To date, the tobacco industry has not accepted its responsibility for the high number of child labour in tobacco plantations in its supply chain. Child labour in tobacco plantations has the potential to be exposed to short-term and long-term health risks, one of them is the threat of Green Tobacco Sickness (GTS), which is which is a variety of health disorders caused by exposure to nicotine in tobacco leaves both during the harvesting and processing of tobacco……..Continue reading….
By Emancipate Indonesia
Source: Sustainable Business
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Critics:
Child labour forms an intrinsic part of pre-industrial economies. In pre-industrial societies, there is rarely a concept of childhood in the modern sense. Children often begin to actively participate in activities such as child rearing, hunting and farming as soon as they are competent. In many societies, children as young as 13 are seen as adults and engage in the same activities as adults.
The work of children was important in pre-industrial societies, as children needed to provide their labour for their survival and that of their group. Pre-industrial societies were characterised by low productivity and short life expectancy; preventing children from participating in productive work would be more harmful to their welfare and that of their group in the long run. In pre-industrial societies, there was little need for children to attend school.
This is especially the case in non-literate societies. Most pre-industrial skill and knowledge were amenable to being passed down through direct mentoring or apprenticing by competent adults. Factories and mines were not the only places where child labour was prevalent in the early 20th century. Home-based manufacturing across the United States and Europe employed children as well. Governments and reformers argued that labour in factories must be regulated and the state had an obligation to provide welfare for poor.
Legislation that followed had the effect of moving work out of factories into urban homes. Families and women, in particular, preferred it because it allowed them to generate income while taking care of household duties. Home-based manufacturing operations were active year-round. Families willingly deployed their children in these income generating home enterprises. In many cases, men worked from home.
In France, over 58% of garment workers operated out of their homes; in Germany, the number of full-time home operations nearly doubled between 1882 and 1907; and in the United States, millions of families operated out of home seven days a week, year round to produce garments, shoes, artificial flowers, feathers, match boxes, toys, umbrellas and other products. Children aged 5–14 worked alongside the parents.
Home-based operations and child labour in Australia, Britain, Austria and other parts of the world was common. Rural areas similarly saw families deploying their children in agriculture. In 1946, Frieda S. Miller – then Director of the United States Department of Labor – told the International Labour Organization (ILO) that these home-based operations offered “low wages, long hours, child labour, unhealthy and insanitary working conditions”.
The ILO suggests that poverty is the greatest single cause behind child labour. For impoverished households, income from a child’s work is usually crucial for his or her own survival or for that of the household. Income from working children, even if small, may be between 25 and 40% of the household income. Other scholars such as Harsch on African child labour, and Edmonds and Pavcnik on global child labour, have reached the same conclusion.
While poverty is a significant factor, the relationship between poverty and child labour is complex. Research suggests that child labour generally decreases as household productive wealth (measured by agricultural per capita land holding in rural areas) increases. However, there can be a notable spike in the relationship between child labour and landholding at moderate levels of land per capita.
According to the ILO, lack of meaningful alternatives such as affordable schools and quality education is another major factor driving children to harmful labour in some countries. Children work because they have nothing better to do. Many communities, particularly in rural areas where child labour rates can be between 60 and 70 per cent, do not have access to adequate school facilities.
Even when schools are available, they may be too far away, difficult to reach, unaffordable or the quality of education so poor that parents may not consider school attendance to be worth it.Historically when child labour was more common, as well as in contemporary child labour, certain cultural beliefs have grounded it. Some view that work is good for the character-building and skill development of children.
In many cultures, particularly where the informal economy and small household businesses thrive, the cultural tradition is that children follow in their parents’ footsteps; child labour then is a means to learn and practise that trade from a very early age. Similarly, in many cultures the education of girls is less valued or girls are simply not expected to need formal schooling, and may be pushed into child labour such as providing domestic services….
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