ABSTRACT
The complexity of the phenomenon of child labour is widely acknowledged. It can be viewed as an economic, structural, governmental, moral and ethical issue, including human rights concerns (Abernethie 1998: 83). The pervasive process of globalization has enabled a more intense international focus on the problem, but it has also added to the complexities in debates surrounding it (Muntarbhorn 1998: 255). Child labour involves not only concerns about children’s welfare and development but also considerations of effects on macroeconomic and labour markets. Furthermore, the different grounds – economic, developmental, humanitarian and moral – that might justify the elimination of child labour sometimes conflict with each other. For example, the elimination of child labour from factories might lead to an increase in adult employment and wage rates, but might also negatively affect children’s welfare if there are no adequate schools available and the children’s only remaining option is to undertake more hazardous work in the ‘informal sector’ of the economy (Anker 2000: 264). Furthermore, our image of child labour is too often that it is a phenomenon largely only relevant to the developing countries, whereas there is evidence of child labour in industrialised Europe, the United States and other developed nations (Selby 2008; Kilkelly 2003). In the field of child labour, one needs particularly to be aware of the different perceptions of childhood in Northern and Southern countries respectively. Some commentators argue that the ethnocentrism of industrialised countries inappropriately dominates the international discourse on children’s rights (Boyden 1997). The following sections discuss the key elements of the phenomenon of child labour.
