: How can we prevent violence against
children before it takes place?
Frans Roselaers: Larger-scale programmes
like the ILO's 'Time-Bound Programmes'
(TBPs) to eliminate child labour comprise a package
of interventions covering prevention, withdrawal,
rehabilitation and future protection. So far, over
20 countries have opted for this comprehensive
approach, while several more countries are
preparing similar programmes. As an example,
Tanzania set out to reduce the number of children
involved in the worst forms of child labour by 75
per cent. Mid-term evaluation found these
objectives are on course.
ILO Online: A worldwide movement against child
labour has emerged during the last decade. But
there is still a long way to go... what more needs
to be done?
Frans Roselaers: There has been a
failure to acknowledge sufficiently working
children's varied experience of violence -
physical, psychological and sexual - and take it
fully into account when developing plans and
programmes. There is still a need to give greater
attention internationally and nationally to those
forms and situations of work that are intrinsically
hazardous and violent, especially those in remote,
illicit or hidden locations. There is also a need
to work with trade unions and employer
organizations to improve protections for the
youngest members of the regular workforce. A
wide-range of measures is needed to address
workplace violence against children. The problem
has to be tackled as a livelihood, human rights,
labour, health and safety, and law enforcement
issue, starting with efforts to prevent under-age
children entering the workplace in the first place.
The key departure point has to be a zero tolerance
of violence against working children wherever they
work.
For more information, see http://www.unviolencestudy.org/
See also video interview with Frans Roselaers
Note 1 - The United Nations Secretary General's Study on Violence Against Children. The report to the General Assembly is available on-line at: www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/docs/study/SGSVAC.pdf. The full text of the study's findings are published in World Report on Violence against Children, by Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, forthcoming November 2006, to be pre-launched 12 October.