Why a New Convention on Child Labour was Needed

The existing ILO Convention 138 - the Minimum Age Convention adopted in 1973 to control the admission of children to employment is and will remain the fundamental international standard on child labour. It exerts tremendous influence on national law and practice. The goal of the Convention is the total abolition of child labour. But it is understood that the total eradication of child labour will take some time and before that one should take immediate action to eliminate the worst forms of child labour. Hence the need for a new convention (ILO Convention 182) to protect children from extreme kinds of child labour like slavery, prostitution, pornography, illicit activities, and other hazardous works, was strongly felt .

New Standards were Set in this Direction:

• To identify priority areas of action in the fight against child labour.
• To focus on the worst forms of child labour in the Convention.
• To ensure that immediate action is taken.
• To protect children from the worst forms of child labour in all countries, irrespective of the level of development.
• To specify action for the effective elimination of the worst forms of child labour.

The sense of urgency running through the Convention would help motivate governments to begin their work without delay. The structures and processes that this Convention establishes at the country level will also be important for the longer term goal of ending all forms of harmful child labour.

Where was the Convention Discussed?

The adoption of the new Convention marks the conclusion of a three-year process that started with the 1996 decision of the ILO's Governing Board to place child labour on the agenda for the 1998 and 1999 International Labour Conferences. To prepare for the discussions two international conferences and three regional consultations on child labour were held in 1997. The Global March Against Child Labour kicked off in January of 1998 and after marching through 65 countries arrived in Geneva for the start of that year's International Labour Conference. A first draft of the Convention was developed during the Conference and circulated to member governments in the fall for their comments. A slight redraft was prepared and was the basis for discussion at the International Labour Conference in 1999. After two solid weeks of debate a consensus text was finalised by the Child Labour Committee and presented to the plenary for a vote. On June 17, 1999 it was unanimously adopted by the Conference.

Different Views on Child Labour in Drafting C182

In the tripartite system of the ILO there are three official groups: governments, employers and workers. The employers representatives from different countries elected a single spokesperson who represented their views during the Child Labour Committee discussions and they acted as a single block worth 25% of the total votes. The workers representatives chose a spokesperson in the same way and also acted as a block worth 25% of the votes of the House. The governments, counting as the remaining half of the House, divided into 4 unofficial sub-groups plus other independent countries. Three of these groups were based on geographical areas, namely: Asia and the Pacific, Africa, and Latin American and the Caribbean.

The fourth was "IMEC", or the Industrialised Market Economy Countries, which roughly meant wealthy westernised countries. Sometimes this group expanded to "IMEC Plus" which included countries such as Hungary that had been left stranded without a European group.

The employers were ably represented by Mr. Bokkie Botha from South Africa and their approach was essentially pragmatic. They were looking for a Convention that was simple, clear, easy to enforce, and universally ratifiable. They favoured a narrow, focussed instrument that could be immediately applied. Overall, the employers group played a very constructive role in crafting the Convention. They worked hard in the process of developing a consensus and were ready to compromise when it moved the process forward. One of the main reasons why the employers were so accommodating was that the Convention didn't really apply to their members. While some of the employers may use child labour, very few are involved with the worst forms, since this is more a problem with the informal or underground sector.

The workers had chosen Senator Leroy Trotman, the President of the ICFTU, as their representative. Some of the main issues the workers group fought for were: maintaining a clear theme of immediacy and urgency in the Convention, keeping the age limit at 18, explicitly banning the use of children in armed conflict, getting the definition of hazardous work included in the Convention, providing for tripartite involvement in designating monitoring mechanisms, requiring the consultation of children affected by the worst forms of child labour and their families, ensuring the involvement of other concerned groups in the design and implementation of national programmes of action, and pushing for enhanced international cooperation in support of the Convention.

The African government group was the most solid and united of all the regional groups. The main concerns of the African group were: the Convention not requiring the immediate elimination of the worst forms of child labour but just immediate measures, the use of child soldiers be banned outright, and the provisions for international cooperation and assistance be strong and binding.

The Asia-Pacific government group was not so solid a unit but it did more or less fall in line under the command of the Indian delegate, Ambassador Hemant Singh. India distinguished itself as the rock-bottom minimalist of the Committee. This nuclear power state declared that it was really too poor to do much overnight and would probably be starting just with the worst of the worst forms of child labour. The only point India seemed to be strong on was the need for international cooperation and assistance. In the end the Committee was just relieved that India was at least willing to ratify the Convention. However, after having seen more than 100 countries ratify the Convention, India still has not shown a sign of ratification. Other countries in the Asia-Pacific group did not play a very visible role during the Conference, although Pakistan was careful to make sure that the wording of the Convention did not leave any scope for trade sanctions. The Australian delegate did play a constructive and widely appreciated role during the Committee proceedings when he chaired the informal tripartite group developing the core package of amendments and when he worked to bridge the gap between the Asia-Pacific and the IMEC groups.

