LATIN AMERICA: 15 Millon Child Workers

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, May 7 1997 (IPS) - The number of children aged six to 14 years- old in Latin America almost equals the region’s number of unemployed, suggesting child labour could be acting as a sort of hidden unemployment benefit for poor parents.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) discovered the situation while studying the extent of child employment in preparation for the First Iberoamerican Meeting on Child Labour, on May 8 and 9 in Cartagena, Colombia.

The United Nations agency aims to raise public consciousness of the situation of millions of Latin American children who “work and live in miserable conditions.”

This ILO document, distributed in Geneva described the suffering of children, “who work from sunrise to sunset, baking bricks in burning ovens, breaking rocks in quarries or being pushed into prostitution in the streets of the big cities.”

Available statistics indicate that between 20 and 25 percent of Latin American children aged between six and 14 are working at present. The child workforce constitutes nearly five percent of the region’s economically active population.

The report said this proportion is “pretty close to the open unemployment rate, which suggests the possibility child labour is, to a greater or lesser degree, playing the role of a hidden unemployment benefit.”

There are now around 15 million childen working in the region, half of whom are aged between six and 14 years old.

These figures “appear modest” compared with the 250 million children working worldwide, said Michel Hansenne, ILO director general. However, “they are alarming when we realise that one in every five Latin American children is a child worker.”

Hansenne will partive social panorama in Latin America given a development model characterised by the scarce creation of jobs in the modern sector.

Other traits in the region include the growing influence of the informal sector, the reduced role of the State as employer, the stagnation of of real salaries and persistent poverty in most countries.

Most of the children who work do so in manifestly dangerous conditions which threaten their security, health and emotional stability, as they are submitted to physical and moral abuse and exhausting working hours far exceeding the legal limits, said the ILO.

Some 60 percent of child labour is in the agricultural sector, which the experts class as “one of the most dangerous and difficult to control of all employment situations.”

In the rural setting, the children work exposed to the elements, in unsuitable physical conditions. They are exposed to chemicals, sharp tools, animal and insect bites.

As a consequence of urbanisation, child labour has also extended to towns and cities, where they work in small businesses, informal workshops, street markets or offering small services.

Hundreds of thousands of girls, around 10 percent of the child workforce, work long days as domestic servants in an atmosphere where they are frequently beaten, insulted or sexually abused.

In a phenomenon characteristic of Latin America, street children make up between five and 20 percent of adolescents working in the cities.

The study stated that crime and poverty drag thousands of street children into prostitution, pornography, drug trafficking and other illegal activities.

The category of salaried child workers is far larger in Latin America than other regions of the world, where child labour costs little or nothing.

Salaried children represent between 45 and 50 percent of the 10 to 14 age group. The smaller children are generally unpaid family workers.

These children are paid low rates for doing the same work as adults, but for longer hours. In domestic service, payment is often restricted to housing and food.

But for many poor families, child labour is necessary and the loss of this income would cause great difficulties.

The ILO report said child contributions to family incomes can be particularly important for homes facing extreme poverty, especially in single parent households headed by women.