Child Labour

Recall that the ILO has proposed changing conventions on child labor. The first specific agreement for the abolition of child labor was the Convention 138, also called the Minimum Age Convention, it was to set minimum ages for work reforming earlier agreements. It was adopted in 1973 and to date 130 have signed of the 176 countries that form the ILO. The Convention established the age of 13 years for light work and 12 for countries whose economy and educational facilities were insufficiently developed. But ratification is not supposed to accept only one age.

Already in an article, the Convention specifies that countries that ratify it must commit to "pursue a national policy to ensure the effective abolition of child labor and to raise progressively the minimum age for admission to employment or work to a level made with the fullest physical and mental development of minors. " It is said that millions of children (not an exact figure available), work hard, day and night, playing away from the family home chores as hauling water, caring for other younger children, cleaning the house or tending the garden. Nearly all are exploited, exposed to hazardous working conditions and are victims of abuse. All, without exception, are at risk due to nature of child domestic labor. It also says that not all children working as domestic servants end up losing their future.

The ILO's experience in Asia, Central and South America and Africa shows that, with a strong social and national institutions, and income or credit options for parents, children aged less than the minimum access employment can be successfully rescued from domestic service. The FNCCI, the employers' council of Nepal, has sponsored the education of children who can not immediately leave their jobs and attend school part time. "Child domestic work is a waste of human talent and potential. With the help of constructive and sustainable solutions provided by the program of ILO technical cooperation, our constituents around the world are ready to end this form of abuse" says Frans Roselaers, Director of ILO's International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC)