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The work of children in Africa and in Asia comparison

246 million of children work in the world
80 million of children aged from 5 to 14 years old work in Africa
And between 44 and 110 million of children work in Asia

Introduction

There are some laws against the child's work. But people want to help children in this situation. The ILO, during the last 12th June, put the intention on the child's work. Some countries in Africa and in Asia don't care of children traffic. For example , in Nepal the paedophilic isn't a crime.
Nowadays, countries and associations protect children a lot against the children abuses in rich countries, it isn't the same for poor countries. Fortunately, associations changed that and still hound the fight.

I. Comparison between Africa and Asia of children's work

Why do the children work ?

    The principal reason is the poverty of these continents. In fact the children work to bring money to their family.
In Africa there is another problem which is AIDS; in fact, lot of people die from this disease and their children must survive by themselves.
Because of the poverty, children and employers both need this traffic, children have to eat and employers must have cheap workers if they want to make profits.
Furthermore, a lot of children begin to work without knowing what will happen to them. For an example, in Asia there is an important traffic of young girls who leave their family thinking that they will get married and who are brought in biggest cities to be prostituted.
Finally, the laws onchildren work are not enough developed to protect them.

What jobs do they do ?

    In Africa as in Asia, children can do a lot of different jobs. They can be domestics (above all girls), in this case they are sometimes hurt or sexually abused; they are about 5 million in Asia. They work also in the agriculture, in their parents farm or in tall exploitation.
Often, the dangerous works are made by children, like if the death of a children was less important than adult's one. For example, all jobs which need to manipulate chemical substances are made by children.
Of course, in Asia and in Africa, there is a lot of prostitution. The children begin to be prostituted voluntary or not, sometimes they have not any other solution to survive and sometimes they are kidnapped from their family.

What are the consequences of children's work ?

    The first idea that comes to our mind is that the children who work can't study at the same time. It is right, they can't study so when they will be adult, the will have a job with bad conditions and low wages; because of that, their children might have to work too, etc...
Because of the children's work, the standard of living in Asia as in Africa can't increase.

    You can see on the map Africa, Asia and South America are continents the most touches by the hard children labour contrary to rich countries like the United-States, or France where the child labour is more supervised and regulated. But you can see in some countries members of the European Union like Germany or Italy, the child labour isn't regulated but it isn't frequent.

II. Examples of Europeans associations

    Some locals associations to protect children in the street and against firms which may employ them to make their products, make little schools. So children learn instead of working with bad conditions.

    For example, the humanitarian association "La Bergerie du Lac" in France, sponsored children in the Burkina Faso in Africa. To get money for this country the association organise activities, sale of objects, African evening…

children study under the tree

it's a "school" in bricks meanwhile the real school

    The association "help and action" which was created in 1981, is the first French association which sponsored the education of children in South countries. For August, 1st 2002, it has been recognised as a Public Utility.

    The association ALTEN is against the child labour in Nigeria. It was created in 1997. So it's a recent association and its goal is to increase public awareness about the child labour in Nigeria. The president is Sani Igoumo. This association has worked since 2000-2001 with Dutch federation union, Wao Africa , Global march and antislavery (an English association).

ALTEN
Stade général Seyni Kountché
Porte 1135
NIAMEY
NIGER
Tél : 73 63 34
Portable : 96 13 34
E-mail : mahamadoumoussa@hotmail.com

http://alten.apinc.org/index.htm

    Other associations help children who do hard labour in hospital complexes. For example, the children solidarity association in Asia (association solidarité enfants d'Asie) takes in children who work in bad conditions, children in the street, sexual children abuse… So it gives intensive care to try to save them of this situation.

Contact Antenne Asie :
Narisa Mansion room N° 406
140/1 Akamai soi 30
Wattana, Bangkok, 10110 THAILAND
Tél: 07 800 4802
E-mail: paputjc@yahoo.fr

III. The example of the Bangladesh

    According to the information of the ILO (international organisation of the labour), the Bangladesh is the one of Asia's countries where the number of young workers is high. 30,1% of children aged of ten and fourteen years old were actives in 1995. From them, 82% were "employed" in the agriculture.

    In 1992, we knew that the American firm "Wal-Mart" imported material of cloth from the work of little Bangladeshi. The United-States Congress forbade the importation from countries which participated to the child labour. In consequence, many children were sent away the textile industry in Bangladesh. Some international organisations looked after children, they proved that they found a new job more dangerous, less paid, some became prostitutes. A same boycott of a tapestry industry in Nepal influenced, according to the UNICEF, 5,000 little girl to the prostitution. The Swedish non governmental organisation "Save the children" is the one of rare organisations which demands to think with moderation and logic to on the question of the child labour. In the majority, "Save the children" says no to the boycotts, no to the sanctions, all the thing which concerned the child work. But many children who were dismissed , entered in situations more dangerous, more worrying.