The Latin America and Caribbean group was the most disparate collection of the Committee. In name, Panama was the spokesperson of the group but spoke very little. The governments of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela worked as an informal Andean unit and suggested several amendments during the debate. On the whole, the countries of Latin America supported the general aims of the Convention. Some spoke strongly on the issue of education and also called for a ban on child soldiers. The other interventions from Latin America were about errors or uncertainties in the Spanish translation.

The IMEC group was a powerful force during the Committee discussions. Ms. Alette van Leur of the Netherlands was the spokesperson of IMEC and represented the group well. The group supported a strong Convention and helped defend much of the text from the first draft. Beyond this, a number of the members also wanted to: include work that denies a child education as one of the worst forms of child labour, invite the participation of civil society in implementing the Convention, and seriously address the issues of hidden work and domestic child labour. The IMEC group was split, however, on the issue of children in armed conflict. The United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and a handful of other IMEC countries were concerned that the Convention might create a problem for the 17 year-olds in their armed forces and opposed any across-the-board-ban. The US in particular called all its contacts and pulled all its strings to make sure that the Convention didn't include such a ban. On the other hand, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, and Spain joined with Mexico and Uruguay to propose that very ban. On the issue of international cooperation and assistance the IMEC group acted as a unit and after some initial concerns about exact phrasing, gave its full commitment to the reworded terms of Article 8.

Different Views on the Following Key Issues were Also Expressed:

• Education
• Poverty
• Domestic Child Labour
• Child Soldiers

Poverty

Poverty has long been a central issue in the debate on child labour, with some groups feeling that child labour is inextricably linked to poverty and others seeing a variety of factors at work. The idea of having a Convention focussed on the worst forms of child labour was in good part motivated by the desire to step out of this debate and start achieving at least some progress.

It was understood that there were some extreme forms of child labour that no person or government could dismiss as just a sad but inevitable consequence of poverty. For these worst forms, no government could say that it was too poor and its economy too underdeveloped to avoid them. This view seemed to be held universally by the members of the Child Labour Committee and at several points delegates repeated that poverty could not be an excuse for the worst forms of child labour.

Education

A good number of delegates in the Committee held the view that work which by its nature denies a child access to education should be considered one of the worst forms of child labour. This point was strongly advocated by the workers group, several members of the IMEC group, and many of the Latin American governments. They argued that the types of worst forms agreed to so far focussed only on those doing physical and visible harm to children. The denial of education, while not a cause of direct physical harm, has a terrible effect on the mental development of children and indeed on their very future. This kind of damage is just as grave a concern and thus should be addressed in the Convention.
The other delegates in the Committee were sympathetic to this concern but believed that it would broaden the scope of the Convention far too much. The instrument was intended to be narrowly focussed and immediately applicable, leaving no grounds for delay. If it attempted to cover too much, then governments could turn around and say that more time is needed to deal with the problem, and thus the sense of immediacy would be lost. There was also a certain level of confusion among many delegates about the difference between the obligation to provide basic education and the obligation to stop work which denied access to education.

In the end, as part of the package deal for the Convention, work which denied access to education was not included in the definition of the worst forms, but all children removed from the worst forms would be guaranteed access to education and possibly vocational training. The other strong references to the importance of education would also stand throughout the Convention and Recommendation.

Domestic Child Labour

The Convention makes no specific mention of the widespread problem of domestic child labour. Some of the clauses in the Convention which can be used to tackle the issue are as follows:

• Article 3 (a) defines "slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom" as one of the worst forms of child labour, and millions of child domestic workers are working in precisely those situations
• Article 3 (d) defines work that is "likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children" as one of the worst forms, and research has clearly documented the suffering and abuse child domestic workers often endure
• Paragraph 3 of the Recommendation further reinforces this when stating that consideration should be given to "work which exposes children to physical, psychological, and sexual abuse", "work for long hours and during the night", and "work where the child is unreasonably confined to the premises of the employer"
• The national programmes of action must "identify and reach out to children at special risk" and certainly children confined, separated from their family and totally dependent on the whims of their master are at special risk

Child Soldiers

One of the most dramatic clashes of the Convention came on the issue of child soldiers. On the one side all the governments of Africa, where the use of child soldiers is most rampant, had taken a strong stance at a recent OAU meeting that the involvement and recruitment of children for armed conflict should be completely banned. This position was strongly supported by the workers group, the Asian government group, the Latin American government representatives, and several key members of the IMEC group. On the other side stood the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and a handful of other western governments who wanted to keep any references to child soldiers to a bare minimum. The employers group was more concerned that at the end of the day everyone could sign on to the Convention, so they were ready to omit the issue of child soldiers.

The problem was that the armed forces of the United States, the United Kingdom, and a few other countries permitted the recruitment of 17 year olds, and in some cases their participation in armed conflict. In the US armed forces, for example, there are some 7000 soldiers below the age of 18, of whom a grand total of about 100 were serving in active combat. These countries had no interest in adjusting their recruitment policies so they argued that the "traditional military service" of 17 year olds was not the real issue of the Convention.