• Regional Estimates Indicate That
a. The Asian and Pacific regions harbor the largest number of child workers in the five to 14 age group, 127.3 million in total. (19 percent of child work in the region).
b. Sub — Saharan Africa has an estimated 48 million child workers. Almost one child three (29 percent) below the age of 15 workers.
c. Latin America and the Caribbean have approximately 17.4 million child workers. (16 percent of children work in the region).
d. Fifteen percent of children work in the Middle East and North Africa.
e. Approximately 2.5 million children are working in industrialized and transition economies.
Child labour is a ubiquitous problem throughout the world, particularly in developing countries. Specifically Africa …show more content…
Their work conditions are especially severe, often not providing the adequate environment for proper physical and mental development. Often these children sustain lives of pure deprivation. However, there are problems with the intuitive resolution of immediately abolishing child to prevent such abuse. First, there is no global agreement terming child labour, making it tricky to isolate cases of abuse, forget about abolishing them. Second, though in many scenarios children may have to work in order to attend school so abolishing child labour may only thwart their education. Any plan of abolishment depends on schooling. The state could help by making it worthwhile for a child to attend school, whether it is providing students with nutritional supplements or increasing the quality and usefulness of obtaining an education. There must an economic change in the condition of a struggling family to free a child from the responsibility of working. Family subsidies can help provide this …show more content…
This susceptible state leaves them liable to exploitation. “The International Labour Office reports that children work the longest hours and are the worst paid all labourers”(Bequele and Boyden 1988). They undergo work conditions which include health hazards and quantum of abuse. Employers seek undue advantage on the docility of the children knowing that these labourers cannot legally form unions to change their conditions. The development of youth is stifled due to such manipulation. Their working conditions do not offer the necessary incentives for proper physical and mental development. Conclusively, these children are deprived of the simple joys of childhood, consigned to a life of drudgery. There are problems with the obvious solution of eradicating child labour since basically there is no international agreement defining child labour. Countries not only differs in minimum age work restrictions, but also have varying procedures based on the type of labor which makes the limits of child labour very ambiguous. “Most would agree that six years old is too young to work, but whether the same can be said about a twelve year old is debatable. Until there is global agreement which can isolate cases of child labour, it will be very hard to abolish.” (HCO: Faraaz Siddiqui and Harry Anthony