IV. An example of an Indian association

The Concerned for Working Children (CWC), Karnataka state, India

How it started ?

    The Concerned for Working Children (CWC) have been working in the field of child labour since 1980.

    In its early years, CWC was involved in the unionisation of the informal sector where children below the age of 14 years comprised nearly 40 per cent of the total work force. These children, who in many ways were more militant than the adult members were deeply disappointed when they found that the agreements as a result of collective bargaining had not given them any benefits as laws did not recognise them. They wanted to change the law to one that recognised them as workers and protected them as children at the same time. The children and the members of the union embarked on an exercise to draft an alternative legislation for working children in 1985.

    In 1985, the Central Labour Ministry agreed to convert the draft into an official Bill of the Ministry. In 1986 the official Bill was presented to the Central Cabinet for approval. A watered down version of this draft was presented to Parliament and passed in October 1986. It did generate a major debate on child work in independent India for the first time. The children also proved that they could engage in policy debates and make major contributions in this area.

    The most important objectives of the CWC are :
- Solve child labour problem and be able to declare areas "child labour free"
- Facilitate protagonism of working children so that they may enrich their lives and contribute towards building a more just and equitable society
- Create the "time and space" for children to be empowered by making an impact on National and State policy, legislation and programmes.

CWC
303/2, L B Shastri Nagar Vimanapura Post
Bangalore 560 017
Karnataka
India
Tel: 0091-80-5234611
Fax: 0091-80-5234258
E-mail: cwc@pobox.com

V. It concerns all the world

    An international agreement adopted in June 1999 is in ratification to stop definitely the child labour in the world but it needs just a political will to interrupt this scourge. Unfortunately, the international agreement n°182 concerns just the most dangerous and the worst forms of the child labour ; it means hard work, sexual abuse, dangerous work… The international labour Office wants with governments to make this ratification. Because, 60% of the child workers are in Asia, 32% in Africa and 7% in the South America. 2 million of child workers work in the European Union. We think it's socking to known that in a group of countries which take care of the Human rights, many children work very hard and without any respect for them. 120 million of children around the world work fulltime.

VI. Some graphs

    This graph is taken of the site of International labour organisation and it shows how the child labour is important in many continents. It shows the difference between the activity of boys and the once of girls. It's very important to know that. Generally, you can see the percentage of children workers in Africa is higher than the once in Asia because of the poverty which is higher in African countries than in Asian countries.

    This board is taken of the site of " workers in Asia ". It's an association very important for children who live in Asia.

    The graphs shows the repartition of children in the world in different categories. So you can see some children are paid and others aren't and others are not concerned by the child labour.

    This graphs was made by UNICEF. It's shows the importance of associations, if they are strong and their work for primary school.

    That are maps of India which show the importance of the children labour in every departments or regions of the country.

    This is a document of the UNICEF which shows the repartition, by continents, of children who are not at school. You can see the highest rate is for Asia and Africa. That is a reason why we choose this two continents.

    This documents show the exploitation of children by international firms for sports like Addidas or Nike…

Conclusion

    Everybody in the world know the problem of the child labour. Everybody in his life have said, at least one time, "I would like to help them". Many did. So many associations have been created around the world. And the fight is very hard and long and missions increase very fast. Sometimes, it's difficult to obtain a law, a political support. Because without that and without money, associations can 't do anything. Sometimes, missions of associations aren't make or don't give the result wanted. But, for many years many children in Africa, in Asia have been saved and put in a school. Because, all children have to been respected as well in rich countries than in poor countries. Nowadays, everybody want that associations continue their fight against the child labour, and everybody want this situation stopped forever.

We chose this subject because its very important and horrible for this children. We don't know our happiness and we should stop complain because we are lucky!
We estimate our work as quite good and we learnt very much about this. It was very interesting. We enjoyed.

Sources :
- http://alten.apinc.org/index.htm
- www.labergeriedulac.com
- www.sreetchildafrica.org
- www.droitsenfant.com
- www.oneworld.org/ips2/nov/childlabour3.html
- www.savethechildren.org.wk
- www.unicef.org
and many other sites found with google.

If they can only go to school…

Help them too!