Children Have The Right To Be Children
Some 21,000 children die every day around the world.
That is equivalent to:
- 1Child Dying Every 4 Seconds
- 14 Children Dying Every Minute
- A 2011 Libya Conflict-Scale Death Toll Every Day
- A 2010 Haiti Earthquake Occurring Every 10 Days
- A 2004 Asian Tsunami Occurring Every 11 Days
- An Iraq-Scale Death Toll Every 19–46 Days
- Just Under 7.6 Million Children Dying Every Year
- Some 92 Million Children Dying Between 2000 And 2010
The essential problem is not child labour itself but the exploitation of it. Many societies in both developing and industrialised countries perceive child work to be beneficial to a child’s development and personal growth as well as being a necessary family commitment. Many children work after school, on weekends or during holidays.
ResponderEliminarHowever, there is a big difference between this type of child labour and the absolute exploitation that children in prostitution, bonded labour and sweatshop employment are subjected to.
Working children are commonly exposed to excessively long hours, health and safety risks as well as abuse by employers. They are often housed in sub-standard accommodation and work for non-fixed or irregularly paid wages. Children working in the carpet industry in Pakistan have been found chained to their looms at night and girls in Thai brothels have been discovered in compounds surrounded by barbed wire to prevent them escaping.
| The 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child outlines international norms for the protection of children. The Convention states that it is "the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education, or be harmful to the child’s health.