The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is one of the first and oldest specialised agencies of the UN. The ILO has 187 member states: 186 out of 193 UN member states plus the Cook Islands. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with around 40 field offices around the world, and employs some 3,381 staff across 107 nations, of whom 1,698 work in technical cooperation programmes and projects.
Child labour refers to the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives them of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, or is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such exploitation is prohibited by legislation worldwide, although these laws do not consider all work by children as child labour; exceptions include work by child artists, family duties, supervised training, and some forms of work undertaken by Amish children, as well as by indigenous children in the Americas.
The Harkin–Engel Protocol, sometimes referred to as the Cocoa Protocol, is an international agreement aimed at ending the worst forms of child labor and forced labor in the production of cocoa, the main ingredient in chocolate. The protocol was negotiated by U.S. Senator Tom Harkin and U.S. Representative Eliot Engel in response to a documentary and multiple articles in 2000 and 2001 reporting widespread child slavery and child trafficking in the production of cocoa. The protocol was signed in September 2001. Joint Statements in 2001, 2005 and 2008 and a Joint Declaration in 2010 extended the commitment to address the problem.
The Survey of Activities of Young People (SAYP) is a national household-based survey of work-related activities among South African children, conducted for the first time in 1999 by Statistics South Africa.
The programme Towards the Elimination of the worst forms of Child Labour (TECL) is a programme on child labour and related issues that is run in all the countries of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), namely Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland.
The South African Child Labour Programme of Action has identified Children used by adults in the commission of crime (CUBAC), one of the Worst Forms of Child Labour, as a priority area for action on child labour in South Africa.
The Convention Concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour, known in short as the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, was adopted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 1999 as ILO Convention No 182. It is one of eight ILO fundamental conventions.
The International Labour Organization Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention calls for time-bound programmes for the eradication of the worst forms of child labour. Countries ratifying this Convention must take immediate and effective measures to secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour (WFCL) as a matter of urgency.
The International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) is a programme that the International Labour Organization has run since 1992. IPEC's aim is to work towards the progressive elimination of child labour by strengthening national capacities to address child labour problems, and by creating a worldwide movement to combat it.
The South African Child Labour Programme of Action provides that pilot projects should be run on the Delivery of water to households far from sources of safe water. The Survey of Activities of Young People (SAYP) undertaken in 1999 indicated that collecting fuel or fetching water are by far the most common work-related activity done by children in South Africa. South African stakeholders have indicated, in the consultative process that led to the Child Labour Programme of Action, that the fetching of water over long distances should be regarded as a priority, given its prevalence and associated hazards.
Trafficking of children is a form of human trafficking and is defined by the United Nations as the "recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, and/or receipt" kidnapping of a child of slavery, forced labour, and exploitation. This definition is substantially wider than the same document's definition of "trafficking in persons". Children may also be trafficked for adoption.
A National Action Plan on the elimination of child labour is a national strategy, plan or programme aimed at addressing child labour within a given country, usually with an emphasis on worst forms of child labour. Some countries also refer to this as an Action Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (APEC).
Child labour in Botswana is defined as the exploitation of children through any form of work which is harmful to their physical, mental, social and moral development. Child labour in Botswana is characterised by the type of forced work at an associated age, as a result of reasons such as poverty and household-resource allocations. child labour in Botswana is not of higher percentage according to studies. The United States Department of Labor states that due to the gaps in the national frameworks, scarce economy, and lack of initiatives, “children in Botswana engage in the worst forms of child labour”. The International Labour Organization is a body of the United Nations which engages to develop labour policies and promote social justice issues. The International Labour Organization (ILO) in convention 138 states the minimum required age for employment to act as the method for "effective abolition of child labour" through establishing minimum age requirements and policies for countries when ratified. Botswana ratified the Minimum Age Convention in 1995, establishing a national policy allowing children at least fourteen-years old to work in specified conditions. Botswana further ratified the ILO's Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, convention 182, in 2000.
Significant levels of child labour exist in Lesotho. The 1997 Lesotho Labour Force Survey found that 4.6% of males who were working full-time, 14.1% of males who were working part-time and 1.3% of male job seekers in Lesotho were aged between 10 and 15 years. Many of these would have been involved in herding and those with part-time work were not necessarily earning an income but may well have been working on family land in subsistence agriculture.
Child labour in Namibia is not always reported. This involved cases of child prostitution as well as voluntary and forced agricultural labour, cattle herding and vending.
Local Economic Development (LED) is an approach to economic development, of note in the developing world that, as its name implies, places importance on activities in and by cities, districts and regions. Local economic development combines economic development activities, urban planning, infrastructure development and social development activities to improve local conditions. LED encompasses a range of disciplines including physical planning, economics and marketing, all with the goal of building up the economic capacity of a local area to improve its economic future and the quality of life for all.
The United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT) is a multi-stakeholder initiative providing global access to expertise, knowledge and innovative partnerships to combat human trafficking.
Child labour refers to the full-time employment of children under a minimum legal age. In 2003, an International Labour Organization (ILO) survey reported that one in every ten children in the capital above the age of seven was engaged in child domestic labour. Children who are too young to work in the fields work as scavengers. They spend their days rummaging in dumps looking for items that can be sold for money. Children also often work in the garment and textile industry, in prostitution, and in the military.
Child labor in the Philippines is the employment of children in hazardous occupations below the age of fifteen (15), or without the proper conditions and requirements below the age of fifteen (15), where children are compelled to work on a regular basis to earn a living for themselves and their families, and as a result are disadvantaged educationally and socially. So to make it short, it is called child labor when it is forced.
International labour law is the body of rules spanning public and private international law which concern the rights and duties of employees, employers, trade unions and governments in regulating Work and the workplace. The International Labour Organization and the World Trade Organization have been the main international bodies involved in reforming labour markets. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have indirectly driven changes in labour policy by demanding structural adjustment conditions for receiving loans or grants. Issues regarding Conflict of laws arise, determined by national courts, when people work in more than one country, and supra-national bodies, particularly in the law of the European Union, has a growing body of rules regarding labour rights.
