Woman, training and work

Gender! A Partnership of Equals
Geneve: International Labour Office, 2000. 115 p.

Child labour
A fair break for children

ILO estimates that there are some 250 million children, between the age of 5 and 14 years, engaged in child labour, 110 million of whom are girls. This figure is probably far higher, since it is based on economic activity and does not include full-time housework. Working girls deserve special attention as they are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, and are more likely to be denied the right to education. For this reason, the ILO, through the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), identifies the working girl as a priority target group. As shown in the following Table, compiled by the ILO Bureau of Statistics, girls are to be found labouring alongside boys in almost all sectors.
 

Although IPEC's action programmes deal with boys and girls alike, the work girls do is often "invisible" and their problems and "survival strategies" are different from those of working boys. Girls usually start working at an earlier age than boys, particularly in rural areas where the majority of child labour is located (Ashagrie, 1997: 6). In addition, on average girls work longer hours than boys, and they are paid less for the same type of work (ILO 1997). Girls are also less likely to receive payment for their work, and therefore to receive the benefits and bargaining power that come with access to economic resources, including the ability to access an income with which to get an education. If they do receive payment, they are also less likely to keep the income they earn. For example, one piece of research found that more than 50 per cent of employed girls received no cash payment for their work, as compared to only 7 per cent of boys and where they did receive payment, 96 per cent handed over their entire salary to their family, as compared to 52 per cent of working boys (Chatterjee Schlachter 1993 quoted in Moore 1994: 23).
 
 

Girls also are far less likely to receive any form of basic education. In fact, girls account for two of every three children in the developing world who do not receive a primary education (approximately 73 million of the 130 million out-of-school children) (UNICEF 1999: 8). Even if they are attending school, girls are almost twice as likely to be tired from the burden of housework, to the extent that full participation in class is limited. This leads to higher dropout rates, lower school enrolment rates and early marriages for girls compared to boys.
 

The early discrimination that girls face, results in their growing up to be women with greater constraints and fewer choices and opportunities. They in turn are less able to positively influence the lives of their daughters (and sons), thereby perpetuating the vicious cycle of poverty and exploitation from one generation of women to the next. This is not to minimize the experience of boys, nor to suggest that boys should be excluded, but it is only through a gender perspective that captures the different experiences of child labourers, that the special needs that arise from those experiences can be addressed.

So far, IPEC programmes have been carried out for working girlsin bonded labour, prostitution, domestic work and manufacturing. Where the forms of work are clearly hazardous, the most immediate recourse is to remove them from such work, rehabilitate them and reintegrate them into family, community and society.
 

Working girls withdrawn from their work are given basic education or vocational training, medical help and nutritional support. Their families are offered support, including skills-training (Nepal), livelihood and income generation (Bangladesh and Brazil), nutrition and health support (Pakistan, Indonesia and Kenya). Action programmes carried out by local NGOs with the support of the ILO have set up transit homes and temporary shelters for girls at risk of being tricked into prostitution (Nepal and Thailand) and for street girls (Kenya). Activities to inform girls of their rights and the setting up of crisis hot lines have also been supported (Kenya, Tanzania, and the Philippines), while in Tanzania an agency of women journalists and lawyers has extended its outreach programme to halt violence against women to include a campaign highlighting the situation of child domestic workers. In the Mekong Basin countries, (Thailand, Cambodia, China and Vietnam) and the south Asian countries (Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka), IPEC is implementing a second phase major regional programme to stop child trafficking for prostitution and other extreme forms of child labour. 

IPEC's goal is not just the removal of individual children from work in which they are exploited, but the long-term goal which will be achieved when new generations of children are effectively prevented from entering the labour market. To achieve this, a change in social attitudes is important, particularly towards girls, their special vulnerabilities and their right to education. IPEC is developing a strategy for making gender issues an integral part of its programmes by incorporating a gender component into IPEC's structure, sub-programmes and operations. At the national level, this will be extended to include a gender component into national plans of action, and into its problem analysis and programme design. In addition, strategies will be reviewed to ensure that support and incentives given to the family of a working child are not gender-biased, especially in the area of skills-training and access to microcredit resources. 

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