Child Labor Definition
The International Labour Organization (ILO) defines child labor as work that "is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and interferes with their schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school; by obliging them to leave school prematurely; or by requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work." Not all work that children do is child labor. Work done that is not detrimental to children’s health, development or schooling is beneficial because it allows children to develop skills, gain experience and prepare them for future positions; these are not considered child labor.
The worst forms of child labor, related to cocoa production, are using children as slaves or in debt bondage, trafficking them, and forcing them to do hazardous work, which includes using dangerous machinery or tools, manually transporting heavy loads, working with hazardous agents or working long hours.
Read more about this topic: Children In Cocoa Production
Famous quotes containing the words child, labor and/or definition:
“I close my eyes over the steaming
tea and see God opening His teeth.
“Oh,” He says.
I see the child in me writing, “Oh.”
Oh, my dear, not why.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Whose are the truly labored sentences? From the weak and flimsy periods of the politician and literary man, we are glad to turn even to the description of work, the simple record of the month’s labor in the farmer’s almanac, to restore our tone and spirits.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“According to our social pyramid, all men who feel displaced racially, culturally, and/or because of economic hardships will turn on those whom they feel they can order and humiliate, usually women, children, and animals—just as they have been ordered and humiliated by those privileged few who are in power. However, this definition does not explain why there are privileged men who behave this way toward women.”
—Ana Castillo (b. 1953)