ILO says child workers abound

ILO says child workers abound

By T. Sima Gunawan

ISTANBUL, Turkey (JP): The number of child workers remains
extremely high around the world, with 73 million children between
10 and 14 years old, or more than 13 percent of all children in
the age group, having to labor, the International Labour
Organization (ILO) reported in Geneva yesterday.

In Indonesia, 9.55 percent of children between 10 and 14 years
old are economically active.

The ILO issued the report in preparation of a ministerial
meeting on child labor to be held on Wednesday.

Labor ministers from the ILO's 173 member countries are
expected to gather in Geneva to discuss ways to eliminate child
labor, particularly in its most damaging and abusive forms of
forced labor, work with toxic substances, and child prostitution.

According to the ILO, Asia has the most child workers (44.6
million or 13 percent), followed by Africa (23.6 million or 26.3
percent) and Latin America (5.1 million or 9.8 percent).

No one really knows how many children under the age of 10 are
working, and no statistics are available on the number of girls
engaged in full-time domestic work, ILO Director General Michel
Hansenne said in the statement.

If all were taken into account, the total number of child
workers around the world today might be in the hundreds of
millions, he said.

In order to find out more about the real extent of child
labor, the ILO provided technical assistance to Indonesia, India,
Ghana and Senegal to enable local statisticians to carry out
in-depth experimental surveys in a sample of between 4,000 and
5,000 households and some 200 enterprises in each country.

An average of 25 percent of children aged between 5 and 14
years in the four developing countries were engaged in economic
activities during the time of survey. For a third of them, this
work was their principal activity.

In Indonesia, the survey was conducted in the Bandung
municipality and the Bandung regency in West Java during 1992 and
1993.

Most working children were unpaid family workers. The others
worked in the service, manufacturing, trade and agriculture
sectors. Those who were paid earned less than Rp 2,100 (US$0.90)
a day. In the trade sector, girls' salaries were less than half
that of boys.

In Indonesia, more than 25 percent of parents allowed the
children to work to obtain additional income, and one-third felt
that their household income would decline if their children
stopped working.

Most parents said their working children contributed at least
20 percent of household income.

Child labor has been increasing steadily in the towns and
cities of developing countries as a result of rapid urbanization.
Children work mainly in trade and services, and, to a lesser
extent, in the manufacturing sector.

In factories, children are most likely to be employed "when
their labor is less expensive or less troublesome than that of
adults, where other labor is scarce, and when they are considered
irreplaceable by reason of their size or perceived dexterity,"
the ILO report stated.

Despite the growing urbanization, nine out of 10 employed
children are engaged in agriculture or related activities in
rural areas.

The ILO says that many working children face significant
threats to their health and safety. Girls working as domestic
servants away from home are frequently victims of physical,
mental and sexual abuse.

The ILO also finds that there is an increasing number of child
prostitutes. These children are prone to HIV.

Based on available statistics, the ILO estimates that nearly
41 million boys aged between 10 and 14 are working, compared to
32.5 million girls.

"However, the number of working girls is often underestimated
by statistical surveys, as they usually do not take into account
full-time housework performed by many children, the vast majority
of whom are girls, in order to enable their parents to go to
work," the ILO stated.

Girls tend to work longer hours than do boys.

"This is especially true for the many girls employed in other
types of jobs, who must help with the housework in their parents'
home," the ILO concluded